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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-06-22 Daily Xml
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LGBTIQ Community

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (15:42): This past week has seen the world react in shock, horror, anger, devastation and also solidarity in reaction to a number of tragedies. One in particular resulted in a large number of deaths, and that was the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. Forty-nine people lost their lives, and another 53 people were seriously injured when a gunman armed with an assault rifle took aim at a crowded Latin dance night in the LGBTIQ nightclub, Pulse.

It is, sadly, all too common that events like this occur, but there are some that touch all of us as a community more deeply than others. The shooting at Pulse is one of those events. Around the world, vigils were held for those who lost their lives, those who had been injured and also their families. In Orlando, people lined around the block to donate blood for victims. Muslims came out and held public mass prayers in support of the victims, and our own Adelaide Oval was lit in rainbow colours in honour of the victims, and hundreds gathered at Elder Park Rotunda on Friday night to express their sadness, their shock and their solidarity.

The Orlando shooting has shocked us not just because of the large number of people who were killed, or the horrific way that they were killed, but in particular because of who the victims were. It is a sad reality that LGBTIQ people are often still the target of extreme violence and hatred from society. The Australian Human Rights Commission reports that six in 10 LGBTIQ people are subject to verbal abuse and two in 10 to physical abuse based on their gender and sexuality.

It is still very common for LGBTIQ people to hide their sexuality and gender for fear of discrimination and violence against them. LGBTIQ people have been under attack by society for much of history, and the Orlando shooting highlights what many like to ignore, but these attitudes still exist and still irreparably damage lives. We have certainly progressed with regard to LGBTIQ rights in recent decades, and the South Australian government has acted to continue to decrease legal discrimination against LGBTIQ people, ordering the report from the Law Reform Commission on discrimination against LGBTIQ people in our laws, which has so far brought about a gender identity and equity bill to remove discriminatory language. However, even moves to help LGBTIQ people have come under fire, such as the Safe Schools Program, a program aimed at tackling homophobic bullying in schools, where 80 per cent of gender and sexuality-based bullying occurs, according to the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Australia lags behind similar nations in respect for LGBTIQ rights. Even the notoriously conservative Catholic nation of the Republic of Ireland has given the right to marriage equality, while Australia languishes behind the curve. These law changes may seem semantic to people not affected by them, but to the LGBTIQ community it is not semantics—it is about their human rights and their place in society.

The Orlando tragedy shows us how important attitudes towards LGBTIQ people can be. The shooter has been variously reported as enraged after seeing a gay couple kissing. A number of reports also suggest that he has been secretly active in the LGBTIQ scene himself, and I quote, 'a man who could not come to terms with his sexuality', which again highlights the absolute importance of education programs such as Safe Schools.

Either way, what is clear is that toxic dangerous attitudes about the LGBTIQ people reside within the shooter, and those attitudes do not exist in a vacuum. We as a society form and shape these attitudes and how they are expressed, with up to 40 per cent of the LGBTIQ people still hiding their identity in certain situations. It shows that Australia still has a long way to go to remove these barriers, and an important path to that is to remove the laws that are discriminatory.

The response to the Orlando shootings shows that we are capable of changing these societal attitudes. The tragedy of Orlando brings with it hope, and it is now our responsibility to use that hope and that solidarity to bring about change in society and tackle homophobia so that in future no LGBTIQ person feels they have to hide or be afraid.

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