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Rachel Cook
In what might be seen as a first step
towards addressing long-overdue law reforms for sex and gender-variant people,
the Human Rights Commissioner, Graeme Innes, met with representatives from
Victoria’s trans
community on Monday night.
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity
Commission (HREOC) held a Sex and Gender Diversity consultation to tackle
human rights issues facing people who are transgender, transsexual or intersex.
Representatives from the Gender Centre
Working Group, Older Tees, TransGender Victoria and trans individuals all
welcomed the HREOC initiative.
“Tonight is important for the rights and
representations of trans folk to have a greater impact on the public sphere,”
Hunter McBride from the Gender Centre Working Group told MCV, “and for a level of awareness to be raised about the
complexity of trans issues.”
Commissioner Graeme Innes said the impetus
to start the Sex and Gender Diversity
Project was born out of the Same Sex:
Same Entitlements Report, which addressed legal discrimination against
same-sex couples.
“Gender diversity issues were raised with
us during that report, and we couldn’t respond to those submissions at that
time; but we realised this was an area that needed further work done,” Innes explained
on Tuesday.
“What last night did for me was reinforce
the impact that those issues and situations have on [trans] people.”
HREOC has decided to focus on identity
documents such as passports and birth certificates, an area which repeatedly
causes difficulty for trans-identified people. Last year, the Howard government
amended passport legislation to disallow pre-operative trans people from
gaining a passport in their presenting gender.
Individuals at the meeting also expressed
their frustration that some bureaucrats refuse to accept a passport or birth
certificate as adequate proof of gender.
“What really stood out for me was the
unpredictability in areas of life where this can become an issue for a person;
that most of a person’s documents might be changed but there can be one
organisation that refuses to accept you or creates a real difficulty for a
person. That they can just be outed because of this in the most unexpected
places and circumstances,” Innes said.
Alison Cook, founder of Older Tees, a group
for mature transsexuals said: “I have an F for female on my passport but that
doesn’t mean necessarily that Centrelink will accept it; they want letters from
doctors specifically for them, and they want psychologists reports; and then
you can go along to VicRoads and you have to do the same thing all over again.”
TransGender Victoria spokesperson, Sally Goldner, said
that while she understood the importance of reform to documentation, she
doesn’t understand why HREOC needs to prioritize one issue.
“Overall [the meeting] was very good, but my question is: why is there only one
priority, why can’t we fix everything?”
“The message needs to get through to the
government just how far behind trans people are, and on how many levels,”
Goldner added.
HREOC hopes to present its recommendations
to the Commonwealth Government by the end of September.
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