Australia’s Human Rights Commission has released a preliminary decision prohibiting lesbians from holding events for females due to the exclusion of men who identify as “women.” The Commission’s decision comes after a lesbian rights group applied for an exemption under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984.
The application to the Commission was submitted by long-time Australian women’s rights activist Jean Taylor on behalf of herself and the members of the Lesbian Action Group, a collective established to address discrimination experienced by lesbians. The application provided an overview of lesbian organizing and gatherings in Victoria since the early 1970s, arguing that, “many thousands of lesbians benefited from the sense of pride, recognition and wellbeing that a large, well [publicized], public lesbian specific gathering encourages in the participants.”
However, this started to change in 2003 when trans activists challenged the organizers of the 2004 Lesbian Festival, accusing female-only spaces as being discriminatory under the law. This caused the festival organizers to seek and be awarded an exemption that allowed them to invite and only allow access to “lesbians born female.”
The exemption was revoked on a technicality, resulting in lesbian gatherings in Australia being driven underground for almost two decades in an effort to avoid more challenges from the transgender community.
The Sex Discrimination Act was then amended in 2013 to include gender identity, making it even more difficult to organize single-sex events.
Frustrated by the situation, the Lesbian Action Group attempted to organize a female-only lesbian event at the Victorian Pride Centre this past August. The event was meant to celebrate International Lesbian Day on October 15, 2023, but the Pride Centre declined the booking, claiming that it was exclusionary and conflicted with the organization’s aim of supporting “equality, diversity and inclusion.”
As a result, the Lesbian Action Group applied for a 5-year exemption with the Australian Human Rights Commission with the intention of approaching another venue for the International Lesbian Day event if the exemption was granted. The group also intended to subsequently hold regular female-only lesbian events during its exemption period.
After receiving the application, the Commission requested further information from the Lesbian Action Group, asking for more details about why it is “reasonable and necessary to exclude the relevant groups mentioned in the application and restrict the event to female born lesbians.”
The Group then complied and provided a document of additional information further explaining the importance for minority groups like lesbians to have the freedom to associate with one another and to hold their own events.
The Commission received a total of 236 submissions on the application from individuals and groups by the closing date of September 1, 2023. Of those submissions, 123 individuals and 15 organizations were in favor of the exemption while 82 individuals and 14 organizations were opposed.
One of the applications opposed to the exemption came from Equal Opportunity Tasmania and referred to the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commissioner ruling late last year that women-only events are discriminatory towards men who claim they are women.
In its ruling, the Tasmanian Commissioner wrote that “The applicants propose to exclude ‘biological males’ from their event… The exclusion of such persons engages the provisions of the act prohibiting direct discrimination on the basis of gender and gender identity.”
Like the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, the Australian Human Rights Commission’s preliminary view is that it will not grant the temporary 5-year exemption sought by the Lesbian Action Group to host its International Lesbian Day Event or to hold subsequent female-only lesbian events.
While the Commission recognized that “lesbians in Australia have faced structural and entrenched discrimination” and that “it may be important and beneficial for lesbians to gather together as a community,” it nevertheless was not persuaded that it is appropriate or reasonable to “make distinctions between women based on their cisgender or transgender experience.”
The ruling continued:
“The Commission notes that the grant of this exemption may lead to the further exclusion of and discrimination against same-sex attracted transgender women. Transgender women are a group who have and continue to experience discrimination, harassment and social exclusion.”
Australian women’s rights activist Janet Inglis took to X (formerly Twitter) to express her disappointment with the decision.
“Australian lesbians are being denied fairness,” she wrote. “They are being denied their humanity. I am so ashamed of my country.”
Speaking to Reduxx, Inglis said that Victoria is now joining Tasmania in “forcing lesbians underground and out of the public sphere.”
Inglis called it a “damning indictment of Australia” that both federal legislation and the Human Rights Commission have barred lesbians from holding single-sex events.
“The gender amendments to the SDA [Sex Discrimination Act] must be repealed. Our HRC has proven itself unfit for purpose and must be disbanded if it can no longer distinguish between men and women because of shonky legislation,” she explained. “A true HRC would be working to repeal those amendments and restore the rights of lesbians to be recognised in their own right.”
On X, Inglis also called on others to consider making a submission to respond to the Commission’s preliminary view before the October 3, 2023 deadline.
“The War on Women is gaining pace in Australia,” she added. “Australia is so far down the gender rabbit hole it’s truly frightening.”
This is not the first time that Australian women have run into issues with the law in regard to gender identity.
In May of this year, a woman was visited by New South Wales Police after she spoke to media about a trans activist by the name of Riley Dennis who was reportedly injuring female players in a women’s football league. The woman was given an Apprehended Violence Order which required her not to discuss Dennis. Reduxx was also contacted by the Australian eSafety Commissioner and advised to censor or delete an article naming Dennis.
Later that month, two women in Australia were contacted by Twitter and informed that they had broken Australian law by criticizing a trans-identified male for breastfeeding a child.