- "religious discrimination laws could see people with disability 'insulted and humiliated'" - and won't protect trans students - there have been powerful actions against this notorious bill, and calls for "a ‘Christchurch amendment’ to be included ... to protect people of faith from vilification and endangerment", but it actively causing serious harm right now; . . . but has passed the lower house with the most egregious transphobic elements curtailed;
In the 50s and 60s, ignorance and transphobia were rampant. That started to be countered by activists in the 70s and 80s, and in the 90s and early 2000s, during my involvement in community activism, there were a few hold outs, but there was also a preponderance of support - after humanising trans people and basic education on gender identity - for protections.(See here for an excellent history.)
Two Victorian MPs at the time were notorious for their opposition - opposition which, in my opinion, showed them to be transphobic, and opposition which nearly led to the anti-discrimination laws being blocked (we were in contact with both sides of politics, and thus the opposition would have blocked the bill on our advice if the transphobic [toilet] laws had been included) if they had transphobic elements added. A religious community supported the protections, but wanted teachers excluded, over their misunderstanding that exposure to trans issues would somehow "confuse" children - which has subsequently been clearly shown to be absurd by the many brilliant young trans and gender diverse advocates (and their allies).
It may, however, have been a hint of what was to come.
What was also to come was using the protections enacted as the toe in the door to get additional changes - such as the ability to correct Birth Certificates. At the time of our activism, corrected documentation wouldn't have been enough: it would have been possible - and likely - that an employee could say "I'm not sacking you because you're now male, I'm sacking you because you used to be female" - and vice versa - and get away with it.
In fact, it's still possible that some transphobic bigots will try that.
The field of action has also quite rightly broadened, to include gender diversity (sometimes at the cost of denying those trans people who are binary), and that may be increasing the discomfort of the people who, as a result of their personal insecurities / inadequacies combined with a refusal to grow and develop as human beings, and that is partly behind the backlash.
However, just as anti-vaxxers are being used as a smokescreen for other forms of bigotry, transphobia may be using religion as a smokescreen: the majority of religious people are actually supportive of TGD people.
However, a small element of religious extremists have used transphobia as a shield to enable them to avoid doing any acknowledgement / changing of their personal inadequacies, and they have then used their rat cunning and political acumen, much as hitler did to seize power in Germany in the 1930s from a minority position, to gain a level of political clout through their sock puppet Morrison that far exceeds their numbers.
And, much as the others in Germany allowed hitler to seize power through ineptness and/or inaction or through being dupes, I am currently considering whether we have, through ineptness (there have, in addition to the successes, been mistakes) and/or inaction, or others have, through being dupes, allowed the transphobic element to seize power beyond what is reasonable?
The ALP's response to the national neoliberal nitwits (enable) religious discrimination bill has been botched - the TGD community is reeling, and explanations have been and still are too late and inadequate, but the question is: how, over the last couple of decades, did we get to this situation?
PS - also from my coming weekly post:
[the bill] was suspended (NOT WITHDRAWN - it is still on the books, and capable of being resurrected at some stage) in the Senate
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