Australia’s under-fire Sex Discrimination Commissioner Anna Cody secretly queried whether any influence could be used to block the reappointment of a senior UN human rights official who had strongly opposed radical trans ideology and who sought to intervene against the landmark sex discrimination case brought by trans woman Roxanne Tickle.

In an internal email to Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) chief executive Leanne Smith, obtained by The Australian under freedom of information laws, Dr Cody criticises the UN Special Rapporteur on ­Violence Against Women, Reem Alsalem, over her “intervention on issues of trans women and their rights”.

Dr Cody asks Ms Smith whether the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) – of which the AHRC is a member – “can have any role in influencing the ­reappointment of special procedures and express a view about the inappropriateness of an ­appoint