Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I experienced one of my most moving days here in Parliament House on Monday. Parliamentary friends of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer Australians hosted an amazing group of young trans people and their families. They were here to share with us their stories of the challenges they face to be accepted for who they are.

They told us they just wanted to be able to live normal lives, be accepted for who they are, and not have to continue to justify and fight to be accepted for who they are. They told us how having to seek Family Court approval for cross hormone treatment in their teenage years was a massive financial and emotional barrier, and it moved at a glacial pace, when they just wanted to be going through puberty with their peers, rather than having their life on hold, waiting for court hearings and court decisions. The kicker is that not once has the Family Court knocked back a young person's request for hormones where they, their family and their medical practitioners all agree that it is right for them. As one parent stated to us on Monday, the whole Family Court process is just an expensive, emotionally-draining and time-consuming rubber stamp. We need to change the law, to remove this rubber stamp.

Let me share with you what Isabelle, aged 12, shared with us. She said:

I am a girl, I was born a girl, not a boy who wants to be a girl. Unfortunately for me, I was cursed with some physical characteristics that don't match my identity as a girl. This has been very hard and very stressful. I have tried to hurt myself and have questioned whether I even want to be here in my darkest times.

She said:

I don't just want to access stage two treatment, I need to [have it] … so I can live my life and be happy.

Georgie, aged 15, who has been through the court system three times, said:

I'm a normal, cheerful, confident girl and I know who I am. But my exterior doesn't match my interior. It shouldn't be the court's decision. Only I have the right to decide what goes into my body.

Georgie's mother Rebekah Robertson agreed and expressed her frustration:

The court process is slow but biology is fast …

She described the pressure on young transgender people and their families as 'enormous and relentless', saying the court process is 'unnecessary and cruel'. These children just want to have a normal life, but they are having an extraordinary impact while they are at it. Dr Michelle Telfer, who does amazing work treating these young people at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, said that:

… because of social change, and also because we have medical treatments that we know are safe and effective, [there are] more and more young people who want treatment and need treatment.

She said:

The court process is currently standing in the way of a number of those young people actually accessing that treatment, and without access to treatment we know that the self-harm and suicide risks are much higher.

I tell you what I heard on Monday has made me passionate about redoubling my efforts to work with my colleagues across the parliament and get the law changed.

So I spent most of Monday on a high, feeling that positive change really was going to be possible. Then, just as I was about to leave for the day, Senator Bernardi spoke in the chamber, attacking the fabulous work of the Safe Schools Coalition—a program that has been proven to reduce the daily discrimination faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersex, transgender and queer young people. Senator Bernardi's hateful, preposterous, inaccurate, diatribe was so completely at odds with the amazing people I had spent the day with. In the morning, Georgie's mother, Rebekah, told of the absolute love she had for her daughter. She said:

As parents, we walk ahead of our child like a landmine detector, clearing the path before them.

I am sure all the parents in this place can identify with that. But then we have Senator Bernardi insinuating that the Safe Schools Coalition is not to reduce bullying, but rather that it is really about deconstructing the moral and social fabric of our society, including the family. That morning, I listened as Isabelle told us that she is:

… scared all the time about going through male puberty and not getting the right treatment that will help me have the body that I should.

But Senator Bernardi does not care about Isabelle's wellbeing, because he believes that Safe Schools:

… promotes a radical political and social agenda and seeks to indoctrinate students to make them its advocates.

Then it got worse. Yesterday we discovered that Senator Bernardi's speech was not just corralled as the late night ravings of a homophobic dinosaur, but that Prime Minister Turnbull had caved into him and other right-wing henchmen. Rather than showing vision and courage—