A new joint study has revealed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on LGBTQ+ people in Australia and their mental health, as well as rates of family and domestic violence and economic situations.

LGBTIQ+ Health Australia welcomes the release of the Federal Government’s National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 2022-2032 and has called on governments across Australia to fund LGBTIQ+ community-controlled services to implement its recommendations.

Rates of family, domestic and sexual violence in LGBTIQ+ relationships are as high or higher than for the broader Australian population, but the lack of hard data means LGBTIQ+ people risk being forgotten in policy, planning, funding and new projects. 

The Ageing Fabulously podcast is a new education resource for the aged care sector from LGBTIQ+ Health Australia’s Silver Rainbow program, giving aged care workers easy access to the issues important to older lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people accessing residential and home-based aged care services.

LGBTIQ+ Health Australia (LHA) welcomes the introduction of legislation making 10 days of paid domestic and family violence leave available to all employees and calls for further action to ensure lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans/transgender, intersex, queer and other sexuality and gender, and bodily diverse people (LGBTIQ+) people are included.

As the first round of data from the 2021 Census is analysed for essential insight into the Australian population, we remain in the dark about lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse, intersex, queer and other sexuality and bodily diverse (LGBTIQ+) Australians.

On 5 May the National LGBTIQ+ Election Forum was held at the Melbourne Pride Centre and online. The Forum was co-hosted by LHA, Equality Australia, the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations (AFAO) and Intersex Human Rights Australia, and brought together Greens Senator Janet Rice, Labor Senator Penny Wong and Senator Andrew Bragg of the Liberal Party to answer questions from LGBTIQ+ people and community organisations. They were given an opportunity to pitch what their parties would do for LGBTIQ+ people should they win government.

Peak organisation LGBTIQ+ Health Australia (LHA) is calling urgently for care in the media following ongoing conversations about trans women in sport.

With a federal election due to be called, LGBTIQ+ Health Australia is calling on all parties and independent candidates to commit to nine priorities to improve the health and wellbeing of LGBTIQ+ people and communities.

LGBTIQ+ Health Australia is calling on Australian universities to prioritise the safety of LGBTIQ+ students after findings from the National Student Safety Survey showed LGBTQ+ students were more likely to experience sexual harassment and sexual assault in university contexts.