OPINION
Alex Wallace (they/them) is a proud non-binary trans and gender diverse advocate, unionist and organiser for Queer Liberation Boorloo.
Last week there was an opinion piece in OUTinPerth calling the new bill to abolish the Gender Reassignment Board “backwards”. I’ve also heard other cisgender queer folks say that this bill shouldn’t be supported because the bill doesn’t go far enough.
Now I’ve spent a good amount of time criticising WA Labor’s approach to queer law reform in Western Australia; I’ve spoken at and attended rallies, I’ve written quotes that have been published in OUTinPerth and done backgrounding for journalists from other publications in WA.
I think we as a community, particularly the trans and gender diverse folks, all agree that this bill doesn’t go far enough, and the broken promise of WA Labor to delay the other reforms is disappointing, upsetting and a danger to our community’s health and safety.
But this bill is important, and while it really doesn’t bring us into line with the near gold standard states of Victoria and Queensland, the trans and gender diverse community does support it, and along with the intersex community, only our community should be having their opinions centred in this discussion, not our cisgender allies, queer or otherwise.
The Gender Reassignment Board is, frankly, f**king evil. It has been a blight on Western Australia for some time. It has caused significant harm to those who went through its dehumanising process and has caused a great deal of anxiety for those who faced the prospect of having to go through the process. It’s abolishment is welcome in the strongest possible terms.
Having read the legislation, the valid and important concerns of the Intersex community can be solved through the drafting of the associated regulations, they have not been written into legislation, and I hope that the Attorney-General listens to these leaders and advocates who are calling for the removal of indeterminate/intersex as a gender marker option.
We need full self-identification. We need to stop medicalising trans and gender-diverse lives. We need to stop the dangerous myth that trans women are a danger to people in women’s bathrooms and spaces, a myth that the Attorney-General has perpetuated, should apologise for and remove from the bill.
It is well documented that it’s trans women who are in more danger in women’s bathrooms, and it’s exactly this kind of rhetoric from conservatives and TERFs, that the Attorney-General has repeated into the public narrative, that feeds that danger.
But to suggest that this legislation shouldn’t be supported as it stands misses the fundamental core of this bill. It removes the Gender Reassignment Board. It wipes it from our community and its associated harm and damage. And while I welcome the intended allyship and solidarity of our queer cisgender friends, I would implore they stop for a moment and speak to the trans and gender diverse community of Western Australia who are supportive of this legislation.
There’s much more to do, and more urgent reform that the WA Labor Government needs to get on with as a matter of priority, particularly the five key asks, in full, from Rainbow Futures WA.
I look forward to seeing amendments from Greens (WA) MLC Dr. Brad Pettitt to improve this bill, knowing that they’ll likely be unsuccessful due to the Government’s numbers, but I think we all agree that seeing the back of Gender Reassignment Board is a large sigh of relief from the trans and gender diverse community of Western Australia.
Alex Wallace (they/them) is a proud non-binary trans and gender diverse advocate, unionist and organiser for Queer Liberation Boorloo.
