Australia - Lesbian group's been to court for female only events

[TheKhakiQuail]

Just a little update from Australia. Last month the Lesbian Action Group went to court seeking an exemption in order to hold female only (and gay only) lesbian events. They had previously applied to the Australian Human Rights Commission who denied the exemption, so this is the next step. Live tweets are available on Lesbian Action Groups twitter/X account Feb 23 & 24, and online submission available Lesbian Action Group Inc. v AHRC: Online file if anyone wants to check it out.

Overall LAGs lawyers did a great job of explaining how sex and gender ID (along with sexual orientation) in our Sex Discrimination Act work more fairly if treated as separate characteristics each deserving of protection, rather than assuming Gender Identity changes one's sex for the purposes of the law. Provided guidelines from the time describing sex as biological and gender identity as social characteristics or something like that. The equivalent of Ben Cooper's approach in FWS, and IMO the most likely to be successful.

The AHRCs reasoning is that TWAW and excluding a vulnerable sub-group of women is discriminatory, that 90% of TW say having their GI publicly affirmed is important to them and they have high suicidality. And that the Sex Discrimination Act should not be used to discriminate against people protected within it (interestingly sexual orientation was added to the SDA at the same time as GI, yet AHRC had no problem with LAG excluding gay men from their events, so they are not being very consistent with their reasoning).

The outcome of the case may be affected by the ruling on Giggle V Tickle when that comes out soon. It wasn't obvious how the judge is leaning, but he did call out the AHRC's lawyer claiming LAG want to exclude TW because they see them as "unworthy", when there was no evidence of that in any of LAGs submissions. He also asked how the AHRCs reasoning applies to the exclusion of cisgender men, as the AHRC didn't seem to have any problem with that part of the exemption. (The answer was that being excluding from lesbian events validates men's identity so it's fine. Not sure that holds up well if you think about other groups who might be discriminated against in ways that are typical of how society treats people of a particular ethnicity etc).

While there wasn't a visible 'peaked in court' arc like Lord Hodge in FWS and the judge in Deeming V Pesutto, the questions suggest at least neutrality and willingness to explore the arguments, which is refreshing.

So now we wait and see.

Well done them, I to thought this was the appeal, damn more nail biting months to go. 🎉✊

Here’s the judgement with full reasons. Haven’t read it yet. Consensus seems to be that the judge has said that the tribunal interpreted the law incorrectly and it’s to go back to tribunal but heard by different people.

https://www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/single/2026/2026fca0432

I thought it was the appeal too. I wonder when it will be and what the new panel will be like.

Well considering it's taken them over a year to get permission to appeal "The decision of the Administrative Review Tribunal dated 20 January 2025 ......" it's probably going to be in 2027 before they get back into court again.

I can't believe we live in a world where you have to say this “Lesbians Born Female Only”. What the bloody hell else is a lesbian but a female. 🤬

The process is the punishment. What a farce. 🤬 🤬

Yes, I'm still reading it, but it looks as though the main points are that it was wrong to assume trans women can't be excluded via exemptions in the same way that gay men and straight women can be, and that the human rights of lesbians have to be considered in the decision-making process.

The win is based on those 2 grounds. Therefore the judge did not have to grapple with the sex/gender/cedaw issues, which will be affected by the Giggle ruling when it comes down. Which is interesting - on one hand it is a shame he didn't explore those issues, but on the other hand, the exemptions provide a 'safety valve' via which subgroups of the population may possibly be able to carve out spaces and rights even if Giggle loses.

They managed to completely side step the issue of who falls into what categories of sex and gender and sexual orientation. But the result may be that even if Giggle loses and sex is considered changeable via gender identity, you'd still have a subgroup of people recognised in law who are biologically female and lesbian (even if our laws considered them 'cis lesbians' or whatever), and these people could still apply for exemptions, either simply by virtue of being a group with some form of social disadvantage or if necessary by re-establishing the various disadvantages experienced by each group (I'm imagining someone standing up in court to highlight the centuries of oppression of cis women not being allowed to vote, sexual harassment and violence, pregnancy discrimination, removing custody from lesbian mothers etc and the AHRC either having to accept it or argue against the entire history of women's rights movements).
.

