Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven Am.
Speaker 1: The census is supposed to reflect the country back to
Speaker 1: us to give vital data on who makes up Australia,
Speaker 1: but this week it's become a political landmine for the
Speaker 1: federal government, who first canceled questions on sexual orientation and
Speaker 1: gender identity, only to partially reverse that decision amid tense backlash.
Speaker 1: But the question of data isn't just academic. This debate
Speaker 1: is coming at a time when the Victorian Coroner has
Speaker 1: specifically asked for more data on the trans community following
Speaker 1: a number of young trans women killing themselves. Today, writer
Speaker 1: and co editor of Nothing to Hide Voices of Trans
Speaker 1: and gender Diverse Australia, Sam Elkin on the government's decision
Speaker 1: to exclude trans people from the census and why being
Speaker 1: counted could save lives. It's Tuesday, September three, and just
Speaker 1: a warning. Today's episode discusses suicide. Please take care while listening. Sam,
Speaker 1: welcome back to seven Am. First, it's great to have
Speaker 1: you back on the show.
Speaker 2: Oh, absolute pleasure. And yeah, welcome back to you as well.
Speaker 1: Oh thank you, so Sam. I thought we could start
Speaker 1: by going back to December twenty twenty to the moment
Speaker 1: that you heard the news that Bridget Flack, who was
Speaker 1: a twenty eight year old trans woman, went missing. What
Speaker 1: details did you have initially?
Speaker 3: So, yeah, Bridget Flack was last seen on Lygon Street
Speaker 3: in Carlton and she was believed to have gone for
Speaker 3: a walk around Yarra Bend, though she didn't return home
Speaker 3: later that night. Bridget had been trying to get help
Speaker 3: for some mental health issues and had been waiting for
Speaker 3: a bed at the time that she went missing, so
Speaker 3: you know, her friends and family were really concerned about her.
Speaker 3: I got invited to join a Facebook group called have
Speaker 3: You Seen Bridget, which was, you know, something that was
Speaker 3: set up sort of at a grassroots level to help
Speaker 3: gather people together from the transigend diverse community and allies
Speaker 3: to help conduct the search. I you know, felt a
Speaker 3: really personally strong sense that, you know, we had to
Speaker 3: go out and look for her. It didn't feel like
Speaker 3: the police were doing enough to search for her, and
Speaker 3: it felt really really important that we do everything we
Speaker 3: can as a community to find her.
Speaker 4: A tragic again to the search for missing Melbourne woman
Speaker 4: Bridget Flag after a body was found in Bushland.
Speaker 2: Last night.
Speaker 3: She was ultimately found by two members of the lgbt
Speaker 3: IQA plus community.
Speaker 2: Sadly, Bridget's case.
Speaker 3: Was not an isolated incident, and the Victorian Coroner received
Speaker 3: orders to investigate the apparent suicide to five transigend diverse people.
Speaker 4: The coroner also looked into the suicides of four other
Speaker 4: transgender women, including Matt Byrne and Heather Perade. The inquest
Speaker 4: heard several had tried in Vain to access medical and
Speaker 4: mental health treatment before their deaths.
Speaker 3: It was thought that it would be a good idea
Speaker 3: to kind of look at them as a cluster to
Speaker 3: better understand what the drivers of all of these tragic
Speaker 3: deaths were, with the inquest aiming to provide new recommendations
Speaker 3: to prevent further deaths.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what did the inquest find?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the Victorian Coroner, Ingrid Giles, did a really
Speaker 3: comprehensive job of looking into the failures with the police search,
Speaker 3: specifically in relation to Bridget.
Speaker 4: Flat Today found Bridget's case highlighted a bigger problem that
Speaker 4: there's a lack of support for the transgender community and
Speaker 4: police and health officials need to do.
Speaker 3: More, and there were a lot of recommendations around the
Speaker 3: need for improve data collection regarding the transgenitivise community was
Speaker 3: a really significant thing that the coroner pointed out. The
Speaker 3: fact that there's no population level data on the number
Speaker 3: of transigenitivist people nationally or in Victoria means that, you know,
Speaker 3: it's incredibly hard for policymakers or health services to make
Speaker 3: a case that they need funding or other resources to
Speaker 3: support our community when we don't even know how many
Speaker 3: of us exist, We don't know where we live. You know,
Speaker 3: these these are the kind of questions that something like
Speaker 3: the Australian Census could help us to understand.
Speaker 1: Right, So, the coroner specifically highlighted the need for better
Speaker 1: data to help prevent suicides in the trans community and
Speaker 1: singled out the census as one way to get that. So,
Speaker 1: how is information about the trans community currently collected?
Speaker 3: So back in twenty twenty one, which was the last census,
Speaker 3: that was the first time where there was any kind
Speaker 3: of question that talked about sort of.
Speaker 2: Something to do with gender identity.
