Victoria’s first whole-of-government LGBTIQA+ strategy Pride in our future was launched in February 2022. The strategy is our plan to advance equality and inclusion for Victoria’s diverse LGBTIQA+ communities in all Victorian Government work over the next decade.
Working with LGBTIQA+ Victorians is central to the success of the strategy. We do this by working with the LGBTIQA+ Ministerial Taskforce, Health and Wellbeing and Justice Working Groups, and through consultation with communities. This ensures the voices, wisdom and experiences of LGBTIQA+ people guide us as we co-design policy and programs to improve equality for all Victorians.
We are already making progress in our four priority areas:
Priority area 1: Equal rights and freedoms
By strengthening existing legal protections for LGBTIQA+ Victorians and ensuring we create laws with an equity lens, we aim to make changes to benefit all community members.
Priority area 2: Equitable, inclusive and accessible services
Services should be approachable, welcoming, safe and inclusive for all Victorians throughout their whole lives and when accessing different services.
Priority area 3: Visibility to inform decision-making
Improving LGBTIQA+ data collection to build evidence will enable us to get a better picture of how LGBTIQA+ Victorians experience all parts of their lives.
Priority area 4: Safe, strong and sustainable communities
LGBTIQA+ people are a proud part of the Victorian community. By creating inclusive communities, we are making sure there is a place for all Victorians to be proud and live their life to the fullest.
Delivering early actions
This is our second annual report on the strategy’s progress. This report is an opportunity to demonstrate our success to date in implementing early actions and delivering key policy commitments in 2023-24.
Over the past twelve months we have launched our annual state-wide events program – Victoria’s Pride – in February 2023, that delivered 23 rural and regional events.
Victoria’s Pride, the Rainbow Street Party and Midsumma Pride March were attended by more than 98,500 Victorians.
We established two safe spaces for LGBTIQA+ young people – QHubs – in western Victoria to improve mental health and wellbeing.
We worked with trans and gender diverse communities to co-design a public awareness campaign – ‘The Unsaid Says A Lot’.
Additionally, we supported 28 emerging LGBTIQA+ leaders to participate in the 2023 rural and regional LGBTIQA+ Leadership Program.
In 2022–23, we established a baseline to show us the gaps and opportunities with more to achieve more over time. We developed an outcomes framework to measure our impact and we can now report on the progress of key indicators in our annual updates.
Now in the second year of the strategy, we report on the progress of key indicators by aligning the delivery of priority actions with outcomes in the Pride in our future: outcomes framework.
We’ve continued to made flagship investments, including $4.5 million for Switchboard to deliver the Pride in Ageing program which helps older LGBTIQA+ Victorians feel connected, safe and proud to live as their authentic selves, and $1.85 million for Rainbow Health Australia to deliver How2 inclusion training to service organisations to make them more inclusive for LGBTIQA+ service users.
We made significant progress on delivering early actions under Pride in our future to ensure equal rights and freedoms and improve services. We are working to transform the service experience of LGBTIQA+ Victorians of all ages by making sure services are equitable, inclusive and accessible.
A whole-of-government strategy
Pride in our future is the roadmap to becoming a state where all Victorians feel safe, are healthy, have equal human rights and can live wholly and freely.
We are working to reduce discrimination against LGBTIQA+ people by reforming Victorian laws.
We are not at the start of this journey here in Victoria, but we recognise that there is still much to be done. Our commitment to a future where LGBTIQA+ Victorians participate fully in the economic, educational, political, community and social life of our state is unwavering.
Through the implementation of Pride in our future we seek to build LGBTIQA+ communities that are self-sustaining, and create long term, systemic change across multiple service systems.
Every Victorian has a role in making Victoria a safe, welcoming place for all LGBTIQA+ people. Many LGBTIQA+ Victorians, allies, families, communities, departments and portfolio areas contributed to the achievements in the second year of the strategy. Even though we know there is much more to do, this work shows a whole-of-government and whole-of-communities commitment to come together and advance equality.
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