For five years local community service organisation Queer Family Inc has been providing vital support for local members of the LGTBQIA+ community in and around the Byron Shire.
While this community represents around 11 per cent of our local population, it receives a disturbingly small piece of the funding pie – just 5 cents for every $100 given to the community sector.
This glaring structural inequity has meant that, despite repeated attempts to secure stable and suitable premises, Queer Family Inc has effectively been homeless for the past two-and-a-half years.
Last week, the organisation came before Byron Council to once again plead its case for support, asking councillors to explore what buildings or land it has that might be used for a permanent home.
After some resistance from Council staff, Councillors eventually voted to take some action – agreeing to convene a meeting between staff, Queer Family representatives and interested councillors and to provide a report on potential Council-owned sites that could be used by Queer Family and other community service organisations.
‘We’re thrilled to have an outcome,’ the organisation’s Managing Director, Aiden Gentle, said after the meeting.
‘It’s been a long journey to get to this point.’
During an address to the meeting, Aiden said that the inequalities in funding, land allocation and other support for the Shire’s LGTBQIA+ community amounted to ‘structural oppression’.
‘The response we get from government is always the same: “We think you’re doing a wonderful job, but we can’t help you”,’ Aiden told last week’s Council meeting.
‘How many men’s sheds and other sheds are there in the Shire?
‘How many showgrounds, how many sporting buildings, how many community gardens, how many scout halls, neighbourhood centres?
‘Eleven per cent of your constituents deserve to have at least one queer space.
Worst mental health stats
‘That the work of Queer Family Inc deserves funding and support is glaringly obvious when you look at the statistics in relation to mental health outcomes for the LGTBQIA+ community, and their disproportionately small slice of the funding pie.
‘We have the worst mental health stats in the country,’ Aiden told the meeting.
‘One in two trans people will try and kill themselves and 75 per cent experience suicidal ideation’.
A recent survey conducted by Health North Coast of 6,000 primary and high school students found that five per cent of the respondents did not identify with the sex registered for them at birth.
‘If you put those stats together, you’re looking at 150 local children who will try and kill themselves,’ Aiden said.
‘That’s a lot, and we’re the only queer and trans-led organisation who service under-18s.’
Under last week’s motion, moved by newly-elected Greens councillor Elia Hague, councillors agreed that, if no Council-owned or managed property for Queer Family Inc could be identified, Council would support the organisation to find an alternative home to ensure the service could remain in the Shire.
‘I can’t overstate the importance of the work that Queer Family Inc does in our community,’ Cr Hague said.
‘They’ve served over 2,000 members of our community in only five years’.
‘The fact that they can’t run vital programs that support our community because of the space that they’re in is really sad and disappointing, and a loss for our community.’
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