Lesbian Action Group wins Federal Court appeal to exclude transgender women

A lesbian rights group has won a Federal Court appeal to exclude transgender women from its public events for five years — but the legal fight is far from over.

The Melbourne-based Lesbian Action Group (LAG) sought an exemption to the Sex Discrimination Act so it could hold public events exclusively for lesbians who were assigned female at birth.

It was the group’s third attempt, after an application to the Human Rights Commission in 2023 was rejected and an appeal to the Administrative Review Tribunal was subsequently thrown out.

In his judgment on Wednesday, Justice Mark Moshinsky allowed the appeal and said the tribunal’s decision should be set aside.

The case will now return to the tribunal.

While the group deemed the ruling a “win”, Equality Australia said it was a technicality.

“The court has not endorsed discrimination against trans women, and it has not decided whether the exemption should be granted,”

Equality Australia legal director Heather Corkhill said.

“It has simply identified legal errors in the tribunal’s reasoning, so the matter must now be reconsidered.”

Justice Moshinsky said the tribunal erred in its “construction and application” of the Act, saying it was “too narrow a view of the scope of the exemption power”.

“In my view, the error … was central to the way in which the tribunal resolved whether to grant the exemption and therefore affected its core reasoning. Accordingly, the error is material,” he said.

Justice Moshinsky also found the tribunal failed to have regard for the “indivisibility and universality of human rights” and that “every person is free and equal in dignity and rights”.