Every year, advocates for women and girls from across the world make their case in communications before the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)—the highest global forum on gender equality. The CSW exists to monitor countries’ performance under treaties like the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), press for progress, and hold governments to account when women’s and girls’ rights are threatened.
This year, AAWAA has submitted detailed evidence to the CSW. Our message is stark: over the past decade, Australia—long a leader in women’s equality on paper—has seen a profound erosion of women’s sex-based protections and rights, freedoms, and protections in law, policy, and everyday life.
How we got here
Australian governments have implemented sweeping changes to laws about sex and gender. Legal “sex” is now self-defined in every jurisdiction; public services, sports, civic spaces—even the collection of basic crime statistics—now treat gender identity as overriding biological sex. These changes were introduced with little meaningful consultation, and almost always over the objections of women’s advocacy groups. Today, women in Australia are increasingly penalised for defending our most basic rights as a sex class.
Silencing and punishment for speaking the truth
Our submission to the CSW sets out the evidence—no longer rare—of women facing workplace penalties, legal action, or public harassment for expressing “gender-critical” views (that is, for defending the reality and importance of biological sex).
The Lesbian Action Group, for example, was denied the right to hold female-only events, chased underground by activists and forced to beg for legal exemptions. The Feminist Legal Clinic in Sydney was evicted from its premises after publishing material critical of gender identity policies. The Leichhardt Women’s Health Centre, a pillar of women’s health in Sydney for decades, was hounded into a public apology over a Facebook post referencing biological sex. Similar stories have unfolded in Tasmania and elsewhere: lesbians, feminists, and advocates for women’s services increasingly find the doors to public life closed to them.
The chilling effect is real. Prominent professionals—academics, journalists, even a senior psychiatrist—have been sacked, suspended, or relentlessly harassed for raising concerns about women’s safety, children’s welfare, or the integrity of data. Politicians have been expelled from their parties for participating in women’s rights rallies. Even grandmothers volunteering for community groups have found themselves under investigation for simply stating that women and girls need sex-based protections.
Losing access to female-only spaces and services
Australia once led the world in creating lifelines for women at their most vulnerable: refuges for women escaping male violence, women-only health centres, support for survivors of sexual assault. But today, the legal basis for female-only services has crumbled.
Shelters and crisis centres are now compelled by anti-discrimination law to admit male-born clients who identify as women—even into spaces where female trauma survivors are struggling to rebuild their lives. Disabled and elderly women cannot demand female carers without risking loss of access to services. In prisons, there are credible reports of male-born offenders being housed with female inmates. The fear, loss of trust, and withdrawals from services are mounting among the women who need them most.
Misclassification, missing data, and policy blind spots
One chilling outcome goes almost unnoticed by the public: the collapse of sex-disaggregated data. Today, a male-born person who changes his legal sex is recorded as “female” in criminal statistics, hospital data, and more. This has led to a sharp rise in the rate of “female” sexual assault offences—a distortion that threatens accurate monitoring, policy analysis, and Australia’s obligations to international bodies like CEDAW. Health services, meanwhile, increasingly use sex-neutral or ambiguous language, causing confusion and clinical errors—especially among migrant and refugee women least able to navigate these changes.
Sport, governance, and the disappearance of women
The erosion of women’s rights can be found in every sphere—including sport. Female athletes and teams are compelled to include male-born participants, risking injury and prompting women and girls to walk away from competitions they once loved. Even in sports governance, new quotas for “women and/or gender diverse people” mean that positions once reserved for women are now open to males who identify otherwise, eroding hard-won gains in leadership and decision making.
The cost of excluding women’s voices
A common thread runs through all these changes: women’s groups and dissenting voices were shut out of the consultation process. Parliamentary committees handling some of the most radical law reforms in decades invited only select LGBT advocacy groups, relegating women’s organisations to tick-box surveys or ignoring tens of thousands of signatures on petitions against the bills. New government guidelines on sex and gender were rolled out with similar disregard for women’s input.
Facing forward: what must change
In our submission, we urge the CSW to hold Australia to its obligations and demand a clear and immediate turnaround. That begins with restoring the legal right to female-only association, services, and safe spaces. It means open, meaningful consultation with women at every stage of law and policy reform—not just in theory, but in practice. It requires explicit guarantees that sex-based data, sport, leadership, and trauma services be protected—not gradually erased by poorly understood or hastily implemented identity policies.
The consequences of inaction are material, not theoretical. For many women and girls—especially those already marginalised or vulnerable—these laws and policies have meant real fear, exclusion, and harm.
Australia’s record on women’s rights should be one of progress and respect—not regression and erasure. It is time for governments, public bodies, and our broader community to listen—truly listen—to the experience and evidence provided by women ourselves and to restore women’s sex-based protections and rights.
Read the full submission, below.
