May 08, 2020

If women had had negative experiences of gate keeping in accessing hormones, they were often wary about seeking support in relation to sexual violence.

“When I was sexually assaulted, I had very bad support and I’ve been in knots ever since.”

— Fiona

  
    The Informed Consent model of care has been evaluated very positively by gender diverse people (Pallotta-Chiarolli, et al., 2019), alongside other trans affirmative care, including use of correct pronouns, staff trained in cultural safety, nongendered
bathroom facilities, and trans and gender diverse specific
literature and health resources.

  
The term ‘transgender’, commonly shortened to ‘trans’, is a collective term used to describe individuals whose gender identity and expression is at variance with the biological sex they were assigned at birth (Levitt & Ippolito, 2014; Schilt & Lagos, 2017). The term ‘trans women’ means ‘across from’ , with ‘transwomen’ referring to individuals who were assigned male at birth, but now
identify as feminine, taking up a range of gender identity descriptors that may include woman, feminine, fa'afafine, sistergirl, femme, nonbinary, gender queer, gender fluid or gender-nonconforming, or non-binary transfeminine.

TEXT TBC: correct statistics on deaths of trans women, and statement on difficulty of accessing these statistics. There is strong evidence that visibly appearing different heightens the risk of violence for transwomen, leading to the conclusion that the threat of violence serves as “gender policing”(Jauk, 2013, p.808).

Trans women of colour are at high risk of sexual violence. However, they are often overlooked in national statistics or research on sexual violence against women. This exhibition draws on the findings of a research study which explores the lived experiences of sexual violence against trans women of colour living in Australia.

The photographs and stories in this exhibition represent women’s accounts of sexual violence, their resilience and their need for acknowledgement and support. The full research report can be accessed here.

Exhibition illustrations by Lucy Klippan

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If women had had negative experiences of gate keeping in accessing hormones, they were often wary about seeking support in relation to sexual violence.