And the cost is an enormous punishment. There’s no AHRC adding their two cents worth out of the government dollar on our side.

Apparently the judge is awarding costs even though LAG didn't ask for them!

That fabulous news but the point is LAG didn’t know they would get that. It’s a lovely surprise to them, I’m sure. So they still had to fund the effort. As has Sall Grover, Jasmine Sussex and I don’t know who all else.

I’ve had a look on YT and this will give some background. I remember listening to it at the time. I used to listen to TTDU every week.

Agree its a massive burden of time, energy and financial costs to have to deal with all this.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-15/lesbian-action-group-court-judgment/106561902

Well look at that!! Not a mention of ‘anti-trans’ in that article that I can see.

I haven't read the judugement yet, but this from the ABC report seems vey positive:

Justice Moshinsky found exemptions to the Sex Discrimination Act could be allowed, even if they permitted conduct that would otherwise count as discrimination — contrary to what the tribunal ruled.

He found the tribunal was wrong to treat the mere fact that the exemption would involve discrimination against transgender women as automatically making it unlawful, since it was possible discrimination could result in a net positive outcome.

A good result so far,well done to all concerned, the fight goes on!
And thanks for the reporting.

I found it on Reddit. An active discussion happening there in response.

Interesting. Moshinsky seems to be suggesting that exemptions allowed by the SDA go beyond those explicitly outlined in the SDA. There are a number of exemptions specified for sex, and a very few for gender identity (competitive sports), so having exemption pathways beyond those explicitly included is an interesting prospect.

(c) Against the likely contingency that the Parliament has not been able to anticipate all the circumstances in which discriminatory conduct might nevertheless be justifiable, it has empowered the Commission to grant exemptions in particular cases.
(d) When the Commission comes to consider an application for exemption from the operation of the SDA, it can and should take into account the fact that the legislature has recognised that there are some circumstances in which discriminatory conduct can be justified by reference to considerations which are extraneous to the anti-discriminatory objects of the Act, and that it has conferred upon the Commission the power to identify circumstances beyond those specified in the SDA, in which conduct which is otherwise discriminatory should nevertheless be lawful.
88 Although these propositions are expressed in relation to the “Commission”, they apply also to the Tribunal when it is conducting a review of a decision of the Commission.

Any hint of where I might find it please?

It might be a different thread but it is being discussed here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderau/comments/1slxtkx/lag_win_appeal_in_federal_court_judgement/

https://www.reddit.com/r/aussie/comments/1sm0eos/lesbian_action_group_wins_federal_court_appeal_to/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAussie/comments/1slxo2n/lesbian_action_group_wins_federal_court_appeal_to/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AustralianPolitics/comments/1sly7ra/lesbian_action_group_wins_federal_court_appeal_to/

And there are more. I haven’t read everything I referenced above and I haven’t linked to all the threads that came up on the list.

They are upset that sex and gender identity are being treated as different things in Australian law...despite the fact that sex and gender identity are 2 separate characteristics in Australian law.

I'm glad for them, the article is to overheavy on the GI language 'assigned at birth' blah, blah, crap but at least it wasn't all one sided.

"He also found the Administrative Review Tribunal failed in its mandatory duty to have regard for two key principles:

• the "indivisibility and universality of human rights", and
• that "every person is free and equal in dignity and rights".

He said the tribunal did not fully consider the LAG's arguments in relation to those human rights — having wrongly decided it wasn't bound to — and must do so when it remade its decision."

It makes you wonder what the Tribunal based it's decision on if it wasn't Human Rights. Hopefully if they're forced to re-consider their decision through a human rights lens, there's only one conclusion they can come to.

I get the impression from the article that the tribunal would rather eat broken glass than let women have dignity and rights. 🤬

That's a great typo, by the way. Searching the net having a boogie! 😄

The comments on Pink News’s Facebook post about this are interesting!

This is such good news. And hopefully the beginning of a return to sanity in Oz.

I think this is an excellent example of just who this Lesbian group is trying to exclude.

x.com/preta_6/status/2044641103975215252?s=46

I'm not even a lesbian but I take 100% exception to this males claim to be a lesbian. Not on this planet, not in this universe, stay out of lesbian spaces man. 😤