The UK has ruled the legal definition of gender is based on biological sex, after the Supreme Court sided with campaigners calling for changes to the law.
Queer Liberation Boorloo representative Lexi Goff says the decision is an attack on trans rights everywhere.
“Transgender people in Australia have watched the rise of anti-trans bigotry, always wrapped in the false guise of protecting women and children,” she says.
“Rulings like this imply that discrimination stems from what someone wrote on some paper when you were born, which is nonsense.
“When trans people are discriminated against it stems from individual ignorance and bigotry, or from a system built to exclude us, not to address actual problems.”
In 2018 Scotland introduced the Gender Representation on Public Boards Act to increase female representation by expanding to include trans women with Gender Recognition Certificates in the definition of ‘woman.’
Campaign group For Women Scotland publicly opposed the Act, arguing the definition of a woman should be solely based on biology.
Scottish courts initially rejected FWS’s claims, and after many setbacks the group gained high-profile support from author JK Rowling who donated £70,000 to their cause February of 2024.
Trans academic Dr Shoshana Rosenberg says celebrities are having more influence in politics than they should.
“JK Rowling is only able to do this because people keep buying her stuff. They keep forgiving and forgetting,” Dr Rosenberg says.
“The ‘separate the art from the artist’ conversation is not very meaningful when the artist is a multi-millionaire who is bankrolling policy making.
We have a TV star for a US president, so why wouldn’t we have JK Rowling as an adjunct policy maker?”
Dr Rosenberg says people need to move away from the comfort of shock and surprise
“It can feel very comfortable for people because it’s about you and it’s affecting you at that moment and that’s fine but then you have to put the shock aside, act and act seriously.
“You have to look at who you are giving your money to, you have to look at whose art and products and everything you are supporting across the board,” Dr Rosenberg says.
Sex Discrimination Commissioner Dr Anna Cody says Australian laws protect against a similar finding happening here, but says she worries about the impact it will have on trans and gender diverse people.
“Our law is framed differently in the way that we don’t define sex within the Sex Discrimination Act. Our explanatory memorandum is very clear that sex isn’t a binary concept.
“We know trans people have higher rates of violence against them and also higher incidents of mental health issues so those would be the two areas that I would be concerned about.”
Dr Cody says the exclusionary message of this ruling is concerning
“Everyone has human rights and we need to create a safe and respectful community in which everyone can be their full selves and can participate.”
