Amy (she/her) has been a strong voice for the Rainbow Families Equality team during her tenure on the Board. She leaves an impressive legacy of advocacy and bravery that directly benefits so many of our members.
Amy was a vital part of our Legal Parentage Campaign, assembling a working group of key stakeholders around the country. The campaign aims to try and deliver on law reforms across Australia to “ensure families are protected by the law and find a clearer pathway to making families through surrogacy arrangements in an ethical way.” Amy and her team liaised with members of the community with firsthand experience of the surrogacy process, to understand how to better support LGBTI+ people in creating families. Leading the way, Amy’s team maintained ongoing consultation with legal experts and continued to lobby for change and clarity to parentage laws.
Our popular Making Rainbow Families Seminars in both 2021 and 2022 were enhanced by Amy’s knowledge. Many potential parents from our community look to us for guidance, and at these seminars they are provided with relevant information through a rainbow lens in an easy to understand way, very often unavailable anywhere else where heteronormative and cisgendered information saturates the space. Amy delivered informative and inclusive presentations on the legal considerations for LGBTQ+ parents.
Perhaps Amy’s most impressive contribution to Rainbow Families as a Board member came in the form of her involvement in our work surrounding Mark Latham’s Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020. Amy was integral in our submission to NSW Parliament on the proposed legislation and she selflessly volunteered to represent our families by giving evidence at the hearing. This took a lot of courage and had a huge positive impact for our members, as she shared stories from the families we serve about how the bill would impact the diverse families in our community. Amy adeptly explained just how harmful this bill would be for the huge LGBTQ+ community in Australia, balancing passion with professionalism to be the voice our families deserve.
Amy’s compassion and drive has been invaluable to the Rainbow Families Board in recent years and she will certainly be missed. Thank you Amy, you have been a catalyst for change and a brilliant asset to us.
