17 May marks International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT). This is a day when millions of people around the world take a stand against LGBTIQA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse, intersex, queer and asexual) discrimination.
Celebrating IDAHOBIT is a way to show your support for our LGBTIQA+ community. It is an important day to acknowledge because 2 in 3 LGBTIQA+ youth experience abuse due to their identity.
Support for students
For students, we have dedicated queer counsellors through Health Wellbeing and Inclusion, and Finding Pride (a seven-week Queer social support program at the Bundoora campus). Further information is available on the LGBTIQA+ Resource Hub web page.
Below are some practical tips on how you can support our LGBTIQA+ community: this IDAHOBIT:
- Attend La Trobe’s ALLY Training: create a more diverse and inclusive culture and greater visibility and learn about some of the issues facing LGBTIQA+ students and staff
- Wear rainbow: signal your stance against LGBTIQA+ discrimination. It is okay to wear a rainbow ribbon, lanyard, or pronoun badge, even if you’re not part of the LGBTIQA+ community.
- Decorate your space: hanging rainbow or educational posters in your classroom, office, meeting room or office kitchen is a small step towards building inclusion.
- Keep up to date with ARCSHS: sign up to La Trobe’s Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS) mailing list to keep up to date with work undertaken by the Australian leader in research on sex and sexuality.
- Visit the Minus18 website: Minus 8 have a range of free digital resources such as email signatures and zoom backgrounds that you can download to show your support and the IDAHOBIT website has statistics and tips on LGBTIQA+ inclusion, allyship and stories from LGBTIQA+ champions.