Women, nonbinary and gender diverse people will often share with our support workers experiences of feeling excluded, overlooked, devalued and even ignored when accessing supports and services. This highlights a phenomena that is evident throughout the community service delivery system in Australia, which traditionally, has viewed people, and provided services organised in terms of a single attribute or issue. However, we know life is not that singular – we exist in a world in which our experiences are shaped by multiple issues at once, and that diverse individuals will be impacted in unique and specific ways according to their social locations in Australian society.
WIRE stood at the forefront of the shift of traditionally women’s organisations towards inclusivity for gender diverse and non- binary service users. Our practice was showcased in Victorian Equal Opportunity Human Rights Commission Guidelines for family violence services and accommodation as a model for compliance with the Equal opportunity Act 2010. WIRE seeks to remain a best practice community services leader. To do this, we need to do the deep de-constructing and re-constructing work needed to shed a light on the obstacles and exclusions we are unwittingly creating, embedding in institutions, and affirming as a society around people’s differences that contribute to the feeling of people not belonging. Our answer to this is an Intersectionality Action Plan.