This year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 18 will mark a brighter future as well as a pause for the past, with a discussion of the Transgender Anti-Violence Project initiated in May.
New moves to collect statistics on trans-violence mean the transgender community will soon have numbers as well as names to reflect the high level of violence experienced by transgender people.
Information and Resources Worker at the Gender Centre spokesperson Katherine Cummings said: “Areas that need urgent attention are employment and education and an awareness in employing bodies and institutions that policies must be put in place and enforced, to protect transgenders against transphobia.”
“If we can demonstrate that there is a higher percentage of suicides and murders in the transgender sector than in other sectors, there may be efforts made to improve the situations that lead to depression, self-harm and victimisation.”
Greens Senator for NSW Lee Rhiannon said the event is critical to encouraging changes in the law to match a much changed public awareness.
“Often what we see is that the laws lag behind where public attitudes are and I think that’s certainly the case from the representation that transgender people have made to me,” she said.
One of these changes has occurred within the NSW Police Force, where Senator Rhiannon reports the Gay and Lesbian Unit for NSW have extended their understanding of transgender issues.
It’s a shift that couldn’t come too soon for Ms Cummings who will be remembering four friends on Friday. “We have to accept it’s going to go on happening [until] we create a better climate for transgender people to live in.”
The Transgender Day of Remembrance will be held tomorrow at the Waratah Room, Parliament House from 1:30 to 4pm.
By Jessica Black
