Transgender Day of Visibility was an occasion to celebrate the “awesomeness” of regional Victoria’s diverse community, an audience of local young people and their parents were told yesterday.
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Transgender Victoria executive director Sally Goldner shared her life story with attendees at a headspace Bendigo event held to mark the occasion, detailing her difficult teenage years at an all boys’ school and her social and medical transition into womanhood.
She said areas outside of Melbourne were becoming more accepting places for people who did not identify as cisgendered.
“It’s good we can come here to give people another port of connection,” the former Victorian LGBTI person of the year, 51, said during her visit.
“The more we connect with each other, the easier it is for everyone.”
Headspace Bendigo used the event to unveil an artwork created by its youth diversity group members.
As many as 14 LGBTI young people and allies meet weekly at the youth mental health hub on Pall Mall, and they spent the last two months preparing a canvas to hang inside the Bendigo library.
Seventeen-year-old Rae painted a unicorn on the collaborative artwork, a creature they said encapsulated the meaning of diversity.
“Initially it was just something to contribute, but as the project went on I realised diversity really is magical,” they said.
“Just from an outwards appearance you can't really tell if a person is different – you don't know them, you don't know their story.”
It was the first time they marked the day of visibility and said it was an opportunity to look back on “the long process to accept” themselves.
“Finally being able to celebrate that is massive for me, it’s special because this will be part of helping other people accept it.”
Ms Goldner thanked the young transgender people’s community involvement, including the artwork, for healing older members of their community.
“Now people can get on with their lives and get on with being awesome,” the self-described “binary buster” said.
The day was also an opportunity to remember the challenges that confront the gender diverse community.
On the eve of the commemoration, two transgender members of the Bendigo shared their experiences of abuse and fears their gender identity would make them targets of violence.
One in two transgender people have attempted to take their own life, while as many as four in five have contemplated suicide.
Their community also reports higher rates of physical and sexual violence than in the general public.