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Australia’s under-fire Sex Discrimination Commissioner Anna Cody secretly queried whether any influence could be used to block the reappointment of a senior UN human rights official who had strongly opposed radical trans ideology and who sought to intervene against the landmark sex discrimination case brought by trans woman Roxanne Tickle.
In an internal email to Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) chief executive Leanne Smith, obtained by The Australian under freedom of information laws, Dr Cody criticises the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Reem Alsalem, over her “intervention on issues of trans women and their rights”.
Dr Cody asks Ms Smith whether the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) – of which the AHRC is a member – “can have any role in influencing the reappointment of special procedures and express a view about the inappropriateness of an appointment”.
Ms Alsalem told The Australian she was “disappointed but not surprised” by Dr Cody’s move, pointing out that the UN Human Rights Council placed great emphasis on protecting its special rapporteurs – independent human rights investigators – from “interference, intimidation, or reprisals”. “I find Ms Cody’s judgement of how I do my work rather ironic given that it is coming from her,” Ms Alsalem said. “At least I am able to clearly define the subject of my mandate – women and girls – and their sex as biologically female. As I have said in my opening remarks at the Human Rights Council session of June 2024, ‘you cannot protect what you cannot define’.”
Dr Cody has been the subject of mounting calls to resign in recent weeks over claims she has promoted trans rights over women’s rights, and after telling a Senate estimates committee she didn’t understand the term biological men.