We wont be having any more events for a couple of weeks, as the SpringOut Pride festival swiftly approaches. Watch this space for advertisements for our events during November though!

SpringOut 2009

Its that time of year again… the run up to November, the month of Canberra’s local Pride Festival. A Gender Agenda and NewCTN are holding a joint stall at SpringOut’s Fairday this year. We’ve got lots of fun activities and events planned for the day, so come along and check out the festivities!

Also during November we have planned an Art Exhibition of Trans Political Art, with the grant kindly provided to us by Pink Tennis, the local Gay and Lesbian Tennis Club. This will be shown both in the Legislative Assemblies Exhibition Space, and in another Art Gallery, that we are still confirming.

There will also be an A Gender Agenda Picnic on the last Saturday of November, so mark the 28th of November in your calendar, and keep it clear!

In less cheerful news, we will be marking Transgender Day of Remembrance again this year. TDoR falls on the 20th, which is a Friday this year. We are hoping to have a ceremony inside a building, but again we haven’t yet confirmed locations. More details will be posted closer to the date.

Anyway, we hope to see you at an event soon.

From Transgender Day of Action 2009

June 26 saw our first ever Transgender Day of Action fundraiser. I have to admit it, I was nervous in the lead up, terrified even! However, on the night, things went incredibly well!

The venue was HUSH Lounge, and the price was right. People started rocking up well before we opened the doors. I’ve never seen Canberran’s looking so queer and fabulous. There were queers that had come all the way from Sydney and Melbourne because it seemed like such a novel event.

There were several main events. We had stage performances from the Canberra Kings, and a belly dancer who left all the ladies drooling for more. We also Auctioned off volunteers, including a Bondage Rope master, a Photographer, a Chef, and of course all the Drag Kings. One of the local dykes fetched the hefty price of $500 in return for one dirty dance!

We departed from the usual trans event policy of Unisex toilets, and split the bathrooms at HUSH along another binary. Head and tails! Our polite Toilet Valet would toss a coin, and tell you whether you were allowed to use the Heads or the Tails bathroom. Most people took this with good nature, in the spirit it was intended, but unfortunately one person took offence, and verbally harassed our valet. I find it utterly remarkable that anyone would come to a trans event, thinking that they can cause a fuss about being asked to use the men’s toilet! At least surrounded by trans folk, and our allies, she would have been thoroughly embarrassed for being the one scolded by the MC’s.

By the end of the night, I was exhausted. I’d MC’d with Mr Rocco Hardness, and staved off disaster when the Auctioneer called to say he couldn’t make it, 15 minutes before the Auction was due to begin. One of the local dykes, who usually Drag Kings but hadn’t been on stage that night, kindly volunteered to run the Auction for us.

We made about $2000 in donations, and it was truly a community effort. We couldn’t have done it without the support of the Canberra Kings, HUSH Lounges staff, and all the volunteers from A Gender Agenda who faithfully ran the Toilet stall, took donations at the door, and generally made sure the night ran nice and smoothly.

This is a copy of the speech that Peter presented.

—-

My name is Peter.
I am 36 years old.
I am a man.

Unfortunately, the Government disagrees.
The Government maintains that I am a woman.

Although I am a man, I have not always been a man. My birth was registered as female. And I lived the first 25 years of my life as a woman.

When I was a woman, my personal identity as a woman was unquestionably mine to ‘own’ without interference from Government.

Now that I am a man, my personal identity as a man is consistently interfered with by all levels of Government.

This is not the case in other countries. The United Kingdom for example, has provided me with a document stating that I am legally a man for all purposes under all UK law. Many other countries in the world also legally recognise me as a man. Which is great, and just, and right… but I don’t live in any of those countries. I live in Australia, I have done all my life, and my government, the Australian government, refuses to recognise me as a man.

I have lived in the ACT for almost 20 years, but the ACT will not recognise me as a man because I was born in NSW. And NSW will not recognise me as a man until I provide evidence that I have been sterilised.

