Tag: Tasmania
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City of Launceston fails basic consultation on major Aquatic Centre changeroom overhaul
Women Speak Tasmania is calling on the City of Launceston to pause its proposed all-gender changeroom design at the Launceston Aquatic Centre after a deeply inadequate consultation process. The proposal would remove existing male and female changerooms and replace them entirely with individual all-gender cubicles. Feedback was limited to hallway signs and a suggestion box…
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Request for review of Tasmanian Gender Service clinical pathways following new questions concerning WPATH guidance – Email to Bridget Archer
Email to the Tasmanian Minister for Health, Bridget Archer, dated 16 August 2026 Dear Minister Archer, I am writing on behalf of Women Speak Tasmania to ask you to reconsider the clinical governance and guidelines underpinning the Tasmanian Gender Service (TGS), following new developments concerning the evidentiary basis of guidance issued by the World Professional…
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Is Tasmania Acting Too Late to Protect Children?
Women Speak Tasmania raised serious questions with the Tasmanian Government in May about clinical governance, evidence and safeguards in the provision of puberty suppression and gender-affirming hormones to patients under 18. Three months later, new developments have made those questions more urgent. When governments are responsible for the care of children, waiting for greater certainty…
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A Look at Montrose Bay High School’s “Let’s Talk About Sex” Unit
A concerned parent recently provided Women Speak Tasmania with a copy of the Year 8 Health and Physical Education (HPE) workbook currently being used at Montrose Bay High School in Tasmania. The booklet, titled Let’s Talk About Sex, forms part of the school’s Term 2 2026 curriculum. It covers gender identity, sexuality, consent, contraception and…
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When Language Becomes Power: From US Supreme Court Clarity to Tasmanian Confusion
On 30 June 2026, the United States Supreme Court delivered a landmark ruling affirming that states may determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports based on biological sex. In West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox, the Court held that laws reserving female sporting categories for biological females are consistent with Title IX and…
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Why Transparency Matters in Relationships and Sexuality Education
Since last year, Women Speak Tasmania has been receiving information from concerned parents about the delivery of Relationships and Sexuality Education programs in Tasmanian government schools. This includes the Respectful Relationships and Consent Education program, as well as the Growing Up Program delivered by Family Planning Tasmania. Parents have raised consistent concerns about limited transparency,…
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Detailed Response to the TLRI Report on Legal Recognition of Sex and Gender 2020
In June 2020 the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute released its Final Report No. 31 on Legal Recognition of Sex and Gender. The report reviewed the 2019 changes to birth certificate laws that introduced self-identification of gender and concluded that it could identify no significant negative impacts from those changes. Women Speak Tasmania did not agree.…
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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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Biological Reality is Not Cruelty
Leonie Crosse’s letter (“‘Cruel’ law changes will hurt all women”) presents a misleading view of proposals to strengthen recognition of biological sex in anti-discrimination law. Recognising sex as a material reality based on biology does not weaken women’s protections — it restores them. Single-sex spaces, services and sports exist because of physical differences and male-pattern…
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Drag Queen Storytime and The Safeguarding Question
While researching lawfare in Australia, I came across the long-running legal battle involving Lyle Shelton. In 2020, Shelton publicly criticised a Drag Queen Storytime event at a Brisbane City Council library. He described the performers — Johnny Valkyrie (known as “Queeny”) and Dwayne Hill (who performs as Diamond Good-Rim in adult shows) — as “dangerous…