The Australian Greens’ new leader, Larissa Waters, is resisting calls to intervene in the widening row over the minority party’s embrace of transgender rights and halt a purge of members who don’t toe the line.
The expulsion of Greens co-founder Drew Hutton has brought to a dramatic head tensions around the alleged hounding of those who question the party’s pro-trans platform.
“I was expelled for arguing that it was appropriate for the principal of a girls’ school to not enrol boys who identify as girls,” said Gail Hamilton, 55, a former state council delegate of the Queensland Greens who ran for office in Townsville on three occasions after joining in 2000.
“The expulsion process felt like a kangaroo court, where I was not given the space to defend myself.”
Mr Hutton, who established the party in 1992 with Bob Brown, stepped up his criticism of Senator Waters, accusing her of standing by while he was denied due process and a fair hearing when her home branch in Queensland went after him.
Mr Hutton said upwards of 30 former Greens members had reached out to him about being expelled for challenging the party’s position on gender. Most were women. Many more quit after being subjected to harassment for voicing reservations about trans people accessing normally segregated spaces such as public and school toilets, changing rooms or in sports where transitioning boys competed against girls.
Anna Kerr’s experience in Sydney was one of the cases that prompted Mr Hutton to take to Facebook in 2022 to urge the party to review its gender policies, triggering the internal complaints that led to his expulsion last month. This was upheld by the Greens’ state council on Sunday.
Ms Kerr, a human rights lawyer, was suspended and expelled from the party for, among other alleged wrongdoings, holding the view that men cannot be women. Her public criticism of protests against the exclusion of transgender women from the women-only McIver’s Ladies Baths in Sydney was deemed to be transphobic by her critics in the party.
Her legal service, the Feminist Legal Clinic, was defunded by the Sydney City Council. “I think it’s great that Drew is speaking out,” she said on Monday. “We need more people to do that. But the fact is many people just choose to leave the Greens rather than be subject to the sort of abuse and harassment that happens if you cross certain interests … in the party.”
Source: Testing the Waters: Greens leader backs party purge to enforce transgender zeal