'Far-reaching impacts': Why there's concern over a pledge to amend discrimination laws (www.sbs.com.au)

submitted 4 days ago by okwithmydecay@leminal.space to c/australia@aussie.zone

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[-] WaxRhetorical@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Damn, at a glance scrolling through my feed I thought that was James May

[-] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 1 points 2 days ago

Same.

[-] Wataba@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 days ago

Im not happy with Labour in the slightest.

But please, we have to keep the bar from being dragged lower like the dumbasses over the Pacific did.

Keep the bigots out. Keep the Harpy away from power.

[-] Taleya@aussie.zone 4 points 3 days ago

"VOTE FOR ME, I WILL STRIKE DOWN THE SEX DISCRIMINATION ACT " is pretty on brand for the liberal party when you think about it.

[-] No1@aussie.zone 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I just don't get the whole bathroom outrage thing. Look, I'm a bloke, so have NFI, but don't women's bathrooms have stalls? So who is looking? Who cares?

Seriously, I wouldn't care if somebody came into the gents and squatted over a urinal to pee.

We are there to pee and/or poo. And get out as fast as possible. And I do, what, 98% of that in my own home anyways? Are people living in these public bathrooms 24x7 or something to be offended?

I just don't get it.

[-] Taleya@aussie.zone 12 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

No no no and fuck no. Fuck you taylor and your US cribbed bigotry

[-] EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 3 days ago

Don't go the way of my country, trans rights are human rights!

[-] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au -1 points 3 days ago

We’ve been told by the “progressives” that gender and sex are different things for years, so there should be no complaints if the Sex Discrimination Act is reverted to be about Sex and not “gender identity”.

[+] Tenderizer@aussie.zone -8 points 3 days ago

The court ruling sounds reasonable. Cis women might not be comfortable around trans women in female only spaces and saying "just get over it" isn't really progressive. Denial that there is a genuine conflict of interest here is also counterproductive.

We also need to recognize that the median voter is supportive of trans rights in general but tends not to be on specific issues. Trying to brute force it with government policy will likely have the opposite effect.

The concern is if this ends up extending the ability to exclude trans women from women-only spaces to places which are "generally" gender segregated like bathrooms or team sports. If we end up without measures that protect the right of trans women to participate in society then that would be unacceptable.

[-] Taleya@aussie.zone 11 points 3 days ago

The first paragraph here sounds unnervingly like an attempt to rationalise bigotry.

People are uncomfortable with a lot of things and it's usually their problem, not everyone elses.

[+] Tenderizer@aussie.zone -7 points 3 days ago

It's not bigotry for women to be uncomfortable around men in women only space. While I try my best to treat trans women as women, it's not right to demand that women feel as comfortable around trans women as they do around cis women.

[-] Taleya@aussie.zone 6 points 3 days ago

It’s not bigotry for women to be uncomfortable around men in women only space

#AND THERE IT IS.

Begone, bigot.

[-] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au -3 points 3 days ago

If you think this is bigotry then you don’t know what bigotry is.

[-] Nbard@aussie.zone 1 points 3 days ago

Tenderizer literally called transwomen men. That's pretty textbook bigotry. Not sure what you're complaining about here, apart from the fact that Taleya called it what it was.

[-] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au -2 points 3 days ago

Trans women are male. Saying so isn’t bigotry. Anyway that’s not even what that person said, so it’s definitely not bigotry.

[-] Tenderizer@aussie.zone -1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I did not. I was referred to cis men in that sentence, to explain why the term bigotry doesn't apply to matters of privacy. Either way treating that as some kind of gotcha is so very expected.

[-] Nbard@aussie.zone 0 points 3 days ago

Oh dear. Please don't try that martyred crap. There is a very clear line of conversational progression here and you literally said "It’s not bigotry for women to be uncomfortable around men in women only space. "

[-] Tenderizer@aussie.zone -1 points 3 days ago

You must be a lot of fun at parties.

[-] Cleisthenian@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 days ago

I understand that you're coming at this from a reasonable place, but this comment seems unusually hostile in a way your previous comments weren't. I understand what you're saying about the role of emotions, but we have to decide as a society that your emotions end where others' rights begin, otherwise we could go down a very dark path. Racists could easily argue that banning indigenous ppl from white society is valid because they have their own indigenous communities.

[-] Tenderizer@aussie.zone -4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

My tone was probably a bit harsh because I was getting frustrated with how dogmatic the "trans women are women" crowd is. Yes we should individually treat them as such, the law should also treat them as such, but drawing a legal line that they should be treated as such is a step too far.

The needs to trans people should be accommodated. But the preferences of the more dogmatic trans people should not be respected at any cost, there has to be room for another's comfort.

[-] Cleisthenian@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I am a trans woman myself so I understand how they feel. We're an inherently small part of the population and there's an extreme sense of vulnerability that comes with that. I think you'd understand if you were part of the demographic. I'm sorry that you feel frustrated though, truly, because I know that you mean well.

Once again I understand what you're saying and acknowledge that you're not coming at this from a place of malice (at least that's how I see it). That being said, I've never met anyone who actually had some of kind phobia of people assigned male at birth (AMAB), or trans women specifically, in the context that you're describing. I think it's a wedge issue that causes people to feel strongly without there really being much rational basis for it, which I think you acknowledged to an extent? We can't base laws off feelings or extremely rare cases where the person's true intentions can be challenged. In my experience, the only people who express any kind of fear of AMAB people are activists involved in groups that claim to focus on women's issues who have an incentive to advocate for transphobia. Sometimes they have financial connections to American evangelical groups, that sorta thing. Rape survivors don't tend to have that opinion in my experience, although maybe you've met some who thought differently, idk. Either way, I have to say from a personal experience that I don't want my rights taken away based off such weak arguments, and in the case of the US and UK, they rarely stop at segregated spaces, they usually try to remove us completely from public life in an attempt to force us to detransition.

