Transgender Australians still face absolutely massive cultural obstacles. What we broadly term Australian society is yet to fully accept trans individuals as regular ol’ people, as evidenced by some of the nation’s mastheads printing pieces likening Caitlyn Jenner to outright cancer fraud Belle Gibson.
Yet tonight’s episode of Australian Story, entitled About A Girl, demonstrated the more systemic problems that face transgender youth, away from the issue of cultural perception. Through the story of 16-year-old Georgie Stone, the program highlighted the very real bureaucratic issues trans kids need to contend with in order to receive hormonal treatments.
During the fight to gain Georgie’s access to puberty-blockers, her family won a court battle that removed the need for trans kids to face Family Court beforehand. That was a massive win, inasmuch as trans kids no longer need to go through the arduous court system to access hormonal treatments as puberty advances.
Her father Greg Stone typified the issue by saying if she “went through puberty [without the correct hormones], it would have been terrible, we would have failed.” Georgie herself explained the stakes, saying “if my voice started to break, that would completely change my life.”
“I wouldn’t be the female that I always wanted to be. I wouldn’t be taken on face value anymore. I would have wanted to kill myself.”
Georgie characterised that court decision as a clear win, but families still need to go through a similar process to gain “Stage 2” treatments, which include courses of irreversible hormones. The rigmarole is worsened by the fact that the courts always defer to medical practitioners – but those same doctors argue the legal process is an unnecessary barrier between young Aussies and the hormones they need.
And, Australia is the only jurisdiction worldwide with that system in place.
Now, Georgie has taken up the cause, and has even petitioned former Human Rights Commissioner and Liberal MP Tim Wilson to shake things up. The entire program did a damn good job of demonstrating the very real systemic struggles young trans Aussies can face in even the most supportive of environments: and it chose a bloody likeable protagonist to do so. Check out the entire ep here.
