WHAT IS THE GENDER CENTRE?

Tucked on a quiet street in the heart of Marrickville, you’ll find The Gender Centre, an institution with an apt position beside the library in the beautiful former hospital. They are a state-wide organisation run by the community for the community, with the help of qualified and hardworking allies like Liz. All their services are free, from counselling to support groups, crisis accommodation, sexual health testing and much more.

‘We exist for people of all ages. We work with young people and their parents, people across adulthood and in later life, with a women's group, nonbinary group, seniors group and many others. There's nowhere like the Gender Center in terms of the breadth of our offering.’

In 2025, the centre is starting a Regional Outreach project. This will extend from their current Western Health corridor that sees them work as far west as Nyngan and throughout the regions in between, great and small. Soon, they’ll be travelling as far north as Tweed Heads and all the way to Albury-Wodonga at our southern border.

As the head of this program with strong ties to the bush, Liz believes it’s in these towns where some of the centre’s work is most sorely needed. ‘There’s an assumption that transgender people all live in the city. But I've worked with people who are Jackaroos and Jillaroos who’ve transitioned and continued to be Jackaroos and Jillaroos. They don't want to leave those lifestyles, and why should they?’

A HOME FOR EVERYONE

Gender Centre began in 1983 as Tiresias House after community figure and activist Roberta Perkins lobbied for funds to start a refuge and support service for transgender women. ‘Back then, if you were a preoperative trans woman, you were forced to live in a men’s shelter,’ Liz shares, ‘Imagine looking like a woman, walking like a woman, being a woman and getting told, “Sorry, we don’t accept people like you here. Go live in a men's shelter.” How safe would anyone feel in that situation?’

That was almost 20 years before Liz began with the organisation, also starting in the centre’s homelessness program. It was founded because there was a need for housing – an issue they still face in 2025. According to Liz, ‘We have more beds today, but the beds are still full.’ 

When it all began in the 80s, Liz found herself mixing with the queer scene, clubbing around Oxford street while at university. She remembers the centre opening, although Liz never saw herself working there. In any case, it was her ties to the community that drew her in: ‘I grew up with a transgender woman in my mid to late teens, partying together. And I watched how people treated her. In the safety of clubbing, she was a human being. But day-to-day, I watched people notice she was trans and discriminate against her, although she did nothing wrong.’

Through her experiences and observing her friend, Liz saw that there was a disjunct between social and cultural attitudes. ‘In the 80s, people could suddenly experiment with their gender. Pop iconography showcased these things. You had Boy George, Grace Jones and Annie Lennox performing androgyny. Everyone was out there doing their thing while trans women were still excluded – the people on the street living it.’

Against this backdrop, it frustrated Liz to see her friend and others treated poorly, even in historically queer-friendly areas like the inner city. So, after finishing her studies and going into the not-for-profit sector, Liz was excited to be part of Gender Centre’s important work.

Now, it’s nearly another 20 years on from where her own journey with the centre started, and Liz hasn’t looked back. She’s still friends with her friend, however, who’s since partaken in the Gender Centre’s services, like social groups for connection, learning and community.

CARE WHERE IT COUNTS

Putting into words what exactly Gender Centre does is difficult, because it can take so many forms. Every situation for every individual they work with is different, as is the timeline these sit across. In some cases, those affected by the centre may engage their services for only a moment, while in others, this might last many years.

‘I started working with a sister girl, an Aboriginal woman who was placed in out-of-home care in early infancy, not even a couple months old.’ Liz shares, ‘She came to us homeless as an adult after spending her whole life with no birth registration. After 12 years of working together, wading through bureaucratic red tape, we were finally able to help her get a birth certificate.’

Liz believes this was the most rewarding thing she’s ever done at Gender Centre, although asking her to name one thing left her stumped at first; she worked with that woman for over half the time Liz has been employed by the centre.

‘We had to prove she was born in the same state she was taken from, so we had to find her parents. We reconnected her with her family, but the best day in this role was the day I handed her a birth certificate, twelve years later, with full citizenship. She burst into tears. They even registered her affirmed female name.’

For Liz, the best days at Gender Centre are when they’re able to help empower clients like that woman. It might’ve been a long road to get there, with many injustices along the way. Yet Liz and her colleagues at the Gender Centre were able to make a difference. ‘It was a joy, being able to support her for such a long time, giving her that continuity of care, the same worker to fight this battle.’

OVERCOMING OBSTACLES

For Liz, that’s one of the biggest challenges faced by the Gender Centre in their work: dealing with bureaucracy and its impersonal, dehumanising tendencies, which get in the way of compassion and empathy. Another challenge is finding funding, as government spending on causes like theirs is tight.

Just as the centre is community-run and supported by allies like Liz, the centre also receives much of its funding through the people: ‘I'm always surprised by some of the amazing innovations within the community to create income streams, sources or solutions to meet their own needs.’

TGBC are proud to be a long-term supporter of Gender Centre. Our unique International Women’s Day beers have raised $11,550 over the past three years for the organisation, a tradition that continues this IWD, generating more much-needed funding.

If you’re interested in making a donation, volunteering your time or accessing Gender Centre’s services, visit their website. And of course, try our new Helles Lager, now pouring at the brewery for a limited time, raising money for such an incredible local cause.