While some social causes, like environmentalism or pacificism, unite the Greens, there are others that divide it, and can cost it members.
Hutton’s expulsion over his comments about the party’s handling of internal debates exposed the split between advocates of “sex-based rights”, who do not believe it is possible to transition sex, and trans-inclusive members, a faction that Hutton has provocatively labelled a “cult”.
Hutton was expelled for expressing concern that it was undemocratic for the Victorian party to oust its convenor for trying to debate party policy on gender, and for failing to delete comments on a social media post from “women saying there are only two sexes, male and female”.
“If you say … ‘I don’t think that trans women, biological men who identify as female, should access women’s change rooms’ or advocate to restrict access to puberty blockers, you’ll get expelled from the Greens. That’s just wrong, it’s hypocritical to say you believe in free speech, but to be prepared to expel members over that.”
Hutton was backed by former federal Greens leaders Bob Brown and Christine Milne, who wrote that “any member may hold a view different from Greens policy”.
“Consensus decision-making is the hallmark of Greens policy formulation making … We oppose Drew Hutton’s expulsion … and advocate that his membership be restored,” they said.
Hutton says nationwide, at least 40 members of the Greens have been forced out of the party or expelled over this issue, a “purge” whose greatest “victims are women who have been really active on environmental issues”.
One such member was Anna Kerr, principal solicitor of the Feminist Legal Clinic, who was expelled after a complaint about her “transphobic and trans-exclusionary views” signed by members including NSW state MPs Abigail Boyd and Jenny Leong.
Kerr says the Greens “don’t adhere” to one of their founding pillars: democratic decision-making. “They talk about consensus decision-making, but if you obtain it by bullying people out of the party, I don’t think that’s a consensus,” Kerr says.
Source: Lee Rhiannon and Max Chandler-Mather defend Greens party from Drew Hutton’s criticism
History shows so often that the revolution ends up eating itself.
The Khmer Rouge was a classic example of this. They turned on themselves and purged and purged. Those who were in Tuol Sleng as torturers ended up as its victims.
The USSR was notorious for its purges.
This thing is, the high moral ground is very small and there is only room for a few at the top. And yes, in their obsession with the trans stuff they have turned themselves into a cult.
Lee Rhiannon and Max Chandler-Mather are two of the most radicalised members of the Greens, at least from my watching from afar. They are like the Khmer Rouge’s Sorbone educated leaders.
It’s all well and good devising great sounding social theory but when these are put into action the results can be terrifying.
Most people don’t know that the Khmer Rouge emptied Pnom Pen in 24 hours. A city of 2 million people forced onto the roads and out into the rural areas with no shelter, no infrastructure, no medical aid. Everyone, elderly, those in hospital, children, pregnant women, the lot.