Banning conversion therapy top priority for LGBTI Australians
A new survey of LGBTI Australians has found that the top political priority for LGBTI Australians is achieving a ban on conversion therapy.
The survey, initiated by Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and just.equal, received over 2,500 responses.
Other major priorities included increasing funding to make school safer for LGBTI students, a national suicide and mental health strategy, and better protections for LGBTI refugees.
“We will be taking the priorities from this survey to all candidates and parties at the next election seeking their commitment to real change for LGBTIQ+ Australians,” said just.equal spokesperson Rodney Croome.
“The fact LGBTIQ+ people have themselves selected these priorities give us the strongest mandate possible for the election commitments we will seek.
“Just.equal and PFLAG have a commitment to going to the LGBTIQ+ community when important decisions need to be made, and basing our law and policy reform agenda on what LGBTIQ+ Australians tell us.”
Among trans and gender diverse respondents, the highest priorities were Medicare funding for transition and gender confirmation, as well as legal protection against unnecessary medical procedures for intersex people.
On the topic of LGBTI representation, the most common response was for organisations to guarantee the voice of intersectional minorities – including trans and intersex people, Indigenous Australians, culturally and linguistically diverse communities, and LGBTI people in rural areas – so as not to be overridden by larger interest groups.
A notable priority likely to remain relevant heading into the next election discussed anti-discrimination reforms for publicly-funded faith organisations, indicating a wide support for removing “current exemptions in national discrimination law that allow discrimination against LGBTIQ+ people, for example, by faith-based schools, hospitals, and charities.”
In addition to a suicide and mental health strategy, a high proportion of respondents indicated that government strategies addressing LGBTI homelessness and LGBTI youth be made a priority.
Respondents over the age of 60, accounting for roughly 12 per cent of respondents, listed ‘aged care’ as their second-highest concern.
The survey results come in the wake of a which revealed fascinating information about the demographics of young LGBTI Australians.
While a report last week revealed startling statistics about , they are not mentioned as a high priority in any area in the just.equal survey findings.
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Already banned in Victoria for a couple of years now and soon a bill will be introduced to ban it within the ACT as well! Conversion therapy is an archaic form of abuse of children, that is still openly practiced by religious zealots on vulnerable LGBTIQ+ minors – to force them to become straight or heterosexual. 15 states and 50 cities within the USA, now have criminally banned the archaic and insane conversion therapy practice on vulnerable minors. In 2018 it is high time this cruel, archaic, draconian torcher practice of conversion therapy is gone and banned immediately!