Spiral conversations about working with Diversity in
Gender, Body, Kinship & Sexuality
Contact: Dr Gávi Ansara, Convenor, PACFA Diversity in Gender,
Body, Kinship & Sexuality Interest Group (GBKS)
Diversity means all of us.
However, not all of us have been included, prioritised, and valued. The GBKS
Interest Group focuses specifically on ensuring that those forms of gender,
body, kinship, and sexuality lived experience that have been excluded or
marginalised can achieve ongoing and equitable inclusion.
Locally and around the world, including
within PACFA, there has been a shift away from speaking in generalities and
lumping together lived experiences under Anglocentric and Eurocentric umbrella
categories like ‘LGBTQIA+.’
This is part of an anti-racist, decolonial
shift away from a one-dimensional approach and the overgeneralised use of
umbrella categories, toward recognition of nuance, depth, sanctity, and
multiplicity of voices across the domains of gender, body, kinship, and
sexuality.
This series of spiral chats featuring key collaborators will
explore key themes in contemporary practice with people with gender, body,
kinship, and sexuality lived experiences that have been excluded or
marginalised within our professions.
- Current and
ongoing harms of clinical and psychiatric spaces, including referrals
and thinking systemically.
- What is needed
to provide genuinely trauma-and-violence-informed care when working with
people with excluded or marginalised gender, body,
kinship, and sexuality lived experience.
- Understanding
the value of peer work that is provided by people with marginalised
or excluded gender, body, kinship, and sexuality lived experience.
- Understanding
the value and benefit of societal positioning and therapeutic
self-disclosure of lived experience of excluded or
marginalised gender, body, kinship, and sexuality in creating cultural safety and enhancing therapeutic
relationships.
- Unpacking the
dynamics and impacts of epistemic injustice, including testimonial and
hermeneutical injustice.
- Exploring
strategies to resist and challenge the dynamics and impacts of epistemic
injustice in practice, including but not limited to
- challenging erasure by using terms for gender, body,
sexuality, and kinship from a range of cultural and linguistic
communities beyond Anglocentric umbrella categories like “LGBTQI”,
including Brotherboys, Sistergirls, Sa'moan fa'afafine and fa'atama, Māori takatāpui,
and many other people
- affirming intersex characteristics as part of natural
human physiological diversity
- rejecting the “we’re just like you” normative
respectability politics that often stops practitioners from celebrating
our differences and doing the work to learn about and understand our
distinct cultural protocols, cultural safety needs, and language
- shifting away from marginalising, discriminatory
language such as “alternative lifestyles” toward a recognition that queer
cultures around the world consider polyamorous or multi-partnered
relationship systems and/or BDSM/kink relationships as legitimate
attachment bonds within a range of queer kinship options
- shifting away from an oppressive trans misery discourse
toward one of trans joy, transfabulousness, and gender euphoria
- Exploring
intersectional approaches to excluded or marginalised gender, body, and
sexuality that acknowledge the intersections between excluded or
marginalised gender, kinship, and sexuality lived experiences with
other excluded or marginalised aspects of embodiment such as disability,
body size, and neurodivergence.
- Exploring queer kinships,
especially across racialised, colonised, or marginalised communities,
including Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, South Sea Islander, and
other Indigenous and First Nations communities.
Day
2 Key Collaborators:
Tanya Quakawoot (they/them)
Tanya is a Dharumbal Blak queer person based in
Meeanjin on Turrbal and Yuggera Country, which is colonially known as
“Brisbane, Queensland”.
Tanya is a postgraduate-trained and
practising Indigenous Trauma Recovery Specialist of Aboriginal and South Sea
Islander descent. Tanya is currently working in project management in the
violence prevention sector leading advocacy and change for improved recovery
pathways for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experiencing domestic
and family violence. Tanya has worked in the public sector for more than 25
years and specialises in ethical leadership practices.
Tanya completed a Bachelor of Justice
majoring in Critical Criminology. They are the Co-founder of IndigiLez, a
leadership and support group for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and
South Sea Islander lesbians and non-binary people. Tanya is also a Cultural
Adviser connected with the LGBTI Legal Service (Meeanjin) and Rainbow Families
(Turrbal and Yuggera Country).
Tanya is passionate about social justice,
Blak queer politics, ethical governance, and health advocacy.
