Comments on: Drummond Street & Queerspace Cut Ties With The Equality Project Over Anti-Trans Podcast Views

By: Saoirse Fels

Saoirse Fels — Sun, 26 Oct 2025 04:54:56 +0000

Hello,

I am a co-leader of the Bi+ Community, Perth, and I am also a Trans woman.
I have been watching with concern as community organisations become fragmented through the spread of harmful and inaccurate narratives—stories built upon a discredited evidence base, drawn from debunked reports. At a time when the 2SLGBTQIA+SB community should be coming together, we are instead being forced to raise our drawbridges.

Trans people are tired of being talked about and talked at by those who are not part of our community, have no lived expertise, and rely on poorly sourced material written about us—never by us or for us. And people still wonder why we feel attacked; why our mental-health outcomes remain so poor. When organisations that claim to represent us stop listening to us, they stop being fit for purpose.

Let me be clear about why our communities fragment. Just like the Bi community, the Transgender community is intersectional. We exist across the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Queer, Asexual, Agender, Aromantic, and even Heterosexual communities. Neurodivergence is a significant part of our lived experience. We are, in truth, the intersection of intersections—with both horizontal and vertical reach across demographics, identities, and experiences. That is who is being attacked: not simply Trans people, but the deeply interconnected networks we have built and sustained.

Just like the Bi community, Trans people are used to being erased. And as a Bisexual Trans woman, I recognise intersectional erasure when I see it.

The Equality Project and Matt Beard at All Out should understand that what they have propagated here is not what equality looks like. By platforming discredited material and harmful narratives about a community they do not belong to, they have rendered themselves unfit for purpose.

Saoirse Fels,

Administrator & Advocate
Bi+ Community, Perth

By: Luciella Scarlett

Luciella Scarlett — Sun, 26 Oct 2025 02:03:01 +0000

As an aroace person who was scheduled to speak on a-spec history: I've contacted the Equality Project to express my concerns, request details of their position and advise that I will not be presenting unless they reverse their decision to platform these hateful views. It's promising that Matt is no longer listed in the conference program, but the podcast episode itself is still up. Full statement: https://www.instagram.com/p/DQOBGR4EkOG/

By: Kate Wood

Kate Wood — Sat, 25 Oct 2025 03:03:38 +0000

I represent ACT Aces, an organisation who have attended the Better Together Conference since 2020. We utterly condemn the views expressed in this podcast. Trans people are among the most vulnerable in our community and it is our belief that this kind of bigotry should be deplatformed altogether. To praise it as “brave” and worthy of attention is offensive.

We are disappointed in the Equality Project, and I am personally disappointed in those I have considered supportive friends of the community. We are discouraging those we know from attending BT this year, and are in support of a boycott.

– Kate Wood
ACT Aces
(Canberra’s asexual/aromantic community)

And a proud trans ally

By: Hannah Halls

Hannah Halls — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 11:27:07 +0000

The statements made in the podcast and then agreed with by the presenter were a beat for beat repetition of the anti-trans playbook being enacted around the world. These were not just hard but important questions that need to be addressed as the Beard posited. They are bad faith arguments, and even his take on the pushback to marriage equality and trans rights is factually inaccurate in a way that seems impossible to be just a mistake for someone claiming the background that he does. The Equality Project should be feeling pretty embarrassed at this point to be platforming and defending this kind of discussion in the name of strengthening the efforts to advance equality for any LGBTIAQ+ people. This carries water for the very people who want to wind back all of our rights