Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Thursday 15 November
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
Exactly one year on from the announcement of Australia’s marriage equality post survey result, we’ll take stock of the state and legal status of LGBTIQ+ people across Australia.
The marriage equality vote brought a lot of romance and rejoicing – as well as a surprising number of heterosexual politicians lining up to claim credit – but the campaign period came at a significant emotional and personal cost to many LGBTIQ+ people, too. Has achieving marriage equality had any impact on experiences of entrenched discrimination within the queer community? And what does it meant that only two-thirds of Australians agree that marriage equality should be legal?
In this discussion, hosted by Lee Carnie, our panellists will chew over these questions and propose new frontiers in the fight for real equality for LGBTIQ+ Australians across all areas of life. How can we improve health care for queer Australians? What can we do for adolescent, and ageing, LGBTIQ+ communities and those in rural and remote areas?
Presented in partnership with the Human Rights Law Centre and the Equality Campaign
Drinks available for purchase on the night.
Featuring
Lee Carnie
Lee Carnie is a senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre advocating for equality law reform and a national Charter of Human Rights, and the Director of Legal Advocacy at Equality Australia, Australia’s first national LGBTIQ+ legal advocacy and campaigning organisation. They are dedicated to tackling discrimination and building a movement for stronger human rights protections for all of us.
Lee has worked on strategic litigation, campaigns and advocacy for a range of equality law reforms across Australia, including the M106 High Court challenge to the marriage equality postal plebiscite, federal anti-discrimination protections, hate speech laws, birth certificate reforms and the Re Kelvin test case on access to hormone treatment for transgender young people.
Lee has previous experience in frontline advocacy, court representation and community education for people experiencing disadvantage, with a particular focus on youth homelessness, family violence, victims of crime, criminal law and poverty law. Lee has worked and volunteered for a range of community organisations, including the Liberty Victoria Rights Advocacy Project, Youthlaw, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, the Federation of Community Legal Centres, North Melbourne Legal Service, Hume Riverina Community Legal Service, Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, PILCH Homeless Persons’ Legal Clinic, Empowering Women of Nepal, Fitzroy Legal Service and Fitzroy Learning Network.
Lee was an Australian NGO representative at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva in 2018, the LGBTI Pacific Youth Conference in 2017, and the LGBTI Human Rights Conference in Uruguay in 2016. Lee has a Juris Doctor of Law and Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne, and was awarded the Thorne Harbour Health Greig Friday Young Leader Award in 2018, and the Edward Walter Outhwaite Award for Human Rights Lawyering in 2011.
Wilhelmina Stracke
Wilhelmina Stracke is the Assistant Secretary of the Victorian Trades Hall Council. She was previously an Associate Solicitor at Slater & Gordon before commencing as an organiser with the Australian Service Union.
At the ASU, Wil worked with members on workplace and industry wide industrial campaigns. She was the Victorian Lead for the ASU national ‘Equal Pay’ campaign that, in 2012, achieved wage justice for underpaid, predominantly female workers in the community services sector. In 2013, Wil moved to the VTHC to coordinate movement wide political campaigns, including the 2014 ‘We are Union’ campaign that helped oust a first term conservative State government.
More recently, Wil coordinated the Victorian field campaign for the ‘Yes’ campaign for marriage equality. In 2014 Wil was elected as VTHC Assistant Secretary.
Timothy Jones
Timothy Jones is a historian of gender, sexuality and religion in the modern West. He is the author of Sexual Politics in the Church of England, 1857-1957 (2013) and lead author of Preventing Harm, Promoting Justice: Responding to LGBT Conversion Therapy in Australia (2018). He teaches at La Trobe University, and is Vice President of the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives.
Aram Hosie
More than ten years ago and well before the world had heard of Laverne Cox or Caitlyn Jenner, Aram Hosie found himself at the forefront of trans visibility in Australia when he appeared on the front page of Western Australia’s only State newspaper. From those awkward beginnings as the 'Senator’s Sex-Swap Partner!' Aram has gone on to write, speak, educate and advocate for the issues affecting trans people at both the national and international level. Aram’s work has included further media engagements, playing an instrumental role in the reform of Passports and Medicare policy, winning a High Court challenge to Western Australia's gender recognition laws, and advocating on trans people’s HIV prevention and treatment needs on the global stage.
Named a 2015 Australian Human Rights Award Finalist in recognition of his advocacy work, Aram is currently the Director of Engagement for Equality Australia, a former Board Member for Thorne Harbour Health, former member of the MSMGF's International Trans and Gender Diverse Advisory Group, former Chair of the National LGBTI Health Alliance's Trans and Gender Diverse Reference Group, and current member of the Victorian Government's LGBTI Ministerial Taskforce.