Statement from the MEAA Diversity Committee for Trans Day of Visibility 2025
International Trans Day of Visibility celebrates trans pride and awareness on March 31 every year, recognising trans, gender diverse and non-binary experiences and achievements.
MEAA particularly acknowledges and celebrates First Nations sistergirls, brotherboys, trans and gender diverse members and communities, and their continuing legacy of activism and leadership.
MEAA celebrates the work of our trans and gender diverse members from all sections whether they be performing on stage or screen, working behind the scenes, or creating impactful content in our Australian media landscape. We also recognise the risk that visibility can bring unless we also have power, protection and political representation.
As part of MEAA’s Represent campaign, we advocate for equitable treatment and cultural safety for all workers including a focus on trans and gender diverse workers. MEAA recognises the leadership role we take – as culture makers – in changing the narrative, our capacity to create authentic and meaningful representation in our industries, which opens doors to structural change and greater equity and long-term positive impacts for some of our most vulnerable members of society.
MEAA has led the way by creating the MEAA Guidelines for Reporting on LGBTQIA+ Issues, pushing for gender affirmation leave in agreements across our sections, and in a commitment to creating safer and more inclusive workplaces for all. However, our media, arts and entertainment industries have a long way to go toward justice. We are alarmed to see an increase in anti-trans disinformation in Australian media, and we stand with our trans and gender diverse members who have been made to feel unsafe and unwelcome at work when their employers promote and publish hateful and misleading anti-trans propaganda. We recognise that even in our own spaces we can always improve.
Trans justice is union business, which MEAA intends to take on. Work in the creative and media industries is increasingly insecure as the creative work of our members is undervalued by governments and corporations, and undermined and stolen by AI. Trans and gender diverse people disproportionately experience unemployment and insecure work, making trans justice part of the work of our union, to ensure that more jobs exist which are stable, secure, and available to all without discrimination.
We ask all arts and media workers and their communities to pledge their support for the Represent campaign so that we can create transformative change for all workers to be valued and respected at work.
