Currently being established, Zoe Belle Gender Centre Inc. (ZBGC) will be a centre to support and improve the health and wellbeing of Victoria’s sex and gender diverse (SGD) population.

We believe that more needs to be done to improve the physical and psychological welfare and rates of social inclusion of SGD people in Victoria. Establishing and funding a community driven and controlled gender centre would be a sensitive and proactive response to this problem. For more information about this cause, please see our fact sheet on the need for a gender centre in Victoria.

As well as lobbying for the establishment of a physical gender centre for Victoria’s SGD population, our website functions as a ‘virtual gender centre’. We provide online resources such as a searchable Resources Directory, a knowledge-sharing “Questions and Answers” website, and more. We have also successfully run events for the local SGD community.

More recently, our commitment to and record in SGD health has culminated in ZBGC being the first transgender organisation in Victoria to receive state government funding: in late 2011, we were one of seven recipients of Baillieu Government funding to address suicide and self-harm among LGBTI young people. We are using this funding to deliver our youth project.

Note: You can also read the Wikipedia entry on ZBGC.

What We Want (Our Vision)

A society that values people of all sex and gender identities and expressions

Our Role In Achieving This (Our Mission)

We empower and bring together Victoria’s sex and/or gender diverse communities. By developing a gender centre and delivering initiatives, we address inequities in health and wellbeing.

What We Do

Our objective is to develop and maintain a gender centre that addresses inequities in the health and wellbeing of sex and/or gender diverse people in Victoria by:

• advocating and educating about issues of gender diversity
• providing support, information and referrals
• collaborating with individuals and organisations whose objectives are complementary to our objectives
• running events, workshops and campaigns to inform, enliven and strengthen our communities.

ZBGC Working Group and Staff

Working Group

ZBGC’s work is carried out by the ZBGC Working Group. The Working Group’s expertise spans a wide range of fields including health promotion, youth work, counselling, communications, and IT. All Working Group members are volunteers.

The current Working Group members are:

• Ash Pike (President)
• Andrea Waling (Vice-President)
• Gem de Marco (Secretary)
• Samantha Schillinger (Treasurer)
• Lisa Sinclair (IT support)
• Liz Alexander and Sim Kennedy (Working Group Members)

Staff and other volunteers

The ZBGC Youth Project Officer is Zoe Birkinshaw. Zoe is running our youth suicide prevention project.

Download a ZBGC brochure as a PDF file: