ABSTRACT
The issues facing sistergirls and brotherboys exist in conjunction with broader issues affecting all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) people. All too often, the problems they face as ATSI transgender and sex/gender diverse people are compounded by discrimination, inequality, and violence as ATSI people. Systematic racism is not a recent phenomenon. Since colonisation in 1788, successive colonial and federal governments have implemented policies which have treated ATSI people, and their culture, as inferior. While textual evidence may be lacking, oral traditions reveal that sister-girls have always existed in traditional cultures. Although there has been very little information available regarding sister-girls, there is even less about brotherboys. Oral histories reveal that sistergirls occupy the same social role as women. As children, several sistergirls and brotherboys spoke of how they were often mistaken for the other gender. While it has been suggested in both historical and contemporary accounts that Indigenous queers do not exist, oral histories reveal otherwise.
