By Rachael Wong
On Monday, the Administrative Review Tribunal (formerly the Administrative Appeals Tribunal) upheld the Australian Human Rights Commission’s (AHRC) 2023 decision to deny the Lesbian Action Group (LAG) an exemption under the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA) to exclude ‘transgender lesbians’ from its public events.
What an absolute circus.
My brain feels scrambled after reading the judgment and trying to unravel the fantastical knots needed to maintain that excluding ‘transgender lesbians’ – aka men, who identify as women, who identify as lesbians – from lesbian events is unlawful discrimination on the basis of a self-perceived ‘gender identity’ (rather than lawful discrimination on the basis of real biological sex), but here are a few initial thoughts:
1. The Tribunal considered that holding a ‘lesbian born female’ only event could amount to lawful discrimination under the SDA for the purpose of achieving substantive equality between men and women, and between lesbian and heterosexual women (which is exactly what LAG was seeking to achieve). But it did not consider that ‘lesbians born female’ experience substantive inequality compared to ‘lesbian trans women’. The reality, however, is that ‘lesbian trans women’ are just heterosexual men, and their exclusion would be on the basis of their male sex rather than any ‘gender identity’.
2. At this point, the AHRC should just be renamed the Australian Transgender Rights Commission, or the Australian Men’s Rights Commission. The SDA has been a mess since the 2013 amendments introducing protections for ‘gender identity’ and removing the biological definitions of man and woman, which have led to the erosion of women's sex-based rights. However, the AHRC does not even attempt to interpret the law in favour of the rights of women, or in this particular case ‘lesbians born female’ (as if there are any other kind), while doing all it can to elevate the ‘rights’ of men who say they’re women. The same approach was taken in Tickle v Giggle. As LAG’s Nicole Phillips notes in the group’s press release:
“There seems to be a very obvious hierarchy of groups who are being protected under the Sex Discrimination Act by the AHRC – and it does not favour women and lesbians.”
3. Particularly appalling was the evidence of AHRC expert Dr Elena Jeffreys against the exemption, which compared lesbian feminists who reject the notion that men can be women to ‘nazi fascists’. I’m not sure how such comments were even relevant to the case, let alone why they were included in the judgment, or why they were essentially left unchallenged by the Tribunal.
It’s absurdities like this decision, that only reaffirm the lunacy that gender ideology is wreaking on women, government, our legal system and more, as well as the need to restore the sex-based rights of women and girls in Australian laws and policies.
LAG spokeswoman Carole Ann speaks for many in the fight for common sense, biological reality and women’s sex-based rights when she says: “We are disappointed but not despondent. One way or another we are going to keep fighting.”
Absolutely.
Rachael Wong is the CEO of Women’s Forum Australia
Women’s Forum Australia is an independent think tank that undertakes research, education and public policy advocacy on issues affecting women and girls, with a particular focus on addressing behaviours and practices that are harmful and abusive to them. We are a non-partisan, non-religious, tax-deductible charity. We do not receive any government funding and rely solely on donations to make an impact. Support our work today.
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