The Victorian Greens have established a special panel of inquiry to investigate “misconduct” around transgender issues, a move expected to fuel internal hostilities and bring the ongoing feud to a head.
Some insiders regard it as a “kangaroo court”, but sources on both sides of the dispute agree that it is aimed at senior members Melbourne city councillor Rohan Leppert and dumped Victorian party convenor Linda Gale, who have been accused of having views harmful to trans people.
Linda Gale, whose election as Victorian Greens convenor was overturned.Credit:The Age
Internal documents show that this month the party’s new State Council resolved to establish the panel amid mounting concern about the impact of the public row on voters. The panel will start its work early in the new year and is to report its findings by 31 March.
The party already has a committee that deals with misconduct in general, but minutes from a December 12 meeting note that the new three-member panel will be dedicated to investigating whether there had been misconduct relating to comments about trans issues and “if so to apply appropriate sanctions”.
That meeting also acknowledged “significant conflict” within the party about the issue and the “adverse publicity that has resulted and the impact this has had on our capacity to campaign and achieve our objectives”.
But insiders say that disciplinary action against Gale and Leppert may run into trouble if it is found that, as some believe, the two have already been acquitted under existing party misconduct processes.
Greens leader Samantha Ratnam and her parliamentary team.Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui
The Greens have a highly confidential process for dealing with alleged misconduct, under which everyone involved is sworn to confidentiality if the defendant is acquitted – including the defendant.
The Victorian Greens have been riven by division amid an emotional debate over whether party members can raise concerns on trans rights and if they conflict with the rights of biological females. Trans groups argue trans women are women and that making a distinction is discriminatory and harmful.
Greens councillor Rohan Leppert.
In a written statement, party co-convenor Emi Martin confirmed the panel of inquiry and said it had been “charged with the duty of finding the broader facts of the concerns raised to the Australian Greens Victoria”.
“We hope that it will provide us with a well-rounded and reliable perspective on which to help us continue with the work The Greens are committed to,” Martin said.
The decision to establish the panel of inquiry was made just days before a Victorian member of the party’s national council Travis Jordan, wrote to the state party noting concern from interstate Greens about the ongoing brawl and perceptions by trans and gender-diverse members that the party “posed a serious and ongoing threat to their safety and wellbeing”.
He raised the spectre of the Victorian branch being expelled from the national party if could not demonstrate it was on top of the issue, but senior party figures have dismissed that idea. Jordan would not comment when approached by The Age.
The dispute centres on the potential conflict between the rights of trans people and those of biological females and debate over the gender-affirming approach to treating young people who question their gender.
In June, Gale’s election as Victorian convenor was overturned over a procedural breach after her opponents were not supplied with a database of Greens members.
It came amid a backlash to her three-year-old policy paper in which she raised concerns about the implications of Greens’ policies for the rights of non-trans women in sport, intimate medical procedures, domestic violence shelters, hospital wards and prisons.
Announcing her move to overturn the election result because of the breach, Victorian Greens leader Samantha Ratnam tweeted “supporters are understandably very distressed and disappointed by what is happening in the party”.
Leppert spurred the publication of a separate open letter from dozens of Greens members after he raised concerns about Victorian laws banning conversion therapy. He argued the legislation might criminalise doctors doing anything other than affirming the view of a pre-pubescent teenager who might want to switch gender.
Leppert’s comments and Gale’s policy paper spawned fierce criticism on social media, particularly on Twitter, and among Greens members.
Leppert and Gale declined to comment.
A state convenor’s report to a party executive meeting on 15 December notes that “questions will remain about how internal party matters have affected our showing” at last month’s state election.
“In particular we lost votes to the Victorian Socialists, at least partly due to perceptions of transphobia in the Victorian Greens,” the report says.
Other party strategists believe that the Socialists won Green votes through their strong grassroots organising and their policies on bread-and-butter issues like housing
Both Victorian-based National Greens leader Adam Bandt and Victorian leader Sam Ratnam were unavailable for comment on Wednesday.
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