When 'speaking the truth' wounds: a Christian reading of the Smith vilification appeal

By Jason Masters FAICD PFIIA — LinkedIn 25 July 2026

On 24 July 2026, the NSW Supreme Court dismissed almost all of Kirralie Smith’s and Binary Australia’s appeal against the first findings of transgender vilification under NSW law (Smith v Blanch; Smith v Dennis [2026] NSWSC 879). The court confirmed the pair unlawfully vilified two transgender women who wanted nothing more than to play football with their teammates. It rejected the claim the vilification law breaches the Constitution. This case has been wrapped in the language of faith from the beginning, so it deserves a reading from within faith.

What the Court Found

In early 2023, Smith published an article and a stream of social media posts about two women. She posted photographs, named a club, and pointed followers to a results leaderboard. She told her audience a male was playing in women’s football and described one woman as a ‘bloke’. She claimed players had been hospitalised after facing a transgender opponent. Under oath, she admitted she had no evidence for the claim.

The courts heard what followed. One woman received threats, feared for her safety, and needed counselling and a protection order. The other played her matches while police patrolled the ground, and was abused from a passing car at training. A District Court judge called Smith’s conduct a ‘sustained campaign of belittling, harassment and intimidation’.

Note what the courts did not do. The Local Court accepted debate about transgender women in sport is protected discussion under the Anti-Discrimination Act. Nobody was punished for holding a view about fairness in sport, or for arguing it publicly. The law was breached because the campaign singled out two private individuals and exposed them to hatred, and because the court found this was disproportionate and lacked good faith. No apology was ordered. The Supreme Court stressed no one is being forced to say anything they do not believe. The corrective notice states only the fact of the court’s findings.

The Faith Wrapping

Smith’s legal fight has been sustained by Christian networks. Binary raised more than $250,000 through its own donation page, promoted by Lyle Shelton of the Family First Party and endorsed by Senator Pauline Hanson. The Human Rights Law Alliance, which emerged from the Australian Christian Lobby’s legal division, published support for her case. The Australian Christian Lobby cited her in its call to wind back NSW vilification law. Supporters were told this was a fight for free speech and for truth itself. Smith described her conviction as ‘something straight out of George Orwell’s fictional 1984’.

Take the concern seriously before answering it. Many Christians carry an honest fear their beliefs about sex and gender will become unsayable, and their consciences will be conscripted. Scripture takes compelled speech seriously, and so should we. If this law silenced belief or forced confession, Christians would be right to resist it.

The judgment answers the fear directly. The provisions said to compel belief were never used. The policy debate remained open throughout. What the law reached was a campaign of identification and exposure directed at two people. Whatever this is, it is not the confession of faith under persecution. It is closer to what the prophets called bearing false witness against a neighbour, funded by appeal to the faithful.

What Our Tradition Says

Paul asks the church at Ephesus to speak the truth in love, so the body grows together rather than apart (‘speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ’, Ephesians 4:15). The two halves of the phrase discipline each other. Truth without love becomes a weapon. James is blunter: the tongue is a fire, able to set a whole forest ablaze, and religious devotion paired with an unbridled tongue is worthless (‘How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire’, James 3:5-6, and ‘If any think they are religious and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless’, James 1:26). A campaign which puts a private person’s photograph before a hostile audience, again and again, fails both tests regardless of the belief behind it.

Our tradition also warns against misreading who is vulnerable in a story. Ezekiel names the sin of Sodom as pride, excess, and refusal to aid the vulnerable (‘This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease but did not aid the poor and needy’, Ezekiel 16:49). The consensus of modern scholarship reads Genesis 19 as a story about the violation of the stranger, not about identity. Two women who asked only to belong to a team were made strangers in their own community. Christians who funded the campaign against them should sit with the question of which character in the story they resourced.

And the deeper claim of Genesis stands over all of it. Every person bears the image of God (‘So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them’, Genesis 1:27a). A transgender woman on a football field bears it no less. Vilification law, at its best, is a secular fence around a truth the church proclaimed first: contempt for a person is contempt for the One whose image she carries.

What Faithful People Do now

Three things follow. First, refuse the victory spin. Supporters will hear the appeal was ‘upheld’. It was upheld only on the wording of orders, and the judge said one fix needed no appeal at all. The findings, the damages, and the law all stand. Test the fundraising email against the court’s orders before forwarding it.

Second, ask hard questions before giving. The $250,000 raised through a donation page with no vetting, no refunds, and no reporting bought a redrafted order and a three-month deadline. Money given in the name of Christ deserves the stewardship Christ described. There are ministries feeding people tonight.

Third, stand with the two women, and with transgender people in your congregation and community, because the campaign against them has not ended. The court did its work. Ours is older: love of neighbour, welcome of the stranger, and speech seasoned with grace (‘Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone’, Colossians 4:6).

Sources

Scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition (NRSVue), copyright 2021 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. https://www.biblegateway.com/versions/New-Revised-Standard-Version-Updated-Edition-NRSVue-Bible/

Smith v Blanch; Smith v Dennis [2026] NSWSC 879, NSW Caselaw, https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/19f8d228d3ac8e4fa7995cb1

Blanch v Smith [2024] NSWDC 631 (protection order appeal).

Star Observer, ‘Binary Australia raise more than $250K for anti-trans activist’s legal fees’, 4 November 2025, https://www.starobserver.com.au/news/binary-australia-raise-more-than-250k-for-anti-trans-activists-legal-fees/239669

Star Observer, ‘Anti-trans activist Kirralie Smith appealing $95K fine’, 14 January 2026, https://www.starobserver.com.au/news/national-news/anti-trans-activist-kirralie-smith-appealing-95k-fine-following-vilification-ruling/240485

The Catholic Weekly, ‘Q&A with John Steenhof’, 20 March 2021, https://catholicweekly.com.au/qa-with-john-steenhof-human-rights-lawyer/

Australian Christian Lobby, submission to the NSW Law Reform Commission review of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977, 22 August 2025, https://www.acl.org.au/acl-submissions/submission-nsw-law-reform-commission-review-of-the-anti-discrimination-act-1977-nsw/

Full governance analysis: Society Ethics Business, ‘The vilification law stands: what the Smith v Blanch appeal means for Australian boards’, societyethicsbusiness.com https://societyethicsbusiness.com/articles/the-vilification-law-stands-what-the-smith-v-blanch-appeal-means-for-australian-boards/