At his core, Curtin transgender psychology student Logan Ward, a recently elected 2016 queer officer in the Curtin Student Guild\u2019s Queer Department, wants to help others. His new role will allow him more opportunities to counsel and educate LGBTI students about mental and sexual health issues. Whatever the future holds, it\u2019s heart-warming to see that it will in some way involve Logan flying the rainbow flag for the LGBTI community in Perth.<\/p>\n
Why did you choose to study psychology at Curtin?<\/strong><\/p>\n It was an impulse decision. I thought I was going to do art. But at that time, a lot of friends were thinking about a lot of hard stuff \u2013 self-harm, bulimia, suicide \u2013 and they didn\u2019t seem to be talking to anyone about it. It was quite heavy. I also had my fair share of experiences with psychologists who were really condescending and rude.<\/p>\n I\u2019d heard about all the universities, so I knew about Curtin, but I have one queer cousin in Melbourne who said they heard Curtin was great in terms of diversity. I wasn\u2019t \u2018out\u2019 in terms of my gender, but I\u2019ve always been queer in terms of my sexuality, and she said, \u201cGo there. It will be great to get that sense of community.\u201d For whatever reason, Curtin felt right. It was great coming to Open Day and asking the lecturers at the time about the psychology course. Afterwards, there was one time in high school where we had two master of psychology students come in and I asked them their thoughts on doing psychology at Curtin and they said, \u201cYou\u2019ve got to get through the theory in the general foundation units, just like any course, but after that it\u2019s fantastic and it\u2019s a really good experience.\u201d<\/p>\n So, at the last minute, I decided to go with psychology on a whim, but it\u2019s been absolutely amazing. I\u2019m really glad I stuck it out. I\u2019m now in my final year, final semester of a four-year bachelor of psychology. I handed in my dissertation last week, so I\u2019m kind of excited. I also find out soon if I can get an interview after applying for a Master of Counselling Psychology. There have been units that are hard and stressful, but overall I would highly recommend doing psychology at Curtin.<\/p>\n What was the coming out process like for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n I was questioning my gender for a year. I didn\u2019t know there were genders beyond male and female up until university and it just blew my mind, because I went to an all-girls Catholic school, so I learnt none of that. I was shocked. I went to the queer officer at Curtin and said, \u201cCan I talk to someone about this?\u201d They linked me to somebody in the counselling office, who was the first psychologist I talked to that wasn\u2019t terrible. I actually included her in my dissertation and showed it to her recently, and she had tears and said she was going to cry.<\/p>\n Having a safe space to learn about gender helped. I came out to my partner at the time. He was fantastic. I slowly came out to friends. Some took it amazingly. Others took a while to warm up. They asked, \u201cIs it a phase? I don\u2019t know what\u2019s happening\u201d, and it took a lot of convincing for me to say, \u201cNo, no, no. This is not a phase.\u201d Some of them have now said they\u2019ve felt guilty for dragging their feet, but I told them not to worry and said I would have done the same thing if I was in their position.<\/p>\n I was really nervous about coming out to my family. My mum is a conservative, middle-class Burmese woman, so I thought that wouldn\u2019t go down well. I thought that my dad, who was the more rational of my parents, would have taken it a bit better, but he actually didn\u2019t. I told my uncle first: he was super chill and he didn\u2019t mind. We have a big extended family, particularly on mum\u2019s side, and he pointed out the cousins that I should tell first because they would be okay with it and the ones I should tell later.<\/p>\n Telling my uncle went really well, so I thought I\u2019d come out to my dad, but that did not go well. He got a big shock and thought it was messed up. It really affected my self-confidence because he said, \u201cYou can\u2019t have surgery because that\u2019s self mutilation\u201d, which I was very uncomfortable about hearing. He actually outed me to my mum right before exams, which was bad. I had to leave home for a couple of days and I stressed out. I had never done poorly \u2013 I had never failed an exam \u2013 so I really freaked out.<\/p>\n It was 11 o\u2019clock at night and I called up a friend, asking for help. He got in contact with a bunch of other people who got in contact with more people, until it went back to [the Curtin Student Guild\u2019s] queer officer at the time, Kat, who told me that she had spent the last hour calling a bunch of crisis centres and they were no help, so she was going to pick me up. I said she didn\u2019t have to do that, but she drove to my house, which was out of her way and drove me to my partner\u2019s place at the time. Kat was one of the best people that I\u2019ve ever met. She had a high burn out rate compared to most other queer officers, because most people take it for a year and then can\u2019t keep going anymore, but she kept doing it. Good mates then took me in for a couple of days each, but I was stressed out and uncomfortable.