On 18 February, AAWAA, the Coalition of Activist Lesbians, and the Feminist Legal Clinic met with the President and Commissioners of the Australian Human Rights Commission to discuss the operation of Australia’s sex and gender framework and its implications for women’s sex-based protections.
We requested this meeting with the AHRC President Hugh de Kretser, Sex Discrimination Commissioner Anna Cody, and Human Rights Commissioner Lorraine Finlay to set out our concerns that the cumulative effect of current laws, policies and administrative practices relating to sex and gender has resulted in uncertainty about the scope and application of women’s sex-based protections and rights.
At the start of the meeting, after some brief opening remarks that we used to frame the agenda, the Feminist Legal Clinic addressed the definitional foundations, highlighting the absence of a clear statutory definition of sex, the circular character of current gender identity definitions, and the inconsistency between the Commission’s public explanation of sex and the position advanced in its submissions in Tickle v Giggle.
Later in the meeting, building on this, the Coalition of Activist Lesbians demonstrated that lesbians are a distinct group with specific needs, and argued for the protection of lesbian‑only spaces. CoAL outlined its long‑standing role as a peak lesbian body with ECOSOC consultative status with the United Nations and described how policy settings and institutional practices have increasingly sidelined lesbians within broader identity categories.
AAWAA’s first main focus was to invite the Commission to reflect on how its existing inquiry powers might be used to clarify the current landscape. We noted that section 11 of the Australian Human Rights Commission Act empowers the Commission to inquire into ‘acts or practices’ that may be inconsistent with human rights, and suggested that an inquiry into how the sex and gender framework is operating for women and girls could be a constructive use of that function.
Our second main focus was to raise concerns about the Commission’s institutional role and perceived neutrality in contested areas such as sex and gender. We pointed to patterns across several acts and practices – the AHRC’s amicus interventions, its national guidance (especially in sport), and its engagement with international mechanisms – and explained how, from our perspective as women, these can appear aligned with one side of a highly contested debate.