I was right – and now others know it as well
DURING the federal election campaign, when I was the Liberal candidate for Warringah, I became the target of some of the most toxic, threatening attacks imaginable. This happened because I was critical of biological males being allowed to compete in sports against girls and women.
No matter that such accomplished female athletes as Emma McKeon, Dawn Fraser, Emily Seebohm and tennis great Martina Navratilova had made similar views known, I was mocked as a “bigot” by parts of the LGBTQIA+ community and even by some in my own political party.
Unrelenting media attention on this issue prevented me from talking about matters of most concern in my electorate – aged care, child care, mental health, financial pressures on families, and domestic violence, among others.
Despite this, everything that has happened since has vindicated my position on biological men competing in women’s sport.
First, the world aquatic sports body FINA released guidelines for a dedicated female-only competition by ruling out males who have gone through puberty.
Males are eligible to compete in the male category and potentially a new transgender category – a sensible and obvious solution.
World Rugby, World Boxing Council, World Triathlon, International Rugby League and British Cycling have imposed similar new rules. More rulings will follow.
I was misquoted and consequently vilified after expressing concern that half the males claiming a transgender identity in UK prisons were convicted sexual offenders. Some of these predators self-identified as female to obtain transfers to women’s jails. Some of them intimidated, assaulted and even raped female inmates.
The media portrayed my comments on this very disturbing issue as being about the entire population of people with trans identities. I eventually received a written apology from SBS.
Attacks on people like me by activists who purport to be within the LGBTQIA+ community diverted public attention from extremely troubling events in the world of gender identity confusion.
In Australia, UK, Canada and the US, children as young as eight are undergoing medical interventions such as puberty blockers, oppositesex hormones and surgeries – including bilateral radical mastectomies, hysterectomies, penectomies, orchiectomies, vaginoplasties, phalloplasties, and facial feminisation surgery – under the guise of “gender affirming care”. Awareness of these cases is causing resistance. The UK’s National Health Service has now closed the Tavistock gender clinic and faces legal action from up to 1000 families of young boys and girls who claim they were rushed into taking life-altering puberty blockers.
Following Victoria’s enactment of the Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2020 earlier this year, the Tasmanian government announced it will ban conversion practices on the basis of same “gender” orientation and identity.
Similar legislation has already been passed in Queensland, and is expected to be passed in Western Australia and NSW as evidence mounts of the adverse effects on those with doubts over their sexuality being pressured into taking hormonal treatment, or even undergoing surgery.
The federal government must establish an inquiry into gender interventions on Australian children and young people. The inquiry should include scrutiny of the activities and government funding of ACON (formerly the AIDS Council of NSW) and other rainbow groups that lobby for these medical and surgical interventions. More than 60 Australian government departments, including the ATO, Department of Defence, PMO and Services Australia, are signed up to ACON’s diversity and inclusion scheme that enforces compliance to an LGBTQIA + worldview, removing sex from law and policy.
I initially raised my concerns about gender issues on Twitter, in the knowledge that going against the mainstream media’s prevailing protrans position could attract hostility.
I was completely unprepared for the intensity and savagery of the abuse, character assassination, and threats that eventuated. Yet these issues are now front and foremost in the Australian public’s consciousness. We clearly have a problem, but it will need some political will to resolve it.