The pathetic counter protest that tried to terrorise Sydney’s Restore Women’s Rights rally, forcing a venue change and scaring off its headline speaker, completely collapsed without showing its face. Around 500 determined people, by the count of those there, packed into the Martin Place amphitheatre at midday on Sunday, demanding the basic reality of “man” and “woman” be restored to the Sex Discrimination Act. Meanwhile, the extremist activists who boasted they would “put an end to this nightmare” chickened out and left weak chalk scribbles on the steps instead.

Organised by Women’s Rights Network Australia, the rally forged ahead just two days after vicious death threats forced Giggle for Girls founder Sall Grover to pull out for her family's safety. Kirralie Smith, the fearless Binary Australia director targeted by those exact same threats, refused to be silenced and took the stage anyway under the watchful eyes of NSW Police.

By Monday morning, One News could find no report of the rally in any major Australian outlet. The fullest public record of the day is a supporter’s speech video, running 1 hour 44 minutes on YouTube.

Smith, ordered in December to pay $95,000 for vilifying two transgender footballers, exposed the sickening violence directed at women by reading the exact text sent to her two weeks ago from an account named Riles while she sat in hospital after a fall.

“We’re going to put a bullet in your effing head for bringing men to a soccer players game.”

“Which I never did, by the way,” she told the rally, adding that what was written about her in the ABC and The Guardian on that point was not true. Then she read the second message in full.

“One terf, one bullet. You will suffer immense physical anguish for putting our side in harm’s way… So happy you lost $100,000 but it’s not effing enough, we will ruin your life as much as humanly possible. We will never stop pursuing your suffering… you subhuman filth, we will haunt you as long as you live, you will never be safe.”

“Terf”, short for trans exclusionary radical feminist, is the weaponised slur activists slap on women who demand that sex in law remains tied to biological reality. Days later, Smith revealed, the same unhinged account sent a photograph of Grover captioned “one terf, one bullet”. The sender has not been identified, nobody has been charged, and no link has been established between these violent threats and the counter protest organisers.

Smith exposed the corrupt double standard of the Australian legal system, which weaponises its power against women defending reality rather than the men threatening to murder them. She reminded the crowd that she is the one slammed with a two year apprehended violence order simply for reposting a public image and questioning why a male was winning an award in women’s sport, and she is the one ordered to pay $95,000 in damages “because it hurt their feelings to be identified”.

“I’m so thrilled these police are here today to protect us from angry men in dresses, because we do need their protection… We are not the threat.”

She closed her speech with the undeniable truth the crowd gathered to champion.

“Men are not women, humans cannot change sex and women deserve sex based spaces, services and sport.”

Sall Grover forced off stage by activist hate machine to protect her four year old daughter

Grover was forced to watch the rally she was meant to headline from a News24 studio instead of the amphitheatre floor. Speaking on The Outsiders, she exposed how seven years on the frontlines of this fight prepared her for routine death threats, but this marked a dangerous escalation. Radical counter protest groups Trans Action Network, Pride in Protest, and the Macquarie University Queer Collective launched targeted propaganda explicitly “singling me out”, unleashing flyers branding her a racist and unleashing what she condemned as a deliberate wave of aggression.

As an invited speaker rather than an event organiser, her heart wrenching decision to withdraw came down to protecting her four year old daughter from extremist violence.

“I have a daughter. Every decision that I make comes from the premise of being her mum.”
“I’m not willing to put myself or any woman in danger when literally all we’re asking for is the accurate definition of woman in discrimination legislation so women’s sex based rights are protected. We’re not asking for anything absurd.”

Nobody is being asked to believe men can magically become women, she added, calling what women are demanding “a really simple request” for basic legal reality.

Writing on X that afternoon, she went to the core of it: “When men are able to be women in law and society, dangerous men and vulnerable women inevitably become part of the same legal category, and therefore impossible to deal with one and protect the other, so a man’s rights to identify as a woman supersedes a woman’s right to safety.”

Radical trans collectives post big threats online then vanish into thin air at Sydney rally

The aggressively hyped “Terfs off our turf” counter protest was booked for 11am at Sydney Town Hall, a full hour before the rally, after being aggressively pushed for three weeks by Pride in Protest, Trans Action Network, and the Macquarie University Queer Collective. Their smear flyer branded Grover “a racist transphobe” and dramatically declared “we must put an end to this nightmare”. No court in the land has ever made a single finding of racial discrimination against Grover, and she has hit five of these extremist groups with formal concerns notices over the smear.

On Saturday, the radical collectives issued a desperate final call to arms to their online mob: “TOMORROW!!! Bring everyone!!!!!!!!!” The post generated a pathetic 246 likes and 36 shares, while a Deakin University queer collective account gloated “Sall pulled out” in the comments as followers realised the main rally had shifted to Martin Place.

Instagram post

When Sunday arrived, the sacred turf went completely unclaimed by the activists. Family First national director Lyle Shelton reported directly from Martin Place that despite weeks of violent death threats, the aggressive mob was nowhere to be found, leaving behind nothing but weak chalk scribbled across the amphitheatre steps reading “TERFS GO HOME”.

The closest thing to an actual confrontation was two trans identifying visitors filmed by an attendee at the rally, who meekly admitted they simply did not believe in what the crowd was standing up for.

