Equality Australia has launched a petition calling on MPs to reject proposed changes to the Sex Discrimination Act, warning that the reforms could weaken protections for transgender and gender diverse Australians.
The petition has gathered more than 11,000 signatures since launching last week.
The campaign is running alongside a competing petition from the Australian Christian Lobby, which is calling for the restoration of “biological definitions of male and female” in the same legislation.
The ACL has claimed Equality Australia’s petition “only has a few thousand” signatures compared with its own. However, the ACL’s petition currently only narrowly leads, with around 12,000 signatures compared with Equality Australia’s 11,000.
Equality Australia’s petition was created in response to political calls to redefine “sex” in the Act. Those calls include a private member’s bill introduced by Nationals MP Alison Penfold, which proposes a narrow definition of sex and the exclusion of trans women from some public spaces and protections.
Opposition leader Angus Taylor also took to social media after the Giggle v Tickle appeal verdict, vowing to “fix” the Sex Discrimination Act.
“A Coalition government I lead will fix this. We will amend the Sex Discrimination Act to ensure that women and girls (and men and boys) have protections based on biological sex,” he said.
“We will define biological sex in the Act. Male or female. The sex you are born. And we will protect single-sex spaces across Australian life.”
Pauline Hanson and One Nation have also vowed to repeal the Act and remove gender identity as a protected attribute entirely. Senator Michaelia Cash has similarly used Senate estimates to criticise the Act and the Australian Human Rights Commission.
Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act 1984 makes it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, marital or relationship status, pregnancy and breastfeeding in areas including employment, education, accommodation, goods and services.
The Act provides federal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status, helping ensure access to workplaces, schools, healthcare and public services without unfair treatment.
For women, it prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex and related attributes such as pregnancy and breastfeeding. It is intended to address structural inequality and gender-based disadvantage, including in hiring, pay and workplace conditions.
Equality Australia CEO Anna Brown said attempts to weaken the Act posed serious risks.
“Our communities are facing coordinated attacks on rights and protections that were hard fought over decades, including by generations of women,” Brown said.
“If we don’t stand together now, we risk watching those protections get chipped away.”
Brown said transgender people were increasingly being used as political targets.
“We are seeing trans people increasingly used as political targets to manufacture outrage, fuel fear and divide communities for political gain,” she said.
“These attacks will not improve safety or equality. They risk creating more discrimination, more fear and more harm — not only for trans people, but for women, intersex people and our communities more broadly.”
She also warned that proposed changes could affect wider anti-discrimination protections.
“Australia’s anti-discrimination laws recognise the real ways women are judged, excluded and treated unfairly in society, often because of gender stereotypes and assumptions,” Brown said.
“Narrowing the definition of sex risks weakening protections against sexism itself.”
Both petitions are now circulating nationally, with LGBTQIA+ advocacy groups urging the community to defend the protections currently enshrined in the Sex Discrimination Act.
