IDAHOBIT ReFLections

(Adapted from a speech presented to the ABLE Faculty on the 17th of May, 2023)

I first celebrated IDAHOBIT 8 years ago. Since then, much has changed for both myself personally and for the queer community. I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on where we’ve come from and where we have yet to go.

10 years ago, I would’ve had to stand before a judge to argue my right to legally change my name and gender marker, and have already undergone surgical treatment to be eligible. I likely would’ve had to travel interstate to receive hormonal treatment, and to travel overseas for any gender confirming surgeries. Today, my life and my ability to live in the body that finally feels like home to me is reliant on the doctors that allow for my treatment, but with the privilege of caring medical practitioners, this has become a routine experience instead of a fight. There is still a significant lack of doctors in SA that are willing and able to care for transgender patients, however I hope that this number continues to grow.

In 2022, I received a new birth certificate which denotes me as non-binary and acknowledges my chosen name. However, I had to endure a nearly 2 year wait for hormonal treatment after being referred and was faced with the legal costs associated with a new birth certificate. I had to receive financial aid from friends and strangers to be able to afford it. Tasks which felt insurmountable if not for my knowledge of how much more difficult it used to be. I stand on the shoulders of giants who fought for my right to be where I am now, and I will not squander that opportunity.

Each moment of triumph I reached, came tinged with what I had to endure. This is a common theme that I know other queer people will recognise when it comes to advances we make. I was 16 when same-sex marriage was legalised, I cried watching the livestream of the parliamentary proceedings and hearing people in the gallery singing ‘I am, you are, we are Australian,’. I also watched as months earlier, a member of the ACL compared the children of queer couples to the Stolen Generation. I felt everyone’s eyes on me while they discussed whether people like me deserved basic rights and representation, while speaking as though I wasn’t in the room. A feeling that I expect is being felt by our Indigenous siblings in the wake of the Voice to Parliament. I urge compassion and solidarity between our communities, particularly with Reconciliation Week coming up. Political discussion is never just discussion, it has real impacts on the people around you.

There is more readily available academic information about queer people than there has been for a long time. Many of you will be familiar with the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft which was a pioneer for study into gender and sexuality. Remarkably, it was first opened in 1919 and provided many of the first experimental procedures of hormone replacement therapy and surgery for transgender individuals. The institute was housed in Berlin and was unfortunately one of the first victims of book and document burning by the Nazi Party. There is a reason so many people are under the impression that queer - and especially trans - people are a modern phenomenon; loss of understanding about us was the intention. Even today, we are still relearning the techniques and theories pioneered over 100 years ago.

Recently, I saw in Melbourne, proud nazis ally themselves with groups that specifically target transgender people like myself. Queerphobia and racism are never far from one another. Where one hatred lies, others will fester. The aim of such hatred is annihilation, which is why our proud and continued open existence is the ultimate protest against these abhorrent hate groups.

On IDAHOBIT, we celebrate the day that homosexuality was removed from the International Classification of Diseases of the World Health Organisation. It has been 33 years since the change was put forward in 1990. After this change, it still took another 7 years for Tasmania to become the final Australian state to decriminalise homosexuality. Hannah Gadsby, a Tasmanian comedian, reflected on what it was like as a teenage lesbian to watch the debate of whether homosexuality should be decriminalised.

“[…] the closet can only stop you from being seen. It is not shame-proof. When you soak a child in shame, they cannot develop the neurological pathways that […] carry thoughts of self-worth. […] Self-hatred is only ever a seed planted from outside in.”

This is the truth of homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, intersexism and every other kind of prejudice that attacks a person’s identity. Those identities will never disappear or die, the risk is that our people will. I don’t mean for this to become all doom and gloom, I would like to leave you all with hope and inspiration for what can be achieved when we acknowledge the risks of prejudice and fight against them.

When South Australia decriminalised homosexuality, it did so with an equal age of consent, meaning there was no difference between gay sex or straight sex in the eyes of the law. The ‘gay panic’ legal defence has been abolished Australia-wide. Today all Australian states except Queensland (bill pending) and Western Australia recognise non-binary genders, all states have removed forced divorce for transgender people, and recently the ACT has introduced our country’s first laws which protect intersex people from forced surgeries as infants.

One step forward, two steps back is no longer acceptable to us. We have made incredible strides, yes, but that does not mean that we stop pushing for further rights to be granted or that we stop protecting the rights we have fought so hard for. There will always be people who try to roll back these protections, and many of them are in our local, state, and federal parliaments today. We must find strength in the support we have from our allies and the comradery we share with other marginalised communities.