Gender advocate loses
A COLOURFUL Tasmanian gender campaigner’s ejection from a Target store by a nonbinary employee who overheard her conversation with two customers to the effect that “men who identify as women are not female” was not discriminatory, a tribunal has found.
Launceston woman Jess Hoyle took her removal from the Charles St department store on December 17, 2021, to the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal after the AntiDiscrimination Commissioner rejected on August 31 last year her complaint under the AntiDiscrimination Act 1998.
In a decision published on January 24, the tribunal affirmed the commissioner’s decision. Ms Hoyle, who identifies as a lesbian, told the Mercury she intended to seek a judicial review in yet another appeal. Target denies “many of the allegations” she has made.
According to Ms Hoyle’s statement of facts, she is the founder of a group, LGB Tasmania, to provide “informal support for lesbian, gay and bisexual Tasmanians” – but not transsexuals, as one of her core beliefs is that “men who identify as women are not female”.
She was wearing an LGB branded face mask, hoodie and cap, which led to a conversation with two female shoppers. The shoppers “commented favourably on her outfit and asked about the group,” tribunal Deputy President Alison Clues said in her decision.
“They discussed the need for female-only spaces and female-only lesbian events.”
Ms Hoyle said the conversation, which lasted 5–10 minutes, was “a private exchange... conducted quietly and unobtrusively” that was interrupted when a staff member, wearing a badge that identified them as non-binary (they/them pronouns) approached and said to Ms Hoyle, “You are being discriminatory. You’re a TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist).”
Ms Hoyle, per her facts, was then ejected from the store, with the staff member telling another employee, “We have a disruptive customer here. She needs to be removed.” Ms Hoyle claimed she was subject to discrimination on the basis of her “sexual orientation” and “apparently contentious... political belief”. “Further, I was offended, humiliated, intimidated, insulted and ridiculed by (Target’s) staff member on the basis of my sexual orientation and my commitment to the reality of same-sex attraction,” she said. Ms Clues found that Ms Hoyle was not discriminated against on the basis of her same-sex attraction or political beliefs.
“An activity (such as conversing in a department store) is not political merely because it is motivated by a political belief,” Ms Clues said.
Furthermore, Ms Hoyle’s treatment at the hands of the Target employee “was as a result of her own discriminatory comments and disruptive behaviour,” Ms Clues said.
“It follows that any customer making the same comments and behaving in the same manner would have been asked to leave (Target) by the staff member.”