Anti-transgender rights activist Kirralie Smith loses appeal against apprehended violence order

Australia Broadcast Center

19 hours ago

An anti-transgender rights activist has lost her right to appeal an apprehended violence order taken out by a transgender woman, after "highly intimidatory", "objectively harassing," and "unnecessarily cruel" X posts.
Content warning: This story may contain offensive language
In December last year, regional NSW soccer player Stephanie Blanch was successfully granted the order against Kirralie Smith, who targeted Ms Blanch in multiple X posts that a district court judge described as a "sustained campaign of belittling, harassment and intimidation".
The posts included photos of Ms Blanch, and described her as the "bloke in the frock" who played for a women's football team in Wingham on the NSW mid-north coast. At the time of the posts, she was the only transgender athlete on that team.
Prior to the posts, seen by thousands, Ms Blanch did not know Ms Smith. The anti-trans rights activist believes transgender women should not participate in women's sports.
Ms Blanch filed a police report and sought an AVO against Ms Smith, which was granted on appeal in the district court. Ms Smith unsuccessfully appealed against the AVO in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday.
Ms Smith, who heads anti-trans organisation Binary Australia, was previously the director of anti-marriage equality group Marriage Alliance before it rebranded to Binary Australia following the 2018 plebiscite.
The activist took to X, formerly Twitter, and said the loss of the appeal was an attempt to stop her "advocacy".
Her lawyers had argued the definition of violence when challenging the order, but the judges found the harassment warranted it. Ms Smith said her posts were in the remit of her political advocacy.
Ms Blanch's legal counsel said the case was a "powerful reminder that apprehended violence orders protect and guard against not only physical violence but also from cyberbullying, online harassment and intimidation".
The judge who granted the AVO originally described the posts as "a sustained campaign of belittling, harassment and intimidation". This notion was accepted by the Supreme Court, which said it had reached the same conclusion, describing Ms Smith's posts as "objectively threatening".
The original judgment said that what Ms Smith had said about Ms Blanch, a person who is already marginalised by being the only transgender woman in the club, was "unnecessarily cruel, offensive, and harassing".
The Binary Australia website posted multiple articles about Ms Blanch, one of which said the word woman was "[r]endered meaningless when a bloke in a frock is suddenly a woman, as we all know that a 'woman' is not a costume, false boobs or a drug to be taken".
Ms Smith also called on her followers to contact the national soccer body, Football Australia, as well as local sporting bodies, to have Ms Blanch removed from her soccer club.
Binary Australia was listed as an extremist hate group by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism in 2023.
Counsel for Ms Blanch, Katie Green, said while the case focused on the protection of a trans woman against online harassment, the legal reasoning had "enormous significance" for schools and families dealing with cyberbullying.
"The courts recognise what thousands of students and families already know: words typed from behind a screen can hurt, intimidate, and destroy lives," she said.