the Australian sex discrimination act amendment is so much worse than I even imagined
I promise after the awful stuff I go through and find evidence to debunk the many claims here not backed by the science
What this bill is largely in response to
excerpt from this article
The Australian Human Rights Commission welcomes today’s decision of the Full Court of the Federal Court, which provides important clarity about the protections against gender identity discrimination. The Court held that Giggle for Girls and its CEO Ms Grover unlawfully discriminated against trans woman Roxanne Tickle.
Ms Tickle won her case of discrimination in 2024 after being refused access to the Giggle platform by its founder, Sall Grover. The case followed a complaint to the Commission in 2021 that was unable to be resolved by conciliation.
The original court ruling had found one act of indirect discrimination against Ms Tickle on the basis of her gender identity. The appellants then sought to overturn that ruling, while Ms Tickle launched a cross-appeal to argue she was directly discriminated against because of her gender identity and should be paid more compensation.
In dismissing the appeal today, and allowing the cross-appeal, the Court found there were two instances of direct discrimination and doubled the damages awarded to Ms Tickle to $20,000, plus limited legal costs.
end of excerpt
cw: transphobia cloaked in supporting biological women speech
things the politician proposing this bill said in parliament that were immediately egregious
Before speaking to the specifics of this bill, I want to acknowledge the Australians who refused to stay silent while this parliament looked away, women whose lives were turned upside down because they spoke publicly about women's sex based rights, women of immense courage such as Sall Grover, Dr Jessica Spencer, Louise Elliott, Jasmine Sussex and my own constituent Kirralie Smith.
...
I acknowledge the parliamentarians who previously attempted to confront these issues, including Senator Chandler, Senator Hanson, Senator Antic and Senator Canavan.
I also acknowledge Michelle Pearse from the Australian Christian Lobby and John Steenhof from the Human Rights Law Alliance for working with me over the past couple of months to develop this legislation.
For years Australians from different political traditions have warned that the law was becoming detached from biological reality and increasingly incapable of balancing competing sex and gender identity rights created by the parliament.
The ruling in Giggle v Tickle has proved them right.
My bill seeks to restore clarity, certainty and common sense to the law.
It starts from a very simple proposition: the law must recognise and favour biological reality, because laws only function properly when they are grounded in objective facts that can be consistently understood and applied.
Biological sex is not a social construct created by parliament.*
It is not a matter of personal opinion.
The role of the law is not to deny reality.
It is to responsibly govern within it.
Biological sex matters—particularly in sport, health, privacy, safety and women's services. **
If the law loses the ability to distinguish biological sex where it is relevant, then sex based protections become impossible to apply consistently and fairly.
...
Women are prosecuted for denying biological men lessons in breastfeeding. ***
Girls are forced to play with and against biological boys despite the threats to their physical safety or forced to share changerooms and toilets, denying them their privacy. ****
Women's prisons and domestic violence shelters must harbour the very perpetrators they fear.
Our language is defeminised. We now must chest feed. We are a birth parent, a pregnant person or a lactating parent. We are now people who menstruate and cervix havers. We have a front hole instead of a vagina.*****
What are normally articulate politicians now stumble with word salads to describe what a woman is.
Our institutions are making decisions not because the law is clear but because they fear litigation and public backlash.
…
part of larger quote from Sall Grover, defending plaintiff in the gender driscrimintation case against Tickle, a trans woman:
“If you care so much about 'trans rights', you can work out a way to get them without destroying the category of women in law, female spaces, sport, services, the entire reality of lesbianism, and punishing citizens for acknowledging reality. The fact that you haven't even tried makes it appear that destroying the rights of women is the goal. Any politician who will look an Australian in the eye and tell them that a man can be a woman is admitting that they will lie about anything and everything because the most obvious lie has already been told.” - Ms Penfold
problematic propositions in amendment identified by me, with bold and italics added for legibility
1 Subsection 4(1) (definition of gender identity)
Repeal the definition, substitute:
gender identity means the self-classification of a person as a particular gender-related identity, expressed by the adoption of an appearance or mannerisms or other gender-related characteristics of a person (whether by way of medical intervention or not), with or without regard to the person’s sex.
...
3 Subsection 4(1)
Insert:
man means a member of the male sex irrespective of age. Sex means the classification of a person as either male or female based on the organisation of the body for a specific reproductive role, as indicated by the person’s sex chromosomes (ordinarily XX for female, XY for male), naturally occurring sex hormones, gonads and unambiguous internal and external genitalia present at birth, without regard to a person’s psychological, social, chosen, or subjective experience of gender identity. *
4 Subsection 4(1) (definition of sexual orientation)
Repeal the definition, substitute:
sexual orientation means a person’s sexual orientation towards:
(a) persons of the same sex; or
(b) persons of the opposite sex; or
(c) persons of the same sex and persons of the opposite sex.
