AAWAA brings to you ‘Local Action,’ a report on the brave feminist actions by women across Australia. Today we are talking with the brilliant, strong and intelligent Nerissa Scott. Simply talking to Nerissa raises your IQ. She is a natural fighter for Women’s Liberation and I am stoked to be fighting the good fight right beside her. Nerissa is getting it done!
When did you come to feminism? Has it always been in your life?
I have always been aware of social justice, which is an unpopular term right now. It’s been tarnished. It started when I was very young, and I remember in primary school there was quite a lot of gender inequality. Even just little things like in primary school for example the girls couldn’t wear shorts and the boys could. I petitioned the school principal to change that and I wasn’t successful. Which is outrageous.
I wouldn’t probably have considered myself a feminist until my thirties. Which is so sad when you think about it because any woman with half a brain should be wanting to get equal rights for 51 percent of the population and, for our daughters, equality.
So I discovered Anna McCormack and her work with IWD Brisbane/Meanjin around 2019. At that point, I also found myself on Twitter for the first time in a long time, and I was going down these rabbit holes and discovered people like Graham Linehan. So, you know, I came across what he was doing and talking about. I also have an older sister who works in domestic violence, let’s just call it male violence primarily. She had lived in the UK for several years, so she was savvy as to what was going on over there. She suggested I do a bit of digging as a lot was happening in the UK and it’s got to come to Australia. So I did. I could not believe what I was reading….
I managed to get to an IWD Brisbane/Meanjin Conference in 2020. I met so many other women – like-minded women – and that was mind blowing. It was also really depressing that an International Women’s Day March was so small. But I mean, knowing that in Australia, Brisbane has the only International Women’s Day March that’s not centering men, it’s understandable that a lot of women don’t want to get threatened with violence and potentially physically assaulted and verbally assaulted for simply asserting that women don’t have a penis.
So how did you feel when you first walked into the conference and saw all these amazing women?
So many successful ambitious, intelligent women from all different walks of life; academia, corporate, small business owners, professionals – all different types of women from all sorts of political persuasions in one place. It felt great to connect with those women and some men that go on to the rally and to know that I was not alone screaming into the abyss. All these women were screaming with me.
Do you consider yourself a TERF?
Some women want to reclaim the name TERF but I just think it’s a horrible slur. We are not “trans exclusionary”, anyway. Many of us don’t identify as feminist or radical feminist. So, it’s not even accurate. It’s just a word to abuse, and to discredit us, and to demonise us; it’s the modern-day witch hunt. But I’ve got the badge! I am proud of the community that I’m in – a community that refuses to deny our reality. I refuse to lie and I refuse to pretend 1 + 1 = 3, but the name itself? We are not trans exclusionary, we are male exclusionary and rightly so. It is so obvious that women, females need separate spaces: sports, rape crisis centres, prisons, changing rooms, we need to separate male and female for safety, privacy and dignity.
So am I out in public – yeah. I mean, I go to protests, I go to actions, and I go to events where I could be identified as who I am. At the same time, I’m not in any danger as I am self-employed, so I’m not at risk of being fired from a job for wrongthink. A lot of women can’t be visible in their opposition to this garbage, especially those working in the government sector. Which is just insane. When you think about “wrongthink”. It’s like the book 1984.
What are your main concerns for feminism in the future?
I am really concerned about decriminalisation of prostitution. It is just outrageous! You know, it should be the Nordic model 100 percent! I love the work of Collective Shout. Melinda Tankard Reist and Caitlin Roper do an amazing job.
I contacted the Queensland Minister for Women, Shannon Fentiman, when she was asking for submissions into that in Queensland – legalising prostitution. They have decriminalised prostitution here but not adopted the Nordic Model. I recall there was a photo of Shannon Fentiman with a sign saying, “sex work is work”. It’s just so shameful. She has stepdaughters, would she be happy knowing they were going into a “career” as a prostitute? It’s just awful.
Another concern about women’s rights generally is reproductive rights. Concern about these rights as well as surrogacy. Obviously women’s rights to abortion, safe abortion, without intimidation and stigma.
There are so many issues that are affecting women globally and it’s frustrating because even the men in your life, who are supportive of these causes and your concerns, don’t understand because they’ve never had to fight for anything. Whereas women have fought for everything and now to watch, especially with gender ideology, the way it’s just ripping apart the work of our mothers and grandmothers.
So many men especially don’t get what we’re worried about. They think that it’s so good now and women have got equal pay and have got this and you’ve got that. No, we don’t. We don’t have those things. And in the last few years, just watching in Australia and around the world watching the rights that we thought were secure, being stripped away because of this trans ideology. You know, I’ve read women’s testimonies and women’s accounts regarding abortion protests in the US – even there where it should be 100 percent about women, due to our reproductive capacity – yet “transwomen” were being platformed.
So you’re a very busy woman. How many kids do you have?
Just the one – a two year old daughter. She is very active, always on the go. I spend most of my days running after her, and she’s incredible. She’s super smart, super switched on, and just runs on the smell of an oily rag.. Her father is the exact same way. She’s very active and loves family and soccer and loves swimming at the beach.
