Twenty-five-year old transman, Aram Hosie, has been named Pride WA’s youngest ever patron. Mr Hosie, who identified as a lesbian and came out at the age of 15, began transitioning to male in 2006.
Pride's first trans patron is the founding president of the WA Gender Project, which is working to improve the human rights of transgendered people in the State, and also heads up Rainbow Labor.
Pride WA hopes to advance the causes of trans, intersex and gender diverse people by appointing Mr Hosie as its 2008 patron.
Pride co-president Andrew Baietta told GAYinWA that the committee had received nothing but positive responses to news of the appointment.
"Over the years obviously Pride has fought for a range of different
causes and rights and it's only recently changed its mission statement
to be more inclusive of the wider community we're meant to represent,"
he said.
"Aram's appointment fits in with the changes we're going through as an organisation and of course the theme of 'Reinvention'."
Hosie says the overall situation for trans, intersex and gender diverse
people is starting to improve following a Human Rights and Equal
Opportunity Commission inquiry and increased media coverage of their
issues but there is still a lot more to be achieved.
“Trans, intersex and gender diverse people in WA are frequently
misunderstood and/or invisible – some people don’t even know we exist,”
he said.
“We’re extremely marginalised, sometimes even within the GLBT community”.
Hosie, whose life partner is Labor Senator Louise Pratt, knows the discrimination and maginalisation felt by two minorities within the GLBT community from first-hand experience.
“Certainly, the lesbian community I was part of was marginalised, but it was also visible, connected and empowered. As a queer transman however, things are very different,” he said.
“We do not enjoy many of the basic human rights that our heterosexual, or even gay and lesbian,
counterparts have access to.
"We can be legally discriminated against, have limited or no access to
appropriate and necessary medical services and often cannot get our identity legally recognised”.
Past patrons of Pride WA have been drawn from politics, the arts and the community sector, and include theatrical designer Brian Thomson, soprano Deborah Cheetham, former MLC and now Senator Louise Pratt, thespian Ivan King, Indigenous activist Jim Morrison and former Democrats senator Brian Greig.
“When I look at the illustrious list of past Pride patrons I feel extremely honoured and humbled, to have been asked to be
Patron for 2008,” Hosie said.
“I am also incredibly proud to be the
first Patron to come from within the ‘T’ category of our GLBT
community”.
Hosie acknowledges that his appointment as patron is of particular relevance to this year’s theme of 'Reinvention'.
“The entire GLBT community can relate to the theme of reinvention," he said.
"We all have to face a certain level of
reinvention when we come out, but the transgender community in particular know what it means to reinvent
ourselves."
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