An Australian court has ordered women’s rights campaigner Kirralie Smith to pay a total of $95,000 AUD in damages to two transgender-identifying males who compete in women’s football, with a further $40,000 penalty if she fails to comply within 28 days.

The ruling, delivered on 26 August by New South Wales Magistrate Sharon Freund, found Smith guilty of “unlawful vilification” under the state’s Anti-Discrimination Act. The magistrate ruled that Smith’s repeated descriptions of the complainants—Justin “Riley” Dennis and Nicholas “Stephanie” Blanch—as male, man, or “bloke” constituted unlawful conduct, even though both individuals are male.

Magistrate Freund declared that Smith had vilified Blanch when she “referred to the plaintiff as a male or a man,” a finding that effectively treats the accurate identification of biological sex as discriminatory speech when applied to transgender-identifying individuals.

Smith has been ordered to pay $55,000 to Blanch and $40,000 to Dennis as compensation for emotional harm caused by the “misgendering.” The court also required her to publish a pinned public apology on all social media accounts (an apology that must name both men) while bizarrely ordering her not to publish anything that identifies either complainant or their football teams.

Smith described the contradictory directions as impossible to reconcile.

The case arose after Smith, a spokesperson for Binary Australia, publicly criticised the inclusion of both men in women’s football competitions. Her comments highlighted safety concerns following reports of female players being injured during matches involving the complainants.

Dennis later moved to the Sydney-based Flying Bats FC, which describes itself as “the world’s biggest LGBTQIA+ women’s and non-binary football club” and openly fields multiple biologically male players in its premier women’s team. In the 2024 North West Sydney Women’s Premier League season the Flying Bats won all 17 matches, scoring 76 goals and conceding only eight.

The club has faced heavy criticism for the physical dominance its male players enjoy, and in 2022 one of its transgender-identifying players broke a female opponent’s leg in two places—an incident that ended the woman’s career—yet the club still received a “Fair Play” award that year. Matches now routinely feature increased security and filming bans.

Among the statements ruled vilifying were:

• Descriptions of Blanch as a “bloke in a frock” receiving an award for playing in a women’s division.
• Posts noting that Dennis was the top goal-scorer in a NSW women’s league while biologically male.
• Calls for fairness and single-sex categories, including the assertion that “he is male and does not belong in a female division.”

In a separate but related matter, Blanch successfully obtained an Apprehended Violence Order (AVO) against Smith on appeal, despite initially having the application dismissed. The AVO was granted on the basis that Smith’s public commentary caused Blanch to fear for his safety.

Video evidence published in 2023 showed Dennis executing a heavy tackle that propelled a smaller female opponent into a metal fence, after which the injured player lasted only minutes in the second half. Separate reports documented a female player suffering a double leg fracture caused by another transgender-identifying player in the same broader competition network.

Click below to watch:

Football NSW’s Gender Diversity Policy permits individuals to compete according to their gender identity rather than biological sex. Following public complaints prompted by Smith’s campaign—reportedly numbering over 12,000—Football NSW removed Dennis’s name from online league records, replacing it with the placeholder “Inter Player.”

Smith has indicated she will appeal the decision. In a statement following the ruling she maintained that accurately describing biological reality should not be classified as vilification and that redefining “woman” to include males has serious implications for female sport and single-sex provisions.

Males should never be permitted to participate in female sport. As a registered third-party political campaigner and a woman, I should have the right to advocate for this without being penalized.

The case has been widely cited as illustrating the tension between anti-discrimination laws framed around gender identity and the ability to state verifiable biological facts in public discourse.