https://www.smh.com.au/national/tame-grace-good-luck-with-that-i-delight-in-her-brave-belligerence-20250128-p5l7pu.html

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Grace Tame was Australian of the Year in 2021. She received her award for outspoken advocacy on behalf of sexual assault survivors and her successful campaign to eliminate Tasmania’s gag laws which, at the time, prevented sexual assault survivors – like Tame – from identifying themselves publicly. Her case was a catalyst for the “Let Her Speak” campaign.

Tame has been speaking ever since. She continues to be clear, precise and blunt in her advocacy. Sometimes, she uses words, sometimes, her facial expression, including her famous stony side-eye to Scott Morrison at the 2022 Australian of the Year celebration.

Morrison was a prime minister, it should be remembered, who had claimed to need his wife to explain why he should launch an investigation into workplace culture after a sexual assault allegation in parliament. It was Morrison who had admonished hundreds of thousands of Australian women – who marched for gender equality in 2021 – that they should be grateful that their demonstrations had not been met with bullets.

For last weekend’s Australian of the Year morning tea at The Lodge, Tame chose to use her clothing to make her point. Specifically, she wore a rather smart white T-shirt with “F--- MURDOCH” emblazoned across her chest.

The usual pearl-clutching has ensued, no doubt as Tame knew it would. As a brilliant and strategic campaigner, Tame understands how much our society loves to police the behaviour of women (hello, March for Justice participants), especially young women. Indeed, the prettier they are, the more we delight in wagging our fingers, pursing our lips and turbocharging our radio mics, if lucky enough to have them.

Certain sections of the community – usually older men with aforementioned mics, conservative politicians and their acolytes, various pulpits and those spouting family values – particularly enjoy policing women’s clothes. There has been a recent minor kerfuffle about the fashion for thong bikinis.

’Twas ever thus. Back in my day, beach inspectors went around with tape measures to check that a girl’s bikini bottom was wide enough. Valuable learning time was once spent measuring the distance a schoolgirl’s tunic was from the floor. Some girls’ private schools had knicker inspections! But the same critics are also down on hijabs and burkhas, even burkinis. Seems women are always wearing either too much or too little.

Many column inches can be filled fulminating about young women’s behaviour, morals, language, ideas and ambitions. Chick-bait masquerading as clickbait. But Tame regularly and gleefully tramples such nonsense. Tame understands, perhaps as the Murdoch empire and its creation Donald J. Trump does, that attention is power.

The difference is that Tame uses attention to expose injustice and inequality, whether for sexual assault survivors, Indigenous Australians, Australians with a disability or merely as the victim, as she has been, of the personal crusades often launched by one of the world’s largest media companies against individuals they happen to disagree with.

And Tame is in good company. Another young renegade has stood up to the behemoth right at the eleventh hour. Prince Harry has been stalwart in his campaign against intrusive activities, such as phone hacking and searching through dustbins, by Murdoch-owned newspapers. He only settled last week, having taken the 93-year-old to the brink of having to face another “humblest day”. Harry is not very popular in the UK, but perhaps his holding Murdoch to account, not just on his own behalf but in memory of his mother, has gained him some respect.

Some of the criticism of Tame is about her pulling focus from this year’s winners. Actually, I think we’ve done that by being so incredibly easy to bait. If we’d all just shrugged, her activism would have failed. Indeed, a word to other winners, maybe take a leaf from Tame’s playbook. If you care about a cause and want to draw attention to it, be prepared to take flak.

That is the lesson courageous young women like Grace Tame continue to teach me. As a lifelong feminist – yes, I was one of those women lucky not to get shot – I delight in witnessing the refusal of younger women to pipe down, behave, and stifle their opinions and their rage. I am inspired by their rejection of shame about their age, their beauty, and their bodies. Flaunt them, cover them up, I don’t care. Women’s bodies belong to them to be used and accessorised as they see fit. My generation, with a few honourable and mouthy (bless them) exceptions, were more easily cowed.

And where did that get us? The good girls who behaved like ladies and put other people’s needs ahead of their own from dawn to dusk, from cradle to grave? A fast track to an old age of poverty and fear, including the very real possibility of living in our cars.

Speak up, girls. Don’t be tame. Be wild.

• Jane Caro AM is a Walkley-winning columnist, author, novelist and social commentator.

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#FsckRWNJs #FsckThePatriarchy #FsckMisogynists #FsckSexists 🖕
#Feminism #WomensRights #WomensRepresentation #misogyny #sexism #DomesticViolence #DieDickswingersDie #WomanNeedsManLikeFishNeedsBicycle #MaleViolence #WomensSafety #GraceTame

IMO Rodney is a champion, with far more courage & integrity than i've ever had, so it's nice to see him standing up now for trans safety & rights, akin to his own personal history of blazing successful trails for gay safety & rights.

I fear this coming election campaign might be as sordid & hateful for trans peeps as was the awful experience of the leadup to Marriage Equality. In the intervening years the RWNJ toxicity has only further escalated, & they will love this new culture war frontline.

