Talk:LGBT rights in Australia

2013 article cleanup

Article and information on adoption and summary tables been updated and sources. Still some areas that could be improved, but overall a much improved effort based on the previous criticism stated below; more encyclopaedic than it's ever been. Note similar updating in LGBT rights in (name Australian state or territory here) articles. (Jono52795 (talk) 13:53, 9 November 2013 (UTC))

Intro

The intro is poorly written, the result of several edits I'm guessing, and needs to be reworded to make it clearer. I would but honestly don't understand it. Cheers, Rothery 05:01, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

intro and whole article have been re-written.207.69.137.28 19:08, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

The summary table at the end is actually incorrect and also inconsistent with the article. Homosexuality was not legalised in Australia in 1994 -- it was still illegal in Tasmania until 1997 (as noted earlier in the article)!! I tried to change it but it would not let me. Is someone able to change? 82.11.182.108 (talk) 22:40, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

The intro is very politically charged. Although John Howard may not have supported gay marriage, Nicola Roxon (now Federal Health Minister) was known for actively canvassing people to support a clarification to marriage law to make it a male-female relationship. Unfortunately both major parties have anti-gays. This article unfairly presents it like a one-way street. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.110.207.220 (talk) 19:04, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

The intro states, "Same-sex couples are allowed to jointly adopt children in the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales and Western Australia, and may adopt their partner's stepchild in Tasmania. In all other states except South Australia, LGBT people are allowed to adopt individually." However I am not sure of the validity of this regarding NSW, my legal studies textbook (published in 2010) says, "In 2009, the NSW government was on the brink of legalising the rights of same-sex couples to adopt young children. However, political power exerted by religious groups caused the necessary legislative reforms to be shelved." The act (Adoption Amendment (Same Sex Couples) Act 2010) allowing LGBTs to adopt has been repealed, due to a campaign led by Fred Nile. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.172.240.199 (talk) 01:22, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Article Splitting

This article has just become too long. I suggest splitting it into multiple new articles seperated by topic. They could all be made easily accessable by listing them all into a new Australian LGBT Navbox Template. We could have categories for relationship laws, politics, culture, history, adoption rights.etc.

Who agrees? —Preceding unsigned comment added by OnlyoneJonsmith (talk • contribs) 03:30, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I think keeping this article about activities at the commonwealth/Australia level and then individual articles about the topic at the state level (LGBT Rights in Victoria) (or maybe just one that looks at LGBT rights in Australian states) may be appropriate at this time. I dont know that I support LGBT Parenting rights in Australia ; LGBT domestic partnership rights in Australia-- The Red Pen of Doom 16:27, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps merging and summarizing the more significant state/territory changes, similar to the adoption section, would help shorten the page and keep it complete. I like the idea of additional pages being created for each state if necessary for more detail (LGBT rights in Queensland, LGBT rights in Tasmania, etc.). Ikzing (talk) 03:21, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I created a new page for Queensland with all the information from this page, and at the same time removed the Queensland sections from this page. I felt that there were already sufficient summaries for the states on each topic, including tables outlining the differences. My move was reverted though, so I'll leave it up to someone else to figure out. Ikzing (talk) 22:41, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I was the one who removed it. I've got no problem with creating a Queensland article - in fact I think it's a great idea - but why did you remove the existing summary of Queensland from this article? It made it look like we had a mysterious gap in our Queensland content for some reason. Rebecca (talk) 04:16, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

You're right in that it looked like a mysterious gap, but I figured once each state had its own page and all the individual state sections were removed, the page would be much shorter and much more readable. The relevant sections already have summaries of adoption, surrogacy, state rights, etc. plus tables which also act as summaries, so the individual state sections shouldn't really be necessary once the new individual pages are created. Also, there's not really a point in creating new pages if the exact same information that's on them stays on this one. I did Queensland only as a sample because I wasn't sure if I was going about splitting off the pages the right way or if it would be an issue for anyone. I'm open to other suggestions! Ikzing (talk) 04:53, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I see your point, but the problem with this approach is that most of the laws - apart from marriage and Centrelink - that affect LGBT people in Australia are state laws. If the information on those state laws isn't summarised here, this article is going to be pretty incomplete. I think a better approach might be to try and restructure the whole article. The history section is a mess and needs to be cut down; about half of the content in the federal section is irrelevant and could go; I'm not sure if the current setup of the state sections is the best way to do this. Any suggestions?

