Statements submitted in support of Lesbian Action Group (Australia)

Lesbian Bill of Rights International (LBOR International) is an international network of radical feminist lesbian organizations that have adopted the Lesbian Bill of Rights (LBOR), written by the WDI USA Lesbian Caucus. It defines relevant terms, including “woman,” “man,” and “lesbian”; and describes lesbian reality, lesbian rights, and lesbian political potential consistent with radical feminist principles.

Lesbian Action Group (“LAG”), a radical feminist lesbian organization in Australia and now a member of LBOR International, applied to the Australian Human Rights Commission (“the Commission”) for an exemption from the Sex Discrimination Act 1984. If granted, this exemption would allow LAG to host an event restricted to “female born lesbians.” In other words, they would be permitted to exclude men from their lesbian event.

LBOR International submitted a letter in support of LAG’s application, which has since been posted on the Commission’s website, here. 

Our first letter in support of LAG’s application quotes the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights, the LBOR, and an article written for LBOR International by Gunda Schumann of member LAZ reloaded. All of these sources specifically describe the right of lesbians to lesbian spaces based on radical feminist principles. Our submission concludes:

Any law that prohibits lesbians from peaceful assembly in public as lesbians only – meaning female homosexuals – has the effect of stigmatizing all lesbians, criminalizing those lesbians who refuse to recognize the lie that some men are lesbians, and erasing lesbians from public life; and is fundamentally sexist and anti homosexual.

We urge you to grant the requested exemption to the Lesbian Action Group in Melbourne. The world is watching.

The Commission posted that letter on their website. So our radical feminist lesbian content is public on the Commission’s website.

On September 25 the Commission issued a “preliminary view” on LAG’s application. It reads, in part:

7.41 The Commission is not persuaded it is appropriate and reasonable to: • make distinctions between women based on their cisgender or transgender experience, or among same-sex attracted women based on

the exclusivity of their same-sex attraction at an event of this kind, or • exclude same-sex attracted women who are transgender, bisexual and

queer from an event of this kind.

7.42 The Commission notes that the grant of this exemption may lead to the further exclusion of and discrimination against same-sex attracted transgender women. Transgender women are a group who have and continue to experience

discrimination, harassment and social exclusion.

In response, LBOR International submitted a second statement, which says in part:

…the Commission finds a distinction between women, defined in the Lesbian Bill of Rights (LBOR) as adult human females, and men, defined in the LBOR as adult human males, to be inappropriate and unreasonable, which in praxis eradicates the category of sex. Erasing sex erases all the sex-based rights of women and girls, and by extension, the rights of lesbians, who are defined in the LBOR as women or girls who are exclusively same-sex attracted.

Our statement concludes:

A decision denying LAG’s exemption will signal to the world that lesbians do not have a right to exist in public life in Australia. What a disgrace that would be.

There is no announced deadline for the Commission to make a final decision. It is our hope that they will recognize the right of lesbians, stated in the LBOR, to gather in public as lesbians.

LBOR International

WDI USA Lesbian Caucus

LAZ reloaded (Germany)

Lesbian Resistance NZ

WDI Aus/NZ Lesbian Caucus

The Countess Lesbian Working Group (Ireland)

Lesbian Action Group (Australia)

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