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Going Downer on trans passports |
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The News
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Wednesday, 12 September 2007 |
Going Downer on trans passports
George Dunford
Greens Senator Kerry Nettle made sure Alexander Downer wasn’t relaxed or comfortable about the Federal Govern ment’s stance on transgendered Australians last week, when she posed questions in Federal Parliament to the Foreign Minister about recent changes in passport legislation.
As reported in MCV #345, the changes mean that trans Australians can no longer apply for passports with their identifying gender, so they can only travel under a Document of Travel. Using this paperwork can create bureaucratic confusion, stress, and unwanted attention at customs. In some countries the document may not even be recognised, placing trans Australians at risk of being deported.
“Transgender people who are travelling [overseas] will now be more vulnerable to abuse and discrimination,” Nettle told Downer. “The Greens want to know how the Government intends to ensure the safety of transgender Australians who wish to travel overseas.”
Nettle is no stranger to stoushes with Liberal frontbenchers about the rights of individual. In 2006 she donned a T-shirt that read, “Mr Abbott get your rosaries off my ovaries,” in response to the Federal Minister for Health’s perceived Catholic condemnation of the abortion drug RU 486.
At the time, Prime Minister John Howard dismissed Nettle’s statement as an “undergraduate stunt”.
Nettle responded by telling The Age, “It’s not the T-shirt that needs changing, it’s the Prime Minister’s attitude, which we are seeing increasingly is about bringing fundamentalist religious views into the parliament.”
Last week, Nettle also chastised the Coalition for “creating more” discrimination and charged that, “It is the government’s responsibility to protect all Australians.”
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