Today the Equality Bill passed NSW Parliament! Abigail contributed to debate during the bill's second reading debate, speaking about how far we still have to go and reaffirming the Greens commitment to fight alongside the queer community to achieve equality and liberation for ALL in the queer community.
Abigail said:
I contribute to debate on the Equality Legislation Amendment (LGBTIQA+) Bill 2024 to express my support for the bill and to wholeheartedly support the comments of my colleague Dr Amanda Cohn, who I thank for her advocacy and for her heart in this matter. When Dr Amanda Cohn takes on any issue, she does it to the absolute best of her ability. I know she and her office staff have spent a very long time speaking with constituents, stakeholders and other politicians to try to get the best outcomes she can in Parliament for the community. I thank sincerely the community. As my colleague said, the queer community is strong, fierce and stands together. It is with some sadness that today the version of the bill before the House is not quite as strong as we would have wanted it to be.
Having said that, I sincerely thank the member for Sydney, Alex Greenwich, because debating this legislation is not easy, but it really should not be this hard. We have heard from Opposition members today, and the fearmongering and misinformation we are facing has unfortunately infected members of the Labor Party as well as the Liberal Party. It has been very hard for the Labor Party to get to this point, and that is a great tragedy. Sometimes I wish we could have transparency in democracy so we could have the benefit of seeing internal party discussions and negotiations.
I understand that with very large parties there are a lot of people and a lot of views, but what we end up with from a public perspective is just the end result. We do not get to see the deliberations within a particular political party to know how they came to their position. It is different when a conscience vote is allowed because then we get to hear the multitude of views, but we have not had the opportunity to see that from Labor. I know that a great number of Labor Party members wholeheartedly would have supported the original version of the bill. It has been introduced this way because we have divergent views, but it should not be this hard. I am incredibly grateful that we have politicians in this place who have nonetheless worked to get to that point. I pay my respects to them and express my great gratitude to the member for Sydney.
That said, I also know—and my colleague knows because of all the phone calls and everything she has been getting—how hard this is. Even though we are getting great changes through today—I am assuming the bill will be passed because I really do not think I could cope if it did not—there is so much more to do. Every single step is excruciating. I say to people who are watching this debate, thank you. I'm sorry—really sorry—that it has to be this hard every time. I'm really sorry every time there is erasure of intersex terms in debates as though the biological evidence does not exist. I am sorry to all of the sex workers that I know and love, who I have spent years working with and advocating on behalf in this place, who constantly get referred to in negative and discriminatory ways. I am sad we did not get the anti-discrimination changes up, which would have made a real difference to remove the stigma that sex workers face. I am sorry that the lack of protection continues to put them at greater risk when they are going about their job. Everyone deserves to be safe at work and that includes sex workers. Sex work is work.
I also want to express my sorrow and let them know that I see the whole trans community, in particular the trans women. It is trans women in particular who bear the load when it comes to the debates that are had in public around trans rights. Trans people are some of the most vulnerable in our society when the rates of suicide and health issues are considered. The idea that society would hold trans people up and attack them in the way that I see them being attacked by the Opposition is just heartbreaking. It is already so hard to be a trans woman in our society. As a true feminist and a very proud bisexual woman, I declare that none of us are free until all of us are free.
To call yourself a feminist and say that you are somehow worried about women but then not include all women is really quite extraordinary. A lot of it seems to be based on a really old-fashioned understanding of biology. There is an ignorance in not accepting the realities of the situation but I honestly want to give people the benefit of the doubt and actually address one of the main issues. As I was coming in yesterday there was a man outside yelling at me. He said, "If I identified as giraffe, you'd put me in a mental asylum, but if I say I identify as a woman then you'll let me into a woman's bathroom," or words to that effect. I do not want to give any credit to that argument but I am going to give the benefit of the doubt and accept that people actually view it as a valid argument. Then I am going to try to explain why it is ridiculous.
Firstly, let's think about the idea that someone is automatically in danger in a toilet. When I go into a bathroom—whether is be a unisex, a male-female or an all‑gender bathroom—I do not think that I am in any particular danger from anybody around me when I am in the cubicle. I do not understand what the idea is. If there is somebody I do not know in the cubicle next door, I do not understand how that is an inherent danger to me. If people are actually saying that men are inherently a danger to women in an enclosed space, that is a different issue. If a man is gaining access to a bathroom to presumably attack a woman or do something else terrible, that is a man wanting to do that. However if it is somebody who identifies a woman and is a trans woman—is a woman—they are going in there because they are trans woman. I do not understand why. Is the argument that a trans woman is somehow going to—I don't know; I am really struggling to understand what this could be about.
Secondly, considering what the Hon. Susan Carter said about change rooms, there seems to be a concept that if people are in a shared change room, then all genitals are out, and apparently that is inherently offensive. When I was at school I was very shy about my body so I always went into a cubicle anyway. I do not know why there is a fear that if a trans person was to be in a change room, they would, by virtue of being trans, have their genitals out in a way that other people would not. I honestly do not understand what she is getting at.
Again, I come back to this point: If her concern is that men will attack women, then she talking about men trying, by subterfuge, to get into women‑only spaces to attack women. If she is talking about trans women entering a women's space, it is because they are women. If she is saying that trans women are inherently violent or aggressive or are more dangerous than other women, then she is transphobic and a trans-exclusionary radical feminist [TERF]. We need to be clear about that. It is transphobic to be making assumptions about people simply because they are trans. That was my attempt to try to desperately understand that argument so I can say to people who accept it that I have engaged with it but it is patently ridiculous. Those people need to own their own phobic reaction and accept that trans people are not a threat. They are not a threat to me and they are not a threat to other women; they are people going about their own lives like the rest of us.
Finally, when I stand in this place I get a bit concerned because the views are so out of touch with what I think the majority of people have outside of this place. What gives me hope, however, is when I speak with children because they do not have such hang-ups. Children just accept each other, and I love it. When I speak with my children and they talk about their school friends, whether it is how they identify or what pronouns they use, whether they are bi or straight or gay, whether they are autistic or in a wheelchair—whatever it happens to be—my children accept it and say, "That's them."
They do not have the hang-ups and old-fashioned ideas about genitals or about trying to box people into an identity that makes other people comfortable because they are accepting. That gives me hope because the world is changing. Young people get it and the vast majority of people in the world outside this place get it and it is a shame that the people in this place do not. We will keep fighting against the transphobia of those opposite and we will keep standing up for every single member of the queer community. I thank everyone who is standing on our side.