LGBTQIA+

Equality for LGBTQIA+ people is integral to their lived experiences as citizens and members of the community. In addition, counteracting the trans-exclusionary rhetoric that is taking hold in both conservative and progressive spaces is key to the safety and celebration of all people. LGBTQIA+1 people have the right to live openly and free from discrimination or prejudice.

Aims

The Greens (WA) want:

  • to ensure that programs, services, and supports for LGBTQIA+ people are accessible, culturally safe and collaboratively designed with people with intersectional needs
  • informed and accessible health and support services that cater for the diverse needs of LGBTQIA+ people (see also The Greens (WA) Health policy)
  • the repeal of all federal and state laws that are discriminatory on the grounds of sexuality, gender identity or a variation in sex characteristics
  • the process for legal recognition of gender in Western Australia to be simplified and allow for full self-identification
  • transgender2 and intersex3 people to be granted equality in autonomy over the medical processes regarding their bodies
  • a whole-of-Government approach to addressing the issues and challenges faced by the LGBTQIA+ community
  • an end to the dehumanising influence of trans-exclusionary ideologies including so-called “trans-exclusionary radical feminism” (TERF)­4 and “gender critical"5 theory on culture, education and legislation

Measures

The Greens (WA) will initiate and support legislation and actions that:

Public Awareness

  • provide programs in primary and secondary schools that foster acceptance and understanding of diverse sexualities, genders6 and of intersex people and diverse sex characteristics (see also The Greens (WA) Education policy)
  • encourage, support and provide for awareness programs in various community, workplace and tertiary education settings that lead to a greater understanding of diverse sexualities, gender identities and of intersex people and diverse sex characteristics
  • provide programs that educate members of the community on the harm and dehumanisation caused by trans-exclusionary and gender critical rhetoric, and encourage empathy and understanding

Support Services and Health

  • provide accurate information, appropriate referrals and counselling for young people and their parents, carers and families in relation to issues of diverse sexuality, gender identity and sex characteristics (see also The Greens (WA) Youth policy)
  • provide adequate funding for services to support and protect LGBTQIA+ people, in particular suicide prevention, peer support, counselling, health and housing programs (see also The Greens (WA) Housing policy)
  • ensure medical intervention of a cosmetic or deferrable nature for people born with a variation in sex characteristics is made only when they are able to consent to the decision for themselves
  • ensure access to reparative treatments for people with intersex variations
  • provide funding for the widespread multidisciplinary training of health professionals to provide inclusive and appropriate care to LGBTQIA+ people
  • expand the access of publicly funded services that assist trans and gender-diverse people with their medical and/or clinical transition to ensure both minors and adults, including in regional areas, are able to access services in a timely manner
  • support an informed consent approach to providing gender-affirming healthcare
  • provide funding for organisations and services that support the non-medical and social means by which people affirm their gender identity, to make them more widely accessible and affordable
  • make refuges safe for people of diverse sexuality, gender identity and sex characteristics
  • explicitly oppose discrimination against transgender women in accessing women's refuges (see also The Greens (WA) Women policy)

Safety and Discrimination Protection

  • remove all exemptions in the Equal Opportunity Act that permit harmful discrimination against people on the basis of their gender identity or sexuality, and add sex characteristics as a protected category
  • ban conversion practices7, including in both clinical and religious contexts, that target LGBTQIA+ people
  • recognise that LGBTQIA+ people should have equal access to parenting rights; such as representation on children's birth certificates, access to adoption, fostering, artificial insemination, sperm donation and in vitro fertilisation programs, and consideration in child custody rulings
  • use individual risk assessments for blood donors, rather than discriminating on the grounds of their or their sexual partners sexuality or gender identity
  • explore and resource approaches to reducing hate crimes and hate speech against LGBTQIA+ people, including ensuring the WA Police accurately report incidents of hate crimes and their interactions with self-identified LGBTQIA+ people
  • improve and broaden the police and corrective services' knowledge of and sensitivity towards diverse sexuality, gender identity and sex characteristics and further develop liaison between these services and the LGBTQIA+ community (see also The Greens (WA) Justice policy)
  • ensure that if transgender, gender diverse or intersex people are imprisoned or detained, they are committed to the prison appropriate to their individual circumstances; this should consider their identified gender, lived experience and personal preference
  • ensure the importance of the safety and medical privacy of imprisoned transgender, gender diverse and intersex people is well-understood and prioritised
  • remove discrimination against people with diverse gender identities or sex characteristics in competitive and community sport

Recognition of Legal Gender

  • abolish the Gender Reassignment Board and repeal the Gender Reassignment Act 2000
  • establish affordable and equitable gender self-identification processes, without the need for clinical evidence or treatment, that allow people, including minors, to update their legal sex/gender identity on all existing documents
  • allow for an option for a custom sex/gender marker and an option to opt-out of sex/gender markers on birth certificates
  • require government organisations allow for self-identified gender, including an "X" option in computer systems, and encourage private organisations to do the same. Where sex must be recorded at all, it should be recorded accurately to the will of the person and allow for intersex options

Government and Parliamentary Initiatives

  • ensure that governments and their agencies consult with communities and representative groups of diverse sexualities, gender identities and sex characteristics on the development of policies and programs that affect them
  • ensure a co-designed, whole-of-Government LGBTQIA+ Strategy for Western Australia
  • require there be a Ministerial Portfolio for LGBTQIA+ Affairs in the West Australian Parliament
  • aim to employ a diverse representation of LGBTQIA+ people in the Western Australian public sector as a percentage of the workforce, guided by the Public Sector Commission
  • offer paid Gender Affirmation Leave to all public sector employees
  • require the Western Australian Government to sign and affirm The Darlington Statement8

Glossary

  1. LGBTQIA+ refers to people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual/aromantic and/or other diverse identities and lived experiences.
  2. Transgender is an umbrella term that describes people whose gender identity or expression does not match the sex they were assigned at birth.
  3. Intersex people have innate physical sex characteristics that are more diverse than binary definitions for male or female bodies.
  4. Trans-exclusionary radical feminism (TERF) is a term used to describe people who claim to identify with radical feminism, regardless of their adherence to feminism at all, and also deny or otherwise question the existence and lived experience of trans and gender-diverse people.
  5. Gender critical is a term used to describe someone who is critical of the concept of gender identity. For example, someone who is gender critical may not believe that people can identify as a gender other than their sex at birth; that non-binary genders don’t exist; and/or that sex is immutable. This is harmful towards and erases all transgender and gender diverse people, as well as many intersex people.
  6. Diverse Genders is an umbrella term that describes people whose gender identity, expression or lived experience does not fall within the categories of cisgender men and women (people with binary genders who identify with the gender they were assigned at birth). This includes all transgender and non-binary people.
  7. Conversion Practices - “Any formal or informal practice, activity or treatment (in any setting) that seeks, or is used, to suppress, eliminate or change a person’s sexual or romantic orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, where that change is deemed necessary due to the instigator’s belief in or adherence to conversion ideology.” [credit: SOGICE Survivor’s Statement] This is sometimes known as "gay conversion therapy", though this term is inappropriate as it falsely implies that these practices are a form of therapy.
  8. The Darlington Statement is a joint statement by Australian and Aotearoa/New Zealand intersex advocates that outlines the calls by the intersex human rights movement. Read further here: [credit: Darlington Statement]

(See also the Australian Greens Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity & Intersex policy)

LGBTQIA+ policy ratified by The Greens (WA) in 2023