Letter sent to Anna Cody on the 07 October 2025
Dear Commissioner Cody,
I watched your address to the National Press Club September 24 with great interest. Your response to the question from Women’s Advocate Megan Poore gave me hope that you will engage in open, earnest consultation with ordinary women, around the removal of women’s rights that has resulted from extensive lobbying by political transactivist groups riding a very lucrative public funded gravy train: https://www.governmentnews.com.au/concerns-raised-about-government-links-to-advocacy-group/
My work as a social worker over the last 20 years has brought me in to contact with many victims of sexual assault, domestic violence and child sexual abuse. It is clear from providing services to victims of male crimes, that it is of utmost importance to them that they are able to access support services and refuges, as well as everyday spaces – such as swimming pool changing rooms, shop fitting rooms – where they have confidence that men are excluded by law from these spaces.
Women struggled hard, over decades, for their rights to associate in single sex spaces. Grass roots action by mostly working class women led eventually to the protections afforded to them under the Sex Discrimination Act, which recognised the fact that it is women’s physical bodies that place them at greatly increased vulnerability to sexual and physical abuse by men.
97 percent of sexual and violent crime I committed by men, regardless of how they identify, against by far mostly women and children.
Gender self-ID laws hastily approved by well-meaning politicians have effectively ended women’s rights to female only services and spaces, with devastating real life consequences for victim survivors. Such consequences have been observed world wide, with varying recognition of the need to urgently clarify “women” as a distinct protected category.
This has seen women shun women’s rape crisis centers, because they were not guaranteed to be male-free.
In Victoria, some of the country’s most vulnerable women are forced to have men in women’s prisons.
When men identify as women, they continue to follow male patterns of offending; HERE: https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/what-did-we-learn-from-the-census/
As a lifelong Labor voter, I’m concerned that the conservative right, including Pauline Hanson, are already exploiting the fact that the left allows no reasonable discussion of these issues. As elsewhere in the world, failure to engage courageously with these issues will drive a swing away from Labor.
In Australia, we remain far behind in catching up with the debate, with all tiers of government continuing to be signed up to (Stonewall’s Australian equivalent) ACON’s Workplace Equality Index. In time, ACON’s gravy train will also come to an end, and many with egg on their faces will be looking for a side exit. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/15/stonewall-diversity-champions-trans-lgbt-charity-workplace/
Many well meaning politicians are naive to the dangers posed to women by gender self -ID laws, particularly in relation to fetishistic men with autogynephilia. Look, for example at this autogynephile man who is privileged to advise the AMA: https://genevievegluck.substack.com/p/trans-identified-male-hired-by-australian
I believe that you have the courage and integrity to consult genuinely with women’s advocacy groups, and that you will show leadership in working towards restoring women’s sex-based rights as a matter of urgent priority.
Yours sincerely,
E. Gillanders
Another letter to Anna Cody on the 21 January 2026
Dear Commissioner Cody,
I am following up regarding my last letter to you 7 October 2025, as I did not receive any response.
Yours sincerely,
E. Gillanders