Thanks for writing this article Julie. It's so good to see LAG's case presented in a clear and accurate way by a real journo. And thanks for airing the fact of AGP men and the way their paraphilia has suddenly been given nationwide legal backing. What a surreal situation. I continue to hope women's sex based rights will reinstated and we can then keep any men out of our spaces. As a lesbian I now know what it is to have to meet in secret... it's like time travel.
We should all be calling on our local members to repeal the self-ID laws. They make a mockery of public records such as birth certificates and they are the legal bedrock for the lunacy currently being debated and decided in various courts of the land. These laws represent the greatest threat to the safety of women in female-only spaces.
I am encouraged by seeing more people go back to the starting point of this issue - Blanchard. It was there where my journey toward the GC position started, I just followed the same names & titles Julie quoted and inevitably came to these conclusions.
However I have less confidence that the pursuit through the legal system will deliver relief in these areas. The fundamental problem is that the *legal category* "woman" has been lawfully redefined away from the previously universally assumed equivalence with biological female... The legal category female has now been defined as a tick on a form. You can't win playing by the rules stacked against you. I wish they would win but I expect these cases to be noble defeats...
The true solution will have to be legislative - and that means convincing the public gender ID is bogus and mostly driven by various pathologies - such as AGP. American Democrats made this mistake by hanging on a legal process for 50 years instead of doing it the right way and just legislating abortion as a federal right. Don't leave for the courts what needs to be done in parliament - it may actually even make things worse by creating entrenched precedents that can't later be undone even with legislation.
I think you're right. I can understand why people argue that it's necessary to test rights in the courts but I agree with you, the deck is too stacked against us.
I could not agree more. Leaving this to unelected courts and commissions that are bound by poor legislation will achieve very little. This needs to become a political issue.
Julie, thank you from a lesbian woman for such a clear and well-referenced account of recent events in the gender policy scene. Such an account is not available anywhere else. You also give a fair critique of the actions of the Australian Human Rights Commission. The apparent capture of governments and institutions by gender ideology has been deeply disturbing, even frightening.
Yes indeed Kate. I have found Julie's caareful research and clear writing in this domian to be the exception that proves the rule (the rule being that this is a near completely ideologically censored domain providing no sensible public facts or analysis of these dramatic legal struggles). I am not a lesbian or a woman, but I share your sense of being deeply disturbed and frightened about what the ideological capture of government and institutions means for the safety and association rights of (female) women.
Thanks Julie - It seems children and women are being used as fetish sanitising human shields by “dirty old men” as KJK put it. Did you see Genspect’s recently produced video explainer on autogynephilia ? It helpfully categorised AGPs that don’t cause harm (consensual cross dressing) and where it does. Those who wish to try to chemically breastfeed were classified as inherently disordered - as both Mother & Child are harmed.
I read this (excellent) piece and then I read the transcript of the Honestly podcast from The Free Press. It's an interview with Brianna Wu (who I have never heard of before.)
I think Wu's observation succinctly explains the mess that we are seeing playing out in the LAG action as well as Tickle v Giggle etc.
Wu is referring to her own MtF transition at the start.
******
Brianna Wu: I just felt like myself. I actually didn’t talk about it. I tried to dodge it as much as I could through most of my career because I didn’t want to be defined by this one thing. I just wanted to go on living my life. I think, actually, one of the biggest mistakes trans people make is making being trans the center of your life. One of the core problems is that my generation went and transitioned and then just went on with our lives as fast as we could, some better than others. But to the best of our ability, we moved on, and we left the leadership to a set of people that, I’m just going to be honest, I think they’re frauds. I think they’re immature. I think they are marching us off a cliff. I think they are turning ciswomen into our biggest enemies. They are creating terfs right and left. They’re using language to erase women.
Thanks Julie, even though you promised us a talk about sex but ended up telling us about the AHRC, and the very odd fetish of human rights.
How did we all cope before we had the AHRC? Bob Hawke was one of our outstanding PMs, but he wasn't perfect. In 1987 for instance, he boldly declared that "by 1990, no Australian child will be living in poverty." In a similar spirit in 1986 his government had set up the AHRC.
