LGBTIQ Advocates Call to Rescind Bettina Arndt Honour
By Brandon Bentley
We鈥檙e living in a time where privilege is beginning to face its own sort of reckoning. People of high calibre such as Margaret Court, who often skated on by with their unfair views are facing an outcry from many queer people in the community. One such person of privilege is now facing the music.
Earlier this year, Bettina Ardnt was honoured with the Order of Australia for 鈥渟ignificant service to the community as a social commentator鈥�, a move that has left many LGBTIQ individuals from around the country stunned, hurt, and calling for her award to be rescinded.
The outspoke Arndt has made countless derogatory comments about queer people. Her views of same-sex parenting have utilised the works of well-known religious researchers such as the anti-gay Marriage Matters Project who argued that prejudice against same-sex couples will lead to prejudice against their children. Arndt claimed that genuine academic research in favour of LGBTIQ parents is 鈥榖iased鈥�.
Self-proclaimed professional within the psychology and sociology, Ardnt has extended her one-sided views by contributing to the conversation of domestic violence, stating that Rowan Baxter may have been 鈥渄riven too far鈥� in his actions that lead to death of his wife Hannah Baxter and three children, while spouting a belief that feminism is encouraging an anti-male view. Even going as far as placing #MenToo on her website. These views haven鈥檛 gone unnoticed.
Many LGBTIQ advocates across Australia have banded together to challenge Arndt鈥檚 award, believing her opinions have caused a negative effect on the community and Australia at large. In a letter addressed to Government House, advocates urged to have the award rescinded, citing Ardnt鈥檚 viewpoints and the contradictory nature of her own words, while employing well-regarded research to highlight the damaging nature of her views.
Co-signed by Brian Greig OAM, Sally Goldner AM, Rodney Croome AM, Shelley Argent OAM, and Ivan Hinton-Teoh OAM, the letter continues by pointing out the belief that 鈥渁ny social commentator worthy of appointment to the Order of Australia should respect genuine academic research and be able to distinguish such research from sham, politically motivated studies.鈥�
Advocates believe that the distinguished Order of Australia award should continue to honour individuals who have contributed a positive note within our society. With her values and her comments taking a firm stance within anti-LGBTIQ and anti-equality sentiment, Ardnt may soon find herself without a PhD or the highly prestigious award to boot. No longer shall the damaging values of privileged individuals go without retribution.
Well just look at her. She has the face she deserves. The decades of bitterness are etched in.
“No longer shall the damaging values of privileged individuals go without retribution.” Ha! “Bettina Arndt was honoured with the Order of Australia for ‘significant service to the community as a social commentator’, a move that has left many LGBTIQ individuals from around the country stunned, hurt, and calling for her award to be rescinded.”
If LGBTIQ individuals are calling for Arndt’s award to be rescinded, why aren’t we, more importantly, calling for Elizabeth Broderick’s 2016 Order of Australia to be rescinded? Thousands of Australian boys, including gay and bisexual boys, were subject to Male Genital Mutilation during Broderick’s long eight year reign as Sex Discrimination Commissioner. She told me–a genitally mutilated gay man–that defending the genital integrity of children born of the male gender was not a priority of hers. Funny, that, when the Australian Human Rights Commission defends genital integrity as an inalienable human right for female and intersex children. Broderick treated male children in a differential and unfavourable manner, purely because of the gender they were born. She was conversant with international human rights instruments such as The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights security of person clauses etc, The Universal Declaration on Human Rights, etc, and yet she continually turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the genital mutilation of male children. Even when boys, sitting in pools of their own genital mutilation blood, near death, had to be airlifted to Darwin Hospital for lifesaving emergency medical treatment, she still said nothing. I would call having one’s genitals sliced up the worst form of sex discrimination, especially when it was perpetrated upon an underaged, defenceless and non-consenting child. (I was genitally mutilated, as a young gay baby, and without anaesthetic–not that anaesthetic makes Male Genital Mutilation Right!) It is only children of the male gender who are genitally mutilated in Australia. Defending genital integrity rights, preventing the knife-rape of boys, should be a matter of utmost urgency, but not to Broderick, nor the present Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, whose priorities, judging by her tweets, are, duh!, women’s football and cricket.
National Children’s Commissioner, Megan Mitchell, was another, who turned a blind eye and a deaf ear when those boys sat, near death, in pools of their own genital mutilation blood. Mitchell is this month finishing her tenure as “Champion of Children’s Rights”. She has not, in the past seven years, ever once defended the genital integrity rights of any male child, but has certainly, like Broderick, stood up against Female Genital Mutilation. It seems the usual practice that Commissioners and Presidents of the Australian Human Rights Commission get an Order of Australia, or some other fancy award, when they finish up their tenure. Gillian Triggs was another who got some fancy award, who attended an FGM summit, cited FGM as gender-based and family violence, but failed to ever defend the genital integrity rights of children born male.
A year or so ago, we witnessed the travesty of Triggs and Commissioners frolicking and cavorting in a Mardi Gras Parade. As if they genuinely cared about the inalienable genital integrity rights of all the mutilated gay men in that parade. Again, only a day or so ago, National Children’s Commissioner Megan Mitchell and Human Rights Commissioner Edward Santow tweeted pictures of themselves dressed (and described) as angels (complete with haloes and wings) on a Transgender Parents Support Group contingent at this year’s Mardi Gras. That is all well and good. We know that a speech was published in this very newspaper of Santow arguing that non-consenting and intersex babies should have the right not to have their genitals sliced up at birth, yet Santow told me that, despite its being expected to uphold all the international human rights instruments, “the Commission has not taken a policy position on male circumcision” (or superincision or subincision for that matter). So Santow, the Human Rights Commissioner “angel”, is another who can turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to violations of male children’s inalienable genital integrity human rights, but has the effrontery to frolic at Mardi Gras where there would’ve been present thousands of genitally mutilated gay men, many of whom, like me, would resent having been genitally mutilated.
If Mardi Gras really believes in equality of the genders, male, female and intersex, then why do we allow Human Rights Commissioners and Presidents, who year after year fail in their duty of care to male children, who don’t have gay boys’ best interests at heart, to go unchallenged and continually participate in our parades? It is commendable that they support intersex, trans and female children’s human rights, but to leave all those gay and bisexual boys to have their genitals mutilated, to go undefended, is quite appalling. If we are really serious about sex discrimination, realising that having one’s genitals sliced up, against one’s will, on account of the gender one was born, is a violation of one’s inalienable human rights, then it is time to challenge complacent Human Rights Commissioners from getting their usual job perk of an Order of Australia award. Human Rights Commissioners who leave male children, gay, bisexual, or otherwise, to have their genitals cut up are certainly no angels or friends of ours. Male genital mutilation is neurotraumatic, psychotraumatic, ruins sexual biomechanics, and is for life.