IDAHOBIT Day is about protecting LGBTIQA+ peoples’ rights and improving them.

IDAHOBIT Day is a special day in our calendars that needs to be in our calendars every day. We’ve seen over the years some good work done by some governments to improve our ways of life and to protect us. Here in the NT, all our communities have strived to make our lot better, and we had a huge victory in 2022, with the strongest Anti-Discrimination Act being enacted in Australia’s history. A vast range of traits and characteristics are now protected attributes, which means you can’t discriminate against a person because of those attributes. For example, queer children and teachers can’t be discriminated against in faith-based schools. This is a good thing. And then in 2018, we hit the ground running after marriage equality to revamp the Births Death and Marriages Registrations Act 1996. It can be done! 

You just must look around the country to see what is happening, or indeed, not happening. Anti-Discrimination reform and reforms to birth certificates are one such example, where it would be very easy to implement, but other governments have failed to take action.  Then there are governments listening to extreme right wing groups and politicians virtue signaling LGBTIQA+ issues. 

But in other ways, some jurisdictions are ahead of us. Intersex kids in the NT need protecting so that unnecessary surgical interventions can no longer take place. And then there’s conversion therapy, also banned in some jurisdictions. 

Our jobs are far from over, so we must keep changing the world one brick at a time so we can truly say we are going rainbow over discrimination. 

Be well,

Dr Belinda Chaplin