Rodney Croome’s predictions about the Coalition rolling out a trans fear campaign and a looming culture war in the lead up to the coming federal election (Canberra Times 10 Jan 2025), tell us that many in the LGBTQA+ community are nervous about the implications of the US election on voter sentiment in Australia.
While Rodney targets LGB Alliance Australia and trans exclusionary feminists as wanting to take trans rights away, he fails to address the core issues over the ever increasing conflict over women’s and children’s rights.
Drawing on previous election history on the gay marriage debate, Rodney imagines that the same campaign tactics, which he often refers to as ‘judo activism’, will result in a victory for gender diverse Australians.
While attacking the Coalition and Labor for not defending trans rights, it is not clear who Rodney is suggesting the LGBTQIA+ community should be voting for.
But, Rodney is correct in suggesting that amending the Sex Discrimination Act will be part of an election campaign by a broad coalition of groups which support women’s and children’s rights and safeguarding.
These groups understand that a one size fits all trans policy agenda culminating in self ID laws across all jurisdictions, has resulted in the worst Government meddling in the lives of the majority of Australians.
Six International Sporting organisations have now banned inclusion of trans identified males in women’s sports on the grounds of safety and fairness. The international reach of the gender debate seems to be peripheral to Rodney’s style of judo activism but has certainly been front and centre in the public’s eye after the Olympics this year.
The implementation of bans and restrictions in numerous countries have come about after years of research and evaluation of what is now being described as experimental medicine that lacks any evidence base. Rodney’s allegation of double standards does not apply as…….
To suggest a coming fear-mongering anti trans federal election campaign belies the very serious impacts that sex self ID laws have had on women and children and our multicultural community in Australia.
Dr Elizabeth Caballero (retired GP)
Women Speak Tasmania
Op-Ed to The Canberra Times
Here is the full transcript of the opinion piece by Rodney Croome which appeared in The Canberra Times on 9 January 2025
OPINION: History is about to repeat and I fear some of our most vulnerable will be under attack
The 20th anniversary of John Howard’s ban on marriage equality ahead of the 2004 Australian election is a reminder that another LGBTIQA+ culture war is likely to taint the 2025 election.
In 2004 John Howard amended the Marriage Act to make it clear that marriage could only be between a man and a woman. It was a move designed to wedge Labor and stir up homophobia for electoral gain. It was a tactic adopted directly from the US, where George Bush Junior promised to ban same-sex marriages ahead of the 2004 presidential election.
A generation later, the conditions are right for a similar election war over the rights of trans and gender diverse people.
Attacks on trans rights figured prominently in the 2024 American election, with conservative commentators convinced those attacks helped win Donald Trump a second term and deliver Republican control of Congress.
In Australia, parties to the right of the Coalition will inevitably seek to replicate Trump’s success by also attacking trans and gender diverse people.
To diffuse this challenge to its voter base, the Coalition is likely to promise its own trans rights rollback.
The Coalition knows Labor is unlikely to push back because the ALP needs to win anti-LGBTIQA+ seats in western Sydney and regional Queensland — the seats that voted No to marriage equality in 2017 — to retain majority government.
I know some Labor figures would contest my prediction and declare the ALP is on the side of trans people, but let’s be serious.
In 2004 Labor supported Howard’s marriage equality ban to keep or win seats in Western Sydney. Since winning government in 2022, Labor hasn’t once publicly defended trans people from attack for the same reason. That’s very unlikely to change when an election is declared and the Coalition rolls out its anti-trans fear campaign.
I fervently hope I’m wrong. I hope the Coalition takes the high road, and Labor stands firm should it not.
But I was intimately involved in advocating for marriage equality in 2004, and I correctly predicted Howard’s ban months before it was unveiled. I feel it would be irresponsible not to point to the likelihood that history is about to repeat.
Should there be transgender election fear campaigns in 2025, what would they focus on?
A national review of health care for young transgender people is likely, as well as a ban on puberty blockers and hormones until the review is completed.
The likelihood of this has increased since the UK’s Labour Government put a permanent ban in place following a review commissioned by the previous Tory Government.
Other possible election fear campaigns could focus on amending the Sex Discrimination Act to make it harder for trans women to play women’s sport, and attempts to ban school courses, resources and groups that affirm young trans and gender diverse people.
Such fear campaigns will be amplified by groups opposed to trans rights, including the so-called “GLB Alliance” and trans exclusionary feminists.
In the US these relatively small groups have suddenly found themselves with far more resources in the lead-up to elections where trans rights figured, and the same may happen in Australia.
Amplification is also likely from trans-skeptical media like Sky News and The Australian newspaper, as well as serial election meddler, Elon Musk.
If Labor is unlikely to contest fearmongering about these issues, defending trans and gender diverse people will fall to the LGBTIQA+ community, non-government human rights groups and family members.
Naturally, we should make the case that transgender Australians already experience high levels of discrimination, hate and suicide, which fear campaigns make worse.
On top of this are the double standards inherent in anti-trans policy-making.
For example, in the US and UK puberty blockers are banned for young trans people, but allowed for young people who have early-onset puberty or adolescent endometriosis.
This double standard will probably also be part of any Australian ban.
I believe another important argument, especially against a Liberal Party fear campaign, is personal freedom from government meddling.
Young trans people, together with their parents and doctors, should decide what treatment is best. The government has no role dictating a one-size-fits-all response to the health care of young trans Australians.
The 2004 same-sex marriage ban eventually had the opposite effect to the one intended. It led to a determined, persistent campaign for marriage equality that delivered a strong majority of Australians in support of reform in 2017.
I have no doubt trans fearmongering in the 2025 election would eventually have the same positive effect, fostering greater respect for the humanity of trans and gender diverse people.
But before then, the nation faces a likely attack on some of our most vulnerable young people.
The more of us stand with these young people, the quicker Australia will evolve to embrace gender diversity.