Julia Gillard Heckled By Anti-Trans Protester At UK Literary Festival

Former prime minister Julia Gillard has been heckled during an appearance at the Hay Festival in Wales, where a protester accused her of undermining women’s rights over amendments made to Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act during her government.

Gillard was appearing on a panel discussion about women’s rights and gender equality at the annual literary festival in Hay-on-Wye when a woman in the audience stood and shouted: “What about Sall Grover?” according to reports from the event. The protester also displayed a banner reading “Julia Gillard, DESTROYER OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS”.

The interruption related to ongoing debate around the 2013 amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act introduced under the Gillard government, which added protections on the basis of gender identity. Critics of the law have argued the changes affected sex-based rights and women-only spaces.

The main purpose of the Gillard government’s 2013 amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act was to extend federal anti-discrimination protections to LGBTQIA+ people, particularly transgender and intersex Australians. The law added “sexual orientation”, “gender identity” and “intersex status” as protected attributes under federal discrimination law, and are widely praised by LGBTQIA+ organisations.

Intersex advocates in particular strongly supported the reforms because they created explicit recognition of intersex status in federal anti-discrimination law for the first time. Intersex International Australia said:

“For the first time in Australia, and for the first time internationally, intersex people are recognised fully and authentically in anti-discrimination legislation.”

The protest follows recent legal and political attention on the case involving Sall Grover, an anti-trans campaigner and founder of the women-only social networking app Giggle. Grover lost a Federal Court appeal earlier this month after the court found she had unlawfully discriminated against transgender woman Roxanne Tickle by removing her from the app.

According to reports from the Hay Festival event, many of the other audience members booed the protester, with a woman in the crowd shouting, “shut up, what a moron”. Moderator Katya Adler intervened, telling the crowd: “It’s not the time for this right now.”

Gillard reportedly did not respond directly to the interruption.

Following the incident, Grover told the Herald Sun: “I’m so grateful for the support from women on the other side of the world.”

Grover received support from anti-trans groups around the world, including ADF International, an evangelical Christian organisation which campaigns to remove rights for women and LGBTQIA+ people.

The protest occurred amid broader debate in Australia over sex discrimination law and transgender rights, with the Coalition recently indicating it would seek to amend the legislation to explicitly define biological sex if elected to government.