To be fair, under the UN’s implacable hand, everyone was getting into the human rights game. Human rights was the new global moral code intentionally replacing the edifice of traditional moral values. Describing these rights as “universal” made them seem objectively true.
But the Canadian philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has made the case that there are no such rights, and belief in them is one with superstitious belief in witches and unicorns. In other words, these new rights are just made up to suit the various sub-culture interests. The result is a collection of moral stances, each claiming to have a rational justification and each disputing the findings of the rival notions – the rights of lesbians vs the rights of transwomen, the right to life vs the right to an abortion, etc.
Which is pretty much what you are describing Julie. The unelected AHRC positions itself as an authoritarian priesthood of “impartial” administrators of this expanding list of universal human rights that are coming down through them from somewhere on high.
In Victoria this situation is poised to become worse with the Labor government’s proposed expansion of the anti-vilification laws. Under those proposed laws, this article might see you doing time at Dame Phyllis Frost Centre and bunking up with the transwomen there. Needless to say, that would be very wrong.
The human rights movement was the secular attempt to replace the church in the lives of the common man. Unfortunately, in the same way that churches got things badly wrong over the course of history, we're finding that the secular path has its own fair share of pitfalls. Indeed, we could argue that we've simply exchanged one church for another.
I've read MacIntyre closely as his work is the core stimulus for the late 20th century revival of Roman Catholic Aristotelian virtue ethics. So first up, MacIntyre is no opponent of universal human dignity, but yes, Human Rights are definitely a secularized attempt to legalize and universalize a fundamentally theological stance (that all people are of sacred worth because they are made in the image of God). It falls over for many reasons, not least of which that it is grounded in ersatz theology, not real theology (the sacredness of human dignity in human rights is simply asserted and based on, well, nothing). Whether about 1000 years of Western Christendom is in any meanigful manner comparable to the implosion of the West's traditional moral realism into anti-realist moral imbecility that we have achieve over the past 50 years of the post Christian West, is unlikely in my view. Not, of course, that any institution of power and public authority will be anything other than profoundly morally tainted by power and authority (and the Church does, after all, hold that sin is a perenial human condition), but we seem to be profoundly struggling to find any means of defining the difference between a viable public morality and the merely asserted special interest claims of incompatible personal constructions of 'value'. Yes Mr Mayes, you are right, we have a secualr preist caste handing down non-divine universal truths that are inherently incoherent and promote the war of all against all in the name of universal love and peace. And anti-realist linguistic magic is the sophistic power tool that gives one set of interests a "moral" claim over another set of interest. To get theological, we are in a shit load of trouble.
Thanks Julie. Amazing post. The only thing I am left wondering about male sexuality is, as a very boring, straight, monogamous, and happily married man is, am I even possible??
Thanks Paul! Well.. I'd argue that even a boring monogamous straight man is still a man with a male sexuality. Not that there's anything wrong with that! 😉
Thank you for this well researched and crystal clear writing on the horror that is facing women in our society, revealed through a small group of (mostly older) lesbians wanting to use a centre funded by the Government of Victoria, supposedly for the whole of the alphabet soup (LGBTIQetc.) I say women are attacked because lesbians are women and it seems heterosexual women are also expected to agree with the male definition of a woman. At 76 with over 50 years as a lesbian activist fighting for all minority groups rights, including people with gender dysphoria to be treated with respect, sadly now I am part of a group that a government body rules I do not deserve this respect! So thank you. Of course your views leave you in danger of attacks verbal and sadly even possibly physical from men who want us to believe they are women. Yes clearly a dangerous fetish issue. Sylvia
Thanks for writing this article Julie. It's so good to see LAG's case presented in a clear and accurate way by a real journo. And thanks for airing the fact of AGP men and the way their paraphilia has suddenly been given nationwide legal backing. What a surreal situation. I continue to hope women's sex based rights will reinstated and we can then keep any men out of our spaces. As a lesbian I now know what it is to have to meet in secret... it's like time travel.
