Lesbian and bisexual women are repeatedly told that Australia has strong equality laws and robust human rights institutions. Yet when females with same-sex attraction try to organise as such, or to defend female-only spaces, they encounter closed doors, shifting definitions, and institutions that treat others as the ‘real’ stakeholders on their behalf.
AAWAA’s recent submission to the UN Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity documents how governance failures operate as a primary mechanism of violence and discrimination against lesbian and bisexual women in Australia. This post highlights three patterns that help explain why lesbian and bisexual women are so often invisible in Australia’s equality framework.
Peak bodies speak, lesbians are sidelined
Across the country, peak LGBTIQ+ organisations are treated as default representatives of lesbian interests: even where their stated policy positions conflict with sex-based protections and rights for women.
A clear example is the handling of female-only lesbian events. When the Lesbian Action Group (LAG) applied in 2023 for an exemption under the Sex Discrimination Act to hold ‘Lesbians Born Female Only’ events, a coalition of 15 LGBTIQ+ organisations, led by Equality Australia, opposed the application. Equality Australia publicly described the proposal as “intentionally cruel and divisive” and a “sad stunt”, while its own submission conceded that it was “important and beneficial for lesbians to be able to gather as a community”, just “not appropriate or necessary” to exclude women who identify as transgender or queer.
In practice, this treats lesbians as a subset of a broad identity category rather than as females with same-sex attraction. Organisations whose positions explicitly reject female-only lesbian spaces are nevertheless treated as key stakeholders on lesbian questions, while lesbian-led groups are often afforded less institutional weight.
The same dynamic appears in other settings. In Tasmania, when Jessica Hoyle and LGB Alliance Australia sought permission to run females-only lesbian events, they were refused by state bodies. Equality-focused NGOs were heard; lesbian women seeking to organise as females were not.
Consultation without lesbians
A second pattern is the way lesbian and bisexual women are excluded from early-stage policy development, particularly around sex self-identification.
In Queensland, work on sex self-ID law began in 2018 through closed consultations with LGBTQIA+ organisations. Women’s and lesbian-inclusive groups were only brought in years later, after public pressure, and even then through a single, tightly constrained information session. By that point, the basic policy direction was already set.
In New South Wales, LGBTQIA+ advocacy organisations had early input into the Equality Bill, while groups representing women and lesbians only discovered the detail much later in the process. Public participation was largely confined to an online survey and limited hearings by invitation. In Western Australia, the Law Reform Commission consulted LGBTQIA+ groups on sex self-ID reforms but not lesbian-only organisations, while the bill itself was framed as an emergency measure with restricted parliamentary debate.
The pattern is consistent. LGBTQIA+ organisations receive early and meaningful opportunities to shape policies that directly affect female-only spaces and same-sex attracted women. Lesbian, bisexual and women’s organisations arrive late, often after core definitions and assumptions have been locked in.
Institutions with tools, but no will
A third pattern is institutional reluctance to use existing legal tools to protect lesbian and bisexual women’s rights as females with same-sex attraction.
The Lesbian Action Group’s exemption application in 2023 illustrates this. LAG documented two decades of forced underground organising—no public advertising, no ability to reach younger lesbians, constant risk of complaint due to male encroachment into lesbian spaces. The Australian Human Rights Commission acknowledged that lesbians face “significant structural and entrenched discrimination”, yet refused the exemption.
In doing so, the commission did not seriously engage with the human rights standards directly raised by LAG’s supporters, including ICCPR protections for freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association. Nor did it ask whether it had a clear legal basis to restrict those rights. It did not consider using section 7D of the Sex Discrimination Act, which allows ‘special measures’ aimed at achieving equality for disadvantaged groups, including on the basis of sexual orientation.
Elsewhere, gay men have been granted exemptions by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal for male-only events. Transgender organisations advertise exclusive events without serious challenge. The practical effect is that lesbians are uniquely prevented from organising publicly as females, despite Australia’s obligation under CEDAW Article 7 to ensure women’s participation in public life and policy formation.
These are not gaps in the law so much as failures of governance. The tools exist; they are simply not being used to protect lesbian and bisexual women as a sex-based group.
Why this matters for violence and discrimination
Some might see these as technical disputes about exemptions and consultation processes. They are not. When lesbian and bisexual women cannot organise publicly as females, cannot maintain female-only community spaces, and cannot secure a place at the table where laws about their lives are drafted, they are left more isolated and vulnerable—socially, politically and physically.
Being forced underground for decades, as LAG documents, means no visible community infrastructure, no straightforward way for younger lesbians to find support, and increased exposure to harassment and threats with little institutional backing. When institutions send a constant signal that female-only lesbian spaces are illegitimate, those who intimidate or target lesbians receive a de facto green light.
Australia has signed up to international standards that require more than this. CEDAW Article 7 guarantees women’s participation in public and political life. The ICCPR protects freedoms of expression, assembly and association. The UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls has warned that policies which erase women as a sex-based group, or sideline women-specific language and organising, can themselves constitute forms of violence.
What needs to change
If lesbian and bisexual women are to become visible rather than incidental in Australia’s equality framework, several shifts are needed:
- Lesbian and bisexual women must be recognised in law and policy as females with same-sex attraction, not folded into broader identity categories that erase sex.
- Stakeholder frameworks need to prioritise those materially affected by policies—same-sex attracted females—over organisations whose positions conflict with sex-based protections and rights.
- Consultation processes on laws that affect female-only spaces must include lesbian and women’s organisations from the outset, not at the tail end of a pre‑cooked agenda.
- Human rights institutions, including the Australian Human Rights Commission, should use existing powers—such as special measures and interpretive principles like the principle of legality—to protect, rather than diminish, female-only lesbian spaces.
Australia’s institutions often speak the language of inclusion. Lesbian and bisexual women are asking a more basic question: inclusion on what terms, and for whom?
Read our full submission to the UN IESOGI, below.