I believe that I have a right to have my own identity recognised by my own government. I find it morally unjustifiable for any government to make my rights contingent upon my surgical sterilisation.

And so I am, officially, in no-man’s land.
Unofficially, the situation is even more complicated.

Without a nationally consistent, sensible approach, different agencies struggle to know how to deal with reality.

The taxation office recognises me as a man. The Family Assistance Office says that I am a woman. Centrelink not only refuses to recognise me as a man, but also insists that my heterosexual female partner is a lesbian. Medicare says that I am male – most of the time, but every now and then, they “turn me into a woman” so they can process specific claims that relate to procedures that apparently only women can have. My Australian Passport shows my sex as “male”, but was issued along with a letter stating that the Australian government does not believe that I am really male, and that I would be committing fraud if I ever used the Passport to identify myself as a man.

Whenever I have to provide ID – to open a bank account, to cash a cheque, or even to collect a parcel from the Post Office, the official documents that I can provide state that I am female.

Sometimes my ID is not accepted at all. The bank teller looks at me, and says “but that can’t be your ID – it says you are a woman!”. Mostly my ID is accepted – but only because I am prepared to cause a scene, to declare to the bank teller, and their supervisor, and the manager on duty, and everyone else waiting in the queue behind me, that “I am transsexual”. “Oh!, so he’s really a woman! I guess we should let her cash the cheque..”

Today is a very significant day for me – this report is the light at the end of the tunnel. It is the first step towards law reform that is long overdue. Law reform however, will only be achieved when governments actually act on these recommendations.

The day that government actually acts on these recommendations will be of even greater significance to me – because it will signal for the first time my government’s acknowledgement that I exist.

My story is not isolated – tens of thousands of other people with similar personal histories share these experiences. And there are hundreds of thousands more people out there, who are sex and gender diverse but have very different personal histories, who currently experience equivalent levels of hardship and uncertainty.

When governments act on these recommendations, the practical every day lives of all of us will be dramatically improved – forever.

Our Entry in Mardi Gras was a raging success. We had 22 people show up on the day to march with us. We wore fantastic green t-shirts, had awesome placards, and made waves with the crowd, the other floats, and the commentators alike!

It was my first ever Mardi Gras, and the feeling of marching with 21 other trans people, genderqueers, and our friends and families while being cheered on by the crowd, was an incredibly empowering experience. We handed out hundreds of stickers that said “Gender Rights are Human Rights” and lollipops with “Trannies are Sweet” written on them. Trans people and their supporters in the crowd screamed “I love trannies too!” at us from the sidelines, and we had post op FTM’s flash their scars at us.

I was thrilled to see the level of support for our community from other LGBT organisations, and from the wider community. Some people were obviously confused by our marching group, and our placards gave more than a few cause to pause and think about their preconceived notions of what a trans person looks like, and what they experience.

So, maybe next year YOU will be marching with us too! :)

This year A Gender Agenda are marching with Tranny Panic Art Project. They are providing the art, we’re providing promotion and awesome awesome t-shirts. If you want to join us, there is still time. We’ve got a facebook event, and you can email us for more details.

It was fabulous to spend the afternoon with such a diverse range of people.
The vibe was amazing – a truly honest celebration of diversity with a sense
of community that felt REAL…

Thanks to everyone who attended and made it such a wonderful day.
(and of course we encourage even MORE people to attend our next event!)

– Peter

As Peter said, the BBQ was a great success. We had a whole host of people we’d never met before rock up. There was such a good vibe over the entire day. We had WIN News show up and film us for a while, but we haven’t seen that broadcasted yet. If anyone knows when that will be aired, please let us know.

So, a toast to new friends and old! I hope to see even more new faces at our next event.

- Ryan

Trans Women and Trans Men can be Friends Too! The art is from Sleazo Sketch Town's talented writer/artist.

