Category: Media Releases
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Women Speak Tasmania calls for gender identity to be removed from Conversion Practices Bill
Women Speak Tasmania has lodged a formal submission on the Tasmanian Greens’ Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2026 and provided copies to every Member of the Tasmanian Parliament. The organisation supports a targeted prohibition on conversion practices directed at sexual orientation but strongly opposes the inclusion of gender identity within the same legislative framework. The submission…
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Women’s Right to Freedom of Political Opinion Hearing at TASCAT
Women Speak Tasmania will tomorrow be presenting their submissions at TASCAT over our appeal against the rejection by the Anti-Discrimination Commission of our complaint of discrimination by Libraries Tasmania for the cancellation of our room bookings. Libraries Tasmania had cancelled meeting room bookings by WST at which discussions were to be held on various political,…
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Michael Ferguson Meets Women Speak Tasmania on Sex Protections
Representatives from Women Speak Tasmania and LGB Alliance Australia met today with Michael Ferguson MP, Member for Bass, to discuss the urgent need to add biological sex as a protected attribute in Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Act 1998. The delegation presented Mr Ferguson with a policy brief and a collection of Tasmanians’ testimonies detailing the harms caused…
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Calls for Legal Protection of Sex After “No More Violence Rally”
Women Speak Tasmania applauds the more than 100 Tasmanians who gathered yesterday at the “No More Violence Rally” on Parliament Lawns. Organised by What Were You Wearing Australia, the rally demanded stronger action and funding to end men’s violence against women and children ahead of the May State Budget. Tasmania’s chronically low funding for sex-based…
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Government-Funded Launceston Sports Hub in Mowbray Built Without Female-only Facilities
Concerns are being raised about the design of the Northern Suburbs Community Recreation Hub in Mowbray, after it was confirmed the major publicly funded facility includes exclusively all-gender toilets and changerooms, with no provision for female-only spaces. Dr Elizabeth Caballero, President of Women Speak Tasmania and a resident of the Bass electorate, said the issue…
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Women Speak Tasmania met with Carlo Di Falco MP on Restoring Sex-Based Protections in Law
Women Speak Tasmania met with Member for Lyons, Carlo Di Falco, on Wednesday 8 April to discuss urgent reforms to the Anti-Discrimination Act 1998, aimed at restoring clear, sex-based protections for women and girls. The meeting follows the organisation’s formal submission to the Attorney-General and growing public support through a statewide petition — “Fix Tasmania’s…
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IOC Bans Males from Female Sport: Tasmania Must Follow Suit
Women Speak Tasmania has welcomed the International Olympic Committee’s new policy protecting the female category in elite sport and is calling on Tasmanian Sport Minister Nick Duigan to adopt similar science-based rules for community and grassroots sport in Tasmania. On 26 March 2026, the IOC announced that eligibility for the female category at Olympic Games…
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On International Women’s Day, We Call for the Recognition of Sex in the Anti-Discrimination Act
On International Women’s Day, Women Speak Tasmania proudly celebrates women worldwide and here in Tasmania as a distinct sex class—adult human females—whose biological reality has shaped centuries of struggle for rights, safety, and equality. On this day we honour the suffragists who fought for women’s enfranchisement, recognising women as a political and legal class deserving…
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Tasmania Health Minister and Attorney-General Must Act on the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) Drug Alert
Women Speak Tasmania is calling on Tasmania’s Health Minister and Attorney-General to urgently review the clinical, regulatory, and legal framework surrounding the prescription of puberty-blocking drugs to minors, following the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s recent report into their off-label use in Australia. A report in The Australian on 23 February 2026 detailing the Therapeutic Goods Administration…
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New Federal “Hate” Laws Risk Silencing Women’s Advocacy
Women Speak Tasmania (WST) has lodged a formal submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security opposing the Exposure Draft Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026. While WST unequivocally condemns antisemitism, religious hatred, violence and genuine extremism, our submission argues that the draft Bill is over-broad, poorly defined, and vulnerable to misuse,…