Petition Update

Wow. One day on – barely more than 24 hours – and we’ve already seen over a thousand Queensland residents sign my petition to recognise LGBT+ people within the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act, and fix the registry’s processes. See my previous post if you need more context on the petition.

You can find the petition here.

I’m so blown away by the support the LGBT+ community has shown, and all the amazing allies who have come out of the woodwork too. You are seen, and you are awesome.

While there are certainly the headlining issues: removing the surgery requirement to change gender with the BDMR, and acknowledging people of non-binary gender, it’simportant not to forget the smaller issues at play. It would be disappointing to get a half-win of barely fixing these issues but not the others.

In fixing the Act, Queensland could take a much more progressive model, like that of Tasmania, which allows gender to be recorded in an open format where one can write in their preferred term, or not at all if they so choose.

Many responses to the petition online have emphasised how stressful of a situation this early transition period is, which I can certainly attest. Taking away the financial burden of transitioning would reduce the hardship to one’s mental health. Changing your name in Queensland costs $190.90. That’s an extreme amount, especially considering people transitioning are more likely to be young, and that being trans already is a factor for having a lower income. Changing the gender marker on a birth certificate is $117.

I’m also worried that we’ll remove the surgery requirement but keep the “annotation” of changed gender – something I haven’t seen any other petitions addressing. Trans people do not want to have to show their birth certificate to someone only to be outed by it. I repeat: we do not want to be outed by our legal documents.

That’s not mentioning every little thing – I just wanted to bring some more attention to these lesser issues so that we don’t lose track. I really hope the Attorney-General can take them all on board and show that Queensland can care about LGBT+ people.

I have so much appreciation for everyone who has shared the petition. The post on Michael Berkman’s facebook page has nearly 200 shares! The QUT Guild Queer Collective also made a cute graphic when sharing the petition which is awesome as well!

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I spoke to the Courier Mail (twice!) today about the petition, including hearing what the Attorney-General has said to them. Out of respect I don’t want to spoil their story so you’ll have to wait until tomorrow when the article is posted (on Thursday for the physical paper!) and I’ll post again with some more thoughts.

If any other media outlets wish to contact me, I have multiple social media platforms or just email esther.annette.vale@gmail.com.

As I’m about to post this we’ve gone from 1000 to nearly 1100. Let’s keep this up, Queensland!