Victorian based organisation Drummond Street Services have raised concern over a podcast related to the upcoming Better Together Conference.
Warning: This report contains statements that may be upsetting to some readers.
The LGBTIQA+ conference is scheduled to take place in Adelaide from 31st October to 1st November and is expected to attract hundreds of participants from Australia and internationally to speak about rights, health, advocacy and community building.
In the lead up to this year’s event The Equality Project, who organise the annual conference, have put out a podcast with some of the big names who’ll be attending this year’s event.
An episode which featured Matt Beard, the Executive Director of global organisation All Out, and Karen Field, CEO of Drummond Street Services says its content is so problematic some of her staff will no longer be heading to the Better Together event, and its lead to calls for people to boycott the event.
In the podcast, that has been online since August, Jason Tuazon-McCheyne, the CEO and founder of The Equality Project, interviews Beard in what is labeled a “brave conversation”.
Beard has been Executive Director of AllOut since 2016, and previously held roles at ActionAid and Amnesty International in Canada, Germany and the UK.
In the conversation Beard says in recent years on a global level LGBTIQA+ communities have been “calling people out” rather than “calling people in”.
“We haven’t recognised the fact that we need to do a job of persuasion, that’s what we’re here for. Rather than just accepting as a given that the political, legislative, social changes we want to see, we do need to make the case.” Beard said.
The rights advocate said more progress would be made if people didn’t assume that people would be an ally, but instead put in the hard work to make a case for change.
Beard said in the last 10 to 15 years there had been a break between the work of paid rights advocates and the grassroots community activism, and that more could be done to engage community members who are not taking part in the ongoing fight for LGBTIQA+ rights.
“I’d like to see someway in that we capture what communities on the ground would really like to see us doing. I think that sometimes we show up to these conferences and discussions take place and I think sometimes they’re somewhat divorced from what ordinary LGBTIQA+ people around the world want to see.” Beard said.
Beard argues that the LGBTIQA+ communities have moved from winning campaigns where our success did not impede the rights of others, to losing battles where the opponent are actually effected by the changes people are calling for.
“I think we need to find the courage to admit where we went wrong, and I think a big part of that is choosing the right hills to die on. I think we moved over the last 10 years or so from winning campaigns, in which our liberation didn’t plausibly impede the rights of anyone else… to actually losing campaigns in which our opponents can plausibly claim a clash of rights.” Beard said.
Listing self identification on gender recognition, access to traditional women spaces in sport, and surgival interventions on transgender children as areas where he describes activists are losing the battle. Beard argues that more nuanced and complex advocacy processes are required, and its an approach that takes considerable time.
“I believe it’s absolutely right that we we work to remove what are undoubtedly deeply dehumanising parts of gender recognition that have existed in the past, but the rapid move to full self identification without bringing in women’s movements into those discussions, without having those conversations about the potential clash of human rights that that represents; means that a very defensive stance has been taken by many women’s movements who make the claim, sometimes reasonably framed and sometimes framed in a deeply transphobic way, that the trans women who have self ID coming into women’s spaces represents a risk.” Beard said.
The global LGBTIQA+ rights advocate said he believed there was an important discussion to be had about safeguarding women’s spaces and ensuring fairness in sport.
“We need to have a set of rules in sports that recognise the dignity of trans people to live in their chosen gender, but also enable fairness that there are biological differences between males and females in terms of sport performance that have now been pretty much unequivocally proven across most sports.” Beard said.
“I would love to see a world in our LGBT+ movement where these kind of conversations can take place with an assumption of good intent across the board,” Beard said of the controversial viewpoints.
“I want to be really clear that I acknowledge that there is out there a constituency of gender critical feminists who camouflage their transphobia and bigotry with their feminism, and that there is a continuum there, and the job for all of us is to work out what’s a reasonable position point on that continuum.” he said in the detailed conversation.
The advocate outlined that he has concerns about the affirmation treatment model being applied to transgender youth.
“There’s been a strong sense coming from many parts of our movement over the over the last four or five years, a bit longer maybe, that when a child questions their gender we need to affirm that, and affirming that often means that what we call a social transition takes place. Perhaps at school in which different pronouns are used for that child that are different to the sex assigned at birth, and then we move into the extremely controversial area of puberty blockers… and potentially in extreme cases, even surgical interventions.”
Beard said the UK’s Cass Review had shown that there was a need for more clinical trials in the area. Since the podcast was recorded a group of Australian and international researchers have published a report that raises serious concerns about the British review.
Additionally Beard is concerned that there’s not enough appreciation of gender non-conformity in society.
“I mourn the loss of the celebration of gender non conformity. I would love us as societies, as our movement, to celebrate a young boy who wants to wear a dress, who wants to play with pink toys, to do the things that are stereotypically deemed by our society to be feminine and to celebrate his gender non conformity without necessarily – and I use the word necessarily, very deliberately – without necessarily having the need for that child to transition.” Beard said outlining his view that some young transgender people did not need to embark on a gender transition.
“I completely acknowledge that gender dysphoria is real than that some children are experiencing it and need to transition, but I also think that we need to be careful with that, and that we also need to celebrate some children who just don’t conform to the stereotypical gender roles.” he said.
The All Out director said there needed to be a greater commitment to evidence based arguments, and admitted that his views may be proven to be wrong.
“What I’m advocating for is that is that we have the difficult conversations, we have the uncomfortable conversations, we work through it, and then we we come to evidence based discussion based outcomes.” he said.
Podcast discussion labeled problematic
Karen Field, CEO of Victoria’s Drummond Street Services and Queerspace, posted to social media calling the podcast discussion “problematic”.
Field called for the podcast to be deleted and demand the team at Better Together undergo a “restorative, accountable and educative process”
“The podcast included views about the trans community that are harmful and ideologically driven, alongside a belief that this warranted a “brave conversation” as part of the current LGBTIQA+ movements or campaigns.”
“The conversation was not based on clinical evidence or the lived experience of our trans community from across the world, including Australia. These views lean on cherry-picked, problematic research and government-funded consultation reports that do not include the voices of those being spoken about in relation to a range of issues.”
In an additional statement to the Star Observer Field said her organisaton had decided to speak out after clients asked how they could continue supporting Better Together in light of the comments.
“We got feedback directly to us from trans folk who asked us how we could be supporting this organisation following the publication of this podcast” Field told The Star Observer.
“It’s highly problematic” she said of the discussion about the trans community, “neither one of those people are trans.”
Field said some of her team would still be attending next week’s conference but labeled the response from The Equality Project as “lacking”.
“We spoke to The Equality Project about how the views were counter to the health and well being of the trans community.”
“The response was not good” Field said.
“It seemed to be based around some idea of free speech and them being “brave” in raising these issues to help queers to pass better as part of the broader community.”
“It’s not helpful, it seemed more political and was not helpful for the trans community.”
In her online post Field said her organisation would be withdrawing support until Better Together acted on their concerns.
“As an evidence-based health organisation deeply committed to wellbeing and access to healthcare for trans people, we will not be attending or supporting future Better Together conferences.
“This position will not change until the Equality Project remove the podcast and enter a restorative, accountable and educative process with the trans community.” Field said.
Next week’s Better Together conference is set to run in Adelaide over two days with over 80 sessions in the program. OUTinPerth will be covering the conference and presenting two sessions.
Drummond Street Services, The Equality Project: Better Together and All Out have been approached for comment.
Do you need some support?
If you are struggling with anxiety or depression, support and counselling are available from:
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