Thursday, 3 April 2025

Gender services

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:59): (1583) My adjournment matter tonight is for the Premier, and given that we have recently marked Trans Day of Visibility I ask for a firm commitment to invest in and expand comprehensive gender-affirming health care in our state. Trans Day of Visibility was celebrated on 31 March. I attended the rally at the State Library and heard the calls of the community, the community instead choosing to refer to this day as the ‘Trans Day of Action’. Members of the trans and gender-diverse community are having difficult conversations at the moment about what it means to be visible. Visibility should be a sign of progress, but increasingly for many trans and gender-diverse people visibility is a gateway to violence. Visibility is not enough. Visibility does not put food on your table. Visibility does not pay your rent or your medical bills. Many in this community have the lived experience of poverty. Visibility certainly does not protect you from the obscene hate crimes we have seen thrown at the trans and gender-diverse community in recent times. While some people have material means to protect themselves from the worst impacts of visibility, by far the majority do not. It is not enough to just fly a flag, to add pronouns to your bio, to make the same statement of support every year – it is not good enough anymore. The community has made it clear: this community needs action. They need expansion and investment into the health care and services that they rely on.