Sophia Moermond MLC addressed Melbourne’s Women Will Speak on Saturday afternoon vowing to use her final days as Western Australian MP to go “out in a blaze of glory”.

“Speaking on behalf of women is a career limiting move as it has turned out. I hosted Kellie-Jay Keen in Perth about two years ago and I have been bullied and cancelled ever since.” Moermond told the small crowd on the steps on Melbourne’s parliament.

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When she hosted Keen’s Let Women Speak rally in Perth in 2023 Moermond said she was “committing political suicide” by raising her concerns. She argued that transgender medical care was guided by ideology rather than science and voiced concern that in the future many people who are transgender would change their minds and detransition, which would put a burden on Australia’s Medicare system.

Just over a year later Moermond quit the Legalise Cannabis party and moved to being an independent. It was later revealed that party members disagreed with her anti-transgender views and would have pushed her to an unwinnable spot on their senate ticket.

She ran at the 2025 election as an independent but was not re-elected. Her own prophecy of political suicide fulfilled. Newly elected members will take their seats in the Legislative Council on 21st May, giving Moermond just a few sitting days as a member of Parliament.

In Melbourne Moermond called on people not to vote in the federal election for the party that brought her to the parliament, urging people to consider supporting Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, Gerard Rennick’s People First party or The Libertarians Party.

“I’m not necessarily pro-Trump, but what a lot of politicians don’t understand is that happened in the US is that lifelong left-leaning feminists, lesbians, and gender critical women, voted for Trump because they understand that gender ideology is more harmful to women and children than the loss of abortion rights.” Moermond said.

“The gender affirmation care model harms. It doesn’t fix anything.” Moermond said. “No one is born in the wrong body.”

The Western Australian MLC said at the federal election people should carefully consider who they vote for, and she believes that many parties will gain women voters if they have policies that oppose gender ideology.

There was a heavy police presence in central Melbourne on Saturday to keep protesters supporting the transgender community, and women’s group separate.

A small group of women’s rights activists gathered under the banner of ‘Women Will Speak’ to voice their opposition to recognition of people who are transgender under Equal Opportunity and Sex Discrimination Laws.

Police activated additional security requirements ahead of the rally allowing them to stop and search people within the designated area of the rally and protests. The designated area covered Melbourne’s Parliament House and surrounding gardens, and four city blocks.

The new laws were drafted after a neo-Nazi group attended the 2023 event. The group appeared adjacent to the Let Women Speak rally and antagonised the pro-trans counter protesters with offensive signage.

This time round the police had additional laws and a wide barrier between the two groups. There were reports of several scuffles between police and the counter protester group. Reports how many people attended the counter rally vary from estimates of 400 to 1000 people from different media organisations.

Journalist Julie Szego says journalism has been overtaken by activists

Journalist Julie Szego addressed the crowd at the rally telling them she’d lost her position as a freelance columnist at Melbourne’s The Age newspaper after she attended the Kellie-Jay Keen rally in 2023.

“As a journalist I always believed that I had to be at arm’s length from activists, but unfortunately journalism has been hijacked by activists across several areas of reporting, and the most stark being about trans issues.” Szego said.

Szego said the profession of journalism had committed malpractice by not fully reporting concerns about the effects of gender affirming care on young people.

“The bodies in journalism that set standards for the industry, so the Press Council, which adjudicates press complaints, and the MEAA journalist’s union, have allowed guidelines on reporting in this area to be entirely written by trans activists.” Szego said.

“Too many journalists no longer see their job as writing the first draft of history, they see it terms of barracking for what they see as the right side of history, and on this occasion, I think they’ve got it wrong. We have to get back to basics.”

The Age newspaper has previously said the Szego was not dismissed for attending the 2023 rally or over the content of stories she subsequently put forward, but her dismissal was related to comments about her newsroom colleagues.

Update 26-04-2025 9:10pm Additional information added regarding the number of counter protesters.