Genderqueer Australia, one of Australia’s first support groups for people outside the gender binary, has shut its digital doors after 13 years.
A message on their Facebook page reads:
It is with great sadness that Genderqueer Australia says farewell as we prepare to shut down our website and social media. As some of you will know Genderqueer Australia began in 2010 as a peer support group for Gender Questioning, Genderqueer and Trans people, and their family and friends. After the in-person group meetups stopped we continued with maintaining the website and publicizing genderqueer, gender diverse and LGBTIQ+ events.
Genderqueer Australia was run by a tiny group of volunteers. Over its 13 years of operation, it hosted in-person and online events, set up a news feed for trans and nonbinary news, wrote opinion pieces on contemporary topics, hosted resources for Australia’s genderqueer and nonbinary community, and served as the point of contact for other organisations looking to connect with the genderqueer community.
The past decade has seen many other groups set up to support trans populations, the term ‘nonbinary’ become more common to describe genders outside the binary, and the pandemic decimate both attendance and funding for small community groups.
After posting the message at the end of January, the Genderqueer Australia website was shut down and their Twitter/X account deleted. While they are still listed on many healthcare and LGBTIQA+ directories, they no longer exist to provide support.
We thank the organisers for their years of hard work and wish them well in their next endeavours.
