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has launched a calling on MPs to reject proposed changes to the Sex Discrimination Act, with the organisation warning the reforms could weaken protections for transgender and gender diverse Australians. The petition has gathered more than 11,000 signatures since its launch last week.

The campaign is positioned alongside a competing petition from the Australian Christian Lobby, which is calling for the restoration of 鈥渂iological definitions of male and female鈥� in the same legislation. The ACL has boasted that Equality Australia’s petition “only has a few thousand” signatures compared to their own – however at present, the ACL’s petition only narrowly leads the way with 12,000 signatures to Equality’s 11,000.

The petition was created in response to political calls to redefine 鈥渟ex鈥� in the Act, including聽a private member鈥檚 bill introduced by Nationals MP Alison Penfold proposing a narrow definition of sex and exclusion of trans women from some public spaces and protections.

Opposition leader Angus Taylor took to social media after the Giggle v Tickle appeal verdict, vowing to “fix” the Sex Discrimination Act.

“A Coalition government I lead will fix this. We will amend the Sex Discrimination Act to ensure that women and girls (and men and boys) have protections based on biological sex,” he said.

“We will define biological sex in the Act. Male or female. The sex you are born. And we will protect single-sex spaces across Australian life.”

Pauline Hanson and One Nation have also vowed to repeal the act, and remove gender identity as a protected attribute entirely. Similarly Senator Michaelia Cash used senate estimates to attack the Act and the Australian Human Rights Commission.

础耻蝉迟谤补濒颈补鈥檚 Sex Discrimination Act (1984) makes it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, marital or relationship status, pregnancy, and breastfeeding in areas such as employment, education, accommodation, and the provision of goods and services. The Act provides federal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and intersex status, helping ensure access to workplaces, schools, healthcare, and public services without unfair treatment.

For women, it prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex and related attributes such as pregnancy and breastfeeding, and is intended to address structural inequality and gender-based disadvantage, including in hiring, pay, and workplace conditions.

Equality Australia CEO Anna Brown said the proposal weakening of the SDA represented significant risks. 鈥淥ur communities are facing coordinated attacks on rights and protections that were hard fought over decades, including by generations of women,鈥� Ms Brown said. 鈥淚f we don鈥檛 stand together now, we risk watching those protections get chipped away.鈥�

 

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Ms Brown said trans people were being used in political debate. 鈥淲e are seeing trans people increasingly used as political targets to manufacture outrage, fuel fear and divide communities for political gain,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hese attacks will not improve safety or equality. They risk creating more discrimination, more fear and more harm 鈥� not only for trans people, but for women, intersex people and our communities more broadly.鈥�

She also said proposed changes would affect broader anti-discrimination protections. 鈥湸〕懿醭侔�补濒颈补鈥檚 anti-discrimination laws recognise the real ways women are judged, excluded and treated unfairly in society, often because of gender stereotypes and assumptions,鈥� Ms Brown said. 鈥淣arrowing the definition of sex risks weakening protections against sexism itself.鈥�

Both petitions are now circulating nationally, with 17c起草社区IA+ advocacy groups urging the community to fight for our protections as currently enshrined under the Sex Discrimination Act.