5 Subsection 4(1)
Insert:
woman means a member of the female sex irrespective of age.
6 Subsection 5(1)
Omit “a different sex”, substitute “the opposite sex”.
8 Paragraphs 21(3)(a) and (b)
Omit “a different sex”, substitute “the opposite sex”.
9 Subsection 25(3)
Omit “a different sex”, substitute “the opposite sex”.
10 Subparagraph 27(1)(c)(i)
Omit “a different sex”, substitute “the opposite sex”.
11 Section 3017
Omit “a different sex” (wherever occurring), substitute “the opposite
sex”.
12 After section 32 Insert:
32A Activities or Services for women
Nothing in Division 1 or 2 applies to or in relation to the provision of sex-based activities or services exclusively for women that consist of (or include) the provision of areas ordinarily used only by women (such as accommodation, prisons, women’s shelters, lavatories, sanitary facilities or changing rooms) or participation in sporting activities or any other activities or services that are established and operated exclusively for women.
End of Parliamentary speech and legislation
if you read through all of that and you're still here, thank you. It means a lot to me that you are willing to engage with this seriously, as this amendment is terrifying to me and an active danger to many of the people I love. You may have noticed the asterisks. Those were also added by me. One by one, I am going to find studies (or at least several authority on the subject quotes) that show these claims to be false, because this argument is backed by nothing but ideology that is hateful and an 8th grade understanding of biology. (the backslashes are because of how tumblr's front end interprets asterisks)
\* Biological sex is not a social construct created by parliament.
the way that gender roles are interpreted by society and enforced in ways that constitute discrimination are and have been for some time interpreted by the sex discrimination act and the lawyers who interpret it's wordings. (from me)
(excerpt from the aforementioned article regarding Ms Tickle's win in court, quoting from Equality Australia Legal Director Heather Corkhill)
Today’s decision is an important win for everyone protected under the Act, including women and LGBTIQ+ people,” she said.
“This ruling affirms that all women deserve to live free from discrimination, without being judged on appearance, presentation or perceptions.”
The majority judgement states that under the Act, the concept of womanhood “is not to be understood by reference to any narrow or rigid conception of femaleness”.
“For decades, Australian laws have recognised that a person’s legal sex is not limited to the sex they were assigned at birth – any other interpretation would deny the reality and existence of trans people,” Ms Corkhill said.
She said the ruling also upheld the original intent of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (SDA).
“The SDA is the primary federal law protecting LGBTIQ+ people from discrimination, and all of us have a stake in making sure those protections remain strong and effective,” Ms Corkhill said.
“Today’s decision affirms that trans Australians are entitled to the same legal protections, and the same right to live safely and with dignity, as everyone else.”
Ms Corkhill said that if Ms Grover’s appeal had succeeded, the consequences would have reached far beyond trans communities, weakening protections for many Australians covered by discrimination law.
“The judgment reinforces that anti-discrimination laws are intended to protect everyone, particularly groups such as trans women who often experience exclusion and disadvantage,” she said.
end of excerpt
On top of that, there are arguments to be made that trans people are changing their sex (especially regarding the ways sex is interpreted socially), in all the ways that matter bar potentially medically, which may change with the intervention of better trans healthcare focused surgeries. There are also many other chromosome expressions than the two listed here as the two possible sexes. Moreover and relevant to the legislations, it is *deeply* misguided to regard someone's sex at birth over the current sex characteristics.
This Standard standardises the collection and dissemination of data relating to sex, gender, variations of sex characteristics and sexual or
About X and Y Variations
\** Biological sex matters—particularly in sport, health, privacy, safety and women's services.
we'll go one by one since there's a lot brushed over here in a sweeping generalisation
Sports
the below article is a meta analysis of 52 studies that indicated there was no advantage for trans women in sports after one to three years of hormone replacement therapy
Body composition and physical fitness in transgender versus cisgender individuals: a systematic review with meta-analysis
in this article, Enrique Alpañés had this to say regarding the study:
(the meta study)... analyzed 2,943 transgender women who had undergone hormone therapy for one to three years. It found no evidence of any physical advantage. There were no observable differences in upper or lower body strength, or in maximum oxygen consumption — a key measure of cardiorespiratory fitness — between trans and cisgender women. In fact, after gender-affirming hormone therapy, transgender and cisgender women showed similar levels of physical fitness across all variables analyzed. Therefore, based on the scientific evidence, Gualano concludes that transgender women “do not pose a threat to women’s sports.”
safety
subsection - bathrooms
"There is no evidence that allowing transgender people access to bathrooms aligning with their gender identity jeopardizes safety and privacy." study highlights
"Transgender people face increased risks when required to use bathrooms according to their sex assigned at birth." - study highlights
"
Incidents of safety and privacy violations in these spaces were rare.