It must indeed be surreal Emma. Thank you for the wonderful comments and solidarity.
We should all be calling on our local members to repeal the self-ID laws. They make a mockery of public records such as birth certificates and they are the legal bedrock for the lunacy currently being debated and decided in various courts of the land. These laws represent the greatest threat to the safety of women in female-only spaces.
YES!!! Join the global call for action re: the SelfID law going into effect in Germany on November 1 . . . https://lasst-frauen-sprechen.de/
#SelfIDHarms #WomenRise
I am encouraged by seeing more people go back to the starting point of this issue - Blanchard. It was there where my journey toward the GC position started, I just followed the same names & titles Julie quoted and inevitably came to these conclusions.
However I have less confidence that the pursuit through the legal system will deliver relief in these areas. The fundamental problem is that the *legal category* "woman" has been lawfully redefined away from the previously universally assumed equivalence with biological female... The legal category female has now been defined as a tick on a form. You can't win playing by the rules stacked against you. I wish they would win but I expect these cases to be noble defeats...
The true solution will have to be legislative - and that means convincing the public gender ID is bogus and mostly driven by various pathologies - such as AGP. American Democrats made this mistake by hanging on a legal process for 50 years instead of doing it the right way and just legislating abortion as a federal right. Don't leave for the courts what needs to be done in parliament - it may actually even make things worse by creating entrenched precedents that can't later be undone even with legislation.
I think you're right. I can understand why people argue that it's necessary to test rights in the courts but I agree with you, the deck is too stacked against us.
I could not agree more. Leaving this to unelected courts and commissions that are bound by poor legislation will achieve very little. This needs to become a political issue.
Julie, thank you from a lesbian woman for such a clear and well-referenced account of recent events in the gender policy scene. Such an account is not available anywhere else. You also give a fair critique of the actions of the Australian Human Rights Commission. The apparent capture of governments and institutions by gender ideology has been deeply disturbing, even frightening.
Yes indeed Kate. I have found Julie's caareful research and clear writing in this domian to be the exception that proves the rule (the rule being that this is a near completely ideologically censored domain providing no sensible public facts or analysis of these dramatic legal struggles). I am not a lesbian or a woman, but I share your sense of being deeply disturbed and frightened about what the ideological capture of government and institutions means for the safety and association rights of (female) women.
Thanks Julie - It seems children and women are being used as fetish sanitising human shields by “dirty old men” as KJK put it. Did you see Genspect’s recently produced video explainer on autogynephilia ? It helpfully categorised AGPs that don’t cause harm (consensual cross dressing) and where it does. Those who wish to try to chemically breastfeed were classified as inherently disordered - as both Mother & Child are harmed.
Thanks Jazz-- I wlll check out the Genspect video. Sounds like it makes perfect sense.
Great article, refreshingly to the point, accurate and clear about where the lunacy starts and where it should end.
I read this (excellent) piece and then I read the transcript of the Honestly podcast from The Free Press. It's an interview with Brianna Wu (who I have never heard of before.)
I think Wu's observation succinctly explains the mess that we are seeing playing out in the LAG action as well as Tickle v Giggle etc.
Wu is referring to her own MtF transition at the start.
******
Brianna Wu: I just felt like myself. I actually didn’t talk about it. I tried to dodge it as much as I could through most of my career because I didn’t want to be defined by this one thing. I just wanted to go on living my life. I think, actually, one of the biggest mistakes trans people make is making being trans the center of your life. One of the core problems is that my generation went and transitioned and then just went on with our lives as fast as we could, some better than others. But to the best of our ability, we moved on, and we left the leadership to a set of people that, I’m just going to be honest, I think they’re frauds. I think they’re immature. I think they are marching us off a cliff. I think they are turning ciswomen into our biggest enemies. They are creating terfs right and left. They’re using language to erase women.
🙏 Brianna Wu is awesome for oh so many reasons.
Thanks Julie, even though you promised us a talk about sex but ended up telling us about the AHRC, and the very odd fetish of human rights.