There seems to be a massive cultural and political divide between trans men and trans women. Trying to get us all to work together can be like herding cats at times! There are naturally vastly different perspectives on what is important, and what needs time and attention. There are different ways of communicating, and different ways of organising. All of these differences need to be acknowledged and compromised on.

I know that on the trans-masculine side of the divide, there are a lot of boys who have significant passing privilege, and want to just fade into society. On the trans-feminine side there’s a lot of girls that just wanna have fun! And when we are all thrown together, we can throw one hell of a party, but getting political work done is more of a challenge.

A Gender Agenda has always had a mix of trans men and trans women, but somehow we still developed a reputation for being an organisation by and for trans men. Recently we’ve been making an effort to dispel that myth. We are for all trans people, and not just those physically transitioning.

We think its very important for people questioning their gender identity to be able to contact us and speak to someone who they can identify with. Our organisation has a variety of people actively working with us, and with people that contact us looking for advice, and support.

Peter Hyndal is available for gender-questioning people, and trans men to speak to. He’s been working with the trans community, and in trans politics for years now, and was a founding member of A Gender Agenda.

AbbeyJane is our new contact for Trans Women. She’s the founding member of NewCTN, and over the past few years NewCTN has grown into a flourishing social organisation for trans people and crossdressers. We are very pleased to have AbbeyJane on board with us.

Robyn Grafkin is the person I jokingly call our ‘Pride Officer’. Robyn’s job is to collaborate with other queer and pride organisations such as Tranny Panic (who we are attending Mardi Gras with), and the SpringOut Committee, who organise Canberra’s local Pride Festival.

I publish the website and research political actions and events that are happening around the place, to keep us all informed. I’m the person to contact if you want to get involved in organising stuff with us, want to write for the website, or have a gender-related event you want to promote.

Obviously, in our society where gender related hate is so commonplace, not all of our members are comfortable being openly associated with us. We are extremely accepting and facilitating of this. We have people that attend our events, and help out with other projects but who’s names will never be mentioned on this website. If you think that you would like to get involved, but want to remain stealth… don’t let the few of us that choose to be openly mentioned on the website intimidate you!

We hope to see many more talented individuals get involved with us in the near future, so don’t be shy. Drop by one of our events and say hello, or shoot us an email. :)

To celebrate Gender Diversity Day we will be holding a BBQ. It will be a laid back, no pressure event. A bunch of us will be around eating food and hanging out for several hours, so even if you don’t feel like staying for an entire meal, feel free to just drop by and say hello.

This event celebrates Gender Diversity in all its forms, and so we encourage everyone to come along… whether you are gay, lesbian, straight, trans, non-trans, genderqueer, a parent, a partner, or a friend of someone who would like to come. The more the merrier is our philosophy!

The BBQ will be in Glebe Park at 1pm on the 28th of February. Bring your friends, and family and partners. This is a kid friendly event, and is definitely open to non-trans people as well as trans people and their families.

The ACT Human Rights Act: What do recent changes mean for ACT Community
Organisations?

In 2009 amendments made to the ACT Human Rights Act come into effect, that
specify that “public authorities” must act in a way that is compatible with
and gives proper consideration to human rights. There is a right to bring a
complaint against public authorities if they fail to do so.

ACTCOSS is co-ordinating an information forum for ACT community
organisations on these changes to the ACT Human Rights Act, and what they
may mean for community organisations.

The ACT Human Rights Commission will provide an overview of the changes, and
other speakers will deliver information about possible impacts on your
organisation.

Where: Room 6, Griffin Centre, Genge St Canberra City
When: Tuesday, 17 February 2009
Time: 10:00am – 12:00pm

Light refreshments will be provided.

Please RSVP to Brooke McKail on 6202 7222 or brooke.mckail@actcoss.org.au

Brooke McKail
Policy and Development Officer
ACT Council of Social Service Inc. (ACTCOSS)