By Stephanie Bastiaan

Australia's 'gender affirming' model of care for treating patients with gender dysphoria will be tested with a landmark case in the NSW Supreme Court. 

In August 2022, it was revealed by the Herald Sun that a man convicted of serious sexual offences against women and children, who now identifies as transgender, is being housed in the Dame Phyllis Frost Correctional Centre for women.

A couple of weeks ago we wrote a piece about how the tide of gender ideology is turning in the UK, touching on positive developments like Maya Forstater winning her discrimination case against her former employer who had fired her for her views on biological sex, British Triathlon restricting trans athletes from women’s sporting events, and several British prime ministerial candidates signalling their support for women’s sex-based rights. Since then, in a win for women’s sport, England’s Rugby Football Union and Rugby Football League also confirmed that women’s competitions will be restricted to females.

A response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by the Department of Justice and Community Safety shows just how bad things are for women in Victorian prisons.

England’s Rugby Football Union (RFU) is the latest sport to recommend restrictions on transgender participation in women’s competitions, in order to “ensure fair competition and safety” for female athletes.

In a win for women and biological reality, the federal government has agreed to replace a government health form that calls mothers “birthing parents” after new mum and Giggle social media app founder Sall Grover decried the language as “exclusionary, alienating and derogatory” towards women.

“Diversity and inclusion” are the watchwords of an ideology that is increasingly dictating Australian workplace policy in both the public and private sectors. The AIDS Council for NSW (ACON) continues to roll out a suite of “Pride Inclusion Programs”, working to a template developed by Stonewall in the UK, which helps employers comply with the new requirements to include “diversity”. Employer performance is published in ACON’s Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI), which serves as a national benchmark for “LGBTQ workplace inclusion from which Top Employers for LGBTQ people is determined”. Australian businesses and government departments are flocking to join.

Vulnerable women continue to get the short end of the stick in the growing conflict between women’s rights and transgender rights, particularly when it comes to female-only spaces and services.

For ‘International Day of Transgender Visibility’ on 31 March, online publication Mamamia published a series of articles examining the reality of the trans experience in Australia. The articles explore first hand accounts of what it is like to come out as trans, what it’s like to live as a trans person in Australia, and lastly the changes that trans people want to see in Australia.

This week, news.com.au ran a piece titled “Female sex attacker’s horror demand”, with the byline, “A woman has been thrown behind bars after sexually assaulting a stranger she followed down a Melbourne Street before issuing a shocking demand.”