10am, Wed 23 June 2021. 

Feeling Safe Finding Safety – Conversations around being LGBTIQ+, seeking asylum and how we can ensure people are safe and feel safe. We will be talking with experts on how we can provide the best kind of support for LGBTIQ+ people who have been forcibly displaced. Our conversations are about sharing stories on challenges and successes in service provision and looking forward, how can we do better?

RSVP below. 

Speakers:

Tina Dixson (she/her) Co-founder Forcibly Displaced People Network

Tina has dedicated her career to working on the issues of gender and sexuality being driven by her lived experience of being a proud queer refugee woman as well as her academic and professional policy expertise in these areas. She is the co-founder of the Forcibly Displaced People Network (FDPN), the only registered LGBTIQ+ refugee-led organisation in Australia and a co-convenor Queer Displacements: Sexuality, Migration and Exile conference, the first Australian conference dedicared to LGBTIQ+ displacement. 

Heathergrace Jones (she/her) LGBTIQA+ STARTTS Representative

Heathergrace Jones works in gender equity and social inclusion . She currently job-shares the position of LGBTIQA+ project officer in STARTTS. For the previous decade Heathergrace has worked in Australia, Afghanistan, Indonesia and Pakistan on social justice issues with a focus on media development, participatory action research,and women’s rights.

Pola (she/her) LGBTIQA+ Project Representative STARTTS NSW
A Pacific Islander Transgender woman of colour, Pola has been in Australia for 4 years and is currently seeking asylum. She is a co-trainer at STARTTS for their LGBTIQA+ program and does ongoing work in the project.

Jope (aka Jay) (they/them) LGBTIQA+ Activist, Representative of STARTTS NSW
Jope, who often goes by Jay, is an LGBTIQA activist living in Australia seeking asylum. They want to be a loud voice for the LGBTIQA community and have been building on their activism over the past few years. Their favourite saying is “nothing about us, without us”.

Moderated by Elinor Wilcken (she/her) – Project coordinator at LGBTIQ+ Health Australia
Elinor has worked in community engagement, social justice and community programs coordination for the last decade in Sydney, regional Australia, Tanzania and Kenya. Previously working for 3 years in Refugee settlement strategy and impact and community engagement at Settlement Services International, Elinor now works in project coordination at LGBTIQ+ Health Australia.

Webinar: Feeling Safe, Finding Safety

LGBTIQ+ Health Australia Members' Network Meeting 

WED 7 JULY 2021, 2.00PM – 3.30PM (AEDT)

We have set up the MNM as an opportunity to regularly meet with senior program staff in our member organisations - member organisations include:

The Members Network Meeting (MNM) is a meeting of senior managers, program / project managers (at the discretion of organisation) and LGBTIQ+ Health Australia (LHA) Managers to gather and collaborate on joint action on key topics brought to the meeting.

The Terms of Reference outline the working arrangements for the MNM including its purpose, chair and membership, meeting schedule, level of administrative support and agenda.

GUEST SPEAKER: 

Sav Zwickl, PhD Student La Trobe University and Trans Health Research Group University of Melbourne

NON-BINARY INCLUSION IN THE LGBTIQA+ COMMUNITY: (UN)INTELLIGABILITY, (IN)VALIDATION AND MENTAL HEALTH

Background:
Non-binary people (those who have a gender identity that is not exclusively male or female) frequently encounter social unintelligibility and invalidation of their gender, including within LGBTIQA+ the community.

Methods:
Through in-depth interviews with 33 non-binary people and engagement with activist and research literature, this project aimed to explore how a lack of non-binary recognition and affirmation impacts the non-binary community.

Results:
Non-binary people are diverse in the language they use to make sense of self, their gender expression, and their relationship with their bodies, but share a desire to be seen by others in the same way they see themselves. They often struggle, however, to find understanding and affirmation in wider society and within the LGBTIQA+ community.

As will be shown through participant narratives, the predominance of binary gendered spaces and binary notions of gender in the LGBTIQA+ community present barriers to non-binary inclusion and feelings of safety and belonging. Non-binary people frequently experience unintelligibility and lateral discrimination, including invalidation of their gender and misgendering. These experiences have a detrimental impact on mental health.

Conclusion:
LGBTIQA+ organisations, events and communities need to prioritise education around non-binary identities and experiences and improve non-binary representation and inclusion. This will make for safer and more inclusive spaces for non-binary people, which in turn is likely to improve mental health.

We hope you're able to join us, or please invite an alternative representative.

1. Download Agenda
2. Download the Terms of Reference