What a disaster!

But it seems this is simply not enough.

But apparently some members of the LGBTI community are not happy because - oh, the horror of it all – they are not treated with the respect that their special gender status doesn't just warrant but deserves.

So, needless to say, some serious work needs to be done to correct this flagrant bias. Naturally, it is being done at the taxpayers' expense by academics who are actually conspicuous by their absence when rescue operations during floods and fires swing into action. Probably, their work is far too important to put themselves at any physical risk.

The Victorian Government's National Gender and Emergency Management Guidelines already addresses this crisis and frankly they couldn't have come a nanosecond sooner, could they? The survey, when evaluated, will presumably lead to a further enhancement and fine-tuning of these existing guidelines.

The guidelines note that, "promotion and awareness of the consequences of outsourcing response and recovery arrangements (is handed ) to third-party faith-based organisations" which receive "public taxpayer funds" and which are "simultaneously granted exemptions from anti-discrimination legislation". There appears to be no irony at all in these guidelines that those drawing them up also receive "public taxpayer funds" because, after all, they are performing an urgent and vital public service which puts the mere matter of saving lives in the shade. Well, aren't they?

According to the report that produced these guidelines;

Research participants reported exacerbated anxiety after the 2011 Queensland floods resulting from having to hide their sexual or gender identity from emergency workers and volunteers, or stay with people who were not accepting of them. Natural disasters are asserted by some in extreme religious groups to be caused by 'sinners'. These groups define homosexuality and non-normative gender identity as sinful and place blame for the disaster on LGBTI people, particularly gay men: in this view it is punishment from God.

Yes, there are nutters on the extreme fringes of Christian (and Muslim) fundamentalism who believe that natural disasters are God's punishment for acceptance of gay people but isn't it a wee bit extreme to imply that all faith-based volunteer organisations would naturally discriminate against LGBTI people during natural disasters?

Needless to say, there were no reports of LGBTI survivors of natural disasters thanking these vile bigots for actually saving and then housing them.

It seems that we are expected to believe that organisations which don't pay particular attention to the real and/or imagined hurt feelings of LGBTI people are heartless, homophobic, vilely discriminatory and just downright nasty.

The guidelines suggest that emergency workers and volunteers be taught about the "gender spectrum", that "gender spectrum" is a "social construction" and there is a recommendation that gender specialists be called upon to review state and territory emergency management protocols. There is a belief that because the "dominant construction of gender privileges men over women ... and some men over other men" that the LGBTI community is "disproportionately vulnerable during and after disaster".

So, to help overcome these delicate sensibilities, the guidelines propose that there be specialist LGBTI services to help in recovery efforts and that consideration be given to the installation of "facilities, such as bathrooms, toilets and showers beyond 'male' and 'female' and where possible provide an option for transgender and intersex people to reduce fears and vulnerability".