An Australian woman whose video drawing attention to a “queer club” at a
Melbourne primary school was banned at the request of the government’s
online censorship chief has filed an appeal against the takedown notice.

Celine Baumgarten revealed in a May 29 X post that Montmorency South
Primary School was running a club for students in Years 3 to 6 who
“identify as LGBTQIA+” and that the school uses “gender inclusive” language
models, resulting in students not being referred to as boys or girls.

Ms Baumgarten stated in her post, which was made with the support of
activist group Gays Against Groomers, that “children should not be learning
about sexualities at such a young, impressionable age” and in her video she
mentioned that the club was facilitated by a teacher named Trish “Patsy”
Marmo, who openly pushes far-left gender ideology on her social media
accounts.

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant then issued a removal
notice to X, resulting in the post and video being “geo-blocked” in
Australia, meaning it now cannot be viewed inside the country without the
use of a Virtual Private Network (VPN). X then informed Ms Baumgarten of
the notice and the action taken as a result.

On Friday Ms Baumgarten filed a legal challenge in the Administrative
Appeals Tribunal with the assistance of the Free Speech Union of Australia,
who are also assisting Canadian anti-child mutilation activist Billboard
Chris in a similar appeal.

The free speech legal group told Noticer News: “This case is an even more
worrying abuse of power than Billboard Chris’s case – and that’s saying
something!

“This time around, eSafety have seemingly tried to make their notice
unappealable using bureaucratic magic tricks. The Free Speech Union of
Australia is making sure these tricks won’t work.”

According to the appeal documents, the removal order presumably claims that
Ms Baumgarten engaged in creating and disseminating “cyber-abuse material”,
which the appeal states is a “grave allegation” and “entirely
misconstrued”, and is also an “informal notice” which violates statutory
protections for end users under the Online Safety Act.

Ms Baumgarten, who describes herself as an Australian patriot, told Noticer
News: “I did not intend to abuse or offend anyone. The purpose of the video
was to draw attention to a rapidly growing concern in this country – queer
clubs in primary schools.

“I am appealing because I am an advocate for free speech and I don’t
believe it’s morally justifiable to remove a video so quickly without a
reason (I never received anything from eSafety, only an email from X saying
the post had already been geoblocked).”

The appeal documents state that there are three fundamental issues with the
informal notice issued in this case. Firstly, that the notice is in force
even though Ms Baumgarten was not notified of her appeal rights, secondly
that the material did not fall with the relevant cyber abuse scheme and
could have be modified rather than taken down, and thirdly that Ms Inman
Grant’s conduct goes beyond the powers of her office as it violates Ms
Baumgarten’s implied freedom of political communication.

The removal of the post caused international outrage, and came as Ms Inman
Grant withdrew legal action against X in the Federal Court attempting to
force Elon Musk’s platform to remove videos of an alleged terrorist
stabbing.

United Australia Party Senator Ralph Babet reshared the posts and called
for the eSafety Office to be shut down, while influential X account Libs of
TikTok also reposted the video, which has since been viewed 670,000 times.

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