These laws carry the paternalistic suggestion that being identified as having survived assault is damaging to one’s reputation
When I was a kid someone’s parents used to drive us over the border to New South Wales to buy little bumblebee firecrackers. We’d set them off on our street back in suburban Queensland where they went bzzz-bang! about a metre in the air, safely but illegally. There is an inherent absurdity in criminal laws being legislated by state and Australians who can drive (or even walk) to each others’ jurisdictions being held to different standards accordingly. It’s especially frustrating when we come to consider laws that intersect with gendered considerations – the recent decriminalisation of abortion in Queensland being the perfect example – because it’s usually a question of which state lags the slowest behind the reforms of the others. Consequences for people other than men in slower states can (and have been) horrible and sometimes criminal.
Related: Reporting my sexual assault to the police was horrific but healing. Here’s what I learned | Bri Lee
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