Election 2022: Transgender agenda targets party leaders

A new campaign will pressure Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese to exclude trans women from single-sex sports and women-only spaces.

‘Australians don’t know what’s going on’: Karyn Lisignoli. Picture: Colin Murty

A campaign led by Australian professional women will pressure Scott Morrison and Anthony ­Albanese through the election to exclude transgender women from single-sex sports and women-only spaces.

The Respect My Sex If You Want My Vote drive will launch online on Friday, pushing voters to write to their local candidates on whether they support “sex-based” rights for women and whether they are concerned that trans women are allowed to compete in female sports.

It comes after the Prime Minister stands by Liberal candidate in Warringah Katherine Deves over her statements on transgender women, and Olympians Emily Seebohm and Emma McKeon saying this week they would not want to compete against trans athletes.

A similar campaign in the UK — Respect My Sex If You Want My X — has received the backing of Harry Potter author JK Row­ling ahead of the British local council elections on May 5, and has played a role advising its new Australian counterpart.

Former Girl Guides WA chief executive Karyn Lisignoli and founder of the female-only chat group Giggle Sall Grover are among the businesswomen and feminist activists behind the launch of the Respect My Sex If You Want My Vote campaign.

Ms Lisignoli, who was sacked from the Girl Guides after considering changing the group’s constitution to limit entry to girls who were biologically female, said she got behind the campaign because awareness needed to be raised around the issue.

“Australians don’t know what’s going on,” she told The Australian. “There’s been a radical agenda pushed for decades and now it’s captured the institutions and ­average mums and dads don’t know about it, which is the reason why when I was terminated from Girls Guides and went public about it … the overwhelming response was from people who just had no idea how that could happen.

“A lot of Australians don’t know about this issue and a lot of things have come up recently like with Katherine Deves and driven this momentum … we’re just about supporting women and vulnerable young girls.”

Ms Lisignoli said rights between transgender women and cisgender women – which refers to a person whose gender identity and sex assigned at birth is the same – were “clashing”.

“Inclusion has always been about ensuring people have basic human rights and dignity respected,” she said. “And sometimes those rights will clash, and what’s happening with this is that it’s (cisgender) women who are now ­expected to compromise.”

Other members of the Respect My Vote campaign include University of Sydney academic and feminist activist Bronwyn Winter.

Founder of the Coalition for Biological Reality and organiser of the Australian Respect My Sex campaign Stassja Frei said the movement was not targeting any specific seats or giving its backing to any political party at this point.

“Clearly the Liberals are ­divided and don’t have a firm position,” she said.

“On the other hand, the Greens and Labor have been drivers of (current) bad legislation in Australia that’s led to these issues.”

A website for the Australian campaign is expected to go live as early as Friday and tells readers politicians had been “ignoring concerns” about such issues, prompting them to pressure ­candidates to make clear their ­position.

It will allow supporters to print off flyers for a letter-drop campaign; an email template is also provided so people can write to their local candidate.

The email template sets out questions constituents should put to their local members, ­including whether they thought it was unfair for transgender women to compete in female-only sporting competitions and whether they were concerned about laws regarding access to ­female-only toilets and change rooms.

The website also directs readers to the Save Women’s Sport organisation, co-founded by Ms Deves.

Ms Frei said the Coalition for Biological Reality had 500 members who would be active in the Respect My Sex campaign.

She confirmed she had been in touch with the UK branch of the campaign, which had been “very supportive” of the Australian group.

Anthony Albanese on Wednesday weighed into the issue and said while “girls should compete against girls and boys against boys” in sport, there was no need to change any laws.

The Respect My Vote campaign raised concerns with activist and author Wendy McCarthy AO, who said feminists in Australia had a “proud history” of fighting for all women.

“(This campaign) deploys misinformation about women who are transgender and seeks to further limit the capacity of this highly marginalised group of women to participate in public life,” she said.

Equality Australia trans equality advocate Jackie Turner said all trans people wanted was “the freedom to be ourselves and the same opportunities as everyone else to build a good life … This campaign seeks to divide our community”.

“We urge all political parties and candidates seeking election to reject these ugly politics of division and commit treating trans and gender diverse people – and the LGBTIQ+ community more broadly – with the dignity and respect we deserve.” Ms Turner pointed to a YouGov poll commissioned by Equality Australia that found 78 per cent of respondents believed trans and gender diverse people “deserve the same rights and protections as everyone else”.

Lifeline support: 13 11 14; QLife anonymous LGBTI peer support line: 1800 184 527