A pink elephant in the room
Let’s start by listing the advantages of discrimination. What? There aren’t any, I hear you say.
Spot on. So how come we have put up with it for so long in our own backyard? It’s time to tackle the pink elephant in the room: the sexism, transphobia, biphobia, racism and other prejudices that exist under the rainbow.
Take the word prejudice: pre-judge. One of the forms of prejudice that exists is people speaking for other groups without having consulted first. That’s certainly pre-judging. I fail to grasp how it so difficult to come and ask someone for their viewpoint, yet failure to do this happens too often and leads to some of the pre-judging and inaccurate information about various groups that happens.
One form of pink-elephant prejudice, disguised as total progress, can exist in some (self-proclaimed) BGILT organisations. One is (hypothetically) “we’ve got one transgender project.” That can be interpreted as saying is that trans people are only good for trans issues, they have no other skills e.g. strategy, finance and have no empathy for gay or lesbian issues. Is that inclusive? Could it even be pathologising or patronizing – let’s put trans in a corner because they are a bit too different?
Granted some progress has been made on this issue and younger people seem more inclined to support diversity and equality. However, there’s a comparison here to queer seniors not wanting to disclose their relationship to Centrelink because of long-suffering discrimination: bi, trans and others have experienced much discrimination at the hands of some (not all) gays and lesbians and this causes great distress. Progress here would help heal these wounds.
In particular, from the lobby’s viewpoint, when we work together, we all progress further and faster. We now believe to ignore the big, loudly-trumpeting, pink elephant is impossible: it is a bottleneck limiting our community’s ability to make progress.
We call on community leaders to unconditionally condemn prejudice under the rainbow, work to end it and work to total equality. Rainbow organisations need to ask whether they have a culture that “walks the talk” re diversity and not merely say “we’ve got something in our policy manual.” Ask what your organisation specifically does to ensure this. VEOHRC can assist if in doubt.
Now, let’s list the advantages of diversity and equality…
Sally Goldner is VGLRL Treasurer & TransGender Victoria spokesperson.