Bonnie Hart (she/her)
Bonnie is the Deputy Executive Director of Intersex Human Rights Australia living and working on unceded Kabi Kabi Country. Bonnie
is an intersex woman, peer worker, and systemic advocate working with and
within the intersex community to advocate for legislative protections and
improved access to affirmative, rights-based health, and mental health
services. She is the designer and Manager of InterLink,
Australia's first community-controlled intersex psychosocial support program
providing free individual and group counselling plus care coordination to
people with innate variations of sex characteristics of any age, and parents
and caregivers of young people with intersex variations across the country via
telehealth.
Bonnie nurtures intersex community connections and a
burgeoning intersex peer workforce. Bonnie has a long-time relationship
with Intersex
Peer Support Australia, having held several leadership
roles and supporting people with many different intersex variations, parents,
family members and partners of intersex people. She is passionate about
engaging and connecting community through annual support retreats and
coordination of community development initiatives such as the gathering in 2017
that produced the Darlington Statement,
an Aotearoa/New Zealand and Australian intersex community consensus statement.
Bonnie advocates for Australian legislative and
human rights reform through writing submissions to government, participating on
expert advisory groups for government and NGOs work on intersex issues.
Bonnie is also an early career academic, PhD candidate at the University of
Southern Queensland and intersex educator, developing affirmative
practice resources and regularly providing sector-specific training through
the YellowTick initiative.
Bonnie's life prior to intersex
awakening was as an interdisciplinary artist, experimental musician and
filmmaker. The documentary she made with her sister, Orchids:
My Intersex Adventure, broadcast
their family secret internationally, propelling Bonnie to speak publicly about
intersex to raise awareness and challenge the systems that oppress people with
innate sex characteristics that vary from biomedical stereotypes for female or
male bodies.
Early experiences as the youngest child in a
ninth-generation White European immigrant family living in North Queensland
provided early proxy exposure to controlling colonial, hegemonic forces through
the overt violence, racism, sexism and homophobia pervasive in the community.
This landscape was juxtaposed on her educated, able-bodied, middle-class
privileges and secret life of clinical abnormality – doctors’ visits, genital
examinations, and uncomprehendable words lacking informed consent.
Lee Taube uses they/them
pronouns, is a Registered Psychologist, the Founder of the
multidisciplinary health service called Trans Space, and has a university debt
from acquiring the following credentials: DipLibArts, BA(Psych), GradDipPsych,
MProfPsych.
Professional Bio
I live, love and work on the unceded lands of the
Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nations and long for healing and
empowerment of First Nations people. While I do not want to benefit from white
privilege, I acknowledge that I do benefit from moving through the world as
a white person.
I was born into low socioeconomic status and am
immensely grateful to now have my physical, emotional, safety, and social needs
met and for the opportunities that have come to me since attending university
and learning how to perform class drag. I acknowledge that I have access to
healthcare, including gender affirming therapy which is both life-saving and
life-enhancing, which I believe are basic rights and freedoms that all humans
should be guaranteed. I feel proud to be an openly out genderqueer person and
be able to use my lived experience and person-centred approaches in my work
with clients, and to do research and create spaces to benefit the trans and
gender diverse community to which I belong. I have co-authored peer-reviewed
publications that provide clinical guidance to practitioners from a
strengths-based framework, as I am dedicated to changing the disempowering
trans misery narrative that exists within cisgenderism.
I utilise Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT) in my clinical
client work and aim to first create safety, then use emotions as a compass to
uncover unmet core needs, and realistic removal of barriers to
self-determination, to take actions to meet needs, within unfair macro systems.
I feel humbled to witness and share these journeys within the community that I
belong to and would like to increase lateral community love.
PJ Menon (they/she)
PJ is a queer person
of colour living in Boorloo (Perth), Western Australia. PJ is a mental health
clinician who has worked extensively with headspace Midland, specialising in
work with young people 12-25, as well as within private practices across
Australia. PJ has recently taken on the role of clinical educator, providing
supervision and developing education pieces meaningfully when working with new
graduates and students.
PJ supports
organisations in creating more inclusive workspaces by facilitating training
and resource distribution, collaborating with other agencies to create safe
spaces specific to LGBTIQA+ youth, and consulting around issues relevant to
LGBTIQA+ and culturally diverse young people. PJ completed a Bachelors degree
in Psychology, a Masters of Counselling and Psychotherapy, and an Advanced
Graduate Diploma in Psychology. They currently hold general registration as a
psychologist with the Allied Health Professional Regulation Agency (AHPRA).
