Gender identity ideology may well become a key issue in the next Australian federal election. That is, if Peter Dutton has the courage to stand up and campaign on women’s sex-based rights.

President Donald Trump stated over and over again that he would get “gender ideology the hell out of schools and men out of women’s sport.” His Republican colleagues campaigned on the issue as well and they now have a clear mandate to proceed with policies that will protect women’s sport, spaces and services.

Over recent years, women in Australia have been erased in law and threatened with punishment for stating the plain truth that men are not women. Very few Australian politicians have had an appetite to even address the issue let alone campaign on it, but that could be changing.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton has encouraged Senator Price and Tasmanian senator Claire Chandler to express their views on transgender issues, while Ms Deeming has claimed Victorian Liberals can’t win in the state unless they adopt Mr Dutton’s “strong leadership” advancing conservative values.

Senator Price, now opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman, has nominated women’s rights in sport as a priority, saying “I don’t see why it should be controversial”. She says women like Ms Deves and Ms Deeming were “brave” and had been “thrown under the bus” in expressing concerns for women’s rights being impinged upon by transgender women.

Senator Chandler, who has long fought to keep biological males out of female sport, says the trans issue may well become a focus during next year’s federal election. “This is an issue where the left has failed women,” she told The Australian. “They’ve actively promoted a hugely unpopular stance that males have to be allowed into women’s sport and spaces. Women are really angry about it and there’s no doubt it cost the Harris campaign votes.

“It’s an issue that transcends the political spectrum, but in the US I think the left of politics has completely misunderstood the public sentiment, which is that it’s completely unreasonable that women should have to make room for men in their sports and their services, in their facilities that were designed for women.

“The majority of women who contact me about this are women who identified themselves as traditionally from the left, who feel totally abandoned by left-wing parties who are now saying women don’t even have the right to single-sex sports, bathrooms or services.

“That’s exactly what you’ve seen women saying in the US, and that even Democrat-aligned commentators are saying in the aftermath of the election.”

Laws that allow males into female spaces must be changed and protections for sex-based rights must be reinstated into the Sex Discrimination Act. Any politicians with the fortitude and integrity to campaign on reality and evidence-based science will certainly attract votes from ordinary Australians who are concerned about their daughters’ rights to safe, fair and dignified sports, spaces and services.