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The HandMirror has a post on what's next now that same-sex marriage is out of the way

LudditeJourno starts her post with this:
So now we’re beyond Marriage Equality, what next? The indicators of homophobia, biphobia and transphobia are still all around us. Who gets bullied at school? Who disproportionately wrestles with mental health issues, depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide? Who has hate graffiti on their walls? Who is targeted for violence on the streets, in their workplaces, from their families? Who is not able to look at any media, anytime, and see someone who looks a bit like them, wrestling with some of the things they think about?

That last bit is about heteronormativity, for when we look at the media, most of the time it shows heterosexual relationships. 

Then the post goes quite a bit into personal experience, some of which is to do with kids being kicked out of home when their parents discover their homosexuality, or more to the point, just whom their son or daughter loves. That's awful, in my opinion to turf a child out of the home for inappropriate relationships, unless those relationships are physically dangerous to the family. Far better to keep them close, than to just abandon them that way.

After explaining a number of problems that same-sex attracted persons have, she then continues:

That’s the beyond marriage equality I’m interested in talking about. Moving now into educating our communities. Gathering information – like say, by using the census – about the kinds of experiences queer and trans* people have based on our sexuality and gender identity. Gathering information about victimisation – like say, by recording sexuality and gender diversity – in crime stats about street violence. Expanding the Human Rights Act to protect trans* folk from cis-gender based discrimination.

A good starting point would be a national queer and trans* resource centre, funded to identify exactly what beyond marriage equality might mean. Able to develop queer and trans* specific materials for schools and our national curriculum. Able to work with the Human Rights Commission to ensure experiences of queer and trans* discrimination are named, understood, responded to appropriately. Able to intervene in social institutions which are responding to queer and trans* people – New Zealand Police, mental health systems, healthcare more broadly – and ensure processes are transparent and well-equipped. Able to develop completely new resources – emergency housing for young queer and trans* people who need somewhere safe to stay; social work and prevention resources around suicide and self-harm, intimate partner and sexual violence which are specific to the queer community.

The bit about creating materials for schools and the national curriculum is very worrying. So is the bit about the Human Rights Commission, which right now is helping in the prosecution of the Sensible Sentencing Trust for naming a paedophile, because he wasn't named in the media back when he was prosecuted, so he must have had name suppression.  With logic like that, who would trust them to be impartial and fair with regards to responding appropriately to discrimination?  Not me.

Related link: Going to the chapel to educate the congregation ~ The HandMirror

Comments

  1. The so-called marriage "equality" bill was ALL about normalizing homosexuality. Gays already had a legal contract in civil unions and gained nothing from the marriage bill except normalcy and some adoption abilities. The fact that the adoption issue was carefully avoided merely highlights the REAL purpose of the bill - making gay relationships indistinguishable from straight relationships in the eyes of the state.

    As Ludditejourno reveals, now the state has bought into normalcy, we can expect gays to harness the power of the state to indoctrinate the population, and particularly the children, with the idea that gay relationships are no different to straight ones. This is, of course, a lie.

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  2. Oh FFS do these people ever shut up... 'Educating our Communities' ..... 'Gathering Information' ..... Named, understood, responded to 'appropriately' .....

    smells disturbingly like Fascism to me!

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  3. The bit about the HRC is important.

    Why, when the office is blatantly abusing it's position is the government so disinterested in acting? This is not the first one either.

    http://halfdone.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/a-disturbing-case/

    ReplyDelete

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