Former senator Jacqui Lambie slammed over anti-transgender ‘I’m A Celeb’ rant

Former senator Jacqui Lambie slammed over anti-transgender ‘I’m A Celeb’ rant

Jacqui Lambie has been criticised over comments the former senator made about transgender Australians on reality show I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! Australia.

The Tasmanian, who entered the Senate as part of Clive Palmer’s Palmer United Party, quit parliament in 2017 after it was revealed she held a dual citizenship.

In a political discussion with cast mate Dermott Brereton, Lambie took Brereton’s mention of the Greens as an opportunity to rail against rights for transgender Australians, 10daily reported.

“Now we’re into moving Australia Day, we’re into transgender and making sure we can change their fucking birth certificates,” Lambie said.

“Stupid Tasmania, they did that just before Christmas time.”

Lambie followed up by declaring, “When you are born, you’re either a male or a female.”

“Or you’re born a hermaphrodite,” said Brereton, a former AFL player, using a word many – though not all – intersex people deem to be stigmatising and offensive.

Lambie pressed on discussing birth certificates, calling them “a true document of the time that you are born, if you are male or female. Very simple.”

In late 2018, Tasmania’s Lower House passed trans-inclusive legal reforms which would make gender markers on birth certificates optional as well as remove the requirement that trans people undergo surgery before being allowed to change the gender on their birth certificate, among other changes.

The reforms have yet to pass Tasmania’s Upper House.

At the time, Prime Minister Scott Morrison criticised Labor’s support of the plan – which at one stage included the removal of gender markers from Tasmanian birth certificates altogether – as “ridiculous”.

Lambie also admitted that her mother had convinced her to go on the Network 10 reality show to reestablish her platform before another jaunt at politics.

“Even my mum said it, ‘You need to suck it up Jacqui and you need to go on there, you can’t afford the advertising’,” she said.

Following the postal survey in 2017, Lambie infamously took to the ABC’s Q&A to express the dismay of No voters.

“There is still 30 per cent of those Australians that lost out on that vote and they are feeling the hurt from that. I don’t hear anyone talking about that which I find quite disturbing,” she said.

“How long are these people going to have to go through more pain? They’ve lost. They’re feeling the pain. How much longer do they have to feel more pain?”

The Australian public eliminated Lambie from the show last night, placing third-last in the reality series.

Correction: this story has been updated to clarify that Tasmania’s transgender reforms are still in the legislative process and have not yet been made law. A previous version of this story suggested the reforms were already instated.

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4 responses to “Former senator Jacqui Lambie slammed over anti-transgender ‘I’m A Celeb’ rant”

  1. Latham and Lambie. Both populist. Both former politicians, both left politics with their tails between their legs. Both hoping to get re-elected for the perks and taxpayer funded salary. Both largely unemployable in the real world it seems, Lambie resorts to reality tv while Latham got sacked from so many media gigs he’s now working for the only guy who won’t sack him: he’s now self-employed. Both attention whores. Both very obsessed with trans folks and I don’t get it.

    To the extent they have a supporter base, those folks are mainstream anti-political types often in rural environments living pretty simple lives. Trans issues don’t affect them. They don’t know trans folks, they aren’t affected, surely they’d rather vote for someone talking about their lives?

    I sincerely hope (and this is a credible possibility) that NSW One Nation voters have enough sense and humour to bypass Latham and vote for the number 2 One Nation candidate instead. He offers them nothing but bitching about progressives and ignoring reality, and he deserves to be caught out by the folks he’s hoping to represent.

  2. Ms Lambi sounds to me like she established her political opinions/beliefs as a seven year old while sitting under a table listening to drunk bigots discussing politics at a dinner party in the 70’s.

  3. Jacqui Lambie is a reminder to us all that sometimes a ditz can be amusing – but long after you stop laughing you realise she’s still a ditz, has always been a ditz and will always be so. The only thing more stupid than a ditz is another ditz who would vote her into public office.