<\/p>\n In comparison to others, my experience was relatively tame. I didn\u2019t get physically assaulted or anything like that. I wasn\u2019t homeless for a long period of time. I had food and money and clothes. But it was terrifying and I definitely don\u2019t want anyone else to have that experience.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Has there been anything that you\u2019ve done to help people, even though you\u2019re not a queer officer yet?<\/strong><\/p>\n Even though it\u2019s not officially my job until in a couple of months, I\u2019ve been helping people if they\u2019ve been looking for a doctor or psychologist.<\/p>\n It was really flattering when I met this girl who was transitioning from male to female \u2013 she had been homeless for a long time and also had problems with substance abuse, as far as I could tell from small bits of information that she gave. She needed to see a doctor and I told her there was one on campus who wouldn\u2019t ask invasive questions about her gender. She was nervous and I offered to go with her and help her book an appointment. I hadn\u2019t seen her for several months and she came into the department and said, \u201cIf I didn\u2019t talk to you, I probably wouldn\u2019t be alive right now.\u201d We hugged it out.<\/p>\n What will happen once you become the queer officer?<\/strong><\/p>\n As a queer officer, you\u2019re a representative to the queer collective at Curtin. The Queer Department is a safe space. We have an agreement that we don\u2019t do drugs and that we check in with people if we talk about something triggering. It has been really sweet to see Facebook messages saying that I would be a really good queer officer.<\/p>\n It can be quite intense because you don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen and you\u2019re literally confronted with sometimes the worse situations, where sometimes people will tell you personal things that might be above your own comfort level. You do a bit of counselling, not to a professional degree, but just asking people if they are safe and okay, and then sending people off to the right health professionals.<\/p>\n I want to continue to foster a safe space for people to ask questions they might be a bit embarrassed to ask. I know some people in the department might not have the education to deal with issues like mental health or sexual health and safety \u2013 there\u2019s a stigma about mental health and it\u2019s really prevalent in the queer community, which is shocking \u2013 so I\u2019d like to be able to do some form of workshop or a mini-lecture. It might be like your generic mental health class back at high school, but I\u2019d tailor it to be queer-specific, have interesting activities and offer free food. I\u2019d still like to have all the fun events, like Queers on the Lawn or movie nights, but the workshops would be events where people would learn about a topic that they wouldn\u2019t necessarily feel comfortable talking about it to their parents, but could talk about it to a guest speaker.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know where I\u2019d be if I didn\u2019t go to the Queer Department when I started, because I was so nervous about going anywhere on campus. It was a great place to connect with people who were more or less in the same boat as me.<\/p>\n What\u2019s your dream job?<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ve done a couple of volunteering gigs with LGBTI groups and I\u2019ve got a general view of the resources spread across Australia. Basically what we have here in Perth isn\u2019t really good enough. It\u2019s very heartbreaking. So I want to be a gender and sexuality diverse peer counsellor. I could talk to people and say I\u2019m aware of some of the issues they\u2019re going through, even though, obviously, we\u2019re all different.<\/p>\n Particularly this year, a lot of my friends who are trans have been homeless. They have gone to available crisis accommodations or homeless centres that have said, \u201cWe can\u2019t put you with the women, because you\u2019ll make them uncomfortable, and we can\u2019t put you with the men, because they\u2019ll beat you up.\u201d It\u2019s messed up. There\u2019s not a lot of win out there, particularly since we\u2019re a niche part of the queer community. It\u2019s growing and things are improving, but I would just like to speed them up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Curtin transgender psychology student Logan Ward, a recently elected 2016 queer officer in the Curtin Student Guild\u2019s Queer Department, wants to counsel LGBTI students about mental and sexual health.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4275,"featured_media":5410,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-5409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-and-global-community"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":false,"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Logan-Ward.jpg","author_meta":{"first_name":"Curtin","last_name":"University","display_name":"Curtin University"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-17 01:10:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5409"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=5409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}