As anyone with a modicum of mental and moral sense knows, the militant trans lobby is anti-women and anti-children. Aided and abetted by woke governments, bureaus, institutes and a leftist commentariat, women and children are being destroyed by the appalling trans ideology.
It is a full-blown war that has been declared, but thankfully many women – and others – are now fighting back. Consider the longstanding battle to protect women and women-only spaces by Sall Grover and Giggle for Girls. For half a decade now the case of Tickle v Giggle has been fought out in courts and elsewhere. I have written about this at various times, including this piece: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2024/04/11/sexual-insanity-and-the-terf-wars/
Given the ongoing costs in dealing with this protracted lawfare, a crowdfunding page has been set up for Grover and her cause. That site lays out the details in the case, and in part tells us what is at stake:
If They Succeed, the Impact Will Be Profound
If the Full Court accepts their arguments:
-Giggle will no longer be able to operate as a female-only platform for biological women.
-Sall Grover will have lost the ability to maintain the space she built to protect women’s safety and connection.
-Australian law will treat “woman” and “man” solely as gender identity categories.
-Female-only spaces, services, and sports could be forced to admit males who identify as women.
-Biological sex would have no meaningful place in federal anti-discrimination law.
-The Court may also decline to decide what woman, man or sex means, as they may not find it necessary to decide in order to decide the question of direct or indirect discrimination.
-The precedent would make it much harder for any future case to restore sex-based rights.
-There will also be serious costs implications for Sall and Giggle, who will also be liable for the costs at first instance, as well as $50,000 costs-cap for the Appeal and $50,000 cost-cap for the Cross-Appeal.
If Giggle Wins
If the Court accepts our arguments:
-“Woman” and “man” will retain their ordinary, biological meaning in law.
-Giggle will be recognised as a lawful special measure for women.
-This will set a precedent protecting sex-based spaces and services nationwide.
-The ruling will send a message that Parliament—not ideology—must change definitions if it wants to erase sex from the law. http://gigglecrowdfund.com
Stephanie Bastiaan of Women’s Forum Australia offers an overview of how things have gotten to this place in Australia:
In 1979, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). CEDAW is an internationally recognised ‘bill of rights’ for women to protect them from discrimination, exclusion and restriction based on sex. Countries that sign the Convention are legally bound to introduce provisions within their legislative frameworks to implement it. In 1983, Australia became one of the 193 countries globally to sign the treaty, and CEDAW was formally ratified into Australian law under the Hawke Government by passing the SDA.
In 2013, less than six months after Julia Gillard lectured then-future Prime Minister Tony Abbott on all things ‘sexism and misogyny’ with her infamous parliamentary speech, the Gillard Government introduced amendments to the SDA to remove the definition of male and female and add ‘gender identity’ as a protected attribute.
This has opened the floodgates for men to self-identify as women and take advantage of female-only spaces, sports and services. It also set a precedent for ideologically driven state Governments to legislate away further female rights in the name of ‘diversity and inclusion’. Although there are provisions within the SDA that permit lawful discrimination against men in favour of women and girls based on sex, the 2013 amendments have created uncertainty on what takes precedence when sex and gender identity collide. It has also provided an avenue for men to weaponise the legal system against women seeking to protect their sex-based rights. https://www.womensforumaustralia.org/tickle_v_giggle_womens_rights_on_trial
Bastiaan recently discussed this with Rita Panahi on Sky News. She said this on X:
The Australian Human Rights Commission is a taxpayer-funded institution that has been hijacked by activists. Whether it’s opposing single-sex spaces for biological women on behalf of men who identify as women, or cheerleading the medical transition of children, it has a one-track record. I discussed this with Rita Panahi. https://x.com/stephbastiaan/status/2046933146466390450
And in the Australian there is an important new article by Stephen Rice titled “Peak medical regulator ‘compromised’ by partnership with trans lobby group” which is well worth being aware of. It is a lengthy piece, but I can offer some choice quotes from it here. The piece begins:
Australia’s peak medical regulator faces claims it has been hopelessly compromised in a string of controversial decisions because it is a signed-up member of Australia’s most powerful trans lobby group, ACON, which promotes gender-affirming medical treatment for children and teenagers.
Documents released under FOI reveal how the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency developed an LGBTIQA+ strategy based on adherence to the gender ideology of ACON, extending to the way it regulates health practitioners.
In correspondence obtained by The Australian, AHPRA boss Justin Untersteiner states that the regulator’s engagement with ACON and accreditation group Rainbow Health Australia guides “the way we regulate and fulfil our purpose of ensuring the preservation of public safety”.
