OPINION: Is it possible to be gender critical but also critical of Kirralie Smith, a campaigner who seeks to defend women’s rights against the transgender rights campaigners? That’s the stance this site takes.
It is not the first time that attempting to neutrally report a controversial issue – the fact that a NSW District Court judgment went against Smith – gets quite a reaction.
Academic Steven Chavura describes this writer “With “Christian” brothers and sisters like this, who needs demonic opposition? And although Kirralie is described as an “anti-trans” activist, I prefer to think of her as a pro-women, pro-reality activist. Finally, to be “anti-trans” is merely to be opposed to deluded men wanting to force their delusions onto women, thus making women less safe.”
And one commentator on The Other Cheek Facebook asked readers to “spot the Quisling.”
What these commentators argue, or assume, is that to be critical of Kirralie Smith is necessarily to be pro-transgender. To be critical of Kirralie Smith is to support women’s spaces being invaded by people who are biological men. To be critical of Kirralie Smith is to say there should be no protection for women’s sport.
The Other Cheek site takes a general “gender critical stance,” namely that God created two sexes, and apart from a very few people with rare intersex conditions, this remains the same. It is best for people to stick with the way their body is. We should treat people with gender dysphoria with respect. Because we take this stance, we gladly excerpted The Gender Revolution by Patricia Weerakoon, Rob Smith and Kamal Weerakoon, and covered the findings of the Cass Review a number of times.
The gender Revolution excerpt is here: We can never shame anyone into seeing truth or accepting Jesus: responding to transgender people.
Some of our Cass review coverage: UK Tavistock transgender clinic to close, review cites lack of evidence for early use of puberty blockers and Most trans children just going through a phase: The United Kingdom is taking a more conservative approach to transgender issues
And The Other Cheek has covered the problems with the scientific case regarding transgender. The medical evidence for teen gender transition is weak and Strong on revolutionary fervour, weak on science, trans moment may be over
Well, personally, I believe that there are spaces where people who have male biology but who identify as women should not go – and women’s prisons are the classic example. Isla Annie Bryson, a Scottish person who identifies as a transgender woman, was convicted of raping two women but was initially sent to a women’s prison. Locally, up to six women have alleged, a transgender prisoner in a SA jail has assaulted or intimidated them.
However, my experience of having worked with a transgender person in a secular workplace is that it would be cruel to force them to go to a workplace toilet for their natal gender. Increasingly, workplaces provide some gender neutral toilets, and that may be a good solution.
Perhaps some Christians will see that as being weak.
And perhaps my reaction to details of Kirralie Smith’s campaigning, as detailed in judgments in the various cases, will be seen as weak as well. I am sadly aware that there are some conservative activists who, however right the cause they campaign for, engage in behaviour that falls below the standard of treating others with respect, which we Christians are called to uphold.
The difficulty with Kirralie Smith is not what she is campaigning for, but the way she goes about it
Let’s consider a second loss for Kirralie Smith in the NSW court system. One of the soccer/football players in the recent case has an APVO, an Apprehended Personal Violence Order, against Kirralie Smith, a process that went all the way to the NSW Supreme Court of Appeal. This person plays for a women’s team in a small NSW country town.
The Supreme Court Judgment includes “By a number of posts on a variety of platforms in January and February 2023 (the posts), the applicant [Smith] posted messages about the first respondent (who for convenience we will refer to as the respondent) who is a transgender woman and has for 25 years been playing football, most recently for the [deleted due to possible suppression orders], a community team in a small town …of New South Wales. The applicant is a spokesperson for an organisation called Binary Australia, which she says is ‘dedicated to upholding the reality of biological and binary sex.’ The posts sometimes included a clearly identifying photograph of the respondent and (albeit without naming her) described her as the “bloke in the frock” playing for a women’s football team in …. At the time, the respondent was the only transgender woman on that football team.”
“…As is pellucidly clear from our summary of the posts set out below, in these posts the applicant also singled the respondent out for public attention in the applicant’s broader campaign against transgender women participating in women’s sport. The posts included photographs of the respondent, which clearly identified her to anyone familiar with her appearance.”
The details on the posts make it clear that pictures of the football player, both alone and with other team members, with their faces blocked out, were posted. Some of the posts were tagged to media outlets and conservative commentators. I describe the wide dissemination of the identity of this play as ‘outing’ the player, while acknowledging they may have been ‘out’ already to some friends and family.
The case revolved around whether this online intimidation and harassment, if the court found it to have occurred, was sufficient to warrant an APVO. In the court case judgments it was made clear that finding intent to harass or intimidate was not the basis of. for example, providing an APVO or issuing the fines. The Courts were not assessing Kiralie Smith’s motives but instead were examining the likely effects of her campaigning on the soccer players. In a similar manner, The Other Cheek is not attributing an intention to harass or intimidate on Kirralie Smith’s part, this piece does not examine motive.
