Wed 19 Aug 2015 In: Our Communities View at Wayback View at NDHA
Today marks two years since the first same-sex couples married in New Zealand. It was huge for many of us – but does it mean everything is perfect for our communities now? Well, no. We asked community leaders, activists and advocates – a number from trans communities in particular - to weigh in on what still needs to be done. Louisa Wall, Rainbow Labour MP, marriage equality champion We still have a way to go to fairly recognize LGBTIQ rights in Aotearoa. It is a human rights issue at the end of the day and is about freedom to be who you are and equality before the law for all citizens. This means a responsive public system that meets our communities’ specific needs. We are making inroads on the latter but still have a long way to go for people to be free to be who they are. Issues around bullying, suicide rates and unmet health need are still in their early stages of specific provision and there is a lot more work to be done to ensure a public system that is responsive and fully supportive of LGBTIQ New Zealanders. The State should not discriminate against any citizen in modern, democratic societies. My Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Act removed one barrier that the State had in place - namely the right to obtain a marriage license if that was your choice to recognize your commitment to your partner, regardless of sex, sexual orientation or gender identity. I attempted last term to include an amendment to s.21 of the Human Rights Act in a Statutes Amendment Bill to include gender identity as part of sex discrimination. While some may argue that gender identity and gender expression should stand alone as a ground of unlawful discrimination, the reason for including it was that successive Governments have stated that gender identity is included within sex discrimination. There has been concern expressed by the Human Rights Commission and by a number of members of the transgender community that there is no guarantee that a Court would interpret the law in the same way. My purpose was to make it clear and to do it through a technical amendment process that merely reflected what the Government said. However the former Minister of Justice refused to support the amendment because she considered it was controversial, which begs the question of whether gender identity is properly covered within sex discrimination. I intend to continue to advocate for this legislative amendment. Jen Kate Shields, trans activist, No Pride in Prisons member So, two years since marriage equality: what's changed for us? Not much. What still needs doing? A lot. Currently we (that is, No Pride in Prisons and a few others) are in contact with Jade, a trans woman housed in a men's facility in Wellington. She's applied for a transfer to a women's facility and has been waiting on that for at least two or three weeks. We've tried to communicate with the Department of Corrections via Official Information Act requests, but they've been dodging every question we've sent - either by refusing to answer because it's 'not in their scope or ability' or they don't have data on transgender prisoners and their safety, or by extending the request deadline. We don't know how many transgender people are incarcerated in the wrong facilities; we don't know how many of them are in solitary 'for their own safety'. Healthcare is the other big thing: access is hard, and when you get it, it's stressful at best. Everyone I know has had trouble with it. I can't get the mental healthcare I need without risking my hormone prescription being revoked - because if you're mentally ill, that suddenly becomes a 'reason' for your being trans, and that needs to be treated first. Then there's the whole surgery waitlist debacle - we've had no progress on that in the last few months, there's still a 40 year wait, still no surgeon in the country doing them, and the Ministry of Health still haven't chosen an overseas clinic to endorse and send people to. I'm at just over $4,000 out of $25,000 fundraised; it'll be a few years before I raise the money privately. Housing is another problem: our flat spent more than three months at the start of the year being effectively homeless while looking for a place. Queer youth can't compete with 'respectable' straight people while househunting, especially if it's a queer couple, even more so if they're people of colour, too. While househunting all of us had to do our best to pass as cis and straight - we got the house we're in because one of the couples in our group pretended to be a 'respectable' straight couple running a business. Trevor Easton, General Manager, OUTLine I think we need to look at how we support the “trans” community, who still are treated as second class citizens in many ways e.g. health, law etc. Lynda Whitehead, Agender President Marriage equality was a major leap forward towards equality for all those in the LGBT community. In reality it doesn’t mean that much to the trans community who still struggle to gain Human Rights recognition. We also still face discrimination in its many forms, from the right to equality in employment, trans health issues and housing. Many face problems with a system that is not geared to handle them, or even sympathetic to their needs, this is particularly evident in the way our Justice system treats trans offenders. Trans youth look at a future of struggle and prejudice, and then society asks why so many of them contemplate suicide. Many older trans people are alienated from their families and whanau and are forced to live rough. Yes, there is still a long way to go yet before trans people can say they belong. Kevin Hague, Green Party co-Rainbow spokesperson Two years on. Businesses