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theauspolchronicles · 9 hours
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I wrote a physical letter to Roger Cook to express my frustrations that he won't legislate to protect LGBTQIA+ people from harm, discrimination, and needless outdated bureaucratic obstacles for gender recognition.
I urge you as well to write a letter to:
The Hon Roger Cook
PO Box 428,
Kwinana 6966
Letter excerpt text (content warning: mentions of queer suicide):
To the Premier, Roger Cook:
I’m writing to you about the much needed LGBTQIA+ reform and how much it means to me. As a queer person, I live in a society where my problems are fixable by people in power, but the people in power don't show an interest in fixing them.
I long to live a life that is not made political by virtue of my very existence. That’s it. Why is that so hard?
Recently, you said it was “difficult to define” conversion therapy. Why is the Victorian legislation (which has been labelled a “gold-standard” by survivors of conversion therapy, like the support group Brave Network, or SOGICE Survivors) not good enough? Or is the ACT legislation also not good enough? Two progressive Labor governments have already done this. Were you considering perhaps the right way to water it down and pander to the religious-right instead of making it effective, like Queensland did?
It’s so tiring to be treated as someone whose legal protections are tacked onto a list of policy statements to get good PR and then shuffled down to the bottom of the to do pile, with more excuses piled on as to why something else needs to be prioritised. Conversion therapy is a form of abuse and both the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims and the United Nations label it as a form of torture. Why is making literal torture against the law not a priority? Do you have any idea what it’s like to be considered so unimportant that banning torture aimed specifically at my community is labelled “difficult” and ignored?
The Gender Reassignment Board needs to go. Even the Liberals knew that back in 2015. Other states don’t have these boards. Other states recognise non-binary people. This is just saddening to watch a government continue to trip over literally no obstacles. Complete control of both chambers and the rest of the nation to look upon for a paint-by-numbers example of how to do a better job – and you can’t even claim that you’re opposed to the principle of it because you agreed to it 7 years ago! Even though you claim to care, you clearly have demonstrated you don’t really care enough to prioritise it. One of the most vulnerable groups across the nation, one of the most discriminated against, one of the most in need of legal protections, a group with twice the rate of suicide than the general population because of the social and legal barriers that cause hardship in their lives – and you won’t do the thing that literally everyone knows you need to do, including yourself.
I’ve lost friends to suicide. Your board wouldn’t recognise them for who they were, but at least their chosen name is clear as crystal on their tombstone. Their legal documents misgender them but at least the eulogies don’t.
You claim it's hard to write legislation with balance, but it's harder to live in a world where that legislation doesn't exist. Would you accept less rights or legal protections than you currently have? Of course not. So why do you accept that you have the power to provide that protection for others but don't?
No one remembers the governments who didn’t make significant changes. They remember the reformers. No one will look back in a decade and go “oh, remember when we got a $400 electricity credit from the WA Labor Government? Wow. That was great.” I can save up $400. I can’t save myself or the people I know and love from legal discrimination.
Why should it take another election for something so vitally important, something so drastically needed, to even begin being near the top of the to-do pile? You know that Labor will inevitably lose seats in 2025 – no matter how well straight/cis people think Labor has done – and all you’re doing is stalling so that a greater conservative and religious-right voice can grow in Parliament and be an impediment to real progressive change. Conservatives are a hindrance to LGBTQIA+ reform and you’ve deliberately engineered a scenario where any flaws in the legislation can be blamed on them, but fundamentally caused because you waited until they had enough influence to make the legislation worse than it should be and it’ll be another several elections before the topic gets revisited and reviewed and hopefully updated to where it should’ve been back in 2017. I look forward to celebrating my 50th birthday alongside the introduction of reforms that everyone knew were long overdue back when I was in my 20s and hopefully no more of my transgender friends have killed themselves between now and then because they are forced to exist in a harsh and discriminatory society designed by cis-straight people who never consider our community to be of any urgency or import.
We are not an afterthought. Our rights and protections are not the thing you get round to doing once you’ve dusted the cobwebs from the corners of your legislative agenda.
I don’t want promises. I want action. I want justice. I want to feel at peace. I want to no longer be filled with sadness and rage whenever LGBTQIA+ rights get briefly mentioned only to stall for years and years and years. A press release is meaningless to me.
I want, what we all deserve, and that is equality.
Signed,
Anonymously - because I don’t live in a world where I get to be openly who I am without fear.
Again: I urge you to send a letter as well to urge the WA Labor government to actually fulfil promises made back in 2017 on LGBTQIA+ reform. You can find out more about the campaigns for reform from Rainbow Futures WA, Queer Liberation Boorloo, and Equality Australia.
It's fixable within this term - but only if they actually care to do it now.
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inefekt · 7 months
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Crux & Carina rising above the Stirling Ranges, Western Australia
Nikon d810a - 50mm - ISO 6400 - f/2.5 Foreground: 5 x 30 seconds Sky: 31 x 30 seconds iOptron SkyTracker Hoya Red Intensifier filter
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jadefitzpatrick · 2 months
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@byellenwithlove designer found on IG
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batshit-auspol · 5 months
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I really like that interview where Mark McGowan starts hysterically laughing when an interviewer asks him if it’s illegal to go out and get a kebab during lockdowns.
Incredible footage, thankyou for this ask
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without-ado · 4 months
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Moving Mountains l Andrew Semark l Western Australia
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pangeen · 1 year
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“ Cuckoo bee “ // rewilding suburbia
Thyreus waroonensis in search of amegilla nesting burrows
Music:  Gibran Alcocer - Idea 22
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oceaniatropics · 2 years
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Baby Dugong, Ningaloo reef, Western Australia
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the-snap-dragon · 3 months
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Sunset at the beach 🌅
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unplaces · 4 months
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Greenwood Ln, Subiaco (Perth).
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todaysbird · 3 months
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Today's bird is a Pacific Black Duck doing a perfect duckdive (and its buddy chilling on the log)
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mermaidgrunge · 8 months
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theauspolchronicles · 2 months
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To be recognised as a gender other than the one assigned at birth in Western Australia you require surgery or medical intervention like HRT. You then have to apply to a board, who judges if you should/shouldn't be legally recognised as your gender. This is, obviously, complicated and a harmful barrier to trans people. Also being non-binary is not a legally recognised gender identity in Western Australia - while almost everywhere else in Australia allows this.
Transgender rights groups have been calling for reforms like abolishing the Gender Reassignment Board for several years now. Thing is: WA Labor said they'd abolish the Gender Reassignment Board before the 2017 election. They won in 2017 then again in 2021 and have control of BOTH chambers meaning they could pass literally anything they wanted whenever they wanted but have chosen to ignore this issue.
WA is lagging behind on reforms and, unlike other states, there's literally nothing stopping Labor from acting. It's up to us to make it clear to them that this is not some issue they can casually ignore - it matters and it needs to be fixed this year.
If you live in Western Australia then contact the following Ministers:
Premier Roger Cook:
Attorney General John Quigley:
Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson:
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And also tell others to contact them as well! WA Labor CAN get this done!
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inefekt · 5 months
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Milky Way at the Pinnacles Desert, Western Australia
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hoiist · 1 year
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Know an Australian? Send this too them! Know someone who's spent time in Australia and has an opinion? Send this to them too! We can start a fight
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henk-heijmans · 5 months
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A man riding a bicycle near bush fire Western Australia - by R. Ian Lloyd, Canadian
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without-ado · 2 years
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Andrew Semark l Ren Mcgann l Western Australia
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