In a local Melbourne eatery, women from the Lesbian Action Group (LAG) broke bread with one of the greatest female athletes the world has ever seen. Martina Navratilova dominated women’s tennis for decades, winning 18 Grand Slam singles titles and 31 major doubles titles. While in town for the Australian Open, Navratilova offered her support for LAG’s February appeal case for the right to hold single-sex public events for lesbians.
Background
In 2023 LAG wrote to the Victorian Pride centre for permission to hold an event to celebrate International Lesbian Day on October 8th for “lesbians born female.” Pride Centre, CEO Justine Dalla Riva refused. LAG then embarked on a series of legal challenges to rebuild the once-thriving lesbian community forced underground since the early 2000s when women lost the right to refuse entry to men.
Round one:
In 2023 LAG applied to the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) for a temporary exemption under the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA)1984 to hold public events for “lesbians born female.” The AHRC refused.
Round two:
LAG appealed the AHRC’s decision to the Federal Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) in January 2025. The ART upheld the AHRC refusal.
Round Three:
LAG appealed to the Federal Court on 23–24 February with a ruling expected in six months.
Justice Bromwich Ruling
In August 2024, Federal Court Justice, Robert Bromwich ruled in Tickle v Giggle for Girls that “sex” in the SDA was “changeable”, not “necessarily binary” and not “fixed at birth”.
The Bromwich ruling compels Australians to accept a metaphysical claim that a person’s subjective ‘identity’ overrides biological reality for all legal and social purposes.
The Bromwich ruling erases homosexuality because sex is no longer a biological category but a matter of a subjective, self-declared ‘gender identity’.
LAG’s legal arguments
LAG appealed to the Federal Court to reinstate their right to freedom of association and protection from male coercion and sexual predation.
Justice Mark Moshinsky cut through the legalese to point out the obvious hole in the HRC case by asking barrister, Celia Winnett a simple question:
“On what legal basis does the Commission distinguish between the exclusion of natal men and transgender women, notwithstanding their shared biological sex?”
Both Navratilova and LAG are fighting to assert simple truths:
Humans are a dimorphic species.
Sex is biological.
Homosexuality is same-sex attraction.
Men who identify as ‘trans lesbians and insist on ignoring women’s boundaries are heterosexual, predatory men.
The LAG ruling is due around August 2026.