I actually think having separate articles for the states would be really useful if more content could be written - it's just that most of the current content needs to be here as well. Rebecca (talk) 10:44, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I may not be making myself clear, but I am not saying to remove the summaries, I am saying that there are already enough summaries here that the background on the individual State laws may be moved to other pages. Take Assisted Reproduction for example. There are currently three summary paragraphs which highlight significant happenings in various states, plus a detailed chart which shows all the current info from every state. If you remove all the individual state info below these, you won't be losing much. Besides, if you want more historical detail on a particular state, you just need to click on it. Ikzing (talk) 23:17, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Outdated Information

The Australian federal government has recently passed leglislation which removes discrimination in around 100 laws, hence the government finally reconising same-sex couples and there children. The current info on the website does not seem to acknowledge the updated federal leglistation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.238.127.41 (talk) 12:51, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I've updated the intro and the Commonwealth section to take into account these new laws. Ikzing (talk) 04:10, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Opposition groups only?

Why don't we have a section devoted to the parties and organizations whom support LGBT rights? Such as the Labor party which controls every single state government and the national government? --Saffron831 (talk) 04:12, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

We do, at the top of the page. If you would like to get a list of supportive political parties, you're welcome to add them. I think the Greens may be more supportive than Labor. Ikzing (talk) 04:14, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

The ALP can't realistically be labelled as supporting LGBT rights; a US politician with Rudd's record wouldn't be labelled as such. At best they can be said to partially support them. Rebecca (talk) 06:23, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

To the ALP's credit, they did eliminate financially discriminatory laws that the previous federal government would never even have considered, but they do not support gay marriage or various child-bearing rights... much like the US democrats. Timeshift (talk) 06:26, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

MSM blood donors?

This article says, of MSM discrimination practices, “No other countries or jurisdictions have such policies or have repealed them”. The MSM blood donor controversy article lists many countries has having harsher restrictions then Australia! (at least in 2005). In addition, I recently gave blood in Germany and one of the questions I was asked is if I've had male-to-male sex (or female-to-male sex where the male's had male-to-male). —Felix the Cassowary 16:14, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

NSW registry announced

The New South Wales Government announced today, that they will be introducing a relationship register for same sex and opposite sex couples. It will be the same as the relationship registries in Victoria, Tasmania and the A.C.T. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.225.48.197 (talk) 05:32, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

UPDATE:

• Effective from 1 July 2010 - Relationships Register Bill 2010, passed both Houses 12 May 2010, Assented 19 May 2010 Act No 19.

http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/nswbills.nsf/7bd7da67ee5a02c5ca256e67000c8755/57f8af30e6a0d630ca25770d001af7dc?OpenDocument —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.148.207.230 (talk) 15:25, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Registered Relationships

This section duplicates some of the entries in Recognition of same-sex unions in Australia, so I have added a reference to it and ensured that these two sections are consistent.

See also: Recognition of same-sex unions in Australia

It would be better to refer to separate sections for Relationships/Adoption etc rather than duplicating these sections and maintaining them in two places (as these are areas of constant change).

Updates for consistency and accuracy to this section:-

The State and Territory section to include NSW (Relationships Register Bill 2010 - Royal Assent received in 2010).

Registered relationships convey "the same benefits" afforded to de facto couples in each of the states, according to LGBT Rights in New South Wales. Whether or not exactly the same benefits are afforded to same sex couples as de facto couples, is not covered

The paragraph now refers to "same-sex" couples rather than "de facto" couples, since "de facto" generally refers to the laws afforded to opposite sex couples. Some states (SA) have replaced "de facto" and categorised couples as "domestic partners", so the term "de facto" is still legally ambiguous.

Since this paragraph is referring to the new laws afforded to same-sex couples and not opposite sex couples, this distinction is important. PjThompso 08:42, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

In New South Wales, and in most other Australian jurisdictions, "de facto" does not refer only to opposite-sex couples, but now also includes same-sex couples. That is, the actual statutory definition of "de facto couple" is gender-neutral, so same-sex and opposite-sex de facto couples have the same rights. Ronline ✉ 14:00, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually EVERY state, territory and the Commonwealth Government have included same sex couples in the definition of de facto couple in its statutes - you said and quoted: "and in most other Australian jurisdictions" [please get it right]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.148.207.230 (talk) 15:22, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Orphaned references in LGBT rights in Australia

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of LGBT rights in Australia's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "lamb":

• From Homosexuality: Michael Lamb, Ph.D.: Affidavit – United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts (2009)
• From Same-sex marriage: Michael Lamb, Ph.D.: Affidavit – United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts (2009)

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 16:36, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Less bias under Adoption and laws relating to having children.

