How transphobes are finding new power in the religious right

Over the first few weeks of March, after the conclusion of World Pride and the death of George Pell – Australia’s rapist-in-chief for organised religion – there has been a surge of anti-LGBTQ activity in Australia. Every possible argument against trans people has been thrown against the wall to see what sticks, revealing the political nature of transphobia and its institutional power in the country.

Three events occurred during this period, some highly publicised, while others were announced quietly. Under the category of shock and awe there were goose-stepping, sieg-heiling Nazis in Melbourne at a TERF public talk and conservative Catholic thugs marching down King Street, menacing LGBTQ people in bars. In the Federal Government, Albanese quietly released the details of the next steps in resurrecting the Religious Freedoms Bill that he had promised to carry over from the Morrison Government.

What has become evident from these disgusting and brazen public displays of transphobia, which have not been seen in Australia for some time, is that transphobes are trying to find their purchase. One conclusion is that UK-style TERFism is dead in the water in Australia. Katherine Deves killed the Liberal campaign, not just in the seat she was running but in those around it, and now the speaking tour of terminally online TERF Kellie Jay Keen saw a pathetic turnout. Any attempt to confuse liberals with a veneer of feminism was overshadowed by the National Socialist Network’s march past Parliament during her speech. That Nazis feel emboldened to make such displays in public should always be condemned, and energetic counter-protesters opposed them, but KJK’s reliance on actual Nazis for support makes it clear that the majority of Australians have been deeply alienated from TERFism by the events of the past year. Good.

Though the exclusion of TERFs from mainstream politics is positive, it is clear that transphobes have turned to the far-right in search of relevance and popular support. The so-called ‘Christian Lives Matter’ public actions are especially cause for concern.

What’s more, TERFism has few places to turn in Australia for institutional power, where its entryism of leftist spaces such as the Greens or universities has been met with only limited success or outright failure. The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) has taken a stance against ‘gender critical feminism’ (a code word for TERFism), seeing through the faux-concern for academic freedom that masks transphobic vilification; women’s services like McIver’s Baths are increasingly forcing TERFs out from their leadership; key TERFs have been expelled from the NSW and Queensland Greens. In the Federal Parliament, the ideology has no real expression after the death of Senator Chandler’s bill about making women’s sport more transphobic.

Though the exclusion of TERFs from mainstream politics is positive, it is clear that transphobes have turned to the far-right in search of relevance and popular support. The so-called ‘Christian Lives Matter’ public actions are especially cause for concern. Around 500 protesters gathered in Hyde Park on Saturday, March 18th, with the explicit messaging of the protest being to ‘Save our Children’ from LGBTQ people, with printed placards and shirts that must have cost a significant amount of money. They have also committed to protesting schools and early learning centres following a zoom meeting with 450 attendees, including Mark Latham, Tania Mihailuk, and Sylvana Nile. This decision is rooted in the hateful fear of trans people, drag queens, and queer people generally who work or study in our education system. This is the oldest anti-LGBTQ argument in the book, but in NSW and Australia it is closely connected to how anti-LGBTQ bigots have operated. The fight over the Safe Schools program and its repeal was a clear win for the right wing, and Mark Latham continues to hammer on schools in NSW, not only by trying to introduce anti-LGBTQ bills in Parliament, but by taking action on individual schools, both personally and through his followers. Schools that host Wear It Purple have been sent questions from Latham directly, grilling and intimidating them on their LGBTQ support; some staunch teachers have walked off the job if Mark Latham had ever made a personal visit to their school.

In the upcoming NSW Election, Mark Latham and One Nation are running on a platform of waging a culture war and legislative agenda around “religious freedoms,” education, and nuclear issues. This is their propaganda for fixing an education system in crisis in Western Sydney, rather than fulfilling the demands of public sector strikers. One Nation is hoping to ride the wave of this bigotry and snag the last Legislative Council seat over the Greens and Animal Justice Party and secure the balance of power in the upper house. These themes of connecting LGBTQ hate to religious freedoms and children were the exact messaging of the Christian Lives Matter protest and clearly, they are looking towards far-right electoral victories to enforce their agenda.

The far-right on the streets are usually mutually reliant on parliamentary power. This posed a massive issue for them in the last Federal election, where the antivax ‘freedom’ rallies saw a cavalcade of cookers come out on the streets in the thousands, yet gain almost no traction at the ballot box through parties like One Nation or the UAP. As Covid restrictions relaxed, the movement died and many of the people involved moved on to stoking fears about the transgender community, using the momentum provided by Scott Morrison’s Religious Freedoms bill and Labor’s concessions to transphobia.

The difference between the antivax rally and Saturday’s rally, however, is that it was explicitly religious, with almost no independent attendees outside of the religious congregations bussed into the protest. While it resembled a more American-style ‘vigilante, street-based’ transphobia, in America the arguments are generally more secular in their expression. The secular transphobia of TERFism has failed to capture the Australian public, and so questions of how meaningful this is outside of religious communities remains to be seen.

What is clear is that the institutional power of religion in Australia must be resisted if we are to overcome transphobia in Australian society. These protesters are bosses in schools, early learning centres, homeless shelters, job search providers, aged care facilities, and other services run by religious organisations. Their ability to discriminate helps to maintain their

political and economic power, and has nothing to do with genuine spiritual belief.

If TERFism is left to fester and grow alongside the religious right, it will only serve to embolden the growth of genuinely fascist ideas in future. The fight to push transphobes out of the left

has largely been a success, but we must continue our efforts to crush TERFism entirely, as well as the fascism with which it is now becoming associated.