On Saturday morning last week, the Save Our Children (SOC) coalition, which included Christian Lives Matter (CLM) supporters, gathered at Hyde Park, Sydney, to protest against children being exposed to hyper-sexualisation in schools, on TVs, and across other platforms. I turned up feeling apprehensive about the crowd in light of CLM supporters making recent headlines during WorldPride, like: ‘Christian prayer march along Newtown street was “unauthorised protest activity”, police say.’ After all, I’m a trans woman, and I turned up to Hyde Park with an, ‘I’m trans – drag queens are not for kids’ protest sign.
At the start of the protest, NSW Police tried to issue me a move-on direction without formally moving me on. A policewoman made an inappropriately political judgment about both me and the sign I was holding. She felt I belonged across the road, to which I responded that trans issues are complicated, that they’re not black-and-white – but she still wanted me to cross the road. Across the road, at Queen’s Square, was the counter-protest run by Community Action for Rainbow Rights (CARR). Anyone with the ability to read the room would know that my sign would not be welcomed by the counter-protesters.
It’s a sad state of affairs when according to NSW Police, my trans identity dictates my politics rather than my opinions dictating my politics. The truth is, my transgender status is not a political statement, and the policewoman showed either her true colours or a lack of judgment. After the police’s failed move-on attempt, a woman approached me, surprised by my sign. We started a conversation about what I was all about, and she got so excited that she talked to a protest organiser about me speaking on the mic. She felt I might have something very unique but important to say to the crowd.
As I waited in the speakers’ queue, I was joined by Liberal Democrats candidate for today’s NSW Legislative Council elections, Millie Fontana. In the lead-up to the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, Millie spoke in support of ‘some form of legislation that would insist that child rights and our family law court system be protected for what it is, which is preserving a child’s right to a mother and a father wherever possible’. With her warm encouragement, Millie and I decided to get on the stage together – she spoke first.
When it was my turn to speak briefly, I started with my little sad state of NSW policing incident, then made clear that we, (being myself as a trans woman and the rest of the crowd), are not going to agree with everything, and that that’s okay. I emphasised that public discourse on LGBTQ+ issues has degenerated, and assured the crowd that only some sections of the LGBTQ+ community support degeneracy to the nth degree. As I was making clear that BDSM murals are downright inappropriate, someone from the crowd, perhaps a modern-day Pharisee, was made so angry by my sign that he yanked it off me and scrunched it up in front of everyone.
It’s worth noting that the bottom of my sign had the words ‘Remember Wilson Gavin’ printed on it, and that the other side of my sign had the pro-life message, ‘Love Them Both’ put there ready for the upcoming Day Of The Unborn Child Street Procession in Sydney. Another woman in the crowd later approached me to let me know that she tried to retrieve my scrunched-up sign from the angry man only to be met with aggression from him and others. It was clear to me that this man is not a reflection of SOC/CLM, since there are bad apples in every crowd.
I acknowledge that it was very bold of the protest organisers to allow me to speak and I’m guessing they copped some flak for it afterwards. When I got off the stage, I received the following comments from attendees who listened to what I had to say: ‘That was terrible to take that sign away’, ‘It was so brave…’, ‘Happy to have someone from the other side’, ‘… a lot of guts standing up there’, and ‘Well said, well spoken.’
Afterward, my friend and I decided to peacefully walk towards NSW Parliament House which was nearby, but that meant having to walk past the CARR counter-protesters. These counter-protesters heckled at us ‘f**k off bigots’, ‘kill yourself’, and ‘paedophiles’, amongst other jeering and carrying on. In response, NSW police tried to issue us move-on notices, almost as if we were the bad apples (yet again).
In an unexpected turn of events, a counter-counter-protest group was formed further down on Macquarie St. A handful of CARR counter-protest attendees approached my friend and I to have calm dialogue, much to our initial surprise. It was productive and interesting compared to the earlier events of the morning, not that MSM bothered to report on any of these nuances. Eventually, I recognised one of the people asking questions and she recognised me (let’s call her Jane – not her real name). She helped campaign for Zali Steggall in Warringah during the 2022 Federal election. I would know, because I helped campaign for Katherine Deves during the same campaign period and ran into Jane on election day. We got along well.
Jane and I then decided to wrap up our protest day out with coffee elsewhere, plus some not-too-controversial conversations – perhaps this is called latte protesting? At the café, I met Jane’s child, who is also trans, non-binary I believe. In any case, and in spite of the weird turn of events, it was clear to me by now that All Lives Matter and All Dialogue Matters. I think deep down, many of us know this, but we keep allowing ourselves to be swept up by bad apples, vying for the attention of the lamestream media, who provide the script for our politicians to read off from. As they say, divide and conquer.
Dana Pham is a Sydney-based professional counter-protester.