The topic begins with the follwing: "Family Law in Australia with regards to children is often based on what is considered to be in the best interest of the child. The traditional and often used assumption is that children need both a mother and a father, which plays an important role in divorce and custodial proceedings, and has carried over into adoption and fertility procedures, even though those assertions find no support in the scientific research literature.[81][82][83][84][85] In fact, the promotion of this notion, and the laws and public policies that embody it, are clearly counter to the well-being of children.[83] As laws within the whole of Australia since 1 July 2009 have only begun to recognise de facto same-sex couples under the Family Law Act 1975,[86]" However Wikipedia's policy is to write as neturaly as possible, and since there are clearly two different view points here- Traditional Family Law and the more recent view. The way it is currently written clears gives a bias towards the LGBT side. I propose rewriting the two sentences as follows, or something similar. "Family Law in Australia with regards to children is often based on what is considered to be in the best interest of the child. The traditional and often used assumption is that children need both a mother and a father, which plays an important role in divorce and custodial proceedings, and has carried over into adoption and fertility procedures, even though scientific research literature shows little support. [81][82][83][84][85] The research shows that the promotion of this notion, and the laws and public policies that embody it, can be clearly counter to the well-being of children.[83] As laws within the whole of Australia since 1 July 2009 have only begun to recognise de facto same-sex couples under the Family Law Act 1975,[86]" I'm not suggesting that exact wording, just something less bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.222.201.121 (talk) 22:24, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Taz

New SSM bill to be introduced next week? — kwami (talk) 12:55, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Novel terms

User:Sam56mas has asserted in an Edit Summary that "There are hundreds of Australian organisations using the terms LGBTQI and LGBTQIA. The Sydney Mardi Gras alone, by any measure, is one of the most notable such organisations in Australia. The utility of these variants is as equally relevant as LGBTI." A scout around of web searches certainly shows a multitude of blogs and Tumblr pages using those terms but, in my view, there is no evidence of hundreds of Australian organisations using terms other then LGBT, or LGBTI (or different orders of those letters). I don't wish to engage in an edit war, so I'm bringing this assertion here, in the hope that more evidence will be forthcoming. Trankuility (talk) 03:03, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

I think this whole argument is really trivial. There are all sorts of variants in use, with LGBT or LGBTI the most common ones; to the extent we need to use the acronym that would be the obvious choice. The Drover's Wife (talk) 07:33, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Sort of trivial, I understand, until someone changes the name of the article and other people argue about the legibility of the change. The thing is, too, that it might be trivial to the LGBT persons included in an acronym, but organisations like ACON, QAHC, the National LGBTI Health Alliance and Mardi Gras had debates about including intersex people (a distinct different community) leading to their inclusion. The same happened historically with bisexual and trans people. There's no evidence of that with the "A", and the "Q" has been controversial in many settings. Trankuility (talk) 03:33, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Intersex term

The definition of intersex is wrong: "with the I denoting intersex people, born with atypical physical sex characteristics." No, a major group of types are born with typical sex characteristics but at puberty they develop toward the other sex. Intersex needs to be thought of in the complete context of sex: external genitalia, sex organs, hormones and hormone receptors and the development of secondary sexual characteristics. The page on intersex covers this well but doesn't do so well when it is put succinctly. Try intersex 'is a variation in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, or genitals that mean an individual may not be distinctly male or female' Avoid the phrase "that do not allow an individual to be distinctly identified" as there is a very long history of medicine and family choosing identity for intersex people, heavily biased toward female and not very accepting of intersex as an identity for sex or gender. Ericglare (talk) 08:52, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

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Requested move 30 June 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved  — Amakuru (talk) 09:16, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

---

LGBT rights in Australia → LGBTI rights in Australia – This article also discusses the rights of intersex people, so the article title should reflect this. Also, as noted in the article, LGBTI is increasingly used as the umbrella term in Australia. The current title should simply redirect. The state LGBT rights articles could similarly be retitled. Brisvegas 09:24, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

• The parent article is at LGBT, we should probably follow that. Plus letters seem to be getting added a lot recently, our article says the current full acronym is "LGBTQIA+". Jenks24 (talk) 15:21, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose. Any evidence the proposed new title is the WP:COMMONNAME for this topic? SSTflyer 10:53, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Proposed "LGBT in Australia" article

Hi everyone, the article has grown considerably and covers several issues that would seem more appropriate in an overarching "LGBT in Australia" article, such as the section on statistics. I propose we move relevant sections over to that article, which could have a similar scope to LGBT in New Zealand for example. What sections do people think would be appropriate to move across? Goldcactus (talk) 13:50, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

That seems to be a good idea. No doubt the statistics and social conditions sections of this article more properly belong to your proposed article, and that could be coupled with some more information of things like demographics and LGBT-Australian culture. Beyond the two sections mentioned though, I think everything else in this article belongs here. Though detailed, there's no doubt they relate to the rights of LGBTI Australians, both in law and in practice. Global-Cityzen (talk) 10:08, 14 April 2019 (UTC)