VPS Pride

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I’m Toby and I’m from the department of education and training.

I’m Alice Tonkin and I’m from the department of justice and regulation. I’m Anna. I am in regional development Victoria in the policy and planning division. My name is James Edmonds and I’m from the Victorian public sector commission.

community to me is support and solidarity, visibility and acceptance,

helping and supporting each other.

Humanity. I think it means to be human. Part of my transition to becoming a woman was to engage with, uh, to start with pride and diversity and then naturally flowed into joining the pride network.

I saw a lot of posters around, I saw a lot of doubt staff wearing lanyards as well as the rainbow lanyards.

I originally got involved with the pride network as an ally. My partner actually came out as transgender, a transgender woman, and then it became so much more, it became an incredible source of support and yeah, solidarity. While I was grappling with this new part of my identity and supporting my partner through her transition,

I think it was really great seeing how the postal vote for marriage equality helped us mobilize this community

when my partner came out, you know, we’re engaged so we suddenly can’t get married. So all of that is sort of called into question and it was a hugely stressful time. They had like a viewing room where we could go and see the results when they were announced. They had counselors on hand if we needed one. So it really just helped me feel supported and you know, I could actually go into work on that day instead of being at home in case, you know, the worst would happen. I only came out maybe about three years ago. So it’s still sort of molding myself up in normal everyday life and coming into government. Um, I wanted that sense of community. So the impact that the pride network had, it was, you know, there’s people in my community, people who’ve gone through similar experiences and that’s deeply impacted the way you know. There were people like me up there and it’s so beautiful to know that he impacted the pride network on me has been in at a professional and personal level where it actually has helped me to engage with other trans and gender diverse people. They’re not just hidden, you don’t feel alone or you don’t feel isolated within your department,

so I know for sure that I can be who I am when I’m at work as well because when you can’t be yourself at work, it’s actually really exhausting.

I think even just the existence of a pride network, it really says you can be yourself here

places like the pride networks can come in extremely handy because they will actually allow you to become more visible within the community more widespread. I think it would be absolutely amazing if every wall in government was covered with rainbows. Yeah. In five years, hopefully I will watch more prominence and influence. There’s still so much more to be done. Um, you know, we still need to focus on, especially trans gender diverse intersex people, um, who can feel invisible or just not supported.

Our community has a lot of diverse issues. So if we can work together, we can actually tackle those head on together instead of separately.

There’s people out there who, um, help can help you through tough times and can really, really make you feel happy about yourself. And, and that confidence of community really makes you feel special and accepted and important to the community. Pride network really does create a sense of belonging and, uh, that’s just astonishing what people can do.

Updated 13 February 2020

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