A Victorian-based lesbian group is seeking an exemption to the Sex Discrimination Act so it can legally discriminate against transgender women when it holds public events.
Nicole Mowbray says putting everyone under the same LGBTQIA umbrella means there are limited opportunities to be in single-sex spaces.
the “lesbian not queer” and “female” t-shirts say a lot … it’s only in a post-feminist and post-gay-rights moment that self-identifying gay feminists can feel comfortable enough to break with their political alliances to push forward their right to discriminate against other members within their alliance, while simultaneously reifying the very gender essentialist views that generations of feminists have been fighting against 🤦♀️
this case is especially egregious given the fact that they already do have a right to discriminate:
Even without the legal exemption, the LAG can still exclude trans women from private gatherings, but LAG spokesperson Nicole Mowbray said public events were necessary in order to attract new members.
“Young and emerging lesbians cannot find their people because we’ve been underground in order to keep [biological] males out of our dating pool and our events,” she said outside court.
They just want to expand their right to discriminate from private events to public ones.
On the one hand I can be sympathetic to the sort of cultural shock of integrating into society women who have penises and may look and sound like men, etc. - that’s not an easy change to make in such a transphobic and sex-segregated society, and while I think the evidence backs those women really being women (and biologically female in non-trivial ways), it’s still a big lift to get people to see trans women as women when to their eyes and ears they see and hear men.
That said, my sympathy vanishes when I read they already have the right to discriminate (and they exercise that right without issue), and this particular fight is ultimately just about being able to do that in bigger and more public ways …
and there are already examples of exemptions given:
In 2009, an exemption to the Victorian Equal Opportunity Act was granted so there could be women-only swimming sessions at the North Altona leisure centre for two hours on a Friday night.
That was to allow Muslim women unable to participate in mixed-gender swimming sessions to engage with the sport.
Professor Thornton said that exemption was far less restrictive than the LAG’s request for a five-year exemption.
“That’s not a narrow time-scale of an hour or two,” she said.
so it doesn’t feel like the courts are particularly biased or unfair, they gave allowance to Muslim women to discriminate against trans women on a religious basis, but in a way that was reasonably restrained - so this LAG group seems either unserious or attempting to push the boundaries of exemptions in ways that are likely to fail (but may help generate backlash and mobilize the anti-trans movement there).
Either way, this group is not interested in LGBT+ rights, and see themselves as opposed to the LGBT+ rights movement. I suspect despite what they say, that they are more motivated by transphobia than gay rights.
the “lesbian not queer” and “female” t-shirts say a lot … it’s only in a post-feminist and post-gay-rights moment that self-identifying gay feminists can feel comfortable enough to break with their political alliances to push forward their right to discriminate against other members within their alliance, while simultaneously reifying the very gender essentialist views that generations of feminists have been fighting against 🤦♀️
this case is especially egregious given the fact that they already do have a right to discriminate:
They just want to expand their right to discriminate from private events to public ones.
On the one hand I can be sympathetic to the sort of cultural shock of integrating into society women who have penises and may look and sound like men, etc. - that’s not an easy change to make in such a transphobic and sex-segregated society, and while I think the evidence backs those women really being women (and biologically female in non-trivial ways), it’s still a big lift to get people to see trans women as women when to their eyes and ears they see and hear men.
That said, my sympathy vanishes when I read they already have the right to discriminate (and they exercise that right without issue), and this particular fight is ultimately just about being able to do that in bigger and more public ways …
and there are already examples of exemptions given:
so it doesn’t feel like the courts are particularly biased or unfair, they gave allowance to Muslim women to discriminate against trans women on a religious basis, but in a way that was reasonably restrained - so this LAG group seems either unserious or attempting to push the boundaries of exemptions in ways that are likely to fail (but may help generate backlash and mobilize the anti-trans movement there).
Either way, this group is not interested in LGBT+ rights, and see themselves as opposed to the LGBT+ rights movement. I suspect despite what they say, that they are more motivated by transphobia than gay rights.