Resource:

[Title on screen reads, ‘Sex and Your Body]

[Text on screen reads, ‘Content Warning: Includes discussion of depression and violence’]

[Our Site logo]

[Text on screen reads, ‘Women and girls with disability have the right to control their own sexuality, body and relationships’]

[Short statured Margherita is sitting with her dog]

[MARGHERITA]

Most people, and particularly young people, and particularly women with disabilities, do get to a stage where their body image comes up all the time. Even if they're not talking about sexuality, their body image is a hot topic. And a lot of the emphasis, when you look at media, you see images of beautiful, slim or curvy... And fashion, it's all about the fashion.
So when it comes to women with disabilities, that's what they'll grow up with, and, you know, the Barbie dolls, that's what I grew up with. My body doesn't look like that.

[Kirra is in her twenties]

[KIRRA]

Being cis or being cisgendered means that you identify with the gender you were assigned at birth. So oftentimes we correlate sex and gender and that's what being cis is so it's that assumption where, if you have a vagina you're a woman, if you have a penis you're a man.
Trans people are those that don't identify with that binary of sex is gender. So they might be people that were assigned female at birth but identify as male.
And then you've got non-binary, which is another form of trans but some non-binary people don't like identifying with trans - it's a very individual thing. So non-binary people are those that exist outside of the binaries.
It's kind of a catch-all term for a bunch of different genders but it's usually that other box that you would see in a form, or something like that.

[Text on screen reads, ‘We can make our own choices about things like having sex, using contraception, and raising a family’]

[JUDY]

Parents have an absolute right to have their children, you know, in their own home, you know, by their side, instead of being taken away.
A lot of parents don't get it. They get - they're afraid of having their children taken away. So we really push for the rights of parents to have their children.

[MIA]

Between my OI and Troy's spina bifida we chose not to have children. It was just too much of a risk. The fact that we have so many health issues and so much going on health-wise and disability-wise that we chose not to. It was just not in our best interest.
In saying that, everyone is different and I have friends with disabilities that have children and they've coped very well. However, again, everyone is different. We just chose not to go down that path.

[Text on screen reads, ‘We have the right to make decisions about our body and sexual health and to have our choices respected’]

[Twenty something Jay wears a black t-shirt which reads ‘Please Go Away’]

[JAY]

I haven't actually told any health-care professionals so far that I'm non-binary. I have been accessing health care partially because I'm non-binary though, like I recently, how long ago was it, a couple of months ago, got tubal ligation surgery which I presented to my health-care professionals as because I never wanted children, which is very, very true, but I think part of the reason I wanted it was because no matter how good my contraception was I was still fertile and that was not - I don't think that was congruent with my image of myself or my gender identity or any of that. And I know if I had brought up that it was to do with gender stuff it probably would've been even worse because I already had to prove that I'd gone through every other form of contraception first before I could access that.

[Text on screen reads, “Everyone’s body is different. We have the right to feel beautiful and comfortable in our own bodies’]

[MARGHERITA]

When Belinda said, "We're going to do you full frontal," the first thing I said, "Well, you have to tell me when so I can go to the gym, so I can shave my legs, shave my armpits." And then I thought, "I don't do that anyway, so..." Once I'd stripped off it was like, "This is not so bad." And when she showed the photo, it was shown for the first time at the Gay Games in Sydney 2000. And there were people walking around and they'd come up and they'd walk past and say, "Nice bod." I kind of went, "Thank you. OK!" And those two little comments, it was like, "I just got told I've got a nice bod."

[Text on screen reads, ‘Learn more at Our Site oursite.wwda.org.au’]

[The logo for Women with Disabilities Australia (WWDA)]

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