Speaker 3: It was a fairly clunky question in the twenty twenty
Speaker 3: one census where they asked people to select their sex
Speaker 3: from three options, So there was male, female, or non binary,
Speaker 3: but it didn't ask for gender identity in that census,
Speaker 3: and you know, for somebody like me who is a
Speaker 3: trans masculine person, so for the avoidance of any sort
Speaker 3: of confusion like I was assigned female at birth, but
Speaker 3: I've transitioned and now live in the community and you know,
Speaker 3: I'm basically read as male all the time.
Speaker 2: That left me with a real question of like what
Speaker 2: do I tick?
Speaker 3: You know, if I tick male, that doesn't give the
Speaker 3: Australian Bureau of Statistics any information about my gender history,
Speaker 3: which could be an important evidence base for the need
Speaker 3: for trans healthcare. For example, in that census, almost forty
Speaker 3: five thousand people tipped non binary, but the ABS found
Speaker 3: that it wasn't meaningful data and so they kind of
Speaker 3: arbitrarily assigned either male or female to those respondents. So yeah,
Speaker 3: as a result of that census, there are a number
Speaker 3: of complaints to the Australian Human Rights Commission, and following this,
Speaker 3: the ABS issued a statement of regret where they acknowledged
Speaker 3: the hurt that some people felt well completing the twenty
Speaker 3: twenty one census, and they vowed to minimize.
Speaker 2: The risk of further harm in future.
Speaker 3: And you know, one of the big kind of commitments
Speaker 3: they made as a result of that conciliation was committing
Speaker 3: to establishing an expert Advisory Committee which included members of
Speaker 3: the LGBTIQA plus community, for advice on topics some questions.
Speaker 2: For the twenty twenty six census.
Speaker 3: So on Sunday, the twenty fifth of August, the ABS
Speaker 3: was ready to begin testing the new questions and they
Speaker 3: were going to brief to the media on the Monday,
Speaker 3: And it seems like the federal government, you know, had
Speaker 3: a bit of a meltdown about them over that weekend
Speaker 3: and announced that they would not be including questions relating
Speaker 3: to LGBTIQA plus identity in the census, despite that having
Speaker 3: been one of two very explicit election commitments made to
Speaker 3: the LGBTIQA plus community in that twenty twenty three election.
Speaker 1: Coming up after the break, why did the government pull the.
Speaker 5: Pen Comments by the government in the wake of its
Speaker 5: controversial census omissions are further angry the lgbtqia Plus community.
Speaker 6: Labor had promised to update the census to include questions
Speaker 6: on sexuality and gender diversity, but in recent days has
Speaker 6: ditched the plan, saying it's trying to avoid division in
Speaker 6: the community.
Speaker 7: The Urban Easy government opted against adding questions on sexuality
Speaker 7: to the census to avoid divisiveness, but with a wave
Speaker 7: of internal dissent growing, it may have started a fight
Speaker 7: of its own. Labor and Peter.
Speaker 1: Sam you were watching closely as the government announced that
Speaker 1: the trans and gender diverse community would not be counted
Speaker 1: at the next census. What struck you about the reasons
Speaker 1: that politicians gave about why.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there were various kind of explanations as to why
Speaker 3: the decision had been made which were rolled out across
Speaker 3: the week. So last Wednesday, on the twenty eighth of August,
Speaker 3: Deputy PM Richard Miles came out and said that Labour
Speaker 3: didn't want to inflict a divisive debate on the LGBCHIQA
Speaker 3: plus community that could.
Speaker 2: Be harmful, Which was a.
Speaker 3: Very strange and kind of paternalistic argument to make, given
Speaker 3: that you know, we're a community that have been explicitly
Speaker 3: asking to be counted in the census and to be
Speaker 3: given the right to be counted and to participate in
Speaker 3: society in that way. That leads us on to Friday,
Speaker 3: the thirtieth of August, which just happened to be where
Speaker 3: at Purple Day, which is really lovely and your LGBCHIQ
Speaker 3: Awareness Day, especially for young people.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: That day I was hosting a very kind of like
Speaker 3: wholesome and lovely trans storytelling event at my local library.
Speaker 5: The Prime Minister has confirmed a back down on the
Speaker 5: controversy surrounding the census.
Speaker 3: That day, Prime Minister Albanesi phoned into ABC Radio Melbourne
Speaker 3: and talked to a journalist to say that Labour Now
Speaker 3: would be supporting a single question around sexual orientation.
Speaker 8: Well, we've been talking with the Australian Bureaus Statistics and
Speaker 8: they're going to test for a new question, one question
Speaker 8: about sexuality sexual preference.
Speaker 3: But not around the more substantive package of questions that
Speaker 3: the ABS was working on testing.
Speaker 8: Sorry Prime Minister too, in there will be a sexuality preference,
Speaker 8: sexuality or sexual preference question in the senses. Yes, their
Speaker 8: will as long as the testing goes okay and a
Speaker 8: question can be developed in a way that is sensitive
Speaker 8: and that gets the information that is required and the
Speaker 8: ABS will be there.
