To: The Governor General
Royal Commission into treatment of trans and gender-diverse Australians
Create a Royal Commission into the Governments failure at their duty of care both historically and currently to look after more than 700,000 gender-diverse Australians. And to create a report that brings together the myriad of systemic changes to allow equal participation in Australian life. True gender equality. And to acknowledge the severe failure to even acknowledge we exist.
Why is this important?
As of 2023, trans and gender-diverse Australians cannot identify on any intake form at any RTO because of the current data set by NCVER / DEWR.
The Workplace Gender and Equality ACT excludes the participation of gender-diverse people, It only collects information on cis-gendered men and women. This affects every medium to large business in Australia.
Nearly Every data set in Australia excludes gender-diverse people including studies on Alcohol and Drugs, Suicide, and first-year indicators in schools.
Orchidectomies are given to cis-gender men in the public health system but denied to trans women who need to get off testosterone blockers and affirming their gender.
Mastectomies are given to cis-gendered women in the public health system but denied to trans men who need this so they can stop binding, avoid scoliosis and affirm their gender.
Breast Surgery is given in some public hospitals to cis-gendered women after mastectomies because it is important to their mental health, gender and well-being but denied to trans women who also need this for mental health, gender and well-being.
To my knowledge, no politician or report has stood up to say we could be doing these gender-affirming surgeries right now. And they could be done right now!
If the government provides gender-affirming leave and supports trans and gender-diverse people but then there is no way that they can get medical interventions then they are forced to go overseas and sometimes put their lives at risk for surgeries that are substandard compared to Australia. If they can afford them at all.
Medicare has an ongoing review process and according to them, no one has ever put in a submission to ask them to review Medicare based on the needs of trans and gender-diverse people.
The Sexual Discrimination ACT was updated in 1984 to say there are legally more than 2 genders and yet the Australian Bureau of Statistics which affects all the other data sets I have mentioned failed for 40 years to update their dataset.
Thus forcing every other dataset that relies on it to be discriminatory
Still to this day, they will only allow us to identify if their stakeholders ask for it, if an average Australian can fill out the question and if politicians ok it to happen.
(How can this be in 2023, surely this is sexual discrimination?)
Pathology forms across Australia are still behind in allowing us to identify and there are currently no pathology profiles for trans men and trans women.
GP software like Best Practice for doctors cannot pull gender identity onto a pathology form which leads to gender-diverse people being misgendered and at times receiving the wrong reference ranges.
The Australian Human Rights Commission has failed to advocate adequately and so there is no one else to hold the Government to account why has this happened?
Public Health Systems across Australia still don't have pathways for gender-diverse people and to my knowledge, not one of them provides medical interventions for adults.
There is no suitable training for doctors, surgeons medical staff in our training establishments.
We suffer many forms of discrimination at Services Australia, Medicare and other departments.
Many Public Hospitals systems have only recently started to make attempts at updating their computer systems to include gender and to find ways to reduce misgendering but there is no
uniform adherence to the 2020 ABS Dataset for sex and gender. And datasets across the medical sector are not unified.
The government's own AIHW website contains no health data on trans and gender-diverse people in Australia because we don't have population data because the ABS has never included us in the census.
And finally, the Australian Defence Force has a suicide rate of 8.8% which is twice the national average. They have 85,000 serving members. For that, they get a Royal Commission, and over 50 reports + millions of dollars in funding.
Gender-diverse Australians number at least 700,000 (equal in number to Indigenous Australians) with Transgender youth alone having approx a 48% attempted suicide rate and we have never had a royal commission or a federally funded report of any kind that I know of.
How is it that the Government can be so apathetic towards a mental health and health crisis for more than 700,000 Australians?
It was as recent as 1989 that the last Trans woman was fined for wearing the 'wrong clothing' Before that Trans and gender-diverse people were harassed, locked up, fined and had acts of violence inflicted on them. This has never been apologised for.
Psychiatry and Psychology pathologised trans and gender-diverse people for 80 years but then reversed this and there has not been to my knowledge an apology.
There is no current federal department for LGBTIQ+ people and no independent organisation to hold media accountable when reporting.
We need to stop studying Trans and Gender diverse people and start studying the reasons behind being excluded and ignored and why there is and has been a complete and continuing lack of human rights for this cohort.
