Hundreds of people marched through the streets of Northbridge on Sunday afternoon calling for greater support for people who are transgender and gender diverse.
While the streets were quiet in weekend Perth, the sound of the crowd brought people out of the bars, burger joints and shops to hear the loud message being delivered.
The march followed a series of speeches, poetry readings and impassioned pleas marking Transgender Day of Visibility, which will see events across the country as part of a National Day of Action.
The march worked its way from the Northbridge Piazza down James Street, up Williams Street, across Francis Street, and back down Lake Street with the crowd delivering a variety of chants calling for better healthcare and further reform of gender recognition laws.
The event was organised by Queer Liberation Boorloo and was one of ten rallies taking place across Australia.
Trans Day of Visibility, which is marked on 31st March each year, was created in 2009 by activist Rachel Crandall Crocker from Michigan. She saw the need to create a moment that celebrated people who are transgender and highlighted their achievements.
Each November Transgender Day of Remembrance shines a spotlight on the high number of transgender people who are the victims of murder, Crandall Crocker called for a day that had a positive spin.
Danica Scott from the Socialist Alternative delivered a passionate speech warning that dark clouds were circling for the transgender community.
“The truth is, there are storm clouds on the horizon. It’s just started to rain in Queensland, where hormone replacement therapy for under 18 has been banned.
“It’s raining in the UK, where the same thing has happened across the whole country. It’s pouring in Hungary, where Pride marches have just been banned after 30 years, and there’s a massive thunderstorm in the US right now, where more than 500 unique bills are going through state legislations right now.
“Then, of course, there’s Trump, the elephants in the room, the monster in the room, I should say. On the first day of his presidency, he made no waste of time in signing an executive order declaring there are only two genders and an end to gender ideology, as he calls it.” Scott said.
The activist noted that LGBTIQA+ rights had only ever been achieved through protests and campaigning, citing the Stonewall riots, the 1978 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras march, and the long campaign for marriage equality in Australia.
“What lesson can we take from that? I think it is this. It is that when there is a storm rolling in, when things are coming under attack, we cannot just cross our fingers and hope that someone else will protect us.
“No, I think the lesson from that is that no one will save us but ourselves. And what I mean by that when I say us and ourselves, I do not just mean the trans people. I do not just mean gay people. I mean everyone who stands on the side of the oppressed and against oppression and against bigotry and against the far right, against Trump, against Dutton, against Elon Musk.”
“We’re gonna weather this storm and see a brighter day on the other side.” Scott said in a rallying cry to the audience. “It’s not going to happen automatically. We have to fight for it, and that’s the way. That’s the thing that we have to take away from today. We cannot just passively sit by and just bury our heads in the sand. We have to fight if we want to win.”
Poet Phoenix delivered a spoken word work which reflected on their own family and the process of coming out as transgender.
Kitty Hemsley. who will be standing for The Greens for the seat of Curtin at the federal election shared their experience with the crowd.
“I wasn’t born Kitty.” they said. “My birth name didn’t fit me, so I changed it. I found one that felt right.”
The speech pathologist spoke about the need for accessible and appropriate health care for all Australians.
“I am a healthcare worker, so I tend to see everything through a healthcare lens, forgive me, but let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about what healthcare really means. Healthcare means access to healthcare services regardless of gender, sex or sexuality, because healthcare is a human right.
“Healthcare means access to gender affirming care through Medicare, it means being able to access gender affirming care without a two year wait list and multiple doctors notes.” Hemsley said.
“We have been fighting this fight for too long. We have been waiting for our government to step up and actually do something to help our community. We have waited for years for equal access to surrogacy, for a ban on harmful conversion practices. We want our government to protect and expand gender affirming care, including getting it into Medicare.”
Sam Gibbings, the CEO of Transfolk WA shared her personal experience of coming out as transgender.
“Growing up, I never saw people like me. I never had a language to understand my own feelings. Never saw reflections of my experiences in the world around me. I cannot express what it would have meant to me as a child, questioning as a teenager, struggling, to have just one visible trans person in my life.” Gibbings said highlighting the power of visibility.
“Visibility is both our challenge and our strength. For many of us, simply being visible walking through the world as our authentic selves requires an immense amount of courage.
“Each person here has faced the question, what does it mean to be seen? What are the costs? What are the rewards? The truth is that for our community, visibility can be dangerous.
“We live in a time where our very existence is debated in parliaments, in the media, in classrooms, as if our humanity was something that could be voted on or legislated away. With such a small community, there is such an overwhelming spotlight on us, often harsh us when we are at our most vulnerable, but visibility is our power.
“When we are seen, we cannot be erased. When we speak our truths. We cannot be silenced. When we stand together, we cannot be divided.” Gibbings said.
Stacie Mĕi Laccohee-Duffield from Queer and Diverse Pathways spoke about how research has shown that many people who are transgender are more likely to experience suicide ideation, and community connection is essential.
Laccohee-Duffield also spoke about how she saw herself, noting that she’s a mother, a member of the Spectre’s basketball team, and a sports fan.
“One of the things that people always identify me as is a trans woman, and I always go, ‘That’s your word for me’, and I know there’s a different way that we identify within the community, but I’ve always just been a woman, and I fight every day to just to be valid and respected as that journey and having to prove myself every day to different people in different ways, and that’s tiring and exhausting, and I just would like to see a world where we could come together and just accept each other.” she shared.
Sadie Ward spoke about the challenges many transgender people face in the realm of housing and accommodation.
Joni Boyd, presenter of RTRFM’s Burn the Airwaves punk music show, also shared a poem that captured her experience as a person who is transgender and the other trans sisters she sees in the community and the media.
Update: 1-04-2025 06:11 An earlier version of this article incorrectly attributed Danica Scott as being a member of the Socialist Alliance, rather than the Socialist Alternative. OUTinPerth apologises for the error.
