LGBTQ+ advocates are calling for stronger legal protections after a series of attacks against Australia’s queer community.
This month neo-Nazis held a banner reading “destroy paedo freaks” at a rally in Melbourne attended by trans rights activists, and days later an LGBTQ+ group said they had been attacked by a mob while protesting outside a Sydney church.
Every jurisdiction in Australia has various degrees of anti-discrimination legislation based on sexuality or gender in workplaces, schools and service settings, but advocates say they are patchy and have broad exemptions, especially for religious organisations.
There are no laws in Victoria, South Australia or Western Australia protecting LGBTQ+ people from vilification, which covers inciting hatred in the public sphere, whether online or on the steps of parliament. Vilifying a person because of their race or religion is illegal in Victoria.
The legal director at Equality Australia, Ghassan Kassisieh, said the patchiness of laws across Australia was leaving the community vulnerable to hate speech and discrimination.
“Without offences in Victoria that deal with serious vilification, the police have no powers to deal with Nazi salutes or hate speech directed at trans people,” he said.
It only takes one person with extremist views to cause widespread tragedy and anti-vilification laws will help prevent hate from spreading, Kassisieh said.
“That’s what vilification laws will do – they’re designed to stamp out the ideology,” he said. “It will take more than laws but laws are an important part.”
The Victorian government has agreed to implement anti-vilification laws and last week in parliament the state’s attorney general, Jaclyn Symes, said implementing the laws “remained one of her priorities”.
“We understand there is a lot of interest in these changes and we’ll move as quickly as we can – but it is a complex area of law that we want to take the time to get right,” a Victorian government spokesperson said.
Michelle McNamara, a representative for Transgender Victoria, said the government was not moving fast enough to protect the LGBTQ+ community.
“We believe strongly that the laws should include transphobia and homophobia,” she said, referring to the anti-vilification laws. “We are most alarmed by the rise of the so-called ‘women’s rights movement’, which seems to be an unholy alliance of conservative political groups, conservative religious groups and leftwing groups who are all opposed to transgender rights.”
Laws protecting the LGBTQ+ community differ across the country. In NSW teachers can be fired from religious schools over their sexuality.
In Queensland the Law Reform Commission has recommended adding sex characteristics to laws protecting the LGBTQ+ community so intersex people are covered.
By contrast, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory have explicit laws making it illegal to incite hatred against someone based on their sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status. These laws carry penalties and provide avenues for victims to seek redress.
There is also no federal law that protects against vilification on the basis of gender or sexuality.
Dr Sav Zwickl, a researcher at Trans Health Research, said while the protests have been highly visible, there has been “a long lingering issue of discrimination” against the trans community.
Research showed 60% of transgender people in Australia have experienced verbal abuse and one in five had experienced physical abuse because they are trans.
“Suicide is the leading cause of death in the population,” Zwickl said.
But allyship and connection to the community can turn these trends around, they said.
“Anywhere between 0.5% and 4% of the population are trans, that’s a significant number of people, we are everywhere,” they said. “We need to shift the narrative, and celebrate diversity.”
Rodney Croome, a spokesperson for advocacy group Just. Equal, said he had been involved with a number of successful cases against LGBTQ+ vilification in Tasmania.
He said he would support anyone who decided to take a case against Posie Parker after her visit to Hobart “but would also urge them to consider the uncertainty of an apology and the probability of giving her objectionable views more exposure”.
“The positive impact of Tasmania’s strong anti-hate and anti-bullying laws is shown not only by successful complaints but by cultural change,” Croome said.
“Tasmania was once known around the world as ‘Bigots’ Island’ because of the high incidence of anti-queer hate, but public vilification of LGBTIQ+ people is now much lower and less acceptable.”
• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 988 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
