New SOGI expert must listen to lesbians

AAWAA has made a submission to Dr Graeme Reid, the UN’s Independent Expert on Protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). Dr Reid recently put out a call for input into the protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, in relation to the human rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly and so we responded.

Australian lesbians have faced a significant setback in recent months with the AHRC’s denial of a request made by the Lesbian Action Group for an exemption to meet without men, and so we were excited to learn that the topic of the independent expert’s first report to the UN Human Rights Commission would relate to freedom of expression, association, and assembly.

We are hoping that Dr Reid can address in his statement to the UNHCR the challenges that lesbians face in Australia and elsewhere. It will be crucial for him to emphasise the need to prevent the recognition of new forms of discrimination caused by the grouping of sexual orientation and gender identity. The yoking of sexual orientation (which is based in sex) and gender identity (which is based on a self-reported sense of self) is undermining the protections and rights of lesbians in law. The difference between the two must be upheld in the expert’s report, and lesbians’ rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly – and their protection from male encroachment into lesbian spaces – must be defended. To put it bluntly, the violence and discrimination that lesbians already experience on the basis of their sexual orientation is being compounded by males seeking to identify as lesbians as part of their gender identity.

Separately, we would like for Dr Reid to comment on the language of his call for submissions and what we read to be an implicit rejection of certain safeguarding issues. We note his reference to “laws and policies … aimed at the ‘protection’ of children.” To our mind, his use of quotation marks around the word ‘protection’ conveys scepticism or reservations about the protection of children. Similarly, his use of quotation marks elsewhere in the call for input around the words ‘pornography’ and ‘prostitution’ conveys a sense that he might doubt these things exist or that they should not be matters of concern for LGBT persons. We trust that this is not the case.

You can read our full submission, below.