Thursday, 21 March 2024

LGBTIQA+ health care

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (09:53): The trans and gender-diverse community continue to face attacks daily, including attacks on their essential gender-affirming care. These attacks have severe impacts on trans and gender-diverse people’s wellbeing, and we need to do better. The Royal Children’s Hospital here in Melbourne is a world leader in gender-affirming care. Their gender service aims to improve the physical and mental health outcomes of children and adolescents who are trans or who are gender diverse. This crucial service and gender-affirming care in general are proven to be life-saving measures, and I am proud to support them as a member of this Parliament and as a proud queer man. In light of continued attacks on the essential health care that trans and gender-diverse people rely on, I urge the Labor government to make further investment into removing barriers that impact trans and gender-diverse people’s ability to access this care and to expand anti-vilification laws to protect trans and gender-diverse people, something the community has been waiting for for years now.