An activism email follow up to the major win for trans+ rights (in Australia)

I have sent off an email to my MPs following up on the recent win for trans rights in Australia. An edited extract of that follows: I have fixed the typos, some of which were corrected in a second email, and de-identified some information. 

 

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Dear Members of Parliament, 

I wish to provide some comments on the excellent decision last week in the case of Tickle v Giggle. 

Firstly, the judge’s reference to the issue of “changing” sex as settled case law shows up the misreporting of conservative media outlets that the winning case was “novel” as utterly absurd - but that does show that those in the anti-trans + camp are clinging to outdated views. 

Furthermore, I consider their views to be comparable to those of people who still peddle the so-called (illegal in Victoria) conversion “practices” (they are NOT therapies, and should NEVER be referred to as such). 

There will always be some people who, for whatever reason, cling to outdated, proven wrong views - after all, there are still people who believe the earth is flat. However, in this case, as with those peddling conversion practices, their views are actively causing harm. 

In the trans+ community we have known for decades that misgendering and other forms of anti-trans hate causes suicides, but, just as with the struggle to get researchers in the 90s to understand that it was the bigotry trans people experienced after transition, rather than the transition itself, which led to identifiable mental harm, we are currently in a struggle to get the fact of misgendering - and other anti-trans hate - causing harm properly acknowledged. 

On that, there are serious concerns that increasing suicides amongst trans youth on long and lengthening waiting lists in the UK are being covered up - see https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/trans-youth-suicides-covered-up-by (which links to a thread on X) and https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/attempt-cover-up-explosion-trans-youth-suicides-nhs-waiting-wareham-tskbc/ , which is where I first came across this.

Those concerns necessitate, in my opinion, doubt about the Cass “report”.

The effects of anti-trans hate is consistent with the lived experience of trans people, which typically may include knowing being at ages of around four - and anyone trying to deny that is an offensive amathiac who is out of touch with the awareness that many children have - and serious consideration of suicide at young ages - and the ONLY proper response to that revelation is to support appropriate care options, not counselling to try to “fix” the young person, which would be a particularly egregious form of conversion practice, one fitting into the category of child abuse. 

Last century most trans+ people had to get to the point of suicide before transitioning the abuse that would be faced was known. 

And trans+ people still do have to face that too often - one this week told me of being exhausted at having to try to justify existing all the time. 

That occurs for two reasons: bigotry, which can be dealt with, for the most part, by court cases (especially after last week’s decision) for those with the personal strength and resources, and the challenges of passing - and the latter can be helped by puberty blockers.

Being able to access puberty blockers and avoid the more detectable signs of being trans (such as shoulders, voice, etc) would unquestionably have made many transwomen’s lives better.

To listen to people arguing for bans of puberty blockers or against accepting trans people as the people we KNOW we are, is, in my opinion, no different to listening to or giving credence to those who peddle conversion practices. 

And, after last week's court decision, the unlawfulness of those positions has been made clearer. 

And, given that the changes to the SDA that were the basis of last week's court decision were adopted in 2013, and come on top of changes to law to protect and support trans people since 2000 by progressive ALP governments here in Victoria, it is past time corporations/companies and government departments made sure they were actively welcoming and supporting trans people, and treating anti-trans haters as the advocates of unlawful actions that they are. 

Yours faithfully,

 

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My follow up email also included: 

I will also note that the positive duty requirements introduced to the SDA last December make dealing proactively with these issues incumbent on companies ...

 

If they are of any use of interest, the activism information links from my former news posts are available in this post. 

 

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below. 

Note that, as with my main blog [see here], I am cutting back on aspects of my posts.

Remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing, and all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering”.

Copyright © Kayleen White 2016-2024     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike basis   https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/