PJ is a queer Indian
person who grew up in Malaysia before moving to Australia. Their work is
informed by lived experience of interpersonal and systemic racial and queer
discrimination. PJ’s experiences of marginalisation exist alongside their
able-bodied, sighted, hearing, verbal, literate, allistic, middle-class, and
educational privilege. These experiences and privileges have led to PJ’s passion
around providing spaces for those that have historically been discriminated
against, dismissed and misunderstood by the psychotherapy and psychology
professions. PJ regards queer kinships to be of utmost importance in their
ability to remain buoyed within this work. PJ aims toward cultural humility in
their practice, and is committed to the ways in which cultural humility must be
upheld as a life-long practice.
Jazs Van Gils uses he/him
pronouns
Jazs is a psychotherapist with Real Talk Behaviour
Therapy, a neuro-affirming private practice that rejects ABA, with a Diploma of
Counselling and Foundations of Emotion Focused Therapy, and continuing ongoing
study of a Bachelor of
Psychological Studies.
Professional Bio
I live, work and study on
the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin
Nation and pay deep
respect to the Elders past and present and their ongoing custodianship of
these land, skies and
waters. I support Treaty of First Nations Peoples. As a White immigrant, I
understand and acknowledge
I engage with the world and systems with white privilege and
benefit that is not the
reality of all people.
I am a trans man with
lived experience of neurodivergence and hidden disability. Navigating
harmful and disempowering
systems has been a reality of mine and I also acknowledge the
privilege of being able to
access the supports that have allowed me to socially and medically
transition since moving to
Naarm. It has been a great honour to give back to the trans and
neurodivergent community
that has been so welcoming and in turn support them with their own
journeys. I am a strong
advocate for Autistic acceptance and neuro-affirming spaces and within
my own practice and reject
ABA while still acknowledging its legacy of trauma and continued
harm for the
neurodivergent community.
I aim in my work to create
intersectional spaces for deep listening and respect for all peoples
where they can feel heard
and supported and able to exist authentically as their whole selves.
My approach centres
learning about my clients and their needs and goals with gentle curiosity
to adapt to suit each
unique person with their own circumstances. I value feedback to both
deepen insights into
others’ realities and to also continue to make myself and my work safer
and more accessible. I
also believe in the value and importance of decolonializing
psychology/psychotherapy
practices that move away from unjust sociopolitical inequalities and
work towards
anti-oppressive practices that acknowledge the power of community healing and
First Peoples’ traditional
cultural wisdom and healing practices.
Working with Emotion
Focused Therapy (EFT) helps me support and collaborate to support
clients in a
person-centred approach. Exploring where individuals are at and establishing a
foundation of safety and
security, together we move through the layers of their history to find
where any unmet needs may
be creating barriers in their lives. Supporting them in their journey
toward self-empowerment
and self-actualization, whatever that may look like for them, is my goal and
belief this should be a right that all peoples can experience when and where
they need
it.
Contact Details
Jazs Van Gils
[email protected]
https://www.realtalkbehaviourtherapy.com/
Anthony Lekkas (he/him),
unceded Wurundjeri Country, Kulin Nations
I am an Accredited Mental Health Social
Worker and a Relationship Counsellor with specialised training and experience
in working with LGBTIQ people, minoritised relationships and families, and
intimate partner and family violence in both cis-hetero-mononormative and
LGBTIQ community services. I am committed to understanding how we perform and
negotiate our family, romantic, love, sex, kink, play, and other relationships,
as well as understanding the impact of the social, cultural, and political
contexts in which they occur. This means that I aim to work with respect and
sensitivity to the ways we experience ourselves and others from our specific
identity locations.
I am a Greek Australian 47-year-old bisexual, cisgender,
endosex man who is culturally marginalised in an Anglocentric society while
benefiting from aspects of white privilege as a lighter-skinned person. I
am polyamorous and live in a multi-caregiver household with 3 children across 2
different homes.
Francis Voon (he/him) (mcap, ba, grad dip ed, b
th, dip bus, cpe)
Francis acknowledges that he lives, loves and
works on the unceded lands of the Gadigal, and yearns for a day when the work
of healing and justice especially for First Nations people is not linear but
circular.
