An Australian women’s rights campaigner who has been raising awareness over the participation of trans-identified male athletes in women’s football leagues is facing two criminal accusations of “misgendering.” Kirralie Smith, who opposes men in women’s sports, was handed two Apprehended Violence Orders (AVO) — a legal measure similar to a restraining order — on behalf of two trans-identified male players, and was required to defend herself in court for referring to them as men.
Smith is a spokeswoman with Binary Australia, a campaign group dedicated to advocating for single-sex sports in Australia. Smith has argued against the inclusion of male athletes in women’s sports as a result of gender identity policies. In 2024, she launched a letter-writing campaign encouraging concerned individuals to contact Football New South Wales after it was reported that a trans-identified male on a women’s football team had caused injuries to multiple female players.
The male player, Riley Dennis, lodged an AVO against Smith, and is one of five trans-identified male athletes participating on the “inclusive” Premier League women’s team, The Flying Bats Football Club. The Flying Bats, a football club for “self-identified women and non-binary people,” has drawn significant criticism, leading to increased security and prohibitions against filming at matches. During the 2024 season of the North West Sydney Football Women’s Premier Competition, The Flying Bats won all 17 games and scored 76 goals while only a total of 8 points were scored against them.
During court proceedings on Monday, Smith was asked if she would refer to Dennis with feminine pronouns, according to women’s rights activist Sall Grover, who attended the hearing. When Smith responded that she would not refer to Dennis as a woman, she was asked if she felt that her position was “mean,” to which Smith replied that she was making a fact-based statement in calling Dennis a man.
Dennis, for his part, claimed that he believed that Smith had “outed” him as being male. However, Dennis has been known as a trans activist for nearly a decade, as noted by Grover, and had additionally declared to The Flying Bats team that he identified as transgender.
Last year, Reduxx learned that Dennis had injured female athletes on opposing teams on more than one occasion. Before transferring to The Flying Bats FC, Dennis was previously accused of severely injuring women while participating in matches for the New South Wales Inter Lions.
On May 21, 2023, during a game between the Inter Lions and the St. George football clubs at the Majors Bay Reserve, Dennis launched his smaller female opponent towards a metal fence using an aggressive tackle as the two chased down the ball.
Reduxx was provided footage of the match, which showed the female player laying on her side, unmoving, as the transgender player casually walked away.
The month prior, Dennis was said to have injured another female player, who reportedly had to seek hospital attention as a result of her injury.
An anonymous source close to the situation explained to Reduxx that Dennis left the Inter Lions team following the controversy over the injured female players. The source stated that Dennis then submitted at least three applications of interest for other teams, which were not accepted. The Flying Bats, however, approved his application to join the team. The football club’s official website states it is “the biggest LGBTQIA+ women’s and non-binary football club in the world”, having been founded in 1985.
A letter-writing campaign was launched by Smith, out of concern for the safety of the female players, encouraging concerned individuals to contact Football New South Wales — which reportedly then received over 12,000 submissions.
For her role in bringing awareness to the injuries sustained by female athletes, Smith was visited by New South Wales Police and handed an Apprehended Violence Order (AVO) on March 30 that year requiring that she neither discuss nor approach Dennis. Smith also experienced the censorship of her social media accounts.
In February, Smith was required to appear in court for a separate AVO launched by a trans-identified male football player who she had never even met. Stephanie Blanch, a male who plays on the Wingham Warriors women’s team, told the court he felt “threatened” by the knowledge of women’s rights campaigner Kirralie Smith’s views about men who participate in women’s sports.
Blanch first applied for his AVO against Smith in March of 2023, but was rejected in January of 2024 after the Civil and Administrative Tribunal of New South Wales found that the scope of the request was out of their jurisdiction. But Blanch appealed, arguing that Smith’s “conduct” had caused him to fear for his safety.
Among his evidence was that Smith had tweeted about “a bloke on the women’s team in Wingham” in January of 2023, as well as posted a publicly-available photo of Blanch receiving an award and referred to him as a “bloke in a frock.” Blanch also complained that Smith had been spotted in the general Wingham area one month later.
In a December 2024 ruling on the AVO, the District Court emphasized the fact that Smith had declined to refer to Blanch by his chosen pronouns, writing that she “repeatedly referred to the Appellant as a male, a man, a bloke and ‘he,’ where the Appellant does not refer to herself that way.”
“The term ‘misgendering’ is a reference to the Respondent re-naming the Appellant in a way that she does not wish to be referred to, and in that sense, it was belittling and offensive. It denigrates the Appellant’s right to describe herself as she wishes, not as a stranger wishes to label her.”
Since pursuing the AVO against Smith, Blanch has taken great steps to largely scrub his online presence. Multiple results related to Blanch have been completely withheld on Google, likely in response to an order from the eSafety Commissioner. The Commissioner is an agent of the Australian government who regulates “online harms.”
The eSafety Commissioner has previously worked to censor information related to the exposure of trans-identified males participating in women’s sport in Australia.
In 2023, Reduxx was contacted by the Commissioner and advised to censor or delete an article naming Riley Dennis as having been the subject of complaint after he was alleged to have injured female players during a match.
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