Australian women can no longer have female only spaces

[QldGCandproud]

Hi Aussie Mumsnetters,
Yesterday the 2nd highest court in Australia ruled that Australian Women no longer have any legal rights to female only spaces. If we attempt to maintain them, we are discriminating, and on the wrong side of the law.
Prisons, hospital wards, breastfeeding groups, toilets, gym showers, public pool changing areas, rape crises centres, homeless shelters, classes, sports, whatever women have set up as female only spaces, now have no legal position from which to defend them from men who claim to be women.
If you are not currently across the risks this situation has imposed on many vulnerable women and girls, please do some reading and research. This is not about being nice and "inclusive". This is about women having legally enforceable boundaries when they matter most. This is a good place to start: https://womensadvocacy.net/blog/

The reason the court decided this is because in 2013, the Labor Government, under Julia Gillard, amended the Sex Discrimination Act, to remove the definition of "Man" and "Woman", and replaced "Sex" with "Gender Identity". The Liberals had plenty of time to fix this during their 9 years in power and did not. The Greens will never fix this left to their own devices, they are fully in support of men in womens spaces. There is only one party willing to take action on this unfortunately, and they are gaining historical ground right now. We need the major parties to take this seriously. Any Men can now identify as Women, and access our spaces and services. If after finding out more about this, you are as horrified as many of us are, please please write to your MP and ask them to push for and support the required amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act, which would once again enable Women to be defined, and protected, as a distinct sex-class. These are rights we once fought for, gained, and have now lost.
For a 6 minute explainer on the court case and its limitations, please listen to the Australian Women's Advocacy coalition podcast: open.spotify.com/episode/3rfdl27BPRthqhFamRhtv9?si=K-7s2DWGQk-RpjORYVNa2A

Trying to imagine me at 20 yrs old, travelling alone and staying in hostels there, in a foreign land thousands of miles from home. Sometimes there was only one other person staying in the dorm with you.

One of the best most life affirming experiences of my life!

It was safer then, female only meant female only.

No way would I let my daughter do that now and it makes me so angry that female freedoms are being curtailed in this way.

It's only a matter of time before the law is returned to what it should be, but it will probably take too long. It was changed so sneakily in the first place I don't think it should stand, but what do I know!

And the damage already done will take years to undo, even when (if) the SDA is clarified. And for the women who have been harmed in the meantime, the women known to have been sexually assaulted by men in womens prisons (Soth Australia and Victoria), the damage is perhaps unrecoverable. For girls who have lost spots in representative sport, whose school toilets are now "mixed gender", the women attending breastfeeding groups with males who have delusions about breastfeeding (one of which actually asked a woman if he could borrow her baby to practice), these boundary infractions make a joke of consent laws and the dignity of female people. It cannot continue.
Thanks @30birthdaygirl for your comment.

Contact your MP please!
www.womensforumaustralia.org/fixthesda_contactmps

I traveled a lot on my 20s and always stayed in hostels. I hated staying in mixed dorms. I only did so if there were no other options. The female dorms felt much safer and friendlier.

To this day I regret that I stupidly never complained when a backpackers travel company put me in a room with a male when we were on a tour of Egypt.

I am in NZ and I know you know things are just as bad here. I just can't comprehend how this ideology has won over huge swathes of society.