Dear Minister Gallagher,
Re: Female stakeholders demand urgent restoration of sexed-based protections and rights for women and girls in Australia
We write as a coalition of independent feminist organisations who are direct and essential stakeholders in all matters impacting the rights, representation, and realities of us in Australia. Our coalition represents a cross-section of advocacy groups, service providers, survivors, researchers and grassroots leaders whose primary mandate is safeguarding our protections, dignity, and substantive participation in Australian society.
Minister, the issue we wish to rase is this: Over the last decade, the rights and safeguards that once protected us under Australian law have been systematically dismantled. Amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, notably the introduction of ‘gender identity’ in 2013 and the removal of definitions of ‘woman’ and ‘man’, have eroded legal clarity and rendered female-only spaces, services, and opportunities contested or unavailable in practice. Current policy and law prioritise ‘gender identity’ over biological sex, subordinating our privacy, safety, and participation, and making our experiences and evidence invisible.
Despite repeated efforts – submissions, letters, and international human rights reviews – by the individuals and associations in our coalition to engage with government on these matters, we have been persistently excluded from genuine consultation and decision-making. This exclusion directly contravenes Article 7 of CEDAW, which obliges Australia to ensure the active participation of women, through our own representative groups, in all policymaking at every level.
We remind you that our groups have provided continuous evidence of stakeholder engagement including documented correspondence with your office, submissions to the United Nations, parliamentary evidence, and legal analysis, all of which have been disregarded in the legislative process. Our expertise and lived experience must be brought from the margins to the centre of debate and reform.
The following matters demand your urgent and immediate attention:
● The prevailing interpretation of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (SDA) – amended in 2013 to include ‘gender identity’ – has dismantled the capacity for us, as a protected class under international law, to exercise our rights to health, safety, privacy, and fair representation in public and private life. Female-only spaces, services and opportunities have become legally contestable or outright unavailable.
● Contrary to claims of balanced consultation, the dominant voices now setting the direction of policy are those advancing gender identity or sex self-identification, with us relegated to the periphery or ignored outright. Critical voices from our coalition are not just left out: we are actively denied standing as relevant stakeholders in decision-making that most profoundly affects us.
● The Federal Court’s ruling in Tickle v Giggle, and the stance taken by the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, have entrenched the principle that any attempt to offer female-only platforms or services for us risks unlawful discrimination, so long as gender identity remains the guiding criterion. This outcome contravenes Article 7 CEDAW, as well as the plain intent of Australia’s obligations to women’s political and substantive participation.
● ‘Treating everyone equally’ has, in practice, meant the erasure of our ability to assert basic sexed-based protections and rights for us when these come into conflict with the claims of males who identify as female. Related to this, the conflation of ‘sex’ and ‘gender identity’ undermines the data integrity required for evidence-based policy and the ability of us to articulate or advocate our own needs.
● Our groups have provided a continuous record of stakeholder engagement: documented correspondence, United Nations submissions, parliamentary evidence, public statements, and published legal analysis. Each has been ignored or dismissed in government process, in breach of the spirit and letter of CEDAW Article 7.
● There has been a stifling of parliamentary debate, which you yourself have participated in. In September 2024, when as the Leader of the Government in the Senate you blocked the first reading of the SDA Amendment (Acknowledging Biological Reality) Bill 2024. This contravened standard parliamentary practice where first readings are typically allowed as a matter of course. You stated that the government would oppose bills that “seek to harm people, including young people” and that this was “a red line” for the government, but you provided no explanation of how simply defining biological sex in the Sex Discrimination Act would cause such harm.
● The consistent pattern of refusing to recognise women and girls as the definitive stakeholders in matters concerning female-only spaces and sexed-based protections and rights further trivialises our role and subordinates our needs to those of lobbying groups advocating ‘gender identity’ as the primary determinant of access and opportunity.
Minister, we call for the immediate and public recognition of our coalition as stakeholders in all matters relating to the law and policy affecting us. We ask you to:
1. Restore biological definitions and robust sexed-based, female-only protections and rights for us in the SDA, guaranteeing access to female-only spaces, services, sport, and advocacy.
2. Institute a genuine, independent review process in policy and law, led by and inclusive of us, as required by CEDAW Article 7.
3. Mandate open consultation and a moratorium on new ‘gender identity’ policies until our representative voices have been heard and actioned.
4. Issue clear national guidance restoring the right of providers and sports bodies to create and maintain female-only provisions for us, without risk of legal sanction.
5. End the practice of combining ‘women and gender-diverse people’ in statistics and policy targets, which obfuscates our material reality and removes vital pathways for us to challenge our exclusion.
Minister, we reiterate: the expertise and lived experience of our coalition must be brought from the margins to the centre of public debate and legislative reform. Only full engagement with us, as female stakeholders, will begin to redress the policy failures of recent years and honour Australia’s international commitments. We await your acknowledgement and details of your plans to rectify this systemic exclusion.
Yours Sincerely,
Dr Megan Poore
per Feminist coalition
SIGNATORIES
