“It is unfortunate to see some people in our community resort to the blunt force politics of exclusion. The lesbians I know and the parties that I attend include all women and their friends, including trans women and non-binary people.″⁣

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The management of the Victorian Pride Centre, a community-owned facility built in St Kilda with state, federal and private funding, has not taken a final decision on whether to book the Lesbians Born Female event.

The newly formed Lesbian Action Group was established by women who were active in the lesbian rights movement in the 1980s and 90s. It is supported by LGB Alliance Australia, the local chapter of a British-based organisation whose promotion of sex-based rights has pushed it into the front line of a rolling gender war.

The author of the application, Carole Ann, is a lesbian and feminist campaigner who 20 years ago unsuccessfully sought an exemption from the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to allow the continuation of Lesfest, a national lesbian festival and conference which ran for more than a decade.

More recently, she attended the Let Women Speak rally in Melbourne gatecrashed by neo-Nazis. The fallout from the rally split the Victorian Liberal party room, triggered a backroom purge within the Victorian Greens and fuelled an activist campaign against gender-critical feminist writer and University of Melbourne lecturer Holly Lawford-Smith.

The application, if successful, will allow the Lesbian Action Group to lawfully discriminate against people on the basis of sex and sexuality for the purpose of staging lesbian-only events. Ann said the application was not transphobic.

“It is not anti-trans, it is pro-lesbians who are born female,” she said. “We are not asking for anyone to be denied who they are. It is for us to also be recognised for who we are and have a bit of space for that and acknowledgement that our lived experience is different.”

An LGB Alliance application for a similar exemption under Tasmanian law was last year rejected by Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Sarah Bolt and the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. In Britain, the LGB Alliance is defending its charitable status against a legal challenge brought by Mermaids, a trans-rights group.

Nicole Mowbray, a member of both the Lesbian Action Group and LGB Alliance Australia, said the risks associated with staging women-only events had caused a once thriving lesbian community in Melbourne to retreat behind closed doors. She also attended the Let Women Speak rally and said she was horrified by the aggression she witnessed against women.

“The paradox is we can legally get married but we can’t exclusively meet in a single-sex space,” she said.

“We need to find a way to coexist and respect that women and gay men need single-sex events, just as we respect that trans people need their own events. Women are sick of being in the shadows again and having to be secretive.”

The Sex Discrimination Act contains permanent exemptions for charities, religious bodies, schools and volunteer organisations.

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