[-] Tenderizer@aussie.zone 0 points 3 days ago

We've seen as a result of this court ruling in favour of trans rights that Minns is calling for changes around prisons and sports. Then again in the UK we're seeing a court ruling against trans rights do the same (although UK Labour, and especially health secretary Wes Streeting, are particularly vile human beings so that might not be a factor).

Based on these two data points, we see trans rights regress when there is a highly publicized court ruling. Keeping matters of trans rights out of the domain of the courts seems like the best way to prevent this from happening.

Enshrining the most important trans rights into law (bathrooms, healthcare, prisons, and general anti-discrimination protections) while leaving issues like gender segregated social activities up to the organizer's discretion is the best way to protect trans rights.

[-] Cleisthenian@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Fair enough, I agree with that. It's disillusioning that the only way to be safe is to be invisible.

[-] Tenderizer@aussie.zone 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

It's not so much being invisible as it is avoiding highly publicized debates between "women's groups" and trans people. There are other, safer, spaces to be visible.

[-] psud@aussie.zone 3 points 3 days ago

It's irrational to fear people identified as male at birth whose testosterone is suppressed

[-] Firebirdie713@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 3 days ago

~~Cis~~White women might not be comfortable around ~~trans~~ black women in ~~female only~~ segregated spaces and saying 'just get over it' isn't really progressive.

Also, what "true conflict of interest" exists, other than people with prejudice feeling uncomfortable? Trans people are less likely to commit crime than cis people on the whole, with the main exception being more likely to be charged with crimes realted to sex work due to unemployment.

[+] Tenderizer@aussie.zone -8 points 3 days ago

The racial analogue doesn't fit. The existence of women-only spaces isn't meant to discriminate against men because men are provided comparable alternatives, and they're only discriminatory against trans women because they're not provided an alternative.

Trans women are women, but forcing women to emotionally react to trans women as if they were cis women is not a decision we can or should make for them. Feelings don't care about your facts.

I'll try to come up with some conflicts of interest of the top of my head:

Women generally prefer restrooms to be gender segregated as a matter of privacy. Trans women who don't have the same eldritch horrors of bodies likely don't fall under the same privacy grouping. Some places have taken the step of making all restrooms unisex but women often don't like it when that happens.
Lesbian romantic events exist for women to meet other women, and while generally we should treat trans women as women, in no universe can or should we impose that onto people's sexuality.
Someone who's had a traumatic experience with men and goes to a women-only space, only to discover that someone they've been talking to has been AMAB all along. It could be a healing or re-traumatizing experience, but it shouldn't be imposed upon them as a matter of trans inclusion.
While trans women aren't necessarily better at sports than cis women, when they are it's reasonable to think their birth sex might play a part (whether right or wrong). That thought alone discourages participation in women's sports.

[-] KAtieTot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 3 days ago

The racial analogue fits because we're another minority group that faces discrimination. Hope that helps.

Seperate but equal, hmm, where have I heard that before?

What do your hypothetical women's emotions have to do with segregation?

Trans women are women but we shouldn't be allowed in women's restrooms because we look different?

Trans women are women but what about lesbians? Because we love different?

Trans women are women but what if a women thinks I might have been a man once and freaks out about it? Because we are different?

Why should these hypothetical women's feelings excuse discriminating against and segregating an entire demographic of women?

I know no woman who has said trans women in the bathroom make her uncomfortable. I've never even seen one.

A lesbians dating preference may be for gold star, should we ban women who have slept with men from lesbian spaces? A lesbian can just choose to not fucking date trans women.

The thought that someone may have been a man once. How horrible. What if she was raped by a woman? Should we ban women from women's spaces to protect survivors?

Do you have evidence for that claim? I promise there are enough factors discouraging participation in women's sports, funding, historical norms, cultural expectations, direct sexism, existing power structures, training opportunities, school opportunities, etc, so forth.

If i sign off as a transgender does it invalidate my feelings as a woman?

[-] Taleya@aussie.zone 5 points 3 days ago

Trans women are women, but forcing women to emotionally react to trans women as if they were cis women is not a decision we can or should make for them. Feelings don’t care about your facts.

Not to medicalise this this shit but you can make the exact same argument for anyone who's encountering a high needs neurodivergent, or someone who requires assistive devices, or someone who is heavily scarred, etc. Because the issues here are "I don't like how they deviate from what I think X people should look like" and "I am making preconceived potential behaviours up to be "frightened" of" aka Bias.

And they can both go square back up the arse they came from. It's not transwomen's fault your parents never taught you humanity was diverse

[-] EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Two sides of lemmy:

Trans women are women

And this kind of "I swear I'm not a republican but trans women aren't women" opinion...

TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN

[-] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au -2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

What is a woman? Can you answer that without using circular definitions?

Edit: once again, the simple question has everyone stumped.

[-] psud@aussie.zone 0 points 3 days ago

Hormones are a reasonable line to draw it on, as it is testosterone that makes men strong and which makes some men dangerous

[-] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 0 points 3 days ago

Hormones? No lol. That’s not a reasonable line at all. That’s one of the least reasonable lines to draw it on.

this post was submitted on 19 May 2026

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