Transgender person elected as Deputy Mayor in Sydney

Why would it come up in the majority of interviews?

What is more likely to occur is that someone GC commits some sort of wrongdoing against others at work by revealing their GC views through accusatory and discriminatory remarks against trans people. They will then be disciplined or let go due to their actions.

It might be helpful to provide some Australian context.
The Australian Sex Discrimination Act was amended in 2013 to remove the definition of "man" and "woman" as a biological distinction, and "gender identity" was included in such a way that anyone with female as their gender identity can now be considered, in law, to be female. The impact of this, as it is currently being interpreted by the High, and the Supreme court, is that biological women are no different to men who claim a female gender identity. In short, we have no legal grounds for sex-segregated spaces, and any that remain are open to a legal challenge that will be won. Some people celebrate this as progress, but there are many of us who understand that this has a detrimental impact on wmen and on girls.
City Councils in Australia are responsible for a broad range of local services and facilities, including parks and their public toilets, public swimming pools, libraries, public building hire, and local by-laws such as protest permits and such like. The Deputy Mayor is the 2IC of the elected council. The Mayor and the Deputy Mayor are typically, and in this case NSW is typical, voted in by the council, rather than directly by the public.
In a city the size of Sydney, this gives the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor considerable influence over services and facilities relied on by many women and girls in their day to day lives. Public swimming pool and public toilet facilities, local libraries where mums and babies and toddlers go for weekly story group time etc. Councils also provide grants for local community groups, sports clubs etc. Womens groups must apply to council for the Australian version of the "let women speak" gatherings and such.
It was in this context that my post questioned, well tbh, assumed that considerations of the needs of women and girls to have legal sex-based boundaries in place are under further threat when the Deputy Mayor, a person with considerable power and influence, shares the ideology that men can be women, and therefore should have access to spaces previously for women only.
Watching the legal environment in Australia deteriorate for women in this way has made me angry and outspoken, and I can see by some of the commentary on here that angry and outspoken women with sex-realist views must tone-police themselves, lest thay come across as angry and outspoken, and give those who are stripping away our rights in the face of a largely silent electorate, ammunition to say, well, they are angry.
When a male person claims a female identity, I do make some assumptions. I will assume that they wish to support the trans community in their desire to access female spaces. With no laws to otherwise protect those spaces in Australia, I see this as another step backwards for womens rights.

Yes. The acronymn sounds lovely, but it is actually anti- homosexuality.

Which is not so lovely at all.

It should be noted that while Olly won an election to be a Sydney councillor, it's his fellow councillors on Sydney Council who appointed him to be deputy lord mayor, not the citizens.

As a lesbian, I'd always be very wary of a trans-identified male who says - as this Olly does - that he wants to help promote LGBQTIA+ issues, because I know that he believes that biological men can be "lesbians" and it's those types of "lesbians" that he wants to help, while us lesbians who are exclusively attracted to our own sex are the people he's against.

Isn't you calling someone who identifies as a woman "he" discrimination and phobia?

@Franxi

You haven't heard of the originaln definition of the word that forms the basis for your definition of it?

Just because some discrimination is unlawful, doesn't mean all discrimination is. Nor should it be the case that some currently-unlawful discrimination continues to be.

Ok, sorry, I was talking about discrimination in the widely accepted meaning of the unfair or prejudicial treatment of a person or group based on specific personal characteristics. What you are defining as discrimination to me means noticing differences. I haven’t heard of this definition of discrimination. I don’t think anyone has a problem with noticing differences.

Very well said.

Mmn.

I remember when Madigan was made 'women's officer', and at that point I was still dewy eyed and trusting, and was happy to embrace this and see if he turned out to be a good women's officer.

Sadly pattern recognition is a thing. At this point I can't think of a man with a gender identity who has taken a women's post or role, or any political seat, without their sole focus and representation being for themselves as a trans person focused very much on trans alone as an issue to the exclusion of all else, and on their interests and the interests of other men with gender identities. And to attempt to use their responsibility and power to do harm to women, children and gay rights in the name of their activism. I don't agree with activists for any subject in positions of responsibility for this reason, when the seat merely becomes something to use in their activism rather than for its public function, but when the job requires impartiality and the capacity for equal treatment and consideration regardless of personal feelings, transactivism continually demonstrates an utter incapacity for this.

