TvT training in Darwin turned into a Trans Activism Workshop
The first TvT training in Oceania took place two days before the Human Rights Forum Conference of the 3rd AsiaPacific OutGames in May 2014 in Darwin, Australia.
It was organized by TGEU’s TvT project together with two trans men from Oceania, Tait Sanders, a local trans activist from Darwin, and Jack Byrne, the Senior Officer of the New Zealand Human Rights Commission. They were counseled by Ray, an indigenous LGBT activist and academic from Australia. As the local organizers of the Human Rights Forum managed to get funding for more than a dozen scholarships for indigenous trans people from Australia, who call themselves sistergirls or brotherboys, the training was adapted to the needs and specific situation of the local context and turned into a Trans Activism Workshop, which was widely announced and promoted. Thus apart from six TvT team members from Fiji, Germany, the Philippines, Serbia, Thailand, and Tonga, more than 20 participants, most from indigenous Australia, but also from white Australia as well as other Pacific Islands took part in the workshop. The Trans Activism Workshop was held on May 13 and May 14 2014.
The workshop was conceptualized in an extremely interactive way with several exercises following inputs given by the facilitators and good practice examples by TvT team members and participants.
It focussed on three topics that were decided on before by the facilitators: networking and exchange; community building; reaction to violence and discrimination.
