All entries on Feminist Legal Clinic’s News Digest Blog are extracts from news articles and other publications, with the source available at the link at the bottom. The content is not originally generated by Feminist Legal Clinic and does not necessarily reflect our views.
[T]he University of Canberra has a brand-new offering, in the form of a Graduate Certificate in LGBTQIA+ Policy. Aimed at “professionals and aspiring changemakers”, this qualification will, the university claims, help students influence “decisions that count” and strengthen their “credibility in driving social change”.
External activities promoted for students by Sydney University include participation in the Mardi Gras parade, which is unfortunate given that it is currently losing money hand over fist, resulting in the after-party being cancelled for 2026. Perhaps the reason why this particular gravy train has slowed down is because corporates are no longer able to claim to be super “DEI”-focused when the Pride board is at loggerheads. It rejected member motions to centre the parade this year on transgender rights and to adopt slogans such as “Embrace trans rights not Trump”.
Operating under a protection racket reminiscent of UK-based Stonewall, this university is recognised as a Gold Employer of Choice for the Australian Workplace Equality Index – which effectively means they get a nice Kitemark for doing away with single-sex facilities and pretending that “trans women are women”.
What universities could really do with right now is a course that traces how the ever-growing gay rights movement came to encompass heterosexual kinksters, bored straight folks and young people with interesting haircuts, not to mention men in pup-fetish gear.
We need to teach the history of the Gay Liberation Movement, the actual one – not that imagined and distorted by the likes of Butler. Let these students learn about how and why genderism took such a hold over our institutions – an ideology so powerful and toxic it threatened the very basis of a democratic society – free speech and active learning.