Speaker 3: So there was a confusing response from the Prime Minister
Speaker 3: and it left us feeling quite unclear with transigenitiverse people
Speaker 3: and non binary people and intersex people would have their
Speaker 3: correct information recorded or not. It seemed like maybe Anthi
Speaker 3: Albinsi was trying to kind of carve off sexual orientation
Speaker 3: from the perhaps more thorny debate around gender identity. But
Speaker 3: you know, for me, as a trans person, it felt
Speaker 3: like an even more targeted insult directed at us in
Speaker 3: our community by saying, Okay, we'll accept that we can
Speaker 3: ask about sexual orientation, but we don't want to ask
Speaker 3: anything too weird or whatever, by asking about, you know,
Speaker 3: people's experience as transgender people in this country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think so a lot of people when
Speaker 1: they look at this census debate, they see some pretty
Speaker 1: messy politics. But when you look at it, especially in
Speaker 1: the context of the findings from this inquest, what is
Speaker 1: at stake here Sam, beyond the idea of being counted?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know the reason that the census is important, right,
Speaker 3: is because, well, having a precise measurement of our community
Speaker 3: would you know, help us understand what services we need
Speaker 3: and where they should be, you know, particularly whether they
Speaker 3: should be in inner cities or regional of rural Australia.
Speaker 3: It would help people be able to actually kind of
Speaker 3: target like mental health campaigns on different parts of the community.
Speaker 3: If we don't know where you know, transigenitiverse people live,
Speaker 3: or what they do or who they're living with, it's
Speaker 3: pretty difficult for organizations who do really important kind of
Speaker 3: mental health support work like Switchboard and q life. You know,
Speaker 3: they need an evidence base to be able to make
Speaker 3: an argument to government that they need financial support to
Speaker 3: meet our mental health and emotional health needs. And without
Speaker 3: that data, you know, we're just relying on kind of
Speaker 3: anecdotal information. And we know anecdotally that the lgbt IQA
Speaker 3: plus community and the transigenditiverse community in particular, is really struggling.
Speaker 3: Like we're a community that is under employed, is more
Speaker 3: likely to be homeless, is more likely to have severed
Speaker 3: tops with family, or have really sort of complex relationships
Speaker 3: with our family of origin. Like we're generally not going
Speaker 3: super well as a community, you know, and we really
Speaker 3: need support and we want that support from our government.
Speaker 3: It's incredibly ironic that this long awaited coroners' findings came
Speaker 3: out explicitly discussing the need for better population level data.
Speaker 3: You know that that came out at the same time
Speaker 3: as the Albanesi government was saying that they didn't.
Speaker 2: Want to ask these questions.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's been an absolutely wild week and seems
Speaker 3: like Labor has really created a massive owned goal for
Speaker 3: itself by creating a national debate around transgender, diverse and
Speaker 3: intersex rights, which is you know, the very thing that
Speaker 3: they said they wanted to avoid.
Speaker 2: This issue is not going to go away.
Speaker 3: This is going to become a real pressure point for
Speaker 3: the Albanesi government if they don't change their.
Speaker 2: Perspective on this.
Speaker 1: Well, Sam, thank you so much for talking to me.
Speaker 2: Oh, absolute pleasure. Thanks.
Speaker 1: The support organizations mentioned today were q Life, which you
Speaker 1: can call from three pm to midnight on one eight
Speaker 1: hundred one eight four five two seven, or Switchboard, which
Speaker 1: provides peer support for the Victorian LGBTIQA plus community. Also
Speaker 1: in the news today, Senator Linda Reynolds harassed Britney Higgins
Speaker 1: by engaging with the lawyer representing miss Higgins rapist, a
Speaker 1: court has heard in closing submissions in Senator reynolds defamation case.
Speaker 1: Lawyer Rachel Young sc also pointed to the Senator's leaking
Speaker 1: of information to the Australian columnist Janet Albertson as evidence
Speaker 1: of the senator's harassment of Miss Higgins. But despite the
Speaker 1: alleged harassment, Miss Young said Britney Higgins had a profound
Speaker 1: and lasting impact on the way in which gendered violence
Speaker 1: and safety issues are addressed in Australian workplaces. And a
Speaker 1: woman has been hospitalized after being bitten by a tiger
Speaker 1: at Dreamworld. The forty seven year old animal handler was
Speaker 1: taken to Gold Coast University Hospital after serious lacerations and
Speaker 1: puncture wounds to her arm and shoulder. Dreamworld hosts tiger
Speaker 1: presentations where guests are invited to be mesmerized by tigers
Speaker 1: as they glide underwater. Dreamworld has said that attacks are
Speaker 1: rare and their focus now is supporting the woman who
Speaker 1: was attacked. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am THEA
Speaker 1: tomorrow