Back To the Main SiteGender Rights Art Exhibition Opening!
The Gender Rights Art Exhibition opened on Monday the 16th of November. The opening was a huge success, with about 70 people in attendance, and some of the art being purchased by other community organisations.
Peter gave a moving speech at the opening. You can read it beyond the cut. The ACT Human Rights commission also sent a speaker, who’s speech you can download in PDF Format here.
Firstly I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land we now call Australia and specifically the Ngunnawal people on whose land we meet today.
Secondly I welcome all of you – Ladies, Gentlemen, and most importantly all the rest of us – I’m Peter Hyndal from A Gender Agenda and we are thrilled to be hosting the “Gender Rights are Human Rights” exhibition. I think you’ll agree that we have a range of very impressive work.
I would really like to thank all the artists who have participated in this project – Robyn Grafkin, Erica Green and Gabriele Thomson who can not be with us this evening. Peta Bourne, Tina Fiveash, Margot Seares, and Ingrid Singh who are here, and especially Stephanie Parker who is not only a contributing artist but who has also put an enormous amount of time and effort into helping to organise the exhibition.
This exhibition could not have been possible without the financial support of Pink Tennis the Canberra Gay and Lesbian Tennis Club, and we’d also like to sincerely thank the Tennis Club for their support.
It’s interesting that no government or government department actually collects statistics about transgender or intersex people, and yet every government maintains that there are not very many of us at all. For example a very commonly quoted statistic is that out of every 150,000 people born female there will be one one transgendered person who chooses to live their life as a man. This would mean that there is only one trans man living in the ACT. I have it on very good authority that there are at least 5 times that number of trans men – in this room this evening – let alone in all of the ACT! Based on the contacts that A Gender Agenda has, we believe that around 1 in 200 people in Canberra are Sex or Gender Diverse.
When we talk about transgender and intersex issues many people feel they do not have the information they need in order to understand.
I’ve had a flick through one of the most recent research papers published in Australia. The findings are consistent with a range of earlier Australian papers as well as many international studies, and the lived experiences of our community.
These are things that we know to be true:
We know that compared to the general population, our community is better educated – and yet we have unemployment rates 3-10 times greater. In relation to income levels – we also know that the greatest grouping of our community members is in the “less than $25,000 pa” category.
We know that the majority of us are the victims of discrimination, stigma or violence on multiple occasions every day. We know that there is a direct causal link between the experience of discrimination and the incidence of depression and so it comes as no surprise that 40-50% of us meet the criteria of being clinically depressed at any given point in time. This is a rate at least 40 times higher than the general population.
We know that depression is the major predictor of suicide and we also know that our community commits suicide at a rate more than 300 times greater than the general population.
The most common argument against law reform for identity recognition is that it is “too complicated”. I want you all to look at me now as I stand in front of you.
And I want to ask you – how can it be simple or easy to continue to insist that I am legally a woman? When I stood up to speak every one of you identifies me as being a man – how can it be so “complicated” for the law to recognise this reality?
They say a pictures worth a thousand words. And I hope that’s true because there’s been so many millions of words written that haven’t seemed to make any difference at all. So it’s heartening to believe that the fabulous art work around us also has the capacity to make a real difference.
Thankyou all for coming Please engage with the artists about their work, encourage your friends to come and look at the exhibition later over the next week, and enjoy the rest of the evening!
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November « Mnemosyne’s Forgotten Daughter posted on November 30, 2009:
[...] I entered a painting in the “Gender Rights are Human Rights” Art Exhibition hosted by A Gender Agenda at the ACT Legislative Assembly. I was expecting about 20 people to show up at the opening and was pleasantly surprised to see about 70+ people there. The Director of the ACT Council of Social Services, a friend from our Democrats days, gave a speech as did a representative of the ACT Commisioner for Human Rights. Peter H from A Gender Agenda also spoke. His speech is found at their website. [...]