are not being forced to close for refusing to provide flowers for same sex weddings. Churches are not being prosecuted. People are not marrying their pets. The fabric of society is not disintegrating (well no more than it already was for other reasons). In general the dire predictions that have accompanied every step in the progressive recognition of our human rights have once again been proven unfounded. Queer people who have wanted to have got married and the world is that little bit happier. But I don’t know anybody who thought marriage equality was going to solve all the issues we face, and there’s still work to be done. My particular focus has been on confronting Government policies that enable most secondary schools to get away with providing unsafe environments for queer students (and staff actually) and on improving health services for trans* and intersex people. We need to get transgender status specified in the Human Rights Act, and gender to be self-defined. There are some last changes required around the law on adoption and new forms of parenting. We’re working on these too. And we need to tackle some of the last bastions of prejudice and discrimination, in sport and some of the churches, to name a couple. So lots more still to do, but with this very special birthday, let’s take a moment to pause, celebrate one of the most effective and successful political campaigns ever run in Aotearoa, recognise our power, and then recommit ourselves to doing something awesome with it. Happy birthday marriage equality! Jack Byrne, trans/intersex rights campaigner and advocate For me the priorities would be: · Access to transition-related health services, based on an informed consent model, starting with the really basic things that make the most difference in people’s everyday life. This includes being able to see a counsellor to deal with all the stress of other people’s reactions to your transition, and being able to see a hormone specialist whatever part of the country you live in. For trans feminine people, it could include being able to get funding for permanent hair removal. For trans masculine people, access to chest surgery is a huge issue. Obviously other surgeries are very important too, usually later on in someone’s transition. · Making it illegal to perform medically unnecessary genital surgeries on intersex infants and children - and providing families with counselling support if their child is born with an intersex variation · Making the process for changing sex details on a birth certificate as simple as the process for changing them on a passport. The details on your birth certificate are especially important for people who have children. Toni Duder, RainbowYOUTH and I'm Local A cause that is personally close to my heart is outreach to rural communities to help support the queer and gender diverse people who live there. There is simply a lack of resources to these communities and isolation is created because of that. I would love to see core service providers in these areas be given the resources to upskill around supporting queer and gender diverse members of their communities. Recently I was given the opportunity through my work at RainbowYOUTH and the I'm Local project to speak at the High School of my hometown. It was really eye-opening to step outside of my queer Auckland bubble and see small town conservatism up close. While there are several dedicated people in these communities that work hard to try and change things, they are often worn down and silenced by the engrained prejudices that are incorporated into the small town culture. I would love to see more resources and attention paid to reaching these areas. Andrew Dean Halifax, Rainbow Wellington Secretary Marriage Equality does not mean equality of access to all of NZ society's resources! Marriage Equality is not something to be celebrated beyond its initial achievement ... it is to be expected. Are Rainbow Citizens: Safe in sport? Safe in schools? Safe in the Street to hold hands? Safe to be trans? Safe in the knowledge that recent progresses won't be undone? ... just like the prisoners voting in 2010.... There has STILL been no response from Minister Adams to our enquiry following a previous GayNZ story about this. What could Adams be hiding? Able to donate blood? Able to access truth and reconciliation for the outrageous persecution perpetrated prior to HLR in 86? The answer to ALL of these is NO! It is enough to DEMAND everything listed above. It must be expected NOW. Only then can we make incremental progress to eradicate those things which deny Rainbow Citizens FULL NZ citizenship. Rainbow Wellington has a position and is active on all of these issues. Allyson Hamblett, trans advocate Three legislative amendments are still outstanding for the lgbT community. 1) Specifically including gender identity in the Human Rights Act, 2) An amendment is still needed to the Citizenship Act (1977) to ensure that changed certificates are legal. 3) The process to obtain a Declaration AS To Sex and changing birth certificates should be simplified so that it becomes an administrative process, to reduce the threshold for trans people. While I support this, the Declaration As To Sex has legal status in other jurisdictions. The Declaration As To Sex functions as a court order, and there needs to be a way to retain this aspect of the process. Dr Peter Saxton from the Gay Men’s Sexual Health research group says it’s time to assert our right to health equality. Read his full piece here And lawyer Kelly Ellis looks at trans issues, prisoners in particular and says we haven't come far at all. Compiled by Jacqui Stanford - 19th August 2015
Credit: Compiled by Jacqui Stanford
First published: Wednesday, 19th August 2015 - 8:25am