At 4zzz, we acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we broadcast.

We pay our respects to the elders.

Past, present and emerging of the Turbul and Jagera people.

We acknowledge that their sovereignty over this.

Land was never ceded and we stand.

In solidarity with them. You're listening to transm on 4zzz, amplifying the trans and gender non conforming voices of Brisbane and beyond.

Hello.

Hello. You're listening to Transmission on 4zzz. And today we have a very special episode where we'll be covering what's been going on with the puberty blocker ban in Queensland. We're gonna be talking to the one and only Matilda Alexander, who is the lawyer who's been leading the case from the LGBTI legal service. Yeah, my name is ez. I use he, him, pronouns.

Hi, everyone. I'm, bet. I use she, they pronouns.

I'm Ray. I use they, them pronouns. I'm Matilda. I use she, her pronouns woo.

And we're all here talking about trans justice today. What's been happening. And for listeners who are just tuning in, what we're going to be covering off on today is what's, what's happened, what's been going on since the ban was in effect in January and then how did we get to where we are now? What happened in the last seven days? Things have progressed very quickly and some people might, might be a bit confused about what we. Yay. The ban was lifted. No jokes. The band's not lifted. So let's, let's cover off on everything and make sure that, yeah. Community are informed what's happened, how did it happen and where we're going. So first of all, hi, how you doing, Matilda?

Hi. Very well, thank you. Thanks for having me on the show.

Yeah, glad to have you here. Since January, Tim Nichols, dear friend of the show, obviously has basically used a health directive to instantly ban puberty blockers for anyone under the age of 18 through the public system.

Hang on. For new prescriptions.

New prescriptions, sorry, that's right. And anyone on a wait list as well from the gender clinic also that affected them. That's the 491.

Well, they can still see the gender clinic but they can't get puberty blockers.

So specifically the puberty blockers.

Yeah.

Yes.

And in particular, puberty blockers are still available for people who, who are accessing them for reasons other than being trans. So some kids go into puberty early and need to get blockers. They're CIS kids, but they just need to get blockers. So they're still able to access blockers. So it's a really important thing to note because it shows that this is targeted at the trans community. And if puberty blockers were a dangerous thing in and of themselves, they wouldn't still be available to those children.

Actually, can we insert one other thing? Cause this is something that Nico and I have been thinking. Not enough people know that's that you can still get them through the private system. So this is only a ban for new prescriptions through the public system. So if you can go out, if you have the money, you can still get.

And if you are between the ages of 12 and 24 and you would like to access gender affirming care, whether that be puberty blockers or hrt, you can also go to Open Doors Youth Service and they will help you access that health care through the private system. But, yes, more, more on the ban and where that's going. So what was the plan, Matilda? What happened?

