Felicity and Jan
This story is about the indignity of having my family officially denied,
and of the emotional and financial consequences of that denial.
My partner, Jan, moved to Australia 3 years ago and we have been partners
for over 2 years. Everyone in our lives recognises the strength and love
in our relationship. It even has a degree of official recognition - on the
basis of our relationship, Jan recently was granted an Interdependency
visa (which is under the "Family" class of visas). Our application was so
strong that the immigration officials rang us and to praise our
application, and told us we didn't need to attend the interview process -
Jan's visa was granted immediately. So, according to the Immigration
department, we are family. While official legitimation doesn't mean
everything, the process involved people in our lives writing beautiful
statements of affirmation, the successful result of the application meant
that Jan could stay in the country, and, to be honest, the official
recognition was satisfying, after years of insulting public pronouncements
denigrating same-sex relationships! The recognition felt like a small
victory for queers everywhere. Suffice to say, we had a party to
celebrate.
But, the story doesn't end there. Yesterday, we went to Centrelink, to see
if Jan was now eligible for a low income health care card. I'm on a health
care card, and Jan has just finished studying and is looking for work. So,
we're both living on just my meagre income. Centrelink's literature is
ambiguous about what she is eligible for. If we were applying for a
"family payment", she could get that (the interdependent visa is
specifically named), and if her "partner" were an Australian citizen
(which I am), she could get a health care card straight away. So, we
attended an interview to see where we stand. We weren't all that confident
- I've been writing "lesbian" on my Centrelink forms for years, refusing
to tick either "single" or being told constantly that "Centrelink doesn't
recognise same-sex relationships" - but we thought it was worth trying.
The woman at Centrelink who spoke with us introduced herself as "a family
expert". This was horribly ironic, because she then proceeded to tell us
that we weren't a family. She assured us that if we had children, we would
be a family, but Centrelink doesn't recognise us as "partners" and so we
are not family. Adding insult to injury, she shared her personal opinion,
"when I think "partner", I think boyfriend or husband", and then her
personal experience, assuring us that "all her friends" in same-sex
relationships "loved" that they were counted as single, because it saved
them "so much money".
In hindsight, I wish I'd pointed out to her the exact financial impact
that her implementation of this discriminatory policy has on our lives -
that Jan has to pay full fare on public transport, is ineligible for
concessions on prescription medication, has to pay to use the Carlton
Clinic (one of the few openly queer-friendly doctors), has to pay for an
ambulance if she needs one (she did need one about a year ago, and refused
it, because she knew she couldn't afford it) ... but I didn't, I just bit
my tongue and contained my sadness and rage.
Make no mistake, this blatant, homophobic discrimination has a significant
financial impact on us. But money is just money and we'll survive. The
emotional roller-coaster ride is harder to come to terms with. We are
being told by one government department that we are a family, and we've
felt the excitement of that confirmation, only to suffer the indignity of
being told by a "family expert" that we are not family. Of course, she's
not a "family expert" in my eyes, she's a Centrelink bureaucrat whose
expertise is in the application of certain parts of Centrelink policy,
which they categorise as "family". While I resist their monopoly on what
it means to be a family, it still digs in somewhere.
Of course, our experience is related to larger problems, that anyone is
denied social security benefits and that migration is tied to family
status. But this experience represents an official delegitimation of our
sexuality, our relationship, and our chosen family. It's not OK, and it
hurts. And, damn it, we are family!
