Burning Words

So, a piece of good news for a change. Autumn Sandeen is reporting that religious conservatives in California have failed to get the requisite number of signatures to force a referendum on the state’s new Student Civil Rights Act. As such, it is now in force in the state, although it faces a further legal challenge in the courts. The Act is a pretty significant step forward in trying to stamp out anti-queer bullying and discrimination in schools, but has particular importance for transpeople who transition in high school, by preventing the sorts of discrimination - such as having to fight to use the proper bathrooms - that have forced too many transpeople out of school in the past. In that sense, congratulations to Equality California for helping get this passed, and to the California State Assembly for having the guts to do the right thing when it mattered.

This said, it raises the question for me as to why we don’t already have a bill like this here in Australia. We’ve been able to make major advances in recent years with comparatively weak opposition from the religious right, and as such - at least in several states and territories - we now have anti-discrimination and anti-hate speech provisions that are among the best in the world. However, it seems that we’re lacking many of the subsidiary protections which have evolved in places like the U.S. due to the larger reforms being so heavily contested there - for one, we have, to my knowledge, no hate crime laws anywhere in the country. Another symptom, as here, is that we lack protection for LGBT students - and if the high school experience of those queers of my generation that I’ve come to know is anything, it’s something we badly need. It’s just that without the public angst, such issues never seem to get the attention of our legislators. So as much as I’m happy for the folks of California, I long to see the day when we’ve got a similar bill coming into force out this way.

Tags: bullying, education, queer issues, trans