So it was all a bit of a surprise, I think, to even people working in the health sector when on 28 January, this ban was announced. The evidence that came through in the court showed that nobody who had any knowledge of any involvement in treating trans kids was even aware of the. The nature of the ban and really knew about it. So this was kind of worked out behind closed doors. The ban took effect almost immediately. It was announced at 10am and there was a consultation that commenced at 10am at the same time as the announcement and concluded 21 minutes later. So the ban took effect, took immediate effect. Suddenly, people who were expecting to, who had appointments for the following day, were no longer able to get the care that they needed. The really lifesaving. So the Curie Mail printed a headline that there'd be a tsunami of litigation arising from this, which the LGBTI Legal Services, we're a free community legal centre for anyone in our community, but we are drastically underfunded and I'm a pro bono lawyer for the legal service. And so we just started spending weekends talking to kids and their families about what the legal options might be and planning for this tsunami of litigation. I think there's a joke in there about dykes holding back the tsunami. But, yeah, we started. So there's a number of different ways that we sought to challenge this in the courts. One of those came to fruition, I guess, a couple of weeks ago when we appeared in the Supreme Court of Queensland for what's called a judicial review. So this is a challenge not so much of whether or not the Ban was the right thing to do or was fair, but it was whether or not it was lawful in the first place. So we made an argument to the court that the ban itself was unlawful. It was an illegal ban. Now, usually these things take nine months sometimes to get a decision, or six, six to nine months, sometimes a year to get a decision. The judge in this case heard it on the Tuesday and decided it was within a week, which is incredibly rare. So I heard it on the Wednesday and decided it by the following Tuesday. Incredibly rare. So it shows the seriousness that the court was taking this matter. We argued that it was illegal for three reasons. Number one, that wasn't a consultation. The law required consultation. 21 minutes concurrently at the same time as the decision was being announced did not count as consultation. So the courts were looking at how do we define what is real consultation? So it's actually a broader and more interesting question. More broadly, if you need to have consultation, that doesn't cut it. So the way this sort of law works, if you win one, you've won the whole case. But he said the judge did say, look, if I had to decide on the other two things you were arguing, I would have given you those as well. So the other things that we were arguing was that this was a political power, so that the Minister, Tim Nicholls, overreached his political influence and he influenced what should have been a health decision. So the ban was done in the same kind of way that, remember, during COVID they put out a health directive saying we all had to stay in our houses, we couldn't go to work, we couldn't leave five kilometres of our home. This is the same legal mechanism that they used for the trans health ban. So it's very concerning if that legal mechanism is being used for political purposes. If we can be locked in our home for political purposes, it's a broader worry for democracy. And the court said that there was political overreach there, that the Minister made the Health Department do what they. What they did, and that the Health Department took into account an irrelevant consideration in taking into account the Minister's views. So we won the case on all three grounds. I think the decision was made, came down at about midday on last. Last Tuesday. And then we had a very happy lunch. Victorious l a few hours of victory before the Minister made a new decision under a new section of law to try and have the same effect. So he's trying something different to achieve the same thing. So we are currently looking at, you know, whether or not we can challenge the new decision. Hopefully it won't take us. The trouble is it does take a little while to get all your legal things in order, but we're doing, doing it as quickly as we can to look at, you know, what are the kind of ways that we might be able to challenge that. Is there an opportunity to bring it back before the Supreme Court or another court?

Yeah, and I think the main thing is also to recognise that this is a huge victory. I know that we still do not have access to puberty pockets, but the main thing is that we did have a victory. The Career Mail did have a lovely title of three, Tim Loser, with Tim Nichols downtrodden face on the front cover and essentially with. With his second banning reinstating the ban in the afternoon on last Tuesday, which I think was the 28th of October, there was. He didn't need any consultation this time, is that right?

That's one of the things that we're looking into. So we'll be investigating the way that he went about doing the new ban and whether or not there are legal options for us to challenge that. The provision, he used a different section of the law. So the new section of the law says that he can make a written directive if it's in the public interest. So of course, that's a really interesting phrase because the public interest has, and this particular section has only been used to enhance healthcare before, never to ban it. So, for example, the last time that I'm aware of that this section was used to make a ministerial directive was when Shannon Fentiman made a directive that victims of sexual assault should be seen within 10 minutes of presenting to a hospital that they shouldn't have to wait for care, that that should be fast tracked through the hospital system. And that was in result of a incident that had happened at that time. So you can see it's been used in the past for the public interest to enhance health care. So I think using the term public interest is, you know, it's certainly something that we should be questioning whether or not the banning of life saving medical care for children can ever be said to be in the public interest. But certainly we are looking at all different legal avenues.

Well, very interesting. And I want to just start off this segment, this section of the show with we're going to talk a little bit about media response and community response to the ban and how things are going. So, Matilda, how do you feel the media responded to this ruling in the Supreme Court?

Yeah, I feel like the victory in the courtroom was so much broader than a legal victory. I Think that the fight of all the trans people who have been along this journey and doing engagement in their communities with the media and even rallying outside the court on the day meant that it had the case itself and the message of the case had so much broader reach. I was really ecstatic to see the mainstream media covering this so well. We had, sitting there in the courtroom, we had Channel 7, Channel 10, ABC, Courier Mail, Brisbane Times, SBS, Triple Z. Yeah, yeah, all. Everyone was sitting there and everyone kind of got the core issues. And mainstream media picked up on this new, which I think is an important one for. Of parents being deprived of the right to make health choices for their kids, that politicians are stepping in instead of parents or instead of young people and instead of doctors to make health care decisions. And I think that was a message that struck a broader chord within the community more broadly than people who are even just interested in trans issues. People who are interested in healthcare followed this case.

