The following appeared on my political blog at https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-abs-is-allegedly-trying-to-count.html.
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The ABS are going to start trying to count LGBTIQ+ people.
A lot of LGBTIQ+ people who do not know their history have been pushing for this, but it involves incredible risks - identifying a group is one of the early steps in genocide, and to have that information collated at the ABS is to trust that no future government here will be surrendered to the bigots in it (people like Christenson, Dutton [who came close to being PM], Kelly, and Abetz), wind up like the trump regime in the Unexceptional States of America, and order access to that information for the purpose of identifying TGD or LGBTIQ+ people - there is already a movement of transphobic bigots in Queensland who want a public register of such information. Do those advocates really think the ABS can hold out against legal changes and orders from the likes of the three bigots I named above and anyone who comes in future who is like them?
So what the ABS is going to do (see https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australian-census-to-include-a-gender-non-binary-option-for-the-first-time), is force TGD people to identify themselves by their sex at birth first, and then use the less significant term “gender” to identify a subsequent “change”.
These IPOCs just don’t get it: TGD people have ALWAYS been the gender we say we are - in the ways that really matter, our inner essence. To claim that we used to be our former gender is moronic.
Whoever from academia - or elsewhere - who told the ABS it is completely and utterly harmless to ask a post-transition TGD person what their assigned sex at birth is, is, in my opinion, either incompetent or a bigot.
That concerns me, as there has been a growing religious bigotry working on the national government for some time now. If such people have caused this latest travesty, knowing it is harmful, they should, in my opinion, be charged with attempted murder.
Similarly, any person who leaks, or allows the information about TGD people to be accessed - whether deliberately or through incompetence - is involved in actions that are a breach of the Privacy Act (pending any future changes by the bigots - and I suggest any f***wit who thinks that is unlikely has a look at the Unexceptional States of America), possibly guilty of inciting assault (again, I suggest any f***wit who thinks that is unlikely has a look at the Unexceptional States of America), and possibly guilty of attempted murder.
Murder charges in Victoria, last time I checked, can be laid by individuals, but it has to go to a Grand Jury first.
There are also a lot of good changes, but I have seen nothing in that which orders ABS staff to use the current gender, and not the sex at birth, and have no reason to believe that staff - who are only now, years after the best organisations, issuing instructions on this basic aspect of manners.
Final point: this, and the engineers registration bill, shows that bureaucracy is, in effect - and irrespective of the actual motivations - vindictively and maliciously transphobic, as every few years another attack on TGD people is implemented under a disguised claim of trying to make something better.
You need to start listening to us.
The text of the email I have just sent on this follows below.
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Dear recipient,
I note that, according to an article on the SBS website yesterday (here), you are proposing to make changes to how gender is managed at the ABS and in the Census.
While some of the changes are admirable, what appears to be forced self-outing of transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people is gravely concerning, and collation of material that could harm the safety of TGD people places a heavy burden on the ABS.
My recollection is that the last census had a flawed choice along the lines of:
Male
Female
Transgender or other
This is false: I am not a sexless thing: I am female - how that was recognised by society makes my medical history transgender, but to deny that I am female is a direct, active, and malicious attack on who I am.
Such idiotic choices have always been ignored by many TGD people, who often see them as no more than an indication of hostility or outright bigotry that refuses to accept the reality of who we are.
Such approaches treat TGD people differently to cisgender: to be fair and provide a similar basis for comparison of needs and the like, you should have made the choice:
Cisgender
Transgender or other
Intersex
That would have treated cisgender variations (male and female) the same as TGD variations (MTF, FTM, non-binary, other), and thus, as noted above, would have been fair and provided a similar basis for comparison of needs and the like.
(It would also have identified intersex people properly.)
The approach you actually took treated TGD people differently to CG people, thus differentiating in a way that is discriminatory. Furthermore, your approach made it impossible to obtain any useful information.
To illustrate that:
MTF people have voice training and different
surgical and other medical needs (including prostate) to FTM people, who
in turn have different surgical and other medical needs that MTF
people don’t.
FTM people do not need voice training or future prostate surgery.
The hormones for each are different.
By lumping all TGD people into the one category, you made it impossible to gain any useful information to allow for proper planning of future medical resources.
You also actively caused psychological harm to binary TGD people by denying the reality and validity of their actual, real identity - which is not, as you term it “sex assigned at birth”.
Your insistence that binary TGD people self-identify their - psychologically incorrect - “sex assigned at birth” is likely to cause massive psychological harm, and I hold grave concerns for the wellbeing of TGD people you will subject to this.
Did you seek appropriately experienced advice on the medical impacts of this matter?
If not, you should have; if you did, I suggest you get someone with better experience and/or qualifications.
How many TGD - or LGBIQ+ - people were directly involved in the decision making on this matter - not providing feedback or review, but in the final decision making? If any were involved, why did they not raise the issues of psychological harm or other issues?
As a suggestion, the following - which is similar to what I have been advocating for LGBTIQ+ groups to use for over a quarter century - would be more useful, and less psychologically damaging to TGD people:
Cisgender
Male
Female
Transgender
FTM
MTF
Non-binary
Other
Intersex
It is also vital to note that you have, by collecting this information, taken on yourself the burden of ensuring the safety of TGD people from abuse, discrimination, physical assaults or even murder if any of the information in your is ever leaked - whether accidentally or deliberately - with any identifiers. That applies not only now, but also in the event that transphobic bigots gain a position of political power - and I note that such has nearly happened with the national Liberal government and there is a significant transphobic group in Queensland pushing for public exposure of TGD people - and have laws changed to compel exposure of TGD or LGBIQ+ people.
Can you guarantee such exposure will never happen - now or in the future?
As someone who has experienced and lost several people to violence and discrimination, I am fed up with the risks of such harm or violence being ignored or trivialised.
Will you also ensure that, given the massively invasive and, frankly, offensive change to information you are collecting, you will allow people who may have previously agreed to future disclosure of their information to change their position on that?
Their past agreement has been rendered invalid by these dangerous proposed changes.