Rally speakers rip into biased human rights bureaucrats and authoritarian eSafety censorship

Charles Sturt University professor of public ethics Clive Hamilton blasted the crowd with a brutal truth, declaring that the extreme gender debate is a basic free speech test Australia is utterly failing. Doctors who stick to medical facts risk their entire careers, he warned, while Melbourne University philosopher Holly Lawford-Smith required private security guards on campus following relentless threats from trans activists, and public libraries in Tasmania disgracefully banned Women Speak Tasmania from meeting to discuss puberty blockers.

The tyrannical eSafety Commissioner, he charged, “took a sledgehammer to an acorn” when she launched a heavy handed takedown order against breastfeeding counsellor Jasmine Sussex, whose only so called crime was stating the biological reality that males cannot breastfeed. Sussex bravely travelled all the way from Melbourne to address the rally in person.

Sarah from the Lesbian Action Group launched a ruthless attack on Sex Discrimination Commissioner Anna Cody. The compromised Australian Human Rights Commission shielded the 2023 decision denying her group permission to hold female only events at Victoria’s taxpayer funded Pride Centre, she informed the roaring crowd, and said Cody had told Senate estimates she does not understand the phrase “biological male”. Her uncompromising verdict, that men cannot be lesbians, sparked explosive cheers from the crowd.

Feminist Legal Clinic principal solicitor Anna Kerr exposed the legal wreckage left by the 2013 legislative changes, alongside hard hitting remarks from psychologist Professor Dianna Kenny. One attendee cut straight to the core message of the day, stating that the free speech and fundamental rights of the 99% who protect women are being trampled to appease a radical 1% agenda.

Lyle Shelton summarised the fiery atmosphere far more aggressively, noting that the Sex Discrimination Commissioner and the Human Rights Commission “are not very popular here”.

The entire uncensored video of the speeches remains available on YouTube.

Retired police chief exposes how self identification laws weaponise state power on women

The most terrifying warning came straight from the United Kingdom. A damning speech by retired police superintendent Cathy Larkman was delivered to the rally by Jane Monroe, laying bare the absolute horrors that unfold when law enforcement surrenders to gender self identification. She exposed corrupt guidance uncovered in 2022 that authorised male officers identifying as women to strip search vulnerable female detainees.

When public outrage exposed the scandal, she revealed, police bosses admitted the policy was illegal, only to replace it with a coercive new rule forcing female officers to give “consent” to strip search trans identifying males. That forced consent, she warned, is ruthlessly extorted through threats of disciplinary action and workplace punishment. A legal challenge against this authoritarian policy was dismissed, but fearless campaigners are fighting back on appeal.

Her blunt warning to every Australian in attendance was that this exact dystopian nightmare arrives wherever the state destroys the legal definition of sex, and Australia’s compromised Sex Discrimination Act abandoned biological reality back in 2013.

Labor and Greens repeatedly kill Senate bills to restore biological definitions in law

The rally’s demand is not new, and neither is Canberra’s cowardly response. Three separate bills to restore biological definitions to the Act have been ruthlessly killed in the Senate without debate. Pauline Hanson’s bill was struck down at first reading in September 2024 by 27 votes to 32, her motion to restore it to the Notice Paper in June was defeated 25 to 32, and Michaelia Cash’s bill on 1 July was shot down at first reading 21 to 30, with Labor and the Greens supplying 28 of the 30 noes.

Smith put the burning question directly to the government on 20 August, demanding Anthony Albanese, Tanya Plibersek, Katy Gallagher, and the Labor Party answer what they will do to protect women like her and Grover from violent death threats. By Monday morning, One News could find no public reply from any of them.

Women’s Forum Australia chief executive Rachael Wong, who stood with the crowd, thanked NSW Police for keeping the rally safe and declared that “the silence from our political leaders has been shameful”. There is nothing radical, she wrote afterwards, about women and girls needing female only spaces, services, and sport. Her organisation is actively collecting signatures to force a fix to the Act.

This political silence has a dark pattern. The very same week violent threats drove Grover off the stage, a Perth man was charged over alleged Facebook posts urging that someone “hunt her down and kill her” regarding Pauline Hanson, who is herself fighting a taxpayer funded case over what she is legally allowed to say. Two horrific death threat stories targeting prominent Australian women broke in a single week, yet the 500 people who filled Martin Place did not rate a mention One News could find in any major mainstream masthead.

Rally campaign pushes to Melbourne steps while Scottish court victory shows real momentum

The national campaign marches straight to Melbourne on Saturday 19 September, bringing the Restore Women’s Rights rally to the steps of Parliament House at 12 noon. The open mic gathering welcomes every woman and man ready to take a stand, requiring speakers to register ahead via text. The promotional flyer circulating under the hashtag #WeSupportSallGrover carries a mandatory security instruction that exposes the violent climate these events now face, specifying a strict single entry point located exclusively at the Flinders Street end of the Parliament House steps.

Despite state resistance in Australia, campaigners point to massive international victories proving momentum is on their side. In Scotland, following a landmark legal victory achieved by campaign group For Women Scotland, every single trans identifying male has been purged from the female prison system, according to the group.

Meanwhile, Grover’s High Court application for special leave remains pending a crucial decision, while Smith’s crushing $95,000 penalty stands enforced. The vital word stripped away by the 2013 amendment remains missing from the Sex Discrimination Act, and the next fearless crowd demanding its restoration assembles on the Melbourne Parliament steps on 19 September.