Very confused’: Australia’s Human rights boss grilled over trans pregnancy protection law

[PiwakawakaEarrings]

I know many outside of Aus (including me) were following the Giggle v Tickle case so you might be interested in this. Sall has shared it on X as well.

It’s one of those clips where you think you have to be watching a satirical skit. But no.

“Australia’s human rights boss has been grilled over a law that protects trans woman from being discriminated against by an employer who thinks they might be pregnant - despite conceding that policy does not apply to a man seeking such a position.

Australian Human Rights Commissioner Anna Cody told a Senate Estimates hearing transgender women are protected under the Sex Discrimination Act if they are denied a job because an employer believes they are pregnant”.

Full article:

https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/very-confused-australias-human-rights-boss-grilled-over-trans-pregnancy-protection-law/news-story/3a0bec14cbb856cd00fbfad16ce1640d?amp

Sall on X

x.com/salltweets/status/2059210493227860393?s=46

I don’t think this is quite the gotcha people think it is. I think the commissioner is trying to say that you can’t refuse someone a job or promotion on the basis of potential pregnancy, whether because they are a woman of childbearing age or you just think they’re a woman. She can’t articulate this well without admitting that the hypothetical person in question would actually be male so she ends up looking ridiculous. It’s is of course ridiculous, but perhaps not for the reasons some people think.

This seems sensible. If I’m denied a job becuase an employer thinks I’m a Gypsy, but I’m not, I’ve still been discriminated against on grounds of race.

Discrimination due to being presumed to have a protected characteristic is a thing under our EA.

But there isn't a biological fact that means there is no possibility that you could be a gypsy (the accepted term is Roma now, btw).

Maybe the value in it isn't because it's a gotcha but because she sounds stupid and ridiculous. Let the sunshine on the stupidity, the more sun the better. There is no way to make this batshittery coherent when you get to debate it, so the more it's debated the better.

The biological fact is my DNA. It makes me male and it makes me not a Gypsy. No possibility I could be either, given the biological facts.

(I wouldn’t use Gypsy if I felt it was a slur. But I know only very few Gypsies, afaik, and it’s the term that they each use).

(Edited for clarity).

In general I totally agree. But this particular one doesn’t seem like an example of batshittery at all. It’s totally coherent (albeit pretty unlikely) that a trans woman could be denied employment because of a mistaken belief that he is pregnant. The employer has acted in a discriminatory fashion and the candidate has suffered a harm because of it. Right now I don’t think either the EA or Australian federal law protects that but it’s not crazy that it should do. It would be more consistent with how other PCs are treated.

I think the legal point is probably valid. In the UK: we are protected if people assume we have a PC that we don't actually have. So if I (a heterosexual woman) am beaten up because my attacker thinks I'm a lesbian and they hate lesbians, it doesn't matter in law that I am not a lesbian. In theory, a man could pass as a woman (yes, I know it's very unlikely but still possible) and so an employer could treat him as though he may become pregnant.

But the glory of the video is really the commissioner wriggling on the end of a hook.

Gypsy is displayed around seaside resorts and fairs all over the country, they still use "Gypsy".

Gypsy isn't a slur if they self identify as Gypsy, not Roma.

A logical response would have been to discuss discrimination by perception. If a male was wrongly perceived as a female and denied a job because the recruiter was concerned about the potential for maternity leave - this would be discrimination.

I don’t think she was struggling and failing to communicate this. I think she doesn’t want to bring ‘passing’ in to the mix and she doesn’t want any opening to differentiate trans women from women. You could see she was guarded when talking and thinking very hard about how to phrase things. She was policing her own speech to control what she said. I doubt she is a poor communicator.

Travelling communities is the umbrella term. Saying we all must use "Roma" is like saying all British people are English.

Because you've also got Romany, and Irish Traveller and Scottish Gypsy/Traveller....

Gypsy is a slur to some, but not all.

Nonetheless, even if most people are misunderstanding her point, it's because the whole premise is incomprehensible to most people.

Ergo, it doesn't reflect reality.

It's an interesting scenario. TW sues on the basis he didnt get job because Australian employer thought he was or might shortly be pregnant.
Employer can't say no, I absolutely didn't, because I could tell you were a man (because that would be to deny his gender identity or the fact he was wearing a V necked top or something).
Which makes it harder for the employer to defend the claim brought by a TW than a claim brought by a man without a trans identity. Or even, potentially, a claim brought by a woman since whatever defence the employer would legitimately have, the employer could still run.

The clip in the OP came from this meeting of the Australian Senate. Discussion of gender, biological sex, Giggle v Tickle and the Lesbian Action Group's case starts at 6 hours in. It's a great watch if you've got a couple of hours spare.

For a quick flavour of the meeting watch Senator Michaelia Cash tell it as it is at 7:19 in.

https://www.youtube.com/live/yZRzmlfY1-o?si=JQzf_LLv9q7zp5PU

In the UK, there is no protection from perceptive discrimination as to the protected characteristic of pregnancy (it's explicitly excluded, as is that of marriage). Unfavourable treatment of a woman because she is perceived as possibly or potentially pregnant is treated as direct sex-discrimination. So if it happened to a transwoman I assume that it would be perceptive sex-discrimination, but I'm unaware of case law.

Presumably Australia has to make such a meal of this because they've already mangled their law into unworkability in the service of ideology. They could just make perceptive discrimination as to pregnancy illegal irrespective of the sex of the complainant, but maybe that wouldn't be affirming enough?

So it's 'The Virgin and the Roma' now?

It reminds me of the Eskimos, the self-righteous decided they should be called Innuit, they just didn't bother to check with the Innuit, because if they had they would have found out that they prefer to be called Eskimo's.

Not sure what's with the derail about the correct term for gypsies/Roma/travellers, I'm actually interested in what the average view on the street in Australia is on the whole goggle v Tickle topic. I mean, do people support this BS?

It’s hard to say. There is a LOT of ‘be kind’ still around and the issues has not been on the majority of people’s radar. This means that the proposed amendments to the law can be easily cast as ‘anti trans’ because most people just haven’t had time to think about it. The mainstream press coverage here has been very light, basically ‘we need to make sure all vulnerable minorities are protected’ without any real analysis of the rights conflict. Then again, there’s a lot of down to earth aussies thinking ‘what the shit, that’s a bloke’. The PM has dismissed the whole thing as a culture war but that’s not going down super well. First of all because a lot of people are deciding culture is something worth warring about (huge rise in support for the anti immigration populist party) and also women are getting wind of the fact their concerns are being dismissed.

Apologies for causing confusion over Roma/gypsy terms.