STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Ms COFFEY (Griffith) (16:35): One of the most special things about Griffith is that ours is a community where people look after one another, including those who work every day to support our LGBTQIA+ people to live safely, openly and with dignity. I have been grateful to meet with many of them and to hear directly about the challenges facing trans and gender non-conforming people.

What I hear in those conversations is not division. It is not extremism, it is not a culture war, and it certainly is not what Senator Hanson recently described as a transgender insurgency—some sort of violent armed rebellion is all that I can assume. They are asking for the same things so many Australians are asking for. a roof over their head and a comfortable, secure place to call home, one that does not take up most of their pay cheque.

They want the chance to gain skills, to undertake meaningful work, to contribute to our community and to sustain themselves. They want quality, affordable and accessible health care, including evidence based, gender-affirming care for young people and their families, care that the Queensland government has shamefully restricted. Most of all, they want to know that they are safe at home, school and work; safe on the streets and in their neighbourhood; and safe when they seek the health care they need.

That is no different to what any of us want. So if there is any insurgency needed here, it is not a trans insurgency. It's for those of us who are cisgender to say 'enough'—enough scapegoating, enough politicising, enough ostracising and enough othering people who simply just want to live their lives.

The trans and gender non-conforming people I know just want to get on with their lives safely, peacefully and with dignity. If we need a rebellion against bigotry, division and the politics of fear, then sign me up.