‘A Cult’: Greens Co-Founder Drew Hutton Expelled Over Anti-Transgender Views

The Australian Greens have expelled long-time party figure Drew Hutton following a series of statements in which he criticised the party’s support for transgender rights and accused it of becoming “an authoritarian cult”.

Hutton, a co-founder of the Queensland Greens and prominent environmental activist, has officially been removed from the party, for several instances of inflammatory and transphobic statements on social media and in media interviews about the party’s support for the LGBTQIA+, particularly the transgender, community.

In a statement given last week, Hutton accused the Greens of abandoning their core principles and said the party had “lost its way”.

“Greens have been taken over by a cult… They have abandoned the historic mission I believed they had when I founded the party, a mission to help bring about an ecologically sustainable world,” he said.

Hutton confirmed on Facebook he had been expelled from the party on Monday, saying, “The QLD Greens state council has just expelled me from the party. I knew I was gone the moment I walked into the room; it was filled with queer and transgender activists. I could have hummed a medley of Barry Manilow songs and the vote would have been the same. And not one environmentalist in the room. The only issues the Greens are really interested in are queer and transgender. When people learn what they are really on about, the Greens will be lucky to ever win a seat again.”

He told The Australian he was now considering his legal and political options regarding the expulsion.

How did Drew Hutton get expelled from the Greens?

The dispute that eventually led to Hutton’s expulsion began in 2022, when he used Facebook to weigh in on disciplinary action taken against Greens members in Victoria and New South Wales over comments deemed transphobic.

Following a formal complaint, the party’s internal review concluded that while Hutton had not directly targeted trans women, he had enabled the spread of discriminatory views by allowing harmful comments to remain visible on his post.

His membership was subsequently suspended, with the party requesting that he take down the post criticising the Greens and remove the offensive responses shared by others.

Then in March this year, Hutton spoke to various media outlets on the matter and published more posts on Facebook criticising the Greens and party members being “trans extremists”.

Hutton responds to expulsion in op-ed for The Australian

Hutton however has doubled down, writing an op-ed for The Australian today that affirms his stance that by supporting trans rights, the Greens are a “cult”, and people are starting to “see the Greens as weird and unlikable”.

“Like many other party members, I have become a victim of this cult,’’ he wrote in The Australian.

“I was expelled from the party, not because I made statements that opposed key beliefs of the Greens but because I refused to censor comments on a couple of Facebook posts that asserted that men were biological males and women were biological females.

“The cult position is that people are whatever gender they define themselves as and anyone who disagrees with that position must be expelled or, if they are not party members, they should be otherwise cancelled. I was, therefore, told I had to censor all such comments from my Facebook posts. I refused on free speech grounds and so my membership was suspended, and then I was expelled when I continued to refuse.

“I join at least 40 other members that I know of who have been expelled or forced out of the party over the gender issue. Many of those expelled have been great environmental campaigners with decades of loyal service to the party. It is a purge of “green” Greens.

“People in the community are beginning to sense that something is not right in the Greens, and the party will need to work hard to calm this disquiet. The first thing the Greens need to do is analyse where their vote comes from.”

Hutton also said that former Greens leaders support him, and asked if the current leader of the Greens would be able to “get the Greens out of this mess”.

“Leadership is needed. Both Bob Brown and Christine Milne, the two former great leaders of the Australian Greens, had the character and courage to tackle the issue head-on,’’ he said. “I believe they would have demanded an end to the purges and an inquiry into how the party could better implement the green politics principle of democracy in its processes.

“The question is: Does the current Australian Greens leader, Larissa Waters, have the same character and courage to get the Greens out of this mess?.”

Response from the Greens over Drew Hutton’s expulsion

The controversy comes at a time when trans rights have become a political flashpoint both in Australia and globally. The noticeable and drastic increase in transphobic commentary — which is usually misleadingly framed “concern for women’s spaces” or “concern for women’s sport”, and so on — is creating a hostile climate for transgender people, who already face disproportionately high levels of discrimination, violence and mental health challenges.

The Greens have reiterated their support for the transgender community and reaffirmed their commitment to inclusive policymaking.

Commenting on the recent decision to expel Hutton from the party, Queensland Greens convener Gemma Burden said “no member is above the need to treat others with respect”.

“This decision reflects the Greens’ position as endorsed by its membership – that trans rights are non-negotiable human rights, a position publicly reaffirmed in 2022.

“Throughout this process the former member has refused to engage fairly with the party, sought and expected special treatment and used the media to prosecute his case,” said Burden. “No member is above the need to treat others with respect, and seeking to weaponise internal processes to pursue personal grievances does not advance the Queensland Greens’ work on environmental, climate, economic and social justice.”

Greens leader Larissa Waters backed the expulsion, releasing a statement that reiterated the message that no one member of the Greens is above the rules, and saying that the party’s support for the trans community is “backed again and again” by thousands of members.

“Greens members have been working hard to resolve this matter through the party’s governance processes, and to ensure that the party’s important work on environmental, climate, economic, and social justice doesn’t stop because of one man’s focus on how other people identify,” she said in a statement.