Equality Tasmania: Last News

Hobart councillor and former mayoral candidate Louise Elliot on Monday introduced a motion to have segregated toilet facilities for trans persons and to exclude them from change rooms that correspond to their gender.Trigger Warning: This story discusses anti-trans statements, which might be distressing to some readers. For 24-hour crisis support and suicide prevention call Lifeline on 13 11 14. For Australia-wide LGBTQI peer support call QLife on 1800 184 527 or webchat.LGBTQI activists said councillor Elliot’s motion in the Hobart City Council violates Tasmania’s “gold standard” anti-discrimination laws. The councillor claimed that the motion was intended to make community members “feel safe and comfortable using the City’s change rooms, and toilet and shower facilities,” but on social media, the councillor Elliot turned on the anti-trans rhetoric. “Changes to Tasmania’s legislation have created an insane situation where women (and girls) no longer have the assurance that they’re dressing or showering in shared spaces where only other adult biological females are present,” Elliot said on her official page on . “This is about recognising the reality that many women feel unsafe or uncomfortable sharing vulnerable spaces like change rooms, toilets and showers with biological males,” Elliot claimed. In 2020, Elliot reportedly addressed an email to non-binary councillor Jax Fox and signed off as “Kermit (Louise) Elliot” and added “riddup – I identify as a frog”.According to Rose Boccalatte, spokesperson for Equality Tasmania, the Aquatic Centre has had inclusive facilities for over four years without any complaints. Boccalatte said that the councillor’s proposed motion was an “unacceptable solution to a non-existent problem”

Jeremy Rockliff, the Premier and Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing, last week announced the 2022-2023 implementation plan for the Tasmania’s mental health strategy.Trigger Warning: This story discusses mental health and suicide, which might be distressing to some readers. For 24 hour crisis support and suicide prevention call Lifeline on 13 11 14. For Australia-wide LGBTQI peer support call QLife on 1800 184 527 or webchat.The “Rethink 2022-23 Implementation Program” identified LGBTQI Tasmanians as one of three priority groups they are aiming this strategy towards.

When Tony and Doug (names changed for privacy), a gay couple, who had lived interstate and overseas, moved to a small rural town in Southern Tasmania, they were looking forward to life away from the fast pace they were used to. What they did not bargain was for a year-long campaign of harassment and homophobic abuse directed at them by their next-door neighbour. A court in Tasmania recently held the woman guilty of anti-gay abuse and sentenced her to six weeks in prison.

A Tasmania-based lesbian woman and supporter of the anti-trans group LGB Alliance, is raising funds to take her battle to ban trans women and men from her drag shows, to the High Court. Trigger Warning: This story discusses comments against the transgender community, which might be distressing to some readers. For 24 hour crisis support and suicide prevention call Lifeline on 13 11 14. For Australia-wide LGBTQI peer support call QLife on 1800 184 527 or webchat.Jessica Hoyle has raised over $3,300, since she launched her campaign on a fundraising platform last month. Last year, Hoyle failed in her bid to get an exemption from the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commissioner to hold her “female-only event” and now plans to take her fight to the High Court.

The Tasmanian Catholic Church’s attempts to pit medical and health care professionals against a report about harmful conversion practices has been dubbed a “misinformation campaign”. The Tasmanian Law Reform Institute (TLRI) has called out the “incorrect” statements made about its report in the Catholic Standard, the official print publication of the Catholic Church in Tasmania. Earlier this month, a TLRI report had recommended law reforms to deal with unscientific and harmful conversion practices to change a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity.

Tasmania was the last jurisdiction in Australia to decriminalise male same-sex relationships and on Sunday May 1, the LGBTQI community celebrated 25th anniversary of that historic event. Before the law was changed on May 1, 1997, any sexual relationship between men was illegal and punishable with 21 years in gaol. Tasmania was also the only state in Australia to outlaw crossdressing – the law was repealed in 2000. Governor Barbara Baker AC hosted a reception for LGBTQI activists at Government House on Sunday to mark the anniversary.