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Australia's 'First Lesbian' blitzes Mardi Gras
Friday 02 March 2001
Giz Watson, Australia's first out lesbian politician will lead the Greens largest Mardi Gras contingent tomorrow night. Watson will be joined by Green MPs Kerry Tucker from the ACT, NSW MLCs Lee Rhiannon and Ian Cohen and fifty members from Victoria and NSW.
The Greens have the distinction of having more gay, lesbian, bi and trans-gendered politicians around the world than any other political movement. Senator Bob Brown was the first gay Federal Politician to be public about his sexual identification.
Giz Watson is one of five Greens elected in a landslide Upper House win in WA at the recent State election. Ms Watson was prominent in her previous term for campaigning on gender issues, including abortion rights for straight women.
Ms Watson said, "I am so proud to be out and in the Parliament. It would be a fine achievement for the Greens if Bob Brown and I encourage other Queers, particularly kids, to be proud of who they are."
"The Greens are the number one party on GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisecual and transgender) issues and now we have the balance of power in Western Australia we will achieve even more. We set the stage for the Democrats to get a gay Senator elected last election and hopefully the other mainstream parties will follow," Ms Watson said.
Ms Watson said that the Greens would expand their Queer agenda to work with the small inter-sex community. These people suffer a life of unwanted medical intervention because they are not born clearly male or female.
This year’s float follows a tradition of spectacular contributions by the Greens, with a multimedia installation of working TVs. Last year the float was composed of an old car which was disassembled by metal saws and welding torches as it went along and was reincarnated into a butterfly.