Well, that's actually a stance often that the right in the US takes to try and take away trans rights is parents rights. Because they say, for instance, if you. If a school affirms a kid's gender without informing the parents, then they've taken away the parents rights. So the right wing can actually. I mean, parents rights is actually a bit of a sound bite that the right wing uses a lot. So I guess we managed to be cautioned there to the other side as well, to reach across the aisle.

And I think that largely was because of the brave parents who spoke out and the brave parents who engaged and told their stories. I think it's really hard if you're actually listening to somebody who's directly affected by this, not to be impacted. And you hear their pain and you hear what they've been going through and their determination to get the kids the healthcare that they need.

Totally thanks to all the parents, by the way.

Yeah, yeah, it's. It's a parent who helped us get here in the Supreme Court as well. So, yeah, love the mums and dads also. So the community's had a huge response as well, I think, because the media coverage was really quite positive. I think it's probably the most positive media I have seen in the country relating to trans rights since Ever. Ever. Yeah, that I can recall. And it's been really nice to see. I think community feeling really supported. So kudos to all our allies out there also for supporting us and for signing petitions and showing up and having conversations at home in the offices and all these. Wherever you are, continue to have Conversations, continue to talk about it and continue to centre. Trans storytelling, I think will be a really big part of moving forward and yeah, saving lives.

The mum in this case said our kids should not be used as political footballs. And I think that's probably a sentiment that every trans person in Australia can relate to or in the world even can relate to. That that should not. Individual bodies, everyone's individual bodies is their own and should not be used for a political purpose.

Yeah, it's hard to imagine that Tim Nicholls or any of his party actually cares about the kids at all. It seems that they are just using it as a political strategy to divide and conquer and to create controversy and you know, play to their most right wing supporters.

Yeah, it's also, I think this is about children. This is about kids, you know, and we have a, we've got a health minister who isn't talking to medical professionals about what's necessary for, you know, adolescent health care essentially. And I'm, I'm just, I'm baffled. I'm actually baffled and it seems like a complete, it's almost like it's extreme amount of power that one person holds because what's to say at any point. And Matilda, you could correct me if this is a possibility, but could Tim Nichols use the law to essentially take away access to prep with, with the same logic or access to abortion care? Could he just do that without consultation or is that. Or am I ever reaching here?

Well, I guess it's a theoretical possibility that we'd have to look at challenging. I mean this is why we need to have community lawyers and this is why we need to have grassroots activists because this is what keeps government in check. These kind of laws. This is called the rule of law. It's one of the basis of the case that we ran is that government should not be doing things that they don't have the power to do. So and that involves us as lawyers checking on that power. Have you used it lawfully, have you used it correctly? And as activists be questioning is this the democracy I want to live in?

I'd also say that he would struggle to do either of those things because he doesn't have a 10 year disinformation campaign backing him up, which is what the anti trans lobby has in trying to take away these rights for trans young people. So Tim Nichols has the CASS Review and the CASS Review is the result of a 10 year disinformation campaign. I don't know if there's anything equivalent to the CASS Review for abortion rights or for Prep.

And we also have our own review underway at the moment. The vine review, which sounds like based off of the ban or the reasoning that Tim has suggested, that Tim Nichols has suggested that this ban is in effect is. Until this review. What are our thoughts team on this? On this?

I have one thought which is that they haven't even committed to releasing the vine review. So we may not ever find out what the vine review says. I guess, what, six months later, through a freedom of information, we might find out.

We can try it that way. There's a public interest test in the right to information laws as well. So we could argue that it's in the public interest. I mean, I would be surprised, given the media focus on this issue. They need to have something to justify their actions, like politically speaking.

There is a chance that it won't justify their actions though. Right? I mean, we don't know Ruth vine well enough, I don't think, to know what stance she's going to take.

Yeah, exactly.

Because it will come partly down to her personality and the personalities of everyone on that board.

And the fact that there's no trans people involved on that board is, you know, it's just a matter of huge concern. You'd never get a, you know, a panel of people talking about women's rights that is all men. You just wouldn't.

Well, yeah, under. What's his name, Abbott. Abbott.

Yeah. Tony might find a bunch of men for that.

And we need to talk about the other case as well.

