I’m so happy to announce this news! I almost can’t really comprehend how widely the petition has been shared. Ten thousand is a huge amount for a QLD parliamentary e-petition – it’s currently the #3 petition on the site. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – the amount of support the community has given to the petition has blown me away and I’m so incredibly grateful to everyone for that.
In the last week, I’ve been quoted in the Courier Mail – an article entitled ‘Trans tax’ adds stress, and been in QUT’s Glass magazine, just today. I’ve also spoken to a couple other journos in articles that’ll be upcoming – I’ll be sure to link to those in a future post.
In the Courier article, the Attorney-General confirmed that the Government is looking into introducing reforms to the act this year. I take no credit – with other work being done previously to pressure the Government, my petition was just well-timed. However, most other work in this space has focused on the removal of the surgery requirement for changing one’s gender marker, whereas my petition covers a lot more ground.
Now that we’re at 10,000 signatures (still weird typing this out!), my focus is much more about our next steps. The best thing we can do is to urge the Attorney-General to take the requests of my petition into consideration as they review the act – email attorney@ministerial.qld.gov.au. Secondly, you can help by contacting your State MP about the petition, letting them know you support it and urging them to support reforms that take the petition’s requests into account. Encouraging others to take these steps also would be of huge assistance.
Berko and I with the Courier Mail article. 
I’m so thrilled and excited to see how far the effects of the petition go. If we just keep up the pressure a little more, I’m sure we can see some really positive changes for LGBT+ recognition in Queensland.
If you need a link to the petition, here it is. Follow me on Instagram or Twitter – @estheravale – for more regular updates and posts you can share to help.
In more personal news – I’ll be tutoring a screenwriting class at QUT this semester. It was something I really wanted to do this year for a bit of work, so we’ll see how that goes!
As always, take care – Esther
Esther Vale 
1 thought on “My BDMR Reform Petition Hits 10,000 Signatures”