NEWS EXTRA Stamping out discrimination

LIVING as a trans gender person in a regional town has its challenges, so Dee Mould has made it her mission to be unapologetically herself.

With this Sunday marking International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT), Ms Mould wants people understand the impact discrimination has on individuals.

Having experienced regular torment since transitioning just over a year ago, Ms Mould hopes by speaking out, life will be less traumatising for young trans people on a similar journey to her.

“I think Dubbo is actually a beautiful place for a trans person to live and most of the people that you meet are pretty cool about it, but you do come up against transphobia on a daily basis and for me as a mature person, I’m 53, so for me I can be reasonably toughskinned, I’ve lived a life, but for a young trans person in this town, the levels of transphobia they would come up against is very damaging,” she told

“I get disrespected daily on whatever level, often people will just deliberately misgender me a lot and I’ll be the only person in the queue called ‘sir’ and things like that, which is very minor, and I can deal with that and I accept it and very rarely challenge it, I just let it go straight over my head, but the other end of the spectrum is the two times I’ve been in fear of my life and had to leave a situation very, very quickly.”

According to the IDAHOBIT website, a shocking 75 per cent of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) experience some form of discrimination.

24.4 per cent of lesbian, gay and bisexual people and 36.2 per cent of trans Australians experience depression, compared to just 6.8