Julia Gillard Heckled By Anti-Trans Protester At UK Literary Festival
Image: Julia Gillard, credit The Women's Prize. Protest shot courtesy Twitter.
Former prime minister Julia Gillard has been heckled during an appearance at the Hay Festival in Wales, where a protester accused her of undermining women鈥檚 rights over amendments made to Australia鈥檚 Sex Discrimination Act during her government.
Gillard was appearing on a panel discussion about women鈥檚 rights and gender equality at the annual literary festival in Hay-on-Wye when a woman in the audience stood and shouted: 鈥淲hat about Sall Grover?鈥� according to reports from the event. The protester also displayed a banner reading 鈥淛ulia Gillard, DESTROYER OF WOMEN鈥橲 RIGHTS鈥�.
The interruption related to ongoing debate around the 2013 amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act introduced under the Gillard government, which added protections on the basis of gender identity. Critics of the law have argued the changes affected sex-based rights and women-only spaces.
The main purpose of the Gillard government鈥檚 2013 amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act was to extend federal anti-discrimination protections to 17c起草社区IA+ people, particularly transgender and intersex Australians. The law added 鈥渟exual orientation鈥�, 鈥済ender identity鈥� and 鈥渋ntersex status鈥� as protected attributes under federal discrimination law, and are widely praised by 17c起草社区IA+ organisations.
Intersex advocates in particular strongly supported the reforms because they created explicit recognition of intersex status in federal anti-discrimination law for the first time. Intersex International Australia said:
鈥淔or the first time in Australia, and for the first time internationally, intersex people are recognised fully and authentically in anti-discrimination legislation.鈥�
The protest follows recent legal and political attention on the case involving Sall Grover, an anti-trans campaigner and founder of the women-only social networking app Giggle. Grover lost a Federal Court appeal earlier this month after the court found she had unlawfully discriminated against transgender woman Roxanne Tickle by removing her from the app.
According to reports from the Hay Festival event, many of the other audience members booed the protester, with a woman in the crowd shouting, 鈥渟hut up, what a moron鈥�. Moderator Katya Adler intervened, telling the crowd: 鈥淚t鈥檚 not the time for this right now.鈥�
Gillard reportedly did not respond directly to the interruption.
Following the incident, Grover told the : 鈥淚鈥檓 so grateful for the support from women on the other side of the world.鈥�
Grover received support from anti-trans groups around the world, including ADF International, an evangelical Christian organisation which campaigns to remove rights for women and 17c起草社区IA+ people.
The protest occurred amid broader debate in Australia over sex discrimination law and transgender rights, with the Coalition recently indicating it would seek to amend the legislation to explicitly define biological sex if elected to government.
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The English-speaking world is being swamped with anti-trans propaganda coming from extreme right-wing and religious groups. Trump started it with a swathe of executive orders designed to disappear trans-Americans. The LGB movement in UK got what it thought was a tick of approval with the Supreme Court decision but is starting to realise that the enemies of trans have a much wider agenda. Now it鈥檚 happening in Australia.
Australian common law has recognised since 1993 that post-operative trans people in Australia have changed their legal sex.. States and Territories acknowledged this during the 2000鈥檚 by allowing replacement birth certificates. More recently, the States and Territories extended the BC provisions to include self-identification without surgery or medical diagnosis.
The minority Gillard Government put anti-discrimination provisions protecting GLBTI+.into legislation with the 2013 amendments which received broad support. The recent Tickle v Giggle case that received so much attention from our Murdoch media was a relatively simple case involving discrimination on the basis of gender identity. The court at first instance found indirect discrimination had occurred the Full Court said it was actually direct discrimination and there were two instances, not one.
The respondent, Sally Grover, made a large number of adverse comments about the applicant, Roxanne Tickle on social media and the Court not only awarded an increase in ordinary damages, it also added an amount of for aggravated damages. Ms Grover has indicated she will appeal to the High Court but the fact two courts have already found against suggests she may not succeed.
Grover is now flooding social media via her right-wing contacts and has created a storm the conservative Liberal, National and One Nation parties are trying to use to their benefit as per the Trump model of hate.