With Respect Awareness Project - WRAP

Update November 2009

The With Respect Awareness Project is a collaboration between partners, the {also} Foundation TransGender Victoria, the Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby and the Anti-Violence Project and is overseen by a project reference group made up of key representatives of stakeholders important to the project’s objectives including TransGender Victoria, the Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, the Anti-Violence Project Victoria, Gay and Lesbian Heath Victoria, Rainbow Families Council, Victoria Police, Vic Health, The Victorian AIDS Council, the Drummond Street Relationship Centre, the Way Out Project, The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission and the Department of Justice.

The project stems from the large body of work demonstrating that GLBTIQ people are subject to unacceptably high incidence of homophobic harassment in their daily lives and is linked to poor social and health outcomes.

In particular the project is the progression of the With Respect: A strategy for reducing homophobic harassment in Victoria report. The report is attached for people’s interest and by way of important background to the current project.

While the current project falls short of delivering the comprehensive recommendations, outlined in With Respect, its objectives are broadly to:

•    develop a framework to reduce the incidence of homophobic harassment in Victoria by changing homophobic community attitudes and behaviours, and

•    increase the capacity of GLBTIQ people to respond to homophobic harassment and encourage reporting of homophobic incidence.

The project is presently in the research phase with a draft report due to be provided to the reference group by the end of November.

For further information contact Kylie Smith at the {also} office or kylie@also.org.au