He may be the first to do this differently. But the pattern is now very, very, very established.

To keep trying to ignore that elephant in the room, plus that it's a little odd to overlook a person in a political role having an obvious massive issue with reality and living an entire lifestyle based on selective personal reality to avoid it - and expect them to be able to cope and be rational about all other parts of reality - is a bit 'apart from that Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?'. Is it really safe or sensible to have someone in that position taking a role like this?

And yes. I agree that it is fundamentally sexist for a man to identify as a woman.

Oooh you’d better report it then hadn’t you!

Are those unhelpful? Yes

Do they fairly represent the majority of posts on this thread? I don’t think they do.

ETA when one of the critics of the thread believed the OP to be GC, they suggested that the OP would be disappointed with the responses. Implying the thread is not the ‘hate fest’ that some would like to think.

Thank you. It is so much more helpful and frankly a much stronger post when it's clear to what someone is (and is not!) referring.

I don't disagree with the assessment that those are weak and unhelpful comments by the way. Though from experience I warn you "delusional not a liar" doesn't land well with the TRA-inclined either!

This thread is now, in a familiar pattern, turning to attack the messenger, so I will leave you all to it.

Sure, but I still think it’s a stretch to compare that, in Olly’s specific circumstances, to somebody coming out as gay later in life. That aside, the post you made that comparison as a reply to was talking specifically about the claim that Olly was always a woman. Even when he was a male presenting nb person called Mitch - as he was when elected. You seem to be suggesting that it is ‘transphobic’ or at the very least ‘giving ammunition’ to trans activists to even discuss that claim that Olly was always a woman.

Of course the really interesting question is whether the Genderists on this thread would hire a gender critical Feminist if she were the best qualified candidate, and if not, why not.

Let me make this clear that I am not saying that anyone on this forum should not have expressed their personal views. What I am saying is that personal views like these below are unnecessarily handing ammunition directly to trans activists, and this forum is being played by trans activists in order to generate that ammunition

Referring to people as lying when they are expressing a genuinely held, if delusional, view, particularly when that view is supported by the law in the country that person lives in.

"How low can Australia go" when all that has been said at that point is that a trans person has been appointed deputy mayor, as if nobody trans should ever be appointed to a political position.

"Not chosen on merit" when is clear that he has huge experience for the role and he was elected unanimously.

Multiple assumptions that he has been chosen only because he is trans and not on the basis of his extensive experience.

Ridiculing and questioning his not coming out as female identified earlier in his life.

Assumptions with no evidence that he will prioritise trans rights over women's rights. Not discussing whether he might, but simply assuming that he will.

If you believe that a man who maintains that he is actually a woman is fundamentally sexist, then it follows (if you are against sexism) that you would not want that man in a politically influential post.

If you don't think that a man who maintains that he is a woman is sexist / don't care about sexism, then you might want that man in a politically influential post. Whatever.

It isn't 'transphobic' to believe the former and to be concerned about a man who thinks womanhood is a special feeling he has being in a position of power.

Do you think that women have the right to believe that men who maintain that they are women are sexist? Because, whether you agree or not, what you seem to be implying is that they shouldn't be able to say that without being accused of 'transphobia'.

Please don't lie about other people. It undermines your position.

The only person saying anything about "hating" trans people or wanting them "not to exist" here is you when you make dishonest claims about what some handwavy "others" say.

I am not stupid. I've thought through this a lot. Wargamed both sides.

Ultimately if the choices are to say nothing and be silently right in my own head but change nothing, or say something, know I will and indeed should have to justify it, and thereby work towards change, of course I will say something.

Again, please be specific about this "plenty that has been said seeded right through responses on this thread that hands ammunition directly to trans activists."

What exactly do you think should not be said?

That isn't something I have ever disagreed with and it's not what I'm talking about.

I have referred to this person throughout this thread as he.

You can call it transphobia and I will call it reality. It is biologically and legally impossible to change sex, reality is winning.

I was getting there in understanding that with previous threads but this one has been really shocking. There's outright transphobia on this thread.

You're wasting your time. There's a bizarre GC purity test on here and unless you openly hate trans people for existing - or deny they exist - you're branded a TRA. It's sad and working against us but they refuse to acknowledge that.

Isn't it up to him to decide when he's ready to take the last step in living in keeping with how he feels?