The Northern Territory Anti-Discrimination Commission has strongly condemn an unauthorised protest involving transphobic amplified messaging that occurred in Darwin on Friday.
The protest, which took place before 7:00am in the city, involved the use of loudspeakers to broadcast messages targeting transgender people. The commission says the conduct caused significant distress to members of the community.
The ADC consulted with City of Darwin and was informed that no permit or licence was issued for the gathering. The protest could therefore be tantamount to breach Council by-laws relating to unauthorised use of public space.
The NT News spoke to a person who had seen the early morning protest who described it as three women standing at a prominent intersection holding placards with anti-transgender messages. The signage also referenced the Tickle v Giggle case that is currently before the federal courts.
Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Jeswynn Yogaratnam noted that the incident also raises serious concerns under the state’s anti-discrimination legislation.
“Public acts that attempt to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people impact community safety. These microaggressions if not addressed can build up to serious harm to the community.” Yogaratnam said.
“This type of conduct not only undermines the safety and dignity of transgender Territorians, it risks breaching the law. It requires further investigation by City of Darwin and NT Police.” Commissioner Yogaratnam said.
Top End Pride chair Becky Tidman told the local newspaper that “every Territorian, including our transgender community, deserves to go about their daily life free from harassment or confrontation”.
“It’s incredibly frustrating and disheartening that in 2025 we’re still seeing repeated acts of transphobia,” she said.
“We are grateful to the community members who have lodged formal complaints. Your actions matter, and you have our full support.”
Poet and sexuality researcher John Addington Symonds was born in 1840
John Addington Symonds was an English poet and literary critic. He was known for his research work on the Renaissance and for numerous biographies of writers and artists.
Symonds, although married and with children, was a supporter of male same-sex relationships and co-authored one of the first books to explore the subject. In 1887 he co-authored, with Havelock Ellis, the book Sexual Inversion which is recognised as one of the first English language works to discuss homosexuality without it being classified as a disease or moral failure.
While Symonds was supportive of homosexual relationships, he also voiced support for pederastic and well as egalitarian relationships. When Symonds was eighteen he had a relationship with a fifteen year old choir boy for over a year. Later in life he had a four-year long relationship with a young man who studied under him, but in his diaries he wrote that the relationship was romantic not sexual.
During his life Symonds visited the German writer Karl Heinrich Ulrichs while they were both in Italy, and he corresponded with American poet Walt Whitman.
Symonds left his autobiography with a friend to be be published after his death, but before it was published it was stripped of all its homoerotic content. It would be over a century after his death before his work on homosexuality Soldier Love and Related Matter was published, it came out in 2007.
