GENDERQUEER THE NEW FRONTIER
July 24 2012
Rachel Cook

Genderqueer Australia is for people who don't subscribe to conventional gender definitions. They are an organisation who are exploring and questioning the boundaries of current gender identities and the infinite possibilities of what gender could actually mean. Rachel Cook spoke to Lisa Sinclair from Genderqueer Australia about what it is to be genderqueer.

"Genderqueer is anyone who doesn't identify as strictly male or strictly female," Sinclair says. "They feel they are between or something else entirely, it's very gender diverse."

Genderqueer Australia (formally Melbourne Genderqueer) began in December 2010. It formed out of the realisation that there was no support network available for people who not only don't identify as male or female, but who also felt separate from transgender groups.

Sinclair says some people hold strict views about what being transgender actual means. For them the journey from one gender to another is the goal, and those genders only exist within the binary of male and female, masculine and feminine.

"There are individuals in the community who have a very black and white idea of what trans actually is," Sinclair says.
....
"We are welcoming to everyone, it's not just genderqueer and gender questioning people, we get all sorts of people along to our meet ups, female to male, transwomen, cross dressers,  and that is the nice thing about the genderqueer moniker, it seems to be more inclusive."
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For more information:
http://www.genderqueer.org.au/

I'm glad that groups like this are springing up - I'm sure they're invaluable to people who identify as GQ.

That said, for me, the interview reinforces my view that there is a fundamental difference between those born with gender incongruence and those that identify as gender queer, etc.

I am not advocating that either group is better or worse or more or less legitimate than the other I'm simply arguing that, from my point of view, they are fundamentally different and thus require different support and treatment.

I believe that those with gender incongruence and with resulting gender dysphoria have far more in common with those who are inter-sexed than those who identify as with the LGBQ part of LGBTQI.

Again, it is not my intention to denigrate anyone who indentifies as LGBQ (I myself identify as bisexual and many people here that have treated their gender dysphoria identify as LGBQ), my intention is to argue the distinction between gender incongruence &  intersexuality and the rest of the traditionally conceived LGBTQI spectrum of which someone can identify with either or both but are fundamentally different.