Brian Greig: ‘Backwards’ WA has the lowest share of LGBTQIA residents showing extremely lacking State laws

Just before Christmas last year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released data on the approximate population of LGBTI+ people. The ABS combined information from nearly 45,000 people who responded to ABS health surveys to indicate the nation’s LGBTI+ demographic. The results found that about 4.5 per cent of all Australians 16 years and older or 900,000 people, are LGBTI+. That’s about one in every 20 people, or the combined populations of the ACT and Tasmania. Interestingly, younger Australians are more likely to be LGBTI+, with almost 10 per cent aged 16 to 24 years identifying this way. I suspect this has more to do with younger people being more comfortable with issues of sexuality and gender identity, whereas many older Australians can still be circumspect. For me, the more noteworthy results from the data are State breakdowns. The three jurisdictions with the highest reportage of LGBTI+ people were the ACT (5.6 per cent), Victoria (5.3 per cent) and Tasmania (4.7 per cent). The three jurisdictions with the lowest reportage of LGBTI+ people were Queensland (4.1 per cent), followed by South Australia and Western Australia equal last on 3.9 per cent. This highlights a correlation between states with good laws and legal protections for LGBTI+ people, and those with bad or no laws. It’s reasonable to conclude that the different percentages among the States are attributable to social, cultural and legal conditions. It points to the fact that in states with strong equality laws, more people are inclined to be comfortable and open. It’s also the case that some LGBTI+ people tend to migrate to those zones. Conversely, it also points to the fact that in States where laws are unfair, discriminatory or completely lacking in legal protections, LGBTI+ people are less inclined to be open and not opposed to maybe moving interstate. Which brings me to WA. In the 2016 postal survey on same-sex marriage, WA produced a Yes vote higher than the national average. Every Federal electorate voted Yes. Sandgropers support equality. Despite this, our State remains terribly backwards, and hopelessly out-of-step with most other states on a raft of long overdue, repeatedly promised LGBTI+ reforms. In WA, it’s still legal to expel LGBTI+ students from faith schools, along with sacking and refusing to hire LGBTI+ teachers from the same publicly funded schools. It’s also legal to refuse to hire LGBTI+ people to work in publicly funded services run by church groups, including hospitals, age care, disability services, charities and employment service providers. In WA, LGBTI+ couples have the legal right to marry, but can be sacked from certain jobs the very next day for doing so. WA has no anti-vilification and hate-speech laws to protect LGBTI+ people and no mechanism to lodge complaints of abuse. People who are transgender are not fully protected by anti-discrimination legislation. Recent changes to transgender laws now allow for appropriate identity documents to be issued, but in a shock move the Cook Government took a step backwards from national best-practice by refusing to allow trans people to self-identify. Worst of all, WA still allows so-called “gay conversion therapy”. This medieval practice is a harmful procedure that has its origins in exorcism. It purports to “cure” or suppress same-sex attraction and gender dysphoria through religious “counselling”, but results in psychological trauma and suicidal ideation because it doesn’t work. The reluctance of the Labor Government to properly address these issues over the past eight years is at odds with community attitudes. In late 2023, the Cook Government dumped its promise to pass a raft of LGBTI+ reforms this term, with unnamed MPs telling the media the party feared backlash from churches and was gun-shy about controversy following its backflip on Aboriginal cultural heritage laws. It is worrying that a Labor Government is more concerned about controversy than ending harm. It is also delusional to assume that these issues will become less controversial during and after the election as Trump’s “anti-woke” politics sweeps the globe. Liberal leader Libby Mettam has already called for WA’s recent transgender laws to be overturned, and for gender affirming care to be banned for children. No other State leader has pledged these things, but the Liberals have made clear they will target transgender people in the state campaign. LGBTI+ issues will be much more controversial after the election, not less. However, fear of controversy is never a reason to recoil from doing what’s right. It’s time our leaders pledged a commitment to these reforms and a time frame for delivery. Some 120,000 West Australians are relying on it. Brian Greig is a veteran LGBTI+ advocate and spokesperson for Just.Equal Australia.