Tasmania

‘The long campaigns against Tasmania’s old laws targeting gay and trans people have given LGBTI Tasmanians the unique opportunity to raise awareness about the problems we face.’ Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

The Tasmanian parliament is poised to pass the best laws for transgender and gender-diverse people; not only in the nation, but on the planet.

Both houses have agreed to the reform, with the only remaining step being lower house assent to upper house amendments. Unless the Hodgman government plans to stymie the clear wishes of majorities in both houses of parliament, these laws will become fact in the very near future.

When the laws come into effect, they will allow a trans or gender diverse person to self-determine their gender identity and have this identity officially recognised on their birth certificate.…  Seguir leyendo »

Beyond the blue whale, the dinosaurs and the crocodiles, the Natural History Museum has a fundamental commitment to advance the understanding of the natural world through science. Behind our public and educational faces lie research laboratories, libraries and science staff who care for and develop a collection of more than 70m items from across the world. This work places the museum at the heart of the debate about science in society today, as well as cementing our role as custodians of knowledge for the future.

The natural world is not limited to rainforests and coral reefs: we want to satisfy our innate curiosity about mankind.…  Seguir leyendo »

By Helena Kennedy. Baroness Helena Kennedy QC is a human rights lawyer and British Museum trustee (THE GUARDIAN, 28/03/06):

Two bundles held by the British Museum, made of kangaroo skin and closed by a drawstring, are unremarkable, but contain human ash gathered from a cremation fire by Tasmanian Aboriginals in about 1830. They are extremely rare physical traces of a population nearly exterminated during European settlement in the 19th century. This genocide, in which the indigenous people were shot for sport by farmers, was one of the most shameful episodes in British colonial history. The last full-blood Tasmanian Aboriginal died in 1888, but the original population continues to exist in the form of Tasmanians of mixed Aboriginal and European descent.…  Seguir leyendo »