This piece was published at the Green Magazine as part of a debate with Joel Dignam, 5 March 2015.
JUST ONE STEP IN A LONG ROAD
By Simon Copland
Marriage equality campaigns have gained huge support, and while you’d be forgiven for thinking the issue is the ‘final frontier’ of legal discrimination against LGBTIQ people, the reality is that trans*, gay, lesbian, bi, intersex, asexual and queer people face a range of different and varied forms of discrimination every day that have nothing to do with whether they’re single, partnered, married or widowed.
LGBTIQ people continue to face discrimination in all aspects of life. For example, young queer people in particular face ongoing pressure and discrimination, with the group facing significant mental health problems. This is particularly true for trans* people, who face workplace discrimination (leading to higher unemployment rates than the rest of society), violence on the streets and in turn extremely high suicide rates. Meanwhile, a recent Senate Inquiry has exposed that intersex people still face unnecessary and forced medical treatments, with doctors pursuing treatments to ‘correct’ their gender. The advocacy group, Organisation Intersex International told the committee that every single one of its members had experienced some form of coerced medical intervention. Finally religious groups are able to discriminate against LGBTIQ people, denying people the rights to jobs and students the right to enter their schools. Recent experience has also found Government funded school chaplains preaching highly homophobic material at schools.
It seems rather obvious to me that the stories of the trans* person who is bashed on the street, or the intersex person who has faced forced sterilisation, or the young gay or lesbian person who is considering suicide are just as important as the stories of those lesbian and gay people who are able to form stable enough relationships in order for them to get married.
Yet these stories have taken a backseat as the marriage equality campaign appeals to mainstream society — and theoretically conservative politicians — in a way that ‘less palatable’ bodies and stories don’t. It’s been a frustrating situation for campaigners for teen mental health improvements and deeper awareness of non-traditional gender identities and relationship configurations.
It is true that marriage has become an extremely important symbol and its passage would be seen by many as a significant milestone in indicating the willingness of the state to treat gay and lesbian people equally. Yet, unfortunately it is little more than a symbol. In Australia marriage equality actually has few practical impacts. State-based de-facto legislation gives same-sex couples practically all of the same rights as their married straight counterparts.
So you’d have to hope that when marriage is passed, we could turn together as a movement to creating real life changes for LGBTIQ people.
Unfortunately evidence suggests achieving this symbolic gain does not automatically mean progress in other areas. In the United States for example same-sex couples can now marry in 37 states, with national equality due any time soon. Despite this, discrimination against LGBTIQ people is still rampant. Trans* people still face discrimination and violence, queer kids are still committing suicide, and conservative Governments are still moving to discriminate in any way they can. The same can be found all around the world.
How do we avoid the same challenges? We know that the only thing that will result in real progress for LGBTIQ people are concerted campaigns on these issues — ones that open up a more progressive debate about gender and sexuality rather than trying to confine us to being “normal”.
For one thing, we need to shift a chunk of our energy and resources into these issues — committing strategy and planning now and ensuring we work heavily on these campaigns if and when marriage equality passes. Queer people continue to die on our streets and we simply cannot ignore that any longer.
There are areas where the marriage equality campaign can provide the important momentum we need for these issues. Marriage equality campaigns have built a lot of goodwill in recent years and we need to capitalise on that for future success. Yet at the same time we need to look at our messaging around marriage to see how it impacts the broader LGTBIQ community. Campaigners have unfortunately been accused at times of pushing other issues under the bus in order to succeed on this one front. Short-term success is sometimes put ahead of long-term gain. This needs to change, with us in particular looking at marriage as part of a broader campaign for LGBTIQ rights — one that requires a strong progressive debate about sexuality and gender identification.
Marriage has become an extremely important issue for LGBTIQ people. Yet it is just one step on a very very very long road. We should be thinking a lot more about the other issues facing our community — issues that cannot be ignored any longer.