DR TRACIE O'KEEFE DCH

I am a qualified and registered clinical hypnotherapist, psychotherapist, counsellor and trainer in Sydney, Australia. I am the clinical director of the Australian Health & Education Centre in Glebe where I run the International Sex, Gender & Sexuality Clinic. I trained with the National School of Hypnosis and Advanced Psychotherapy in London, UK. My degree and doctorate were earned at the American Institute of Hypnotherapy in the USA and issued in co-ordination with the State of California. I have attended other colleges and schools and constantly spend a lot of my time on developing my skills as a therapist.

Before coming to Australia, I practised for many years at the London Medical Centre, Harley Street in the UK. For more than 20 years I have been helping people empower themselves and achieve their goals. I ran my own sex, gender & sexuality clinic in the UK and now do the same in Sydney. I am the author of the books Trans-X-U-All: The Naked Difference and Sex, Gender & Sexuality: 21st Century Transformations, and the co-editor of Finding the Real Me: True Tales of Sex & Gender Identity, as well as numerous articles on sex, gender & sexuality, many of which I have presented at major conferences. I was an active member of Press for Change in the UK and am a member of the following organisations: Gender Trust (UK), Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (Ethics Committee), Trans-Essex (Patron), Gendys Network (Patron), International Transgender Film Festival (Patron), T-Image Foundation Netherlands (International Adviser). I am also Professor of Sex, Gender & Sexuality at the Calamus International University and Principal of the O'Keefe School of Hypnosis & Psychotherapy in Sydney. I actively campaign for human and animal rights and am committed to living and promoting a cruelty-free and environmentally conscious lifestyle. For more information about me, please visit my website at http://www.tracieokeefe.com

GRACE ABRAMS

Grace is a post-trans woman with experience in community support and counselling. At present she lives in Queensland with her partner. She is an active member of her communities, currently works in IT and recently won a landmark court case which awarded her a female passport despite being married (prior to surgery) to another woman. She hopes more people take advantage of this precedent so we can illustrate how unworkable and unfair current discriminatory legislation really is, and push for change and equality.

Grace does public speaking, guest-lecture spots and runs workshops on sex and gender, workplace diversity, GLBTI issues and other stuff. She hopes to study psych, work for social justice and travel. She describes herself as a secular humanist. She is active in the GLBTI and BDSM communities.

ZOE BRAIN

A bit about me...

 As a matter of fact, I *am* a Rocket Scientist, Also a Naval Combat System Architect, Parent of a small boy, Pure Mathematician, and PhD candidate doing research on Evolutionary Computation.

I transitioned in 2005, not in quite the normal way, and the medics are split as to whether I'm more accurately classified as an Intersexed woman with a transsexual past, or a Transsexual woman with a unique endocrine system. I prefer to be regarded as a "Woman with a Past".

I Blog profusely on neuroscience, transsexual human rights, and science in general, and in my spare time, do some amateur research on neurology, Intersex conditions, and Transsexuality from a cognitive/computational science rather than a psychological/therapeutic viewpoint. I also give talks and lectures to medical students, students of gender, diversity councillors, and anyone else who's interested, trying to put a human face on the subject.

I own my own Architectural Consulting Company and have had a hand in documenting such projects as the Myer Department Store and Coles Building in Pitt St Mall, The Family Law Courts of Australia, Hotels, Train Stations & Airport Terminals. 

NORRIE MAY WELBY

Hi! I was born in Scotland in 1961, and brought with my family to Perth Western Australia in 1969 on a ten pound fare, part of a colonial scheme to "Keep Australia White", but the sand in Perth looked pretty black to me.

I commenced transsexual hormone treatment in 1985, moved to Sydney in '88, and had genital realignment surgery here in 1989. As a modern thinking woman, I began questioning the social norms of gender and sex and their policing, and co-wrote a series on gender/transgender for the Sydney Star Observer in 1991. Through being exposed to post- modern deconstructionism, learning about the existence of human hermaphrodism through Anne Faust-Sterling's "Five Sexes", and digesting Susan Striker's "My words to Victor Frankenstein...", my own gender identity shifted somewhat. I now view my physical body as a beautiful eunuch, my soul as hermaphrodite, my social gender as mostly "woman" and sometimes more or less, and nothing human is alien to me.

RHIANNON EVANS

I am currently located in Perth. My personal aim is to set in motion processes that will rid Australia of gender controlling structures, to place people on an equal footing so that they are not judged and victimised because of their gender. To get to a state where people will no longer have to suffer with broken lives, broken marriages, internal torment, substance abuse and guilt, just because the way they look, dress and act does not conform to a society stamped gender standard.

I spent most of my life, as is the case with so many people, tormented and self-abusive trying darn hard to fit into a world which had rules I found hard to conform to unless I forced myself to be person I was not. I have grown in recent times to become more of who I am and encompass who I really should be and not grab another label off the shelf and run with it.