This morning I was very pleased to hold a briefing in Parliament House with Sall Grover entitled ‘Protecting women’s rights; no laughing matter’. As many Australians would be aware, Sall is the respondent in the Tickle v Giggle court case. In that 2024 Federal Court case, the judge found that Roxanne Tickle, a transwoman, was indirectly discriminated against when Tickle was removed from a women’s-only app, Giggle for Girls, by its CEO, Sall Grover. The judge concerningly said that sex is changeable. Sall, I’m very pleased to report, is now appealing the 2024 decision. I want to wish Sall all the very best with her lawyer, Katherine Deves, who was also in the briefing this morning, in their plight to correct an absurd injustice in our justice system. As Sall said very clearly, we want to see common sense returned to the Sex Discrimination Act.
I’m pleased that we were also joined by Drew Hutton, the co-founder of the Greens along with Bob Brown, who is enduring his own battle to restore common sense on this issue. Because of Drew’s defence of women, the protection of women-only spaces, women- and girls-only sport and keeping biological men out of women’s jails, Drew has been inexplicably expelled from the party he founded. He is now challenging that expulsion in the court. He is rallying against what he says is extremist ideology which has taken over the Greens. These decisions are not just unjust; this is insanity. The importance of the briefing this morning was that we could see this was not about politics and what side of politics you’re on. This is a very strong message that Drew and Sall and Katherine sent today.
I do want to make a very important point. One of the opponents of Sall Grover in her litigation to protect women’s-only spaces is Equality Australia, which appears now to care very little about the equality of women. Its patron is the Governor-General, Her Excellency Sam Mostyn. Because Equality Australia is now caught up in this controversy, I think it is incumbent on the Governor-General to step down as patron of this organisation.
It is beyond time for our nation to have a reckoning with the politicised and ideological trans movement. First, I want to say something about transgender in general, a topic requiring nuance. In Galileo’s Middle Finger, published in 2015, bioethicist Alice Dreger discusses intersex. She notes that in America about one in 2,000 babies is born with indeterminate sexual organs requiring consultation with specialists. It’s impossible not to feel compassion for these babies and for these people, or for their parents, who often must make very difficult decisions. It’s also impossible not to feel sympathy for someone who feels they’ve been born into the wrong body. It’s understandable why such individuals may choose to dress as the alternative sex or, as informed adults, exercise their free will to undergo surgeries to alter their genitalia. I draw a distinction here between informed, consenting adults and impressionable, vulnerable children. As we’ve seen in cases around the world, children have been prescribed hormone-altering treatments and permitted to have irreversible, life-altering, transformative surgeries. In some cases, treatments and surgeries have been foisted upon children by ideologically driven clinicians or parents. In other cases, children have imbibed ideologies and been allowed to proceed with treatments and surgeries against their parent’s will. A study, published in February, of more than 100,000 patients with gender dysphoria found those who undergo gender-affirming surgery are at significantly higher risk for depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation and substance-use disorder. It’s no wonder there have been law suits in Western countries against those who have prescribed such treatments and surgeries.
With this context in mind, it’s important to draw a distinction between, on the one hand, people who are trans and simply want to get on with their lives quietly and with dignity, and, on the other hand, the loud, politicised and ideological trans movement which is driven by something much more sinister—a delusional movement which wants to deny biological sex, a dangerous movement which wants to infect vulnerable children with poisonous ideas, including in the classroom, and a dogmatic movement which wants social overhaul and everyone to kowtow to the religion of genderfluidity. As Douglas Murray wrote of so-called social justice movements, their desire is not to heal but to divide; not to placate, but to inflame; and not to dampen, but to burn.
Frankly, too many people in positions of authority have jumped aboard the politicised and ideological trans train under the false pretences of compassion, tolerance, diversity and inclusion. The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, is one such leader. Look no further than the Victorian premier’s supine response to the case of Hilary Maloney. Maloney sexually assaulted his five-year-old daughter on at least 19 occasions. In 2023, Maloney sent videos of his monstrous acts to a paedophile in the United States. Shockingly, Maloney received a reduced sentence of just 2½ years. The Victorian county court judge showed leniency to Maloney because the defendant had commenced a gender transition in 2021. The judgement was woefully inadequate and contemptible. Here’s the kicker: in the state of Victoria, and in other states, corrections policies allow criminals to be incarcerated based on the gender with which they identify, not their biological sex. That’s why Maloney, a biological man and a convicted child sex offender, was imprisoned in Victoria’s largest women’s prison. Premier Allan looked the other way. Her silence was deafening. Her deflection was disgraceful. Her inaction has ramifications for the safety of women.
Beyond the prison system, there are alarming revelations about Victoria’s education system. The Australian‘s Rachel Baxendale—and I have to commend the incredible work of Victorian MP Moira Deeming, who’s been a champion of these issues—has reported that Victorian teachers are advised they must not tell parents about a child’s desire to change their gender without the permission of the child and that Victoria’s curriculum has been updated to teach children as young as five that their body parts may not match their gender.
Premier Allan is abrogating her duty to protect women and children. I want to contrast her lack of leadership with the principled leadership of Lia Finocchiaro—the Northern Territory chief minister who has banned trans women from being placed in the Territory’s women’s prisons. I also want to commend the Queensland government and its decision that—blow me down with a feather—women are adult female human beings and also the commendable decision to reinstate the ban on puberty blockers, which was announced today. Across Australia we need to see so much more of this common sense, and we need to see much more of this common sense here in Canberra, including from the appalling Australian Human Rights Commission and its Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Dr Anna Cody, who said in Senate estimates, as a result of excellent questioning by Senator Chandler:
I don’t understand the term ‘biological men’.
Just think about that. Our Sex Discrimination Commissioner, which is meant to uphold sex based rights, refuses to acknowledge biological sex. It’s positively Orwellian, but we should not be surprised. The Sex Discrimination Commissioner is part of the Australian Human Rights Commission, which has now become an activist organisation. I say to those in this place: we need to get a grip. The law is completely out of control. Australians can see with their own eyes the damage that this ideologically extreme movement is causing, particularly to women and children. My message to Australians is simple. Your voice matters. Do not be silent. Be resilient. Resist this in workplaces, in schools, in every institution. Do not let the ideologues win. We’ve got to defeat this.