Former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard recently faced questions in the UK about her government's 2013 amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act. Those changes removed explicit biological definitions of "man" and "woman," added "gender identity" as a protected attribute, and expanded anti-discrimination protections. In response to concerns about impacts on women's single-sex spaces, sports, prisons, and rights, Gillard offered a familiar refrain: "It was a different time." The issues, she claimed, "weren't raised by anyone" in parliamentary debates because they "simply weren't a matter of public discourse" back then.
This squirming away from accountability fails on multiple levels. Laws are not ephemeral suggestions tied to the cultural moment of their passage. They create enduring frameworks that shape society for decades. Politicians cannot rewrite history or evade consequences simply by invoking changed times.
Gillard's government, with bipartisan support, altered foundational language in discrimination law. By prioritising self-identified gender over biological sex, the amendments blurred legal distinctions that had protected women's rights based on immutable characteristics. Critics argue this set the stage for later conflicts: biological males accessing female prisons, changing rooms, sports categories, and scholarships; erosion of sex-based data collection; and pressure on institutions to choose gender identity over safety and fairness.
High-profile cases, such as the Giggle v Tickle appeal, have highlighted these tensions, where a women-only social app faced legal challenges for excluding biological males identifying as women. Women's rights campaigners now point directly to Gillard-era reforms as enabling such outcomes. Her response? A shrug and temporal distancing.
Why "It Was a Different Time" is No Defence
Every major legislative decision occurs in a specific context. By Gillard's logic, nearly all past policy could be disavowed as society evolves:
Intergenerational Impact: Laws bind future generations. Tax structures, welfare systems, immigration policies, and criminal codes from "different times" continue to shape outcomes today. Leaders own the foreseeable (and sometimes unforeseeable) downstream effects. Dismissing criticism because "public discourse" hadn't yet crystallised ignores the duty to anticipate reasonable consequences.
Biological Reality Didn't Change: The fundamental distinctions between male and female bodies, sports advantages, crime statistics, and safeguarding needs were well-understood in 2013. Concerns about self-ID policies eroding women's rights had already been raised in other jurisdictions and by feminists like Germaine Greer or academics studying sex differences. Claiming ignorance or irrelevance rings hollow.
Precedent for Accountability: We rightly hold past leaders responsible for decisions with lasting harm. Think historical policies on indigenous affairs, economic deregulation, or foreign interventions. No one accepts "it was a different time" as absolution for slavery's legacies, flawed wars, or financial crises. Gender law is no different. Women's sex-based rights were hard-won over generations; diluting them via statute demands scrutiny, not evasion.
Gillard, who famously delivered the "misogyny" speech and positioned herself as a champion of women, now faces pushback from women's rights advocates. History will indeed judge not just the original policy but the refusal to acknowledge its role in today's clashes. Calls are growing louder for restoring biological sex definitions in law to protect single-sex spaces and fairness.
The 2013 amendments reflected a broader elite consensus favouring expansive gender identity frameworks with minimal debate on trade-offs. This pattern repeats across the West: rapid cultural shifts pushed through institutions before robust public scrutiny. When problems emerge: detransition stories, safeguarding failures, female athletes displaced, or eroded privacy, proponents retreat to "evolving understanding" rather than reform.
Gillard's remarks highlight a common evasion tactic. Politicians legislate transformative change, then distance themselves when predictions from sceptics (often labelled bigots) prove prescient. This erodes public trust. Effective governance requires humility: assess evidence, weigh competing rights, and build in safeguards. Pretending biology and sex-based protections were irrelevant in 2013 does a disservice to women who bear the costs.
The push ignited by Gillard's comments is welcome. Australian law should reaffirm that sex is binary, immutable, and material for purposes of privacy, safety, sports, and data. Gender identity can receive protections against unfair discrimination without erasing sex-based rights. Other countries are revisiting self-ID models (e.g., UK Cass Review influences) due to evidence on youth transitions, desistance, and safeguarding.
Leaders like Gillard cannot simply declare "different time" and move on. Their decisions forged today's reality. Accountability means confronting failures, supporting corrections, and prioritising evidence over ideology. Women's rights are not collateral damage in a culture war: they are foundational. Excuses won't restore fairness; legislative reform will.