The revelations follow claims Australia’s medical complaints system has been weaponised by gender activists using a compliant regulator to intimidate psychiatrists who speak out against gender-affirming treatment such as puberty blockers, while shielding doctors who promote them.
In recent decisions AHPRA has:
Gagged Queensland psychiatrist Andrew Amos, banning him from making online statements about gender medicine and barring him from having direct clinical contact with any patients.
Launched an investigation into prominent child psychiatrist Jillian Spencer for sharing on social media an article from The Australian that quoted her concerns about gender-affirming medical treatment for children.
Registered as “female” the transgender doctor at the centre of a landmark UK legal dispute over women’s spaces, Beth Upton, allowing the emergency medic to work in two NSW hospitals.
Dismissed a complaint against Michelle Telfer, chief of medicine at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, who pioneered the contentious gender-affirming treatment approach in Australia, following adverse findings against her by a Family Court judge.
Despite mounting concern from dozens of registered health professionals over AHPRA’s partnership with ACON, the National Health Practitioner Ombudsman has refused a request to launch an investigation into “serious concerns about perceived impartiality”. Compounding the lack of transparency, AHPRA has also fought to keep key documents hidden from the public, partially refusing FOI requests to protect its deliberations with the lobby groups.
Rice looks at all this in some detail and goes on to say this:
Internal communications show AHPRA actively sought to use the advocacy-run schemes to guide its external operations and policies as a national health regulator. In a December 2023 “Members Meeting” with Pride in Diversity, the ACON representative recorded a discussion about AHPRA’s “desire as a health regulator to be working on the service delivery/to consumer side of things now that the portfolio has opened to allow access to both Pride in Diversity and Pride in Health +Wellbeing content”.
The exchanges reflect the development of a structured commercial relationship, with ACON’s Pride in Diversity promoting specific training and consultancy packages, membership hours and renewal as part of AHPRA’s strategy work.
In a February 2024 National Executive agenda paper marked “In Confidence”, AHPRA details the development of a “National Scheme LGBTIQA+ Equity and Inclusion Strategy”, revealing the capture of regulatory processes was explicitly planned.
“The LGBTIQA+ strategy will then form part of the 2025 Scheme strategy and will include reforms of people policies and regulatory processes over a 3-5 year time horizon, with several phases of delivery to correspond with developing maturity,” the document states.
AHPRA states it is “committed to two external quality frameworks – Rainbow Tick and (ACON’s) Australian Workplace Equality Index – to guide its development of a National Scheme LGBTIQA+ equity and inclusion strategy to provide measurable outcomes for LGBTIQA+ people”.
“Recent legislative amendments that seek to enfranchise people of diverse sexual orientation/s, gender identities and/or intersex variations … are also driving the need for AHPRA to consider a strategic approach to LGBTIQA+ equity and inclusion,” the document says.
The document makes it clear that AHPRA’s objective is not simply to embed the objectives of ACON and Rainbow Tick into its internal workplace practices but involve “improving access to the National Scheme, external engagement initiatives and National Board portfolios”.
But Rice informs us that there is a fightback from within the medical community:
[A] coalition of doctors wrote to the National Health Practitioner Ombudsman asking it to launch an own-motion investigation into AHPRA’s engagement with the schemes. The 46 signatories asked the ombudsman to investigate whether AHPRA’s participation in the Rainbow Tick and ACON schemes was consistent with its statutory obligations as a national regulator, and whether it created “conflicts of interest or ideological entanglement that may compromise public and practitioner confidence”.
They warned that aligning with ACON destroyed the regulator’s “reputational neutrality” in highly contested clinical areas, such as the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors. They pointed out that public health authorities in the UK had already withdrawn from the Stonewall Diversity Champions Scheme, upon which ACON’s scheme is largely based, amid concerns of perceived bias and ideological alignment.
The doctors said ACON actively campaigned for the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones – treatments currently under formal review by the National Health and Medical Research Council due to weak evidence. The ombudsman replied that “AHPRA’s engagement with Rainbow Health and ACON demonstrates its efforts in engaging with all communities” and that it did not consider an investigation “appropriate or in the public interest”. “Mr Untersteiner has provided a reasonable response to your concerns” the ombudsman said. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/peak-medical-regulator-compromised-by-partnership-with-trans-lobby-group/news-story/85d0d559b0ab8bfbd03f5c26b04057cc
The entire article is worth a read. When the powers that be conspire against ordinary Australians, and especially target women and children, because they have sold their souls to radical sexual activism, we all suffer as a result. Well done to these brave voices – both male and female – that are speaking out against this travesty of justice and this war on biology and reality.
