Parents of trans children call on government to protect LGBTI students
Image: Parents, politicians, and LGBTI leaders in Canberra. Image: Human Right Law Centre.
Parents of trans and gender diverse children – alongside LGBTI groups, leaders, and teachers – have called on the government to amend anti-discrimination laws that currently allow religious schools to discriminate against LGBTI students.
Earlier this month, 20 recommendations were leaked from the Philip Ruddock-led religious freedom review, including one that endorsed the right of religious schools to discriminate against students or teachers on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or relationship status.
And while the government has committed to repealing existing exemptions that allow religious schools to expel students because of their sexuality, parents have expressed concern that the commitment wasn’t extended to trans and gender diverse kids as well.
Co-founder of Parents of Gender Diverse Children, Karyn Walker, said all students should be respected, including trans students.
“We know that faith-based schools endeavour to support the individual needs of all their students, and hope that they extend this love, acceptance, and compassion to trans and gender diverse students in their care,” she said.
“Parents and transgender students need to feel safe that they can continue their education where it began without threat of exclusion or discrimination.
“Trans children are born into all kinds of families. Families that have different values, races, cultures, faiths, and socio-economic status. It is our job as parents to support, love, and nurture our children, and to do that without fear of exclusion from schools that align with our faith and values.”
More than 60 LGBTI and ally organisations recently sent out a joint statement which challenged Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his cabinet to amend outdated anti-discrimination laws to ensure all LGBTI people are treated with fairness and equality.
The Equality Campaign, Rainbow Families Victoria, and MP Alex Greenwich also collected stories from LGBTI people who had experienced discrimination or exclusion at religious schools.
Over 48 hours, more than 800 people wrote in and shared their support for removing discrimination against LGBTI people in schools while sharing their stories of discrimination.
Director of legal advocacy with the Human Rights Law Centre and co-chair of the Equality Campaign, Anna Brown, said Australians voted for equality last year during the marriage equality postal survey, “not discrimination”.
“All children should be accepted for who they are at school,” she said.
“Every person should be able to do their job without having to hide who they are. Every school should be inclusive of all types of families. We should all be able to access publicly available services free from discrimination.
“No-one should be mistreated because of who they are or who they love. Kids in schools should be focusing on classes, homework, and building friendships, not living in fear.”
Director of Rainbow Families Victoria, Felicity Marlowe, urged parliamentarians to keep in mind that “no child should ever be discriminated against because of who they are”.
“Being gay or lesbian or transgender does not mean we give up our faith and religion,” she said.
“I know rainbow families who really want their children to receive an education in a religious setting but worry that these laws make that hard or even impossible.”
I’m a cis male. I’m a bloke. I’m perfectly happy being a bloke and I’d be devastated to lose my genitals.
And many men and women relate to that confidence in their own gender identity. And good on them, nothing wrong with it.
So what it says to me if someone wants to identify as being a different gender, is that they’re obviously pretty serious. And once it’s been ruled out that they’re acting irrationally due to mental illness, it’s pretty obvious that these folks need to be taken seriously. It’s no comment on my masculinity that another person born male decides they’re not male, it’s therefore incomprehensible to me that churches or political campaigners seem to be so threatened by this. And yet they are.
What really heightens my view that these religious/political types are cretins is that even as they claim life begins at conception and God creates all of us, they refuse to explain the very well known reality that some folks are born intersex. Espousing the idea that there is only male and female as the Trumpeters are this week is literally laughing in the face of God. Blasphemy, I’d call it. Religious freedom is what the actual religious people call it. But no actual facts, just “freedoms”.
A lot of folks are anti-trans, including within the gay community as we’ve previously read on these pages. The fact is that these transgender people are just trying to be their true selves in the face of lies from churches and politicians and haters. If that doesn’t sound familiar to anyone who’s ever had a civil rights struggle in their lives I can’t help you.
Get on board, stand shoulder to shoulder with these families, you’ll be on the right side of history.