Understanding How The Gender Centre Works

by the Polare Editor

(The Gender Centre advise that this article may not be current and as such certain content, including but not limited to persons, contact details and dates may not apply. Where legal authority or medical related matters are cited, responsibility lies with the reader to obtain the most current relevant legal authority and/or medical publication.)

Background

The Gender Centre Inc. was originally set up as Tiresias House Inc. as a refuge for tranys in 1982 at Petersham. Since then, it has expanded it's services considerably. It receives funding from the N.S.W. State Government through the Department of Community Services and N.S.W. Health. It is what is known as a non-government organisation. Many other organisations in Australia are also known as non-government organisations.

Often these sorts of organisations begin because interested groups of people in the community draw the government's attention to a particular problem like homeless tranys. It is often difficult to get funding to set up places like the Gender Centre or to get further funding to expand the service offered.

Management Committee

In order to even qualify for funding, community groups like tranys, for example, have to fulfill a number of legal requirements so that they are accountable to the government which supplies them with money to run services.

They must have a constitution and a management committee who are responsible for managing the money and for approving big policy decisions.

The people on the Management Committees are representatives of the community group. So in the case of the Gender Centre, the Management Committee is often made up of tranys who are interested in supporting their own community.

Sometimes the Management Committee includes people who are keen to support tranys issues even though they are not tranys themselves.

Over the years, some people with expert skills have joined the committee, both tranys and non-trannies. Others have come on the committee without much experience of how committees work, but with a willingness to learn.

Members of the committee are volunteers - they do not get paid. They employ staff to do the day to day work.

The Management Committee meets once a month to discuss the budget and other important matters. They also sometimes meet in sub groups to talk about special issues like the H.I.V. project for the Gender Centre or other ideas for more services. The Management Committee can give approval for other groups to join some of these sub groups if you are interested.

Elections

The Management Committee is elected each year at the Annual General Meeting of the Gender Centre. You can find out when it's on by contacting the Centre and also how to stand for election or just come along and vote. Advance notice of when the A.G.M. is put out in Polare and on the notice boards to ensure as many interested people attend as possible.

Throughout the year, general meetings are held by the Management Committee to ask questions, to be informed of what's happening with the Centre and to present your own ideas. The Management Committee consists of 7 people. They are the President, Vice-President, Secretary, Assistant Secretary, Treasurer and two ordinary members. Each has certain functions to perform. Staff can give you more information about these functions if you would like to enquire.

Staff

The staff are paid employees with training and/or experience for their particular job.

At present David Burke is our Relief Administration Worker and he comes from Foley House temporarily. He is filling in to straighten up the accounting side of things and maintaining office work and at present is at the Morgan Street house.

Paula Hartigan is the Residential Worker for our three houses in the Sydney Area. She is often on call and works throughout weekends. She assists residents in applying to the Gender Centre for their application and assessment to receive housing placement and if this is approved, she also settles them into the house, the routine and their duties, obligations and rights as part of our housing program.

The next three people work hand in hand, often overlapping in their work but still have fairly defined responsibilities to ensure the best opportunities for transgender people.

Sharon Stoltzenberg is our Community Worker. Sharon has primary responsibility for counseling, sending out information packs, answering questions about hormones and surgery, assisting housing applications, and being part of the Thursday night Outreach Program.

Sean Taylor is our Social and Support Worker. Sean primarily maintains a program of workshops and information sessions, working in with the other staff to make sure the transgender community is up to date on all the information there is out there. He also reaches out to the trany men in the community, organising socials, ensuring support is there and maintains contact with this less vocal group of transgender folk. He also takes on counseling, answering questions about hormones and surgery and assessing housing applications.

Phinn Borg is our H.I.V. Outreach Worker which means he takes part not only on the Thursday night Outreach but also on a Monday Night Medical Outreach. He works in with other agencies to provide this and to serve the community through our safer sex programs and Needle Exchange program. He also takes on counseling, providing referrals to medical services and other care providers, assessing housing applications and coordinating outreach visits to gaol inmates who are transgender as well as a variety of home, hospital and care provider visits.

These three workers have a responsibility in counseling individuals for a variety of reasons and providing information and contacts to a variety of care providers (called referrals), and maintaining good contacts and making new contacts with various medical and other care providers for the transgender community.

All three workers also coordinate their time with Paula, to act as Case Key Workers for each individual resident in the houses. In this way we can stay in touch with each person making use of our services and ensure that things run smoothly for our residents.

Elizabeth Riley is the Gender Centre Coordinator. Elizabeth provides training to Government and non-government organisations in relation to employment and service provision for transgender people. She attends a whole variety of meetings from Equal Opportunity Boards and interest groups that have an input into legal processes that will affect transgender people. Elizabeth coordinates the writing of funding proposals, assessing the needs of the community as a whole. By doing this she tries to best present the needs for funding that will benefit most of the community most of the time, and links this with an ongoing assessment of how that funding has reached the transgender community.

Working with Elizabeth is Craig Andrews the Resource Development Worker. He organises all the information that flows into the Centre into our library. Information from other gender organisations throughout Australia and different countries, from the internet, from newspapers and magazines, books, journals and also word of mouth. He organises and updates our resource kits which are good starting points for people with transgender issues. He primarily ensures that all the information about workshops, programs, courses, legal changes, and social functions get out to the community through not only Polare, but through flyers, leaflets, pamphlets and the notice boards at the Centre. He also coordinates advertising from other care providers who wish to specifically target transgender folk. Craig, also known as George, maintains the mailing list and coordinates mail outs from the Centre.

C.H.A.S.P. Review

Elizabeth and Craig both have an extra role in coordinating and writing the reports needed for the current C.H.A.S.P. review. The first stage of this was submitted in early April, and by June there will be further assessments. C.H.A.S.P. will be a complete review of the Gender Centre's operations and will provide operations and will provide information on where the Centre is working well and where we might improve our service.

The C.H.A.S.P. reviewers are made up of one internal reviewer (Craig Andrews) and two external reviewers (from C.H.A.S.P.).

Ultimately a report is written by the reviewers and this gives the overall picture. The report will have recommendations for the Centre and then, the C.H.A.S.P. reviewers will work with the Centre to set goals, timelines, and people responsible for getting these goals completed.

The Trany Community

And finally, and most importantly, there are all the tranys in the community who make up the organisation of the Gender Centre Inc. The Gender Centre is your organisation. We are here for you, as your support and resource centre.

You elect the Management Committee to represent your interests - to have a say about what you want from the Gender Centre.

The Management Committee hears your say and translates that into programs and goals for the staff at the centre to work on.

The Centre can represent your interests with "the powers that be" and can put forward your interests in a whole variety of ways to push for change in the larger society.

Back in 1982, when Tiresias House first started, it only happened because members of our community were alarmed about homelessness among tranys and were prepared to try and do something about it.

Today we are ready to look at new problems and many of the old ongoing problems that affect us. Changes will only occur because of the demands and support that comes from within our own community group. It's up to us all.

Polare is published in Australia by The Gender Centre Inc. which is funded by the Department of Community Services under the S.A.A.P. Program and supported by the N.S.W. Health Department through the AIDS and Infectious Diseases Branch. Polare provides a forum for discussion and debate on gender issues. Advertisers are advised that all advertising is their responsibility under the Trade Practices Act. Unsolicited contributions are welcome, though no guarantee is made by the Editor that they will be published, nor any discussion entered into. The editor reserves the right to edit such contributions without notification. Any submission which appears in Polare may be published on our internet site. Opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor, The Gender Centre Inc.I, the Department of Community Services or the N.S.W. Department of Health.