I remember when I met Kath Deves. A group of women who were talking about what we can do to counter this push by trans ideology. We were talking about women in sports, for instance. Well it turns out both Kath and I have active girls so we both said, OK, we’ll do something about this. Not long after, Kath had a meeting with Save Women’s Sport New Zealand and they decided to make Save Women’s Sports Australasia. I went along for the ride. That’s what I think. And, you know, there’s a website, a Facebook page. It’s a decent following, and we advocate for women in female only sport – we provide any kind of support we can for girls and women negatively impacted by this push for “inclusion”. I just wanted to help any way I could…Kath Deves was amazing – just doing whatever she could – having meetings with politicians and people in authority, to talk about women not wanting men in our sports, for very obvious reasons. It was around the time that the Pride in Sport guidelines were adopted by many Australian sports. Remember Pride in Sport is part of ACON.
They were only guidelines but they encouraged sports to write up their own inclusion policies using it as a framework and prioritising “gender identity” above biology/sex. At the time 8 peak sporting bodies made a commitment to implement new policies based on these guidelines. This is despite the Federal Sex Discrimination Act clearly stating that we can exclude men from women’s sport when strength, stamina and physique is affecting competition. Which happens in all sports.
It was around that time I started to speak publicly. I felt compelled to speak out, in the hope that it would encourage others to do the same. “Courage calls to courage everywhere” from Suffragette Millicent Fawcett struck me. I spoke at the IWD Conference in 2021 and other events organised by Anna McCormack. I have spoken at rallies since then and any other place that will have me really. I have spoken at Speakers Corners events organised by IWD Brisbane Meanjin and later Woman Up QLD Speakers Corner. I have spoken at a few public information sessions and community forums. I recently spoke at the “Women Will Speak” conference reading Janet Inglis’ speech about Julia Gillard inserting “gender identity” as a protected characteristic in the Sex Discrimination Act, effectively removing sex based rights in Australia.
What is your take on Julia Gillard on this issue?
There are arguments that because Julia Gillard wasn’t actually present during this vote and that vote, because of the timing of the leadership spill with Kevin Rudd, that since she was absent a lot she couldn’t be held accountable – and I understand why some women are defending Julia Gillard.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus was the one who changed the Sex Discrimination Act and this has his name all over it. However when you look at Gillard now in her comfortable post-political position in the Women’s Leadership Forum. So, she’s got, you know, a high paid position. And then recently when she was asked by journalist Biddy O’Loughlin – who is amazing, by the way, which was arranged by the Women’s Rights Network, and she was asked “what is a woman”. Instead of just answering “adult human female” – it’s not a trick question after all! – our first female prime minister instead babbled on way too long and tried to claim that it’s a gotcha question. She just made herself look like a clown. Once I saw her do that, I thought, I don’t care whether it was you or not, I have lost all respect for you because – whether she really believes it (which is pathetic) or she is afraid (which is just as pathetic); she is in a position of privilege, power and wealth. She will never have to go to a women’s prison, seek refuge in a DV shelter. In her position of power she should stand up for women who are marginalised and oppressed. It is just so hypocritical. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so depressing.
So when were you last out? What was your last action?
The last action was a Speaker’s Corner with Woman Up QLD – and we had no issues. But there was also the Labor Party National Conference held at the Brisbane Convention centre back in August. A group of us met with signs and banners: Woman Adult Human Female, It’s TERF time, Time for the ALP to back women’s rights.
There were a good number of us there to support women’s rights, and we knew there was
potentially going to be some hostility towards us because there were other groups protesting in that vicinity who we knew were against women’s (sex-based) rights. So, yeah, we encountered some hostility and thankfully there was a decent police presence. At one point we were encircled by a large group protesting housing affordability and the rental crisis. Then they surrounded us and were chanting TERFs are not welcome here, drowning us out with their megaphone, and trying to block out our banners. In a public park – in Brisbane City. Trying to intimidate and silence us. There were several transgender males present. Along with large men screaming in our faces. Basically, what any woman in direct action has experienced. Like International Women’s Day events where we had survivors of domestic violence speaking, Indigenous survivors of domestic violence. Women standing up speaking about their experience of male violence. And you’ve got men dressed as women on megaphones shouting abuse at them.
At that the Labor Party Conference I had a liquid thrown all over me by a deranged woman. I’ve been told after the fact that she identifies as a they/them. So she’s “nonbinary”. I made a police report, more on principle than anything else, and that is ongoing. It hasn’t been in front of a court or anything yet. But I’ve told the police that I do want to pursue it.
Greens Brisbane City Councillor, Trina Massey was part of the mob shouting at us and encircling us and she went on Facebook and Twitter, saying that they weren’t doing anything wrong and we were the aggressors – a bunch of middle aged women. Which was just a lie. When we were simply standing up and stating facts – like women are not men, and women don’t have a penis. That hit a nerve for them. A Brisbane City councillor shouting and chanting “TERFs are not welcome here” – to Brisbane grandmothers.
Did you get any positive responses on that day?
Yeah, we did. We had lots of conversations. But you know I guess a lot of the protestors gathering there were Greens and Leftist voters. We did get a lot of people supporting us after that event. We did a banner drop over the freeway with the Women’s Rights Network, No Balls in Women’s Sports. Cars were honking, ambulance drivers, buses. It was awesome because we know that in a recent poll 74% of Australians do not support men and boys identifying as women and being in women’s sports and changerooms.
Australia has hope!
The views expressed by the women interviewed in Local Action are their own and do not necessarily represent or reflect the positions of AAWAA.
