Anti-trans stickers have started appearing in the southern Australia state of Tasmania as the debate around trans legal reforms intensifies.

The pink stickers shaped like a penis and testicles read, ‘women don’t have penises’ appeared in Tasmania’s major city, Hobart.

Tasmania is currently reviewing its trans laws which long-time advocate Rodney Croome described as Australia’s ‘most discriminatory laws’. The proposed law changes come from a list of recommendations from a 2016 Equal Opportunity Tasmania report.

The state only decriminalized cross-dressing in 2000. Also, people still have to undergo gender affirming surgery before they can changed their gender on their birth certificate.

One of the proposed law changes would have gender markers removed from the birth certificates altogether. That has sparked a national debate and even Prime Minister Scott Morrison weighed in. He took to Twitter to say he would ‘never’ remove gender from birth certificates, drivers licences or passports.

The usual suspects

Martine Delaney of trans advocacy group, Transforming Tasmania, told The Mercury a notorious anti-trans group posted the offensive stickers.

‘It’s a view actively promoted by only extremely conservative Christian groups and a very small percentage of women – TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminists) – who claim to be feminists,’ she said.

‘The existence of trans people is certainly recognised, accepted and supported by governments and the medical profession.’

Croome also acknowledged the public debate about legal reforms has made the trans community a target.

‘Obviously, this is in response to the push for greater legal equality for transgender, gender diverse and intersex folk,’ he wrote on Facebook.

‘This nasty little campaign is another nail in the coffin of the Government’s push to delay reform with further, unnecessary consultation.

‘We have to remove inequities from the law NOW, or risk further hate.’