Radical queer activist group Queer Endurance / Defiance is calling on the whole queer community and allies to gather on Parliament lawn at 2pm on 1 July to commemorate the Stonewall riots that helped fuel the flame of the modern queer rights movement. QED will be taking this opportunity to launch their campaign for decent transgender healthcare in Aotearoa. QED has eighteen specific demands for trangender healthcare reform, and a government who supported and addressed these demands would be taking a significant step towards ensuring greater equitability in Aotearoa’s healthcare system.

Thousands rallied in support of irawhiti and trans rights in Civic Square in March, in possibly the biggest trans rights protest in Aotearoa's history. Now Queer Endurance / Defiance seeks to build on that energy, to move beyond simply opposing transphobia, to creating a coalition for our rights.

In particular, Queer Endurance / Defiance aims to put irawhiti and trans healthcare on the political agenda in an election year. There are hundreds on waiting lists for gender-affirming care, with some on a waitlist of over ten years. “The inadequate resourcing of and pathways for irawhiti and transgender healthcare is in part due to an overstretched underfunded healthcare system that affects everybody” says Serah Allison, a spokesperson for QED. “Importantly, the healthcare system’s failings disproportionately affect irawhiti and transgender people, and that inequity is a denial of their healthcare rights.” QED is fighting for an informed consent model for our healthcare, simplifying the many hoops we currently need to jump through for life-saving care.

We believe only mass action can ensure irawhiti and trans rights, and that liberation for gender diverse people is bound up with the liberation of oppressed and exploited people generally. Tristan Cordelia, a spokesperson for QED, says: “We know that decent healthcare for our community won’t come without an improved health system for all; that we will achieve our health aims not by diverting funds from the current level of total healthcare funding, but by increasing the pot for all. We therefore seek to build the broadest possible working-class solidarity. We appreciate all who stand with us.”

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