Yes. Yeah. So at the same time as we started this judicial review that was in the Supreme Court, we also started a different case. So we're attacking where we are attacking this issue from various angles. The other one is that we believe we are testing whether this is discrimination and a breach of human rights. So a human rights complaint can be brought in at the same time as a discrimination case. And we're saying essentially it is discrimination. So discrimination is when you're treated worse because of something like your gender identity or your race or your sexuality. So worse than other people who don't have that attribute or characteristic. So the fact that other kids can still access the treatment if they've got precocious puberty, early puberty, the fact that over 18. So it's also an age discrimination case. So we're looking at those angles for discrimination. And also a breach of human rights, including the right to health care and the right to be free from discrimination is also a human right. The Human Rights act also provides that if decisions are made that limit your human rights or restrict your human rights. That has to be done in a certain way. They need to follow a proper process in doing so. So we're looking at that in the context of that other case. That case is being run. It's called a representative action under the Queensland law, but it's like what people would know as a class action. So it's on behalf of all of the. All of the people who are affected by that. If there's anyone out there who believes they are affected by the ban and they haven't been in contact with the legal service, just give us a call or send us an email so we can get you on our books for that. That matter is currently before the Queensland Civil Administrative Tribunal, so that'll be playing out over the next couple of months as well. So we're not just going in there with one strategy. We've got a. There is maybe a tsunami, hopefully a tsunami of legal challenges to this.

I'm curious, so are there other instances of medications that are available to certain parts of the population, but not to other parts of the population? They're used for different purposes for different parts of the population. So because puberty blockers, you could argue that it's being used for a different purpose in each of those three cases that you just brought up. So there's trans kids, there's precocious puberty, and there's people using it as adults. I would think there would be other medications that are used for different purposes at different times and they're only available to certain parts of the population. Have you looked into that?

Well, there may be a medical reason why, for example, kids can't take the same medicine as adults. Like, you know, my kids only take 12mil Panadol, whereas an adult, you might take more. But. But I think that that would need to be shown that that's a medical reason, not a discriminatory reason. So.

So will you be calling, like, medical experts as witnesses in this case?

Yeah. So this will look a bit more at the merits of the case, not just whether or not it was unlawful. So it's a bit of a bigger. Some bigger questions. Yeah.

Sort of attacking it more head on this time.

Yeah, it works. Yeah. The substance of the ban rather than just the legality of it.

Interesting. We're now going to chat with Matilda about vilification briefly, because we want to.

Give people a call to action at the end.

We do. We will give you a call to action, folks, but we want to chat a little bit about vilification, as there was trigger Warning. There was actually a hate crime this morning on the. Down the Gold Coast. A trans person was physically assaulted with pretty severe face injuries. A group of young people assaulted them on a tram. So let's have a chat a little bit about vilification and what this means and your rights. So, yeah, what do we do, Matilda?

Well, I think a lot of this starts with. Doesn't start at that violent end. It starts with harassment, it starts with name calling, it starts with stereotypes, it starts online, it starts with public hate in all of its forms. And that's what leads to violent incidents. In Queensland, we do have some very strong protections against hate speech, public hate speech. So if somebody calls out to you, if somebody says something in public, calls out, you know, a derogatory word, said something derogatory that could. Something that could incite violence, hatred, contempt or severe ridicule, that's the legal test. Now, it doesn't matter if that's in person, if your neighbor's calling it out loud enough for people to hear on the street, all of that's unlawful. But also it's unlawful online if somebody posts something in a public, like a Facebook page that's not a totally closed group in that. If anyone can just join it by sending an email asking to join the group, or if they post it online, if they post it on their feed, it can be public vilification and it is unlawful. So screen capture it. Get the metadata that shows, you know, the date and the time that you've screen captured it. You know, if you feel up for it, capture some of the comments to show that it did incite hatred and come and see the legal service for advice. These kind of things are unlawful and we can bring actions in the Queensland Human Rights Commission. I've got a whole folder for you if you're good people. I didn't know that was a thing.

Yeah, yeah.

Matilda, am I right in thinking that the people that host the group are also liable if they don't moderate their comments section?

They are correct, yeah. Vicariously liable for anything.

