In Sex, Gender & Identity, Professor Paula Gerber calls upon all Australians to stand against hatred fuelled by harmful national and international narratives towards the trans community, and foster respect, equality and safety for all.
These days, barely a week goes by without pointed media stories about the trans community, usually targeting trans women.
They are likely to have a sensationalist headline and a salacious tone, and the writing is often ill-informed and vilifying.
Favoured topics include women in sports, bathrooms, where prisoners are housed, and health care for trans and gender-diverse children and young people.
What tends not to be reported is the abuse, assaults and online hate that have become a daily experience for trans women, and the bullying that trans kids experience in schools.
Some of this is due to the ripple effects of the animosity spewed out by the so-called ‘leader of the free world’. From the early days of his campaign for a second term as US president, Donald Trump had the trans community in his sights, and he now seems intent on denying their very existence. But a broader dynamic seems to be a deep-seated intolerance, if not loathing, of trans people.
Why are trans people so hated? Why has this very small minority (estimated to be approximately 2%) become contemporary ‘villains’ and the target of so much prejudice and bigotry? And most importantly, how do we change this? Is it possible to move from blaming, shaming and excluding trans people to respecting, protecting and including them?
These questions are at the heart of Sex, Gender & Identity: Trans Rights in Australia, alongside the goal of increasing community-wide understanding of this much maligned minority.
Paula Gerber combines a sharp legal intellect with passionate advocacy to fight for the dismantling of discriminatory systems around the globe. She is a law professor at Monash University, and an internationally renowned expert on human rights law and LGBTQIA+ people.
Paula has written and edited numerous books and articles on human rights issues, and she is regularly featured in the Australian media, including on ABC television and radio, and on The Conversation. She has also developed the website: Countries that still criminalise homosexuality – basically the Google Maps of global LGBTQIA+ legal landscapes.
Paula is the Chair of Kaleidoscope Human Rights Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation that advocates for better protection of the rights of LGBTQIA+ people in the Asia-Pacific region, where many countries continue to persecute trans and gender-diverse people and criminalise same-sex sexual conduct.
Sex, Gender & Identity: Trans Rights In Australia is published by Monash University Publishing.
Image: Sex, Gender & Identity: Trans Rights In Australia – courtesy of Monash University Publishing