Section 7 of the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007 provides that “intimidation of a person means—
(a) conduct (including cyberbullying) amounting to harassment or molestation of the person,” …
and gives a list: “Example of conduct that may amount to harassment of a person—
(1) Intentionally disclosing or threatening to disclose any of the following about a person without the person’s consent, known as “outing”—
(a) the person’s sexual orientation,
(b) the person’s gender history,
(c) that the person has a variation of sex characteristics,
(d) that the person lives with HIV,
(e) that the person is, or has been, a sex worker.
“(2) For subsection (1)(b) of this example, gender history means the sex recorded at birth for the person is different to the sex the person identifies with, lives in or seeks to live in, whether or not the person’s record of sex is altered under—
(a) the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1995, Part 5A, or
(b) the corresponding provisions of a law of another State or Territory or a jurisdiction outside Australia.”
Is outing a person like this something that Christian campaigners on socially conservative issues should do? We are not talking about a high-profile sports person, maybe an Olympian, but community football. Here, I am not arguing the merits of whether this person should play on a women’s team, but whether an online campaign should target that person by outing them.
To oppose outing these transgender soccer players is not to support the penalties NSW law attaches to that activity. It is possible for Christians to oppose the restrictions in the law, but still find “outing” people to be disrespectful.
A second alleged example of Smith’s conduct is included in the soccer player’s application at a lower court stage. “On 27 February 2023, the Respondent came to ….. where the Appellant plays soccer, with a group of men impersonating transgender women. The Respondent filmed the proceedings in which the impersonators played soccer. One of them ripped a …. Football Club shirt off a teenage girl wearing the impersonating clothing.”
The District Court did not make a finding on the truth of this incident. But possible support for the incident happening is provided in a tweet by Smith a few days earlier: “calling for men on the [region] to get in contact with her to help with ‘the bloke playing on the women’s team in [town].’”
UPDATE: The local Court judgment gives more details here.
In brief: Kirralie Smith’s lawyers’ representations in Court establish the pattern of wanting to ‘out’ the Soccer players who have now been awarded $95,000. In this piece, I have argued that Christians who are critical of the transgender movement can also be critical of activists “outing” people for identifying as transgender.
Image: Kirralie Smith appeals for funds for her court case. Image Source: Binary video
Every mentally ill male who imposes himself in women only spaces or women only teams needs to be exposed for the misogynist he is. Women weren’t put on this earth to humor men who are cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
You never bothered to ask me for comment before judging me or my actions. That is not a Christian principle. You are only cherry picking what you think are “facts”. The courts refer to men as women, what else do you think they might twist the truth about? There was zero evidence of some of the accusations you have made but you wouldn’t want to ruin a good story now would you? You also failed to mention it was Football NSW and the football club that posted the information you refer to as “outing”, I simply reshared it.
1. There can be no “outing” involved when a photograph was put into the public domain with the permission of the photographed person. No-one can claim “privacy” when in public. It is certainly not “violence” to re-use a publicly available photograph. Nor is there a right “not to be offended”. Otherwise women could keep the courts completely occupied with the offensive disparagement of people of their sex. In a democracy all are supposed to be treated equally under the law, the government and some courts have abandoned this principle and have ruled that once a man declares he is a woman, his rights trump those of female people. This is discrimination against women and undermines their safety, dignity, and human rights.
2. This football player is putting his beliefs into the public domain, speaking as though he has changed sex and is a woman. He of course has the right to do so, what is objectionable is his actions against the woman who dissents from his views and puts her beliefs into the public domain. The viewpoint free speech for me but not for thee should not be acceptable in a liberal democracy. Parts of the population enjoying “special” rights is anti-democratic, It is vilifying towards women because it is saying they do not deserve equal human rights but are a lesser beings, “sub-human” who do not have the right to self-identify their category, do not have the right to “free association”, do not have the right to advocate for their own sex class, do not exist in Australian law as a recognisable group who share particular characteristics.
3. I support the right of any person to define themselves as they wish, to seek free association with those who share the same characteristics, I support discrimination protection for all categories, including transgender identity. The fact that transgender people have the same discrimination protection as every other protected category is not enough for them, they want the additional right of cancelling women’s rights, the only human rights movement to have demanded the cancellation ot rights for another group ever. The fact that they cannot understand that human rights are universal and apply equally to all categories, and if someone speaks in defence of their own category, their own beliefs, their own experience they have every right to do so. There is no right, and never has been a right, to “not be” offended when other people do not share your views.
If a male dresses as a female, breaking the command, “The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.” Deut 22:5 and claims to be a woman, then plays in a sport surely, he is guilty of fraud and should be exposed. More than that he is using his physique, to dominate women in that sport. That could easy be termed assault if the sport is a contact sport. He should be outed and regarded as a laughingstock before other men. Anyone who supports such cowardly and deceitful behaviour is a hater of women. And obviously a hater of justice and fairness.
Sick and tired of these religious bigots. They seem to be taking over the world. Shame they don’t get upset about poverty, homelessness or the Gaza Genocide. They are bourgeois, middle-class white women who are bored and bitter and have nothing else in their lives. If every trans person and LGBT person was eradicated they would fall into a deep depression because their ignorance and hate is the only thing that keeps them alive.