There was no significant change in privacy and safety violations across matched localities during the time period surrounding the enactment of nondiscrimination laws.
There was no evidence that privacy and safety in restrooms changed as a result of transgender people having, by law, access to restrooms and other facilities in accordance with their gender identity.
"
in regards to safety, especially regarding homeless and domestic violence shelters:
Transgender people experience more discrimination and violence than cisgender lesbian, gay, or bisexual people: A multilevel analysis across 30 European countries
"Our findings demonstrated that trans people reported consistently more discrimination and violence than cisgender LGB people throughout Europe, irrespective of the countries’ rankings of LGBTQ+ rights. This difference was more pronounced among participants with ethnic minority backgrounds and disabilities. Results also varied across genders as trans women and nonbinary people reported more violence than trans men, whereas trans men and trans women both reported more discrimination than nonbinary people."
Demographic predictors of experiences of homelessness among lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, gender-diverse and queer-identifying (LGBTIQ) young people in Australia
Experiences of homelessness appear to be particularly pervasive among youth who are: (i) trans and gender-diverse, (ii) disabled and (iii) who reside outside of urban centers
Health and medicine
While I will not deny personally that there are differing medical realities between trans women and cis women, they are closer to the differences between various cis women than the differences between cis women and cis men. And medical practitioners often fail to understand this reality and inflict harm on trans patients by treating them as though they were their AGAB with no medical changes from hormone treatments and/or surgeries. These are my opinions as a transgender woman and in no way reflect professional or authority opinions on these subjects, but what I can say is studies on this topic are scarce and difficult to come by.
here's a study about trans people facing discrimination even from trans-specialists:
Background Experiences of discrimination in healthcare lead to poorer mental and physical health for transgender individuals. There is evide
\*** Women are prosecuted for denying biological men lessons in breastfeeding.
this is true, there is a prosecution case on the basis of discrimination against a trans women who did breastfeed her infant. Whilst it is understandable to be worried for the health of infants, this kind of pressure would be better directed towards movements like anti-vaccination movements. It will be interesting to see if anything scientific comes form this litigiation
excerpt from sky news article
Endocrinologist Naomi Achong, who said she had induced lactation in multiple transgender females, told the masthead “no negative outcomes” were reported.
“There are no risks to the infant but rather extended benefits to the infant and both parents,” Ms Achong said.
“Whilst there may only be limited public data, there is considerable anecdotal evidence supporting this practice.”
The NHS recently said evidence supports trans women’s milk as good as breast milk. In a time where the boundaries of science and societal n
Broadly, it seems this has been understudied (as with most things regarding transfeminine motherhood) but anecdotal evidence strongly supports it being equivalent and human made milk being the ideal for infants. This would make refusing breastfeeding lessons for trans women a relatively clear cut case of discrimination.
\**** Our language is defeminised. We now must chest feed. We are a birth parent, a pregnant person or a lactating parent. We are now people who menstruate and cervix havers. We have a front hole instead of a vagina.
inclusive language is good, however some of these are factually incorrect. The correct medical term for vagina is still vagina. the language of "front hole" or "internal genital" is specifically for trans men to use to refer to their own genitalia, and it is not new, and it is not replacing the word vagina anywhere. Trans men can get pregnant and menstruate, so it makes sense to have a gender neutral term for pregnant people, but that doesn't stop you from calling yourself a mother. while cervix haver is medically useful terminology for discussing the internal reproductive organs of people without explicitly attaching gender to it, no one is challenging your right to call yourself a woman. What is being challenged is the denial of trans people the use and respect of their gender identity, and the way these biological factors are used to so, consistently to the exclusion of trans people, intersex people and other cis women.
We created a safer sex guide that understands the true complexity and diversity across gender identities, sexual orientation, attractions, a
The practice of using gendered structural language is out of date, misleading and confusing, and doesn’t support a culture of healthcare inc
I will be writing a proper essay regarding this absolute nonsense, but I just needed to say some things about how harmful, misguided, scientifically inaccurate, and downright hateful this legislative proposal is. This information was not difficult to find, and overwhelmingly the science disagrees with the general sentiment of trans women being men expressed by this legislature and speech, in ways that are not objectionable by way of opinion, but only by further research, which so far has either supported the idea that trans women are functionally and socially women, or does not yet exist.
Anyway, one again, please sign this petition, if you are australian contact your federal reps about this, write letters, make calls, etc.
15 May 2026 – National LGBTIQ+ group Equality Australia has welcomed a Federal Court judgment that has upheld the right of trans women to li
