Legal Counselling Service

by Rachael Wallbank

(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.)

My name is Rachael Wallbank and I am the newly retained Legal Officer for the Gender Centre. I will be at the Gender Centre each Thursday from 7:00pm until 9:00pm to provide free legal advice to people with gender issues. This service is confidential and can be easily accessed by either calling in to see me or calling me on the telephone.

By way of personal introduction I am, amongst other things, a parent, a lawyer with my own litigation focused legal practice since July 1985 and a recently transitioned transsexual. In the first six months of this year I completed a property settlement with my wife and have orders whereby my entitlement to liberal access to my three children is confirmed. I am a member of The Seahorse Society and served on the committee of Seahorse for two terms while doing the voluntary phone work for Seahorse for the last three years or so. I have been aware of my need to express my femininity since about five years of age. I have therefore had the experience of most of the range of emotions, confusions and practical problems - both social and legal - which confront the transgendered person. Finally, I have attained a certain private spirituality which gives meaning to my life and which survived, if it was not fostered by, an Irish Catholic religious upbringing. So much for "me in a nutshell".

While it is true that most of the major legal issues in life confronted by people with gender issues are the same as those confronted by the average person, it is nevertheless equally true that discrimination, both in private and community life, which exists in relation to the transgendered person, in both its passive and active forms, gives rise to a set of particular legal challenges which are unique to the transgendered person. It is my firm belief that each of us is actually far more interdependent than we realise. In this context I believe that our community, and each of us within it, significantly benefits and is vitalised each time any of us acquires the knowledge and capacity necessary to better recognise and establish our legal rights.

Every time one of us "stands up" in this way - with considered judgment and dignity - the larger community is advised to positively shift its perception of each one of us. I believe that the above applies whether the issue is one of the courtesy of service in a department store or shop, the way a public or government entity accepts and records a change in gender status through to a major issue of discrimination threatening financial and/or social livelihood.

This new concept in legal counselling is specifically aimed at the needs of people with gender issues. This service is aimed at making our legal system more available to and better understood by the many people within our community who have been fearful or reluctant to seek advice about, or take action in respect of, their legal problems because:

1. Those legal problems are essentially connected with their gender issues, and - or;
2. Their transgender status or appearance made them feel uncomfortable or unwelcome within the traditional legal environment, and/or;
3. Fear of unaffordable legal costs.

You now have no excuse for sitting alone and worrying about a legal problem that won't solve itself. No matter what the legal issue, if I am unable to provide immediate and clear guidance then I will ensure that by the next week I have knowledge necessary to adequately follow up your enquiry. Legal problems are just like any other problems we meet in life. Once we are helped to commence to understand them and deal with them then we can commence to live in the solution rather than the problem and be that much freer in our everyday existence.

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.