The Women’s Action Alliance Tasmania (WAAT) wrote to the Tasmanian Attorney-General, the Hon Guy Barnett, urging the government to take a closer look at the real-world impacts of sex self-identification laws on women and girls in the state. The letter, sent in April 2025, highlights a growing sense of unease among women’s advocates about the consequences of these laws—consequences that, they argue, were never intended.
Acknowledging progress, but raising the alarm
WAAT recognises the government’s efforts to improve women’s safety, including upgrades to women’s shelters and new measures to address coercive control; however, the group says that these positive steps are being undermined by legislation that allows people to self-identify their sex, regardless of their biological reality.
What’s going wrong?
WAAT has identified several negative effects that are enabled by current laws in Tasmania:
- Loss of safe spaces: Women and girls are losing their right to privacy in places such as refuges, changerooms, and hospital wards. The law now allows males who identify as female to access these spaces, which can put vulnerable women at risk and discourage them from seeking help.
- Legal confusion: Removing biological definitions from the law has created uncertainty and made it harder to balance the rights of women with those of males identifying as transgender.
- Compromised data: When sex and gender identity are treated as the same thing, it becomes much harder to collect accurate data on crime, health, and policy outcomes. This, in turn, makes evidence-based decision-making more difficult.
- Unfairness in sport: Allowing males to self-identify into female sporting categories undermines fairness, safety, and the competitive integrity of women’s and girls’ sport.
Backing up the evidence
WAAT’s letter also supports a detailed dossier from Women Speak Tasmania, which lays out the impacts of sex self-ID laws on women, girls, families, and LGB individuals. WAAT is urging the government to take this evidence seriously and restore clarity and fairness to laws that are meant to protect women.
What needs to change?
WAAT is not calling for an end to inclusion, but insists that inclusion should not come at the expense of women’s rights and safety; rather, the group is asking the Tasmanian Government to:
- Reaffirm the legal recognition of biological sex in policies governing female-only spaces, services, and sports.
- Consult meaningfully with women’s organisations, as required by international obligations (see per CEDAW Article 7(b)) on matters that impact us, to ensure that new laws genuinely protect women and girls.
- Introduce legislative safeguards so that sex-based protections are not unintentionally overridden by self-ID policies.
The letter was also copied to the Premier, the Hon Jeremy Rockliff. WAAT hopes this will spark constructive dialogue and lead to policy improvements that uphold the dignity, privacy, and safety of women and girls in Tasmania.