I'm a transwoman, but will be personally untouched for most of the issues Rodney mentions in his article, given i'm not young, & not in need of transition support. However, i will very much be even more traumatised than i already am, simply from the escalated political rhetoric of hate & mockery of people like me, which is already bad but i think is going to get much worse.

Yay for the "gift" of having been born trans. Fsck it.

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8860912/opinion-the-looming-culture-war-trans-rights-in-2025-election

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The 20th anniversary of John Howard's ban on marriage equality ahead of the 2004 Australian election is a reminder that another LGBTQIA+ culture war is likely to taint the 2025 election.

In 2004 John Howard amended the Marriage Act to make it clear marriage could only be between a man and a woman.

It was a move designed to wedge Labor and stir up homophobia for electoral gain.

It was a tactic adopted directly from the US where George W. Bush promised to ban same-sex marriages ahead of the 2004 presidential election.

A generation later the conditions are right for a similar election war over the rights of trans and gender-diverse people.

Attacks on trans rights figured prominently in the 2024 American election with conservative commentators convinced those attacks helped win Donald Trump a second term and deliver Republican control of Congress.

In Australia parties to the right of the Coalition will inevitably seek to replicate Trump's success by also attacking trans and gender-diverse people.

To diffuse this challenge to its voter base, the Coalition is likely to promise its own trans rights rollback.

The Coalition knows Labor is unlikely to push back because the ALP needs to win anti-LGBTQIA+ seats in western Sydney and regional Queensland - the seats that voted "no" to marriage equality in 2017 - to retain majority government.

I know some Labor figures would contest my prediction and declare the ALP is on the side of trans people, but let's be serious.

In 2004 Labor supported Howard's marriage equality ban to keep or win seats in Western Sydney.

Since winning government in 2022, Labor hasn't once publicly defended trans people from attack for the same reason.

That's very unlikely to change when an election is declared and the Coalition rolls out its anti-trans fear campaign.

I fervently hope I'm wrong. I hope the Coalition takes the high road, and Labor stands firm should it not.

But I was intimately involved in advocating for marriage equality in 2004 and I correctly predicted Howard's ban months before it was unveiled.

I feel it would be irresponsible not to point to the likelihood that history is about to repeat.

Should there be transgender election fear campaigns in 2025, what would they focus on?

A national review of healthcare for young transgender people is likely, as well as a ban on puberty blockers and hormones until the review is completed.

The likelihood of this has increased since the UK's Labour government put a permanent ban in place following a review commissioned by the previous Tory government.

Other possible election fear campaigns could focus on amending the Sex Discrimination Act to make it harder for trans women to play women's sport, and attempts to ban school courses, resources and groups that affirm young trans and gender-diverse people.

Such fear campaigns will be amplified by groups opposed to trans rights, including the so-called "GLB Alliance" and trans exclusionary feminists.

In the US, these relatively small groups have suddenly found themselves with far more resources in the lead up to elections where trans rights figured, and the same may happen in Australia.

Amplification is also likely from trans-sceptical media like Sky News and The Australian newspaper, as well as serial election meddler, Elon Musk.

If Labor is unlikely to contest fearmongering about these issues it will fall to the LGBTQIA+ community, non-government human rights groups and everyday Australians to stand up for trans and gender-diverse people.

Naturally, we should make the case that transgender Australians already experience high levels of discrimination, hate and suicide which fear campaigns make worse.

I believe another important argument, especially against a Liberal Party fear campaign, is personal freedom from government meddling.

Young trans people, together with their parents and doctors, should decide what treatment is best.

The government has no role dictating a one-size-fits-all response to the healthcare of young trans Australians.

The 2004 same-sex marriage ban eventually had the opposite effect to the one intended.

It led to a determined, persistent campaign for marriage equality that delivered a strong majority of Australians in support for reform in 2017.

I have no doubt trans fearmongering in the 2025 election would eventually have the same positive effect, fostering greater respect for the humanity of trans and gender-diverse people.

But before then, the nation faces a likely attack on some of our most vulnerable young people.

The more of us stand with these young people, the quicker Australia will evolve to embrace gender diversity.

• Rodney Croome AM is a long-time LGBTQIA+ human rights advocate.
• Support is available for those who may be distressed. PhoneLifeline 13 11 14

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#AusPol #ClimateCrisis #WomensRights #ShitParty1 #ShitParty2 #FsckOffDutton #WhyIsLabor #NoNukes #VoteGreens #ProgIndies #LGBTQIA+ #Transphobia #Homophobia #Racism #Trans #TransRightsAreHumanRights #GayRights #WomensRights #Misogyny #FsckThePatriarchy #fsckALLreligion #RWNJs #FsckRWNJs #FsckChristoFacists #ChangeTheSystem #FuckAroundAndFindOut #Misanthropy #GayRepresentation #LesbianRepresentation #TransRepresentation #transwoman #transwomen