Francis is a gay, cisgender man and person of
colour, with lived experiences of migration, polycultural balancing, religious
discrimination, ageism, racism, religiously & culturally based queerphobia,
sexually racist lateral violence, intergenerational trauma, linguistic and
profession-based discrimination. These experiences of discrimination and
violence coexist alongside the privileges he acknowledges as cisgender, male,
able-bodied, sighted, hearing, speaking, mobility, literate, lighter-skin, allistic, middle-class,
city-based, anglo-centric & tertiary educated, citizenship, fluent
anglophone, heteronormatively-perceived, monogamous-kinship-perceived,
self-employment, easy access to health, food, technology and resource
privileges.
Francis has had access to
opportunities across the multiverses of education, religious, cultural, health,
not-for-profit, advocacy,
queer/LGBTIQA+/rainbow/gender-bodily-kinship-sexuality celebratory,
diversity-friendly, nonviolence and performing arts. He enjoys educating,
supervising and presenting to colleagues and university students on issues of
psychotherapy, intersectionality and social justice. As a psychotherapist &
supervisor, his interests are somatic, psychodynamic, jungian, gestalt,
narrative, existential, and creative in expression.
(Alt-text image description:
portrait photo of Francis, an Australian man with South-East Asian
heritage. He is wearing a dark collared shirt, has short, black hair and
dark coloured eyes and has a welcoming smile on his face.)
Dr Gávi Ansara (He/him) (Convenor) (PhD
Psychol, MCouns, MSc, BA, CCTP-II, AAGSRDT)
Dr Gávi lives and works on unceded Wurundjeri Country, Kulin Nations. He
contributes to Pay the Rent and several Aboriginal-led initiatives for
reparations, truth-telling, treaty, healing, and justice. He is a Registered
Clinical Family Therapist, PACFA-Registered Clinical Psychotherapist and
Accredited Clinical Supervisor, and polycule-centred Clinical Relationship
Counsellor. He has specialisations in complex trauma and dissociation,
B/I/POC-centred ecotherapy, neurodivergent-affirming practice, intersex-centred
practice, non-binary and binary trans-centred practice, queer and D/s kinships,
polyamorous and multi-partner relationships, family and partner violence,
polycultural and creative arts approaches, grief and loss, family and community
trauma, supporting people seeking asylum, and trauma-and-violence-informed group
facilitation.
Gávi is an Advanced Accredited
Gender, Sex, and Relationship Diversities Therapist (AAGSRDT) whose
undergraduate work had a focus on anti-racist, African-led and Black-led
approaches to community wellbeing. He is a founding director and learning
facilitator at the Centre for Liberating Practices, a non-violent virtual hub
for challenging oppressions and cultivating communities. He has worked for over
20 years alongside people and communities with lived experience of oppression.
He serves as Senior Clinical Supervisor (multi-site contractor) with QLife, a
free, anonymous LGBTIQ+ peer support and referral service and Convenor of
PACFA’s Diversity in Gender, Body, Kinship, and Sexuality (GBKS) Leadership
Group team. He has published widely in peer-reviewed publications. He received
the UK Higher Education Academy’s National Psychology Postgraduate Teaching
Award for excellence in teaching psychology, the American Psychological
Association’s Transgender Research Award for original, significant research,
and the University of Surrey Vice Chancellor’s Alumni Achievement Award for
outstanding contributions to international human rights and social justice.
Positioning reflection:
Gávi is a multilingual, mixed
polycultural, polyamorous, neurodivergent polyennic, and queer
androsexual man of faith from multiple racialised cultural backgrounds who grew
up in urban and rural China, the Eora Nation, and elsewhere. He has multiple
names in multiple languages; they are all his “real” names. Gávi has lived
experience of chronic pain, multiple disabilities, homelessness, migration,
intergenerational forced displacement, poverty, and being targeted for white
supremacist racist violence and for gender, body, kinship, and sexuality
violence. He is also of Deaf lived experience and influenced by Deaf Pride;
although currently hearing, he retains beneficial influences from Deaf
cultures.
He strives for accountable
solidarity regarding his literacy, sighted, hearing, speaking, educational,
allistic (non-Autistic), binary gender, citizenship, situationally
lighter-skinned, singleton (not a plural person),
and non-Aboriginal privileges. Gávi's more detailed positioning reflection
acknowledging the intersections of his privileges, affinities, and marginalised
lived experiences is available here: https://ansarapsychotherapy.com/positioning/
(Alt-text image description: Mixed
polycultural man with olive skin, smoky dark eyes, and thick dark goatee in a
dark koufi and jacket, smiling from a harbour.)