So I would really like to follow that up. I've been contacting Labour politicians who've been posting on this and not moderating their feeds and they're attracting trolls like barnacles on a ship.

So, yeah, that's the most beautiful term I've ever heard.

Thank you.

I'm using that. Absolutely. It's unlawful. None of us should be putting up with hate speech. That is. It's against the law and it's not acceptable.

And also, I just posted, I Posted some research yesterday in the group Protect Trans Kids Queensland that shows that a lot of these type of things, the vilification, the hate speech, the attacks actually increase when anti trans legislation comes into effect. And there's studies from across the United States showing that. So that's probably what's happening here as well.

Yeah. Because in the words of the mother, the kids are being used as political footballs. And so when those footballs are being kicked around, people think it's acceptable to kick trans people around and it's just. Just not. It's unlawful.

Yeah, totally.

Good thing we've got you on our side, Matilda. We wouldn't know what to do. I was like, what do we do?

What do we do?

Yeah, what do we do? Do you have advice for us?

So I understand there's a number of community actions that have been taking place to reinstate the ban. There's a petition that Equality Australia have put out, there's an open letter that organisations can sign onto and I think there's some other work that trans kind of collective people are organising.

Can I suggest that everyone, if you haven't already, join Maganjan People's Pride on Instagram or Facebook or both, join Mean. Hang on, Trans Justice Meanjin as well, obviously, join the Trans Justice Project, join Protect Trans Kids Queensland, and through one or all of those sources, you're going to find out what's happening next. There are ideas in the works.

Yes.

And can I also say that if you think that signing a petition is the sum total of what you're going to do here, you're very wrong. We've had this must be the third or fourth petition so far, and I honestly don't understand why it exists. It's not a parliamentary petition. Sign it, by all means. 14,000 signatures. We got 20,000 on the first one that me and Jodie did. I don't see the point.

Well, signing a petition is not enough to stop a healthcare ban, but neither is winning a Supreme Court case. I think that's why we need to do all of the things all together, all the time.

Sure.

Because all of our collective actions, this might bring in somebody who's not able to attend a rally or do another something else. Be able to bring in somebody who's not connected to the trans community but relates to the healthcare issue. I think we all have to do as much as we can, whatever we can.

Okay, I should rephrase that, but I don't quite. I mean, recently Transjustice Project were doing, having people going around, letterbox dropping Just to sign another. Get people to sign another petition. That's a lot of energy being put into getting people to sign like the third petition. That's not a parliamentary petition. I, I just think this one's fine if you're not expending a lot of energy, but don't go around door knocking to sign yet another non parliamentary petition. That's just my view.

Yeah. Do everything we can, I think is probably the best, the best route and within the realm of your accessibility as well. Not everyone can attend.

And if you want to doorknock, we're going to doorknock. But let's have conversations. Let's not just be dropping things in people.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah.

And if you've got the spoons, like talk to the, you know, talk to people in your community. Get involved with. Yeah. Like, even if it's a, an online group, you know, whatever is accessible to you and have those conversations is within the trans community. And if you're not part of the trans community, you know, reach out to your friends who are trans and queer and actually see how they're doing, because a lot of people aren't doing great as well. And speaking to your community, I think is something that allies should be focusing on. This is so much easier for allies than it is for trans folks. Trans folks are doing this every day of their lives anyway. So this is a real role for allies to get up, speak out, talk to your family, talk to your friends, get everyone on site.

And I just want to say, dear listener, if you are a cisgendered person or not a trans person or don't identify that way, I do want you to know that just to simply exist as trans, to come out as trans, is a. Is a literal activist movement right now. It's some of the scariest time to identify this way and to visibly present as trans or just non, not binary in a way. So, yeah, stand in solidarity with us. 4z z does supports for Triple Z. It supports transmission supporting trans community. You can head to 4 Triple Z.org ae to do that. Thank you so much to Matilda. Thank you for coming in this morning and chatting to us. Very appreciative.

Thanks for having me.

Yay.

Hang in there, listeners. Transjustice. Yes, we, we do. We love you. See you all next week. Bye.

Thank you so much for listening to Transmission. See you next Tuesday nights, 10am on Fort Triple Z.

When trans lives are under attack, what do we do? Stand up like that.