Women Speak Tasmania

Category: Letters to the Editor

  • Injustice to Victims

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    In response to Craig Thomson’s opinion piece “The dangerous appeal of naming and shaming sex offenders and vigilantism” (The Examiner, 29 March 2026), I must disagree. Leniency to the criminal is injustice to the victim. Tasmania’s approach to paedophiles remains far too soft. Offenders convicted of possessing child sexual abuse material or indecently assaulting children…

  • Equality in Law

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    Owen Sinclair’s article (19 March 2026) on Daryl Russell’s repeated homophobic abuse in rural Winnaleah — including slurs, property damage, and threats disrupting daily life — is deeply concerning. It highlights the real harm prejudice inflicts on individuals due to their sexual orientation. The Tasmanian Government’s anti-hate laws (passed December 2025) mark positive progress, expanding…

  • Moratorium Needed in Gender Transitions

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    The state election campaign saw renewed debate about ‘gender-affirming care’ in children. Recent international developments highlight major concerns about the ‘gender-affirming’ approach. Bipartisan consensus in many countries shows major changes are needed in paediatric gender medicine. The 2024 UK Cass Review on gender transition interventions in young people found no clear evidence supporting ‘gender-affirming’ interventions…

  • Suicide Narrative Causes More Harm

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    In her opinion piece, outgoing Working it Out CEO Lynn Jarvis (Mercury 23 January 2025) outlines what appear to be alarming statistics on suicidality in the so-called LGBTIQA+ community. However, if the survey referred to was conducted online and the participants were self-selected and self-identifying into this group, then it has little to no scientific…

  • Age and Agency

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    The proposed federal social media minimum age legislation will prohibit children under 16 from accessing social media accounts, citing their increased vulnerability to platform-related harms. While the Act does not delve into the physiological basis basis for this vulnerability, it is well-establish that the emotional and impulsive limbic system is not fully tempered by the…

  • Pseudoscience & the Olympic fiasco

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    Before the Sydney Olympics in 2000 athletes underwent genetic testing. A simple cheek swab would ensure everyone was competing in their respective male and female categories. Any issue with intersex athletes was dealt with on a case to case basis. This was done to ensure fairness and safeguarding of all athletes.  Somehow the International Olympic…

  • Inquiry Into Sex Self ID after Olympics Fiasco

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    Tasmanians will no doubt be interested in the IOCs turning a blind eye to the International Boxing Organisation’s warning about the serious problems with allowing males to compete in women’s sports. While the Olympics fiasco concerns a person with a Disorder of Sex Development, DSD, and not a trans identified male competing in women’s sports,…

  • The Cass Review significance

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    Rodney Croome has failed to grasp the significance of the Cass Review ratings of gender clinics in Australia outlined in Ben Seeder’s important investigative article (Examiner 16 June 2024). Dr. Cass alarming ratings on the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne have direct implications for service delivery at the Tasmanian Gender Service. In 2019 the National Association…

  • First, do not harm

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    I could not agree more with Rodney Croome (Mercury 17 April) that ‘no one should have to endure being told they are fundamentally broken’.  But, equally, I would have thought that it is no great leap for Rodney Croome to understand that no child is born in the wrong body, that no child is broken.…

  • Tickle vs Giggle

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    On Tuesday 9 April 2024 an extremely important court case for women in Australia and all over the world started in the Federal Court in Sydney. It is the first case to arise which tests the change to the law brought in by the Gillard Government in 2013 which allows men to change their sex…