Sunday, January 10, 2010

Dying Transgender Children and Youth.. Beyond Blue starts to do something!

As i mentioned in past posts like this there are a lot of people with blood on their hands in Australia.. the blood of Transgender children, Bisexual children, Lesbian children, Gay children, teens and youth.

Murdered by negligence. By ignoring the horrifically high stats of attempted suicide for these groups.

According to this report Beyond Blue is improving on it's handling of the issue. Will they go far enough? Will they commit the resources proportional to the high rate in figures on their own site? (Oh.. but of course those figures left off Transgender and Intersex didn't it.)

Well of the stats I've seen Trans is the worst suffering group. (Anyone got stats for Intersex suicide?) so surely rationally we should see the efforts proportional to risk... but will we see that? Will we see beyondblue ads on rural local tv about preventing the suicide of closeted transgender kids, of bi-questioning kids? Will we see them as much or more than the ads we see of preventing suicide of farmers? Because the attempted suicide rate of TQBLG Youth in australia is shockingly high and demands not one iota less than the resources appropriate to the degree of the problem!

Lets see how serious this is. Lets see if Beyond Blue start actually acting to save these childrens lives or if they continue to MURDER THEM BY NEGLIGENT INACTION!

When will we see real action? When will we see advertising in the general media to reach the rural closeted and scared and depressed and anxious Transgender, Bisexual, Lesbian and Gay teens? To get them to help before they try and die? To provide effective programs to rural doctors and to rural families and rural schools to stop the slaughter?

Well I'm waiting to see... but while everyone's waiting more children are DYING! So please do remember that when considering just how much the " ‘x’ dollars over ‘x’ period of time" Beyond Blue is comitting to this will be.

4 comments:

Option C said...

This reply on that article from "karl" really bothers me:

"...why are GLBTI groups jumping into bed with these people, for funding for themselves? Do they get something out of pathologising the community, like 'look how sick we are, we need money'..."

This is literally a life of death issue, but some of these people are so afraid of things being treated as seriously as they are (ha, good fucking chance of that) because it might make the community look as bad off as it *really is*?

Doubting the commitment of these bureaucracies is one thing (and wise), but actually actively fighting AGAINST recognition of this issue? People like that have their community's blood on their hands.

Battybattybats said...

Good point.

They presumably fear that raising this issue will make people think that being Gay makes you depressed whereas the studies show struggling with being gay and being mistreated for being gay makes you depressed.

Option C said...

True, it might. I'm in the "isn't that so much less important than saving lives?" camp (plus, it's pretty ableist).

Anyway, it's not like the people who buy that haven't bought much worse already.

Battybattybats said...

I agree saving lives is paramount.

Though we could address both concerns..

A tv ad campain saying:

"Your child may be Gay and/or Transgender.

Because of rejection and discrimination there is a huge suicide rate amongst these kids especially while they are coming to terms with being Gay or Transgender.

Its far worse if they are or feel rejected by their families and friends.

Please help prevent needless deaths by supporting your child whatever their sexuality or gender identity and if concerned about how to help keep Australias kids alive contact this website etc"

It avoids stigmatisiation by placing the blame on prejudice. Encourages family to support rather than reject their kids.