We must address one of the biggest factors in poor mental health which is a lack of medical intervention and there appears absolutely no initiatives to fix this. That is a complete lack in duty of care.
It doesn't take time to make change. It IS time to make change.
The Workplace Gender and Equality ACT excludes the participation of gender-diverse people, It only collects information on cis-gendered men and women. This affects every medium to large business in Australia.
Nearly Every data set in Australia excludes gender-diverse people including studies on Alcohol and Drugs, Suicide, and first-year indicators in schools.
Orchidectomies are given to cis-gender men in the public health system but denied to trans women who need to get off testosterone blockers and affirming their gender.
Mastectomies are given to cis-gendered women in the public health system but denied to trans men who need this so they can stop binding, avoid scoliosis and affirm their gender.
Breast Surgery is given in some public hospitals to cis-gendered women after mastectomies because it is important to their mental health, gender and well-being but denied to trans women who also need this for mental health, gender and well-being.
To my knowledge, no politician or report has stood up to say we could be doing these gender-affirming surgeries right now. And they could be done right now!
If the government provides gender-affirming leave and supports trans and gender-diverse people but then there is no way that they can get medical interventions then they are forced to go overseas and sometimes put their lives at risk for surgeries that are substandard compared to Australia. If they can afford them at all.
Medicare has an ongoing review process and according to them, no one has ever put in a submission to ask them to review Medicare based on the needs of trans and gender-diverse people.
The Sexual Discrimination ACT was updated in 1984 to say there are legally more than 2 genders and yet the Australian Bureau of Statistics which affects all the other data sets I have mentioned failed for 40 years to update their dataset.
Thus forcing every other dataset that relies on it to be discriminatory
Still to this day, they will only allow us to identify if their stakeholders ask for it, if an average Australian can fill out the question and if politicians ok it to happen.
(How can this be in 2023, surely this is sexual discrimination?)
Pathology forms across Australia are still behind in allowing us to identify and there are currently no pathology profiles for trans men and trans women.
GP software like Best Practice for doctors cannot pull gender identity onto a pathology form which leads to gender-diverse people being misgendered and at times receiving the wrong reference ranges.
The Australian Human Rights Commission has failed to advocate adequately and so there is no one else to hold the Government to account why has this happened?
Public Health Systems across Australia still don't have pathways for gender-diverse people and to my knowledge, not one of them provides medical interventions for adults.
There is no suitable training for doctors, surgeons medical staff in our training establishments.
We suffer many forms of discrimination at Services Australia, Medicare and other departments.
Many Public Hospitals systems have only recently started to make attempts at updating their computer systems to include gender and to find ways to reduce misgendering but there is no
uniform adherence to the 2020 ABS Dataset for sex and gender. And datasets across the medical sector are not unified.
The government's own AIHW website contains no health data on trans and gender-diverse people in Australia because we don't have population data because the ABS has never included us in the census.
And finally, the Australian Defence Force has a suicide rate of 8.8% which is twice the national average. They have 85,000 serving members. For that, they get a Royal Commission, and over 50 reports + millions of dollars in funding.
Gender-diverse Australians number at least 700,000 (equal in number to Indigenous Australians) with Transgender youth alone having approx a 48% attempted suicide rate and we have never had a royal commission or a federally funded report of any kind that I know of.
How is it that the Government can be so apathetic towards a mental health and health crisis for more than 700,000 Australians?
It was as recent as 1989 that the last Trans woman was fined for wearing the 'wrong clothing' Before that Trans and gender-diverse people were harassed, locked up, fined and had acts of violence inflicted on them. This has never been apologised for.
Psychiatry and Psychology pathologised trans and gender-diverse people for 80 years but then reversed this and there has not been to my knowledge an apology.
There is no current federal department for LGBTIQ+ people and no independent organisation to hold media accountable when reporting.
We need to stop studying Trans and Gender diverse people and start studying the reasons behind being excluded and ignored and why there is and has been a complete and continuing lack of human rights for this cohort.
We must address one of the biggest factors in poor mental health which is a lack of medical intervention and there appears absolutely no initiatives to fix this. That is a complete lack in duty of care.
It doesn't take time to make change. It IS time to make change.