Julia Gillard claims it was a ‘different time’ | The Spectator Australia

Julia Gillard’s attempt to backpedal on gender laws is wild.

For those who missed it, Julia Gillard’s Labor government was responsible for controversial changes to the Australian Sex Discrimination Act in 2013 that effectively erased biology and replaced it with gender identity.

According to fragments of speeches made by the Coalition to the Australian Sex Discrimination Act, the 2010 Federal Liberal team apparently took a version of gender identity inclusion to the election as policy. Although, it must have been a very quiet bit of background footnoting because it’s hard to find any trace of it online today.

The meat of the point is that both parties wanted credit for the changes to gender identity at the time. They genuinely thought they did a good job. Transgender rights were riding a cultural high after the victories of gay and lesbian acceptance. It was good politics…

Gillard may no longer be in government, but both major parties have had several chances to fix earlier mistakes and, just last week, chose not to do so.

Ignorance can no longer be used as an excuse for the problem of trans activism interfering with sex protections, but what about in 2012-13? Was Gillard right?

Not really.

Women were making complaints about privacy and potential risk while transgender activist groups were putting legal pressure on colleges and businesses to accommodate their wishes.

There were certainly enough articles in the news and legal conflicts popping up to alert politicians in Australia of a problem with their legislation.

And they did not even have to go looking for it, because there was an excellent submission made to the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill (2012) by a professor at the University of Melbourne which spelled at the problem extremely clearly.

There are only two questions that matter in this debate:

Can a human being change their sex? Do we believe sex-based division in sports and private areas is valid?

The answer to the first question is obviously no. Your sex is decided at conception and nothing can change it.

Do we, as a society, believe in women’s sports? Do we want women’s bathrooms? Women’s clubs? etc

If the public answer is yes, then it is the duty of Parliament to change the law to reflect the voice of the people. As it stands, they outright refuse to do so. They are saying, by their actions, that transgender rights matter more than biological rights.

[Ed: Yes it was very much a bipartisan effort and passed in the lower house with the support of the coalition led by Tony Abbott who furthered the cause by his very public support of Cate McGregor on ABC’s Australian Story soon afterwards.]

Source: Julia Gillard claims it was a ‘different time’ | The Spectator Australia