MCV
By
13/06/2007 3:51:44 PM

At Hanover Welfare Services, Chief Executive Tony Keenan justifies his stance by saying, "We have transsexual clients for a number of our services and we've long had a proud history of that. But at this stage, we have some women who have suffered violently at the hands of men, so we need an exemption on a small scale."

Keenan's words imply that this woman is a man, and links her display of nudity to violence against women at the hands of men.

The problem is exhibitionism not that they are a transsexual. The person in question is pre-op and walks around the center in the nude from what I have heard. It's pure stupidity and this one idiot is going to cost the rest of the TS community the support of this organization.

This is a tragedy.  I'm not sure that I can blame the administrators.  This is a distraction that they prefer not to deal with.  Indeed, this one person is destroying it for so many others. What an idiot.

Cindi

Agreed. When I first went FT I got to hear about some horror stories about some other transsexuals that a coworker or someone they know had to deal with at some point in time. While this makes it easy for me to impress them with how I act, etc it does make it difficult for the community at large.

Quote from: Cindi Jones on June 13, 2007, 11:07:15 AM
This is a tragedy.  I'm not sure that I can blame the administrators.  This is a distraction that they prefer not to deal with.  Indeed, this one person is destroying it for so many others. What an idiot.

Cindi

I'm sorry but I can blame the administrators. Why didn't they deal with that one person who they felt threatened them? Sadly, one bad experience can ruin it for the other 99, but it's no excuse to bar the other 99 for the one bad one. It's pure and simple discrimination out of fear of the many they have little experience with to make that rule. Other ts' aren't the problem, the one and the clinic are the problem. What happens when another ts is denied help out of fear of what? And if the next one is post-op and the discover her "secret"? Do they refuse to keep her or provide help? If they can discriminate on the one case, without identifying the person was actually threatening (why not just ask them to cover it up?), what else can they say is threatening, size, features, what?

Sorry, I'm reading Julia Serano's book and it only makes me angry all over about the status of the world about us. We're not the problem, their ignorance is.

--Susan--

I think that another problem here was that, after they made the complaint, the government actually gave them an exemption under the anti-discrimination act to bar any transgender person from accessing the service, therefore giving them a completely legal basis to discriminate against any transgender person, whether they be in desperate need of help or not.

The article makes a good point about the Peel Hotel - a gay club in Melbourne that recently sought and gained an exemption under the anti-discrimination act to be able to bar non gay male people from entering their premises. It gained a lot of media attention, was in the news for about a week, the owners of the hotel recieved death threats, comedians were doing bits on their TV shows about trying to get the bouncers to let them into the club by trying to look as "gay" as possible, the whole deal.  And this case didn't even get a mention.

Which just seems absolutely ridiculous to me - so much uproar about people being barred from a pub, when there was nothing said about potentially desperate women being barred from a service that could mean life or death for them. And I find it just plain offensive that the government gave the green light to let it happen when they could have just said, "You've only had ONE transgender person causing trouble - and you want to ban all transgender people from your service? Just deal with this case seperately". I can guarantee that this is what they would have said if the issue was with a lesbian woman, or a woman of a particular age or cultural background, pretty much anything that is covered by our anti-discrimination laws except for transgender status.

We have anti-discrimination laws for a reason. I find the idea that the government can just decide that they don't apply in a case like this, where as a result they are potentially putting other transgender people into danger in the future, on the back of one isolated incident that really didn't require any action of this sort, to be utterly disgusting.

Megan

So, how do we make enough noise so that it DOES get noticed, and in a way that will help our cause?  Or will we have to wait for that case that could have been admitted but turned away who was then subsequently died or was killed -- all because they were denied admittance and care because of what they were, not who they were?

Karen

Quote from:  Hanover Welfare Services WebsiteHanover's mission is to empower people who are homeless or at imminent risk of homelessness, to enable them to take greater control over their lives and to stimulate and encourage change in Australian society to benefit them. This is achieved by delivering services, conducting research and by advocacy.

Except of course, if you happen to be transgender .

This has me more than a little peeved, to tell you the truth. Next time I have a little spare time I should put together an email or two and let my opinion on the matter to be known, both to Hanover and to the Victorian government.

Megan