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Anti-transgender stickers have been found in Hobart amidst the state’s ongoing debate over legal reforms for trans people.

The stickers, which are shaped like penises, bear the words “women don’t have penises”.


Transforming Tasmania’s Martine Delaney has been campaigning tirelessly for the state government to recognise the need for the reforms.

She told The Mercury that the stickers were likely to have been distributed by one of the usual groups which campaigns against the legitimacy of trans women.

“It’s a view actively promoted by only extremely conservative Christian groups and a very small percentage of women – TERFs – who claim to be feminists,” she said.

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

Cassy O’Connor, leader of the Tasmanian Greens, called the stickers “hateful and hurtful”.

One of the reforms brought forward by the Greens as well as Tasmanian Labor which has drawn particular conservative opposition is making gender markers on birth certificates optional for parents.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week tweeted that such proposals are “nonsense” and slammed Labor for bringing the issue to debate at its national conference later this year.

Delaney recently said that the Tasmanian government’s own response to the proposal is misleading, and that all reforms were put before the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commission in 2016.

“Since then Transforming Tasmania has encouraged public debate on the reforms we want, and has met regularly with the State Government to discuss these reforms and put forward our suggested amendments.

“For the Government to claim that this reform has been sprung on Tasmania and there is need for further consultation is misleading and just an excuse for unnecessary delay,” she said.

The Tasmanian government has been slow to recognise the need for reforms, having committed to removing the forced divorce requirement but not the forced surgery requirement for trans people to change their gender on birth certificates.

O’Connor said the stickers are “an example of the kind of transphobia being peddled as a result of the Liberals’ dishonest statement on changes to the Births, Deaths and Marriages Act.”

“For too long, transgender and gender diverse Tasmanians have endured some of Australia’s worst laws on gender recognition and now it’s time to for us to lead the way as we have done on other LGBTI human rights issues,” Delaney has said previously.

just.equal’s Rodney Croome posted about the stickers on Facebook.

“Obviously, this is in response to the push for greater legal equality for transgender, gender diverse and intersex folk,” he wrote.

“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,” Croome said.