How did we all cope before we had the AHRC? Bob Hawke was one of our outstanding PMs, but he wasn't perfect. In 1987 for instance, he boldly declared that "by 1990, no Australian child will be living in poverty." In a similar spirit in 1986 his government had set up the AHRC.
To be fair, under the UN’s implacable hand, everyone was getting into the human rights game. Human rights was the new global moral code intentionally replacing the edifice of traditional moral values. Describing these rights as “universal” made them seem objectively true.
But the Canadian philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has made the case that there are no such rights, and belief in them is one with superstitious belief in witches and unicorns. In other words, these new rights are just made up to suit the various sub-culture interests. The result is a collection of moral stances, each claiming to have a rational justification and each disputing the findings of the rival notions – the rights of lesbians vs the rights of transwomen, the right to life vs the right to an abortion, etc.
Which is pretty much what you are describing Julie. The unelected AHRC positions itself as an authoritarian priesthood of “impartial” administrators of this expanding list of universal human rights that are coming down through them from somewhere on high.
In Victoria this situation is poised to become worse with the Labor government’s proposed expansion of the anti-vilification laws. Under those proposed laws, this article might see you doing time at Dame Phyllis Frost Centre and bunking up with the transwomen there. Needless to say, that would be very wrong.
Brilliant analysis David!
Maybe the food isn't that bad at Dame Phyllis.
( I did talk about sex though-- the male sex, which the AHRC wishes to erase from our reality. 😉)
The human rights movement was the secular attempt to replace the church in the lives of the common man. Unfortunately, in the same way that churches got things badly wrong over the course of history, we're finding that the secular path has its own fair share of pitfalls. Indeed, we could argue that we've simply exchanged one church for another.
That's certainly what I'd argue...
I've read MacIntyre closely as his work is the core stimulus for the late 20th century revival of Roman Catholic Aristotelian virtue ethics. So first up, MacIntyre is no opponent of universal human dignity, but yes, Human Rights are definitely a secularized attempt to legalize and universalize a fundamentally theological stance (that all people are of sacred worth because they are made in the image of God). It falls over for many reasons, not least of which that it is grounded in ersatz theology, not real theology (the sacredness of human dignity in human rights is simply asserted and based on, well, nothing). Whether about 1000 years of Western Christendom is in any meanigful manner comparable to the implosion of the West's traditional moral realism into anti-realist moral imbecility that we have achieve over the past 50 years of the post Christian West, is unlikely in my view. Not, of course, that any institution of power and public authority will be anything other than profoundly morally tainted by power and authority (and the Church does, after all, hold that sin is a perenial human condition), but we seem to be profoundly struggling to find any means of defining the difference between a viable public morality and the merely asserted special interest claims of incompatible personal constructions of 'value'. Yes Mr Mayes, you are right, we have a secualr preist caste handing down non-divine universal truths that are inherently incoherent and promote the war of all against all in the name of universal love and peace. And anti-realist linguistic magic is the sophistic power tool that gives one set of interests a "moral" claim over another set of interest. To get theological, we are in a shit load of trouble.
Thanks Julie. Amazing post. The only thing I am left wondering about male sexuality is, as a very boring, straight, monogamous, and happily married man is, am I even possible??
Thanks Paul! Well.. I'd argue that even a boring monogamous straight man is still a man with a male sexuality. Not that there's anything wrong with that! 😉
Dear Julie
Thank you for this well researched and crystal clear writing on the horror that is facing women in our society, revealed through a small group of (mostly older) lesbians wanting to use a centre funded by the Government of Victoria, supposedly for the whole of the alphabet soup (LGBTIQetc.) I say women are attacked because lesbians are women and it seems heterosexual women are also expected to agree with the male definition of a woman. At 76 with over 50 years as a lesbian activist fighting for all minority groups rights, including people with gender dysphoria to be treated with respect, sadly now I am part of a group that a government body rules I do not deserve this respect! So thank you. Of course your views leave you in danger of attacks verbal and sadly even possibly physical from men who want us to believe they are women. Yes clearly a dangerous fetish issue. Sylvia