Liberal leader Angus Taylor has responded to the High Court’s decision not to hear an appeal in the Giggle v Tickle case, describing Australia’s current sex discrimination laws as “lunacy”.
On Thursday, the High Court rejected an application to consider the matter after the Federal Court ruled, and the Full Federal Court later upheld, that transgender woman Roxanne Tickle had been unlawfully discriminated against under the Sex Discrimination Act.
Tickle was removed from the social media platform Giggle for Girls after founder Sall Grover determined she was a transgender woman.
The case was widely regarded as the first major legal test of amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act introduced in 2013 to provide greater protections for people on the basis of gender identity. The matter has spent years moving through the court system, and the High Court application represented Grover’s final avenue of appeal.
The only remaining pathway for supporters of legislative change is an amendment to federal law, something Angus Taylor has pledged to pursue if elected.
“A man is a man. A woman is a woman. We will not allow the ideologues and activists to deny the truth,” Taylor posted on social media following the High Court’s decision.
“Under a Coalition government I lead, we will end this lunacy and change and correct the law to reflect biological reality,” he pledged.
Taylor has previously denied that his proposal would reduce the rights currently enjoyed by transgender Australians.
The Opposition Leader has described his proposal as “common sense” and rejected suggestions that the policy is intended to target transgender people.
“Every protection they currently have remains. We are not removing a single protection from anyone,” he said in June.
Taylor’s latest commitment has been welcomed by Family First, the socially conservative political party, although the party argues legislative changes should go further by creating additional exemptions from anti-discrimination laws.
National spokesperson Lyle Shelton said Taylor was now embracing arguments previously advanced by Tasmanian Senator Claire Chandler, former Victorian MP Moira Deeming and former federal candidate Katherine Deves.
“The Commonwealth should define woman, man and sex according to biological reality and explicitly protect female-only sport, toilets, change rooms, refuges, prisons and other legitimate single-sex services and spaces.
“But reform should go further,” Shelton said.
“Family First wants Commonwealth legislation to protect Australians from state anti-discrimination and anti-vilification regimes that punish people for expressing lawful views about biological sex and gender.”
Equality Australia has welcomed the High Court decision.
Equality Australia welcomed the decision.
“This leaves no further appeal avenues, and after five long years the matter is finally closed. This is a major win. Australian law has long recognised that a person’s legal sex is not limited to the sex they were assigned at birth.
“Trans women, like all women, deserve to live safely, participate fully in society, and be treated with dignity and respect,” the advocacy group said.
