Monday 26 January 2009
Pride March! this Sunday, Saint Kilda
Sunday 18 January 2009
Awsome Quotes:
-Margret Cho
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=k4nt4U7YGaI
Very funny and, she makes some valid comment, though not all totally PC or reflective of contemporary Queer theory, but none-the less well worth a look!
Tuesday 2 December 2008
"They're comming"
Thursday 27 November 2008
Monday 17 November 2008
Rally: Repeal the Same Sex Marriage Ban
The ban of same sex marriage across 3 states in America and the campaign to ban it in more, is a painful reminder that not only must we continue to fight to GAIN our rights, but we must fight to MAINTAIN our rights!
Protestors in Iowa pictured left.
I have been involved with a group that has been petitioning for equal marriage rights over the past year (of course the over all campaign began much earlier). It is quite clear that public opinion is in our favour. Our petitions have been signed by over 30,000 people. a recent Age poll showed that 79% (an overwhelming majority) of Australians support equal rights for same sex couples. In reaction to this public opinion the Rudd government announced a raft of changes to homophobic laws; many of which would be automatically reversed if same sex marriage was legalised and if passed may save the Government massive amounts of money. None the less the proposal was indeed a victory for our side but it falls well short of the campaigns demands!
The ban imposed by Howard in 2004 was a massive slap in the face to queers and activist, a curt reminder to "Keep in our places"-we will NOT!!
This Saturday, in the city at the State Library there will be an important rally which aims to put pressure on the government to repeal the ban and make Rudd follow through with his legislation changes. At the rally the petition will be handed to a Greens Senator, to table the issue in parliament.
Friday 14 November 2008
Sodomy
An interesting email sent to me by my Girl Friend today... (Note while she tallks of the 'Torah' as she is Jewish, Christians have also included this in their holly scriptures (The Bible) I'm not as familiar with the holly scriptures of Islam but it would not suprise me if the Koran had the same or a simmilar story)
The English word Sodomy is derived from the destruction of Sodom in this week's Torah Portion, Vayeira. A common misconception is that Sodom was destroyed for engaging in homosexual acts (thus the term Sodomy). However, these homosexual acts were merely manifestations of Sodom's real sin: hostility to strangers. Sodomites would rape visitors due to a hatred for outsiders.
In light of this realization, perhaps we should revisit the definition of the word sodomy. A word that for so long has been used to induce shame and self-loathing in homosexuals could instead be used to discourage homophobia and other forms of intolerance against "outsiders" in our society.
The message of the destruction of Sodom is thus to welcome and embrace all people in our community -- not in spite of their difference -- but precisely because of it.
It just goes to show, the meaning of holly scriptures, like most text, is all in the niterpretation.
Saturday 1 November 2008
Q+A: Kicking Ass To Get The Job Done!
The first was that we had our posters taken down by school administration. So the simplest piece of advice I have for you is make sure you get the right approval to have posters up!- Sadly we had a number of posters being torn down by students. Largely dealing with this was resilience, we just had to keep putting up the posters-which did play on our environmental consciences a bit. We also quickly learnt where they were taken down from, and where they were mostly likely to stay up. We found putting them in classroom windows and staff offices facing out meant that they were not torn down.
Our group was largely populated by year 12’s who wont be here next year. Overcoming this so far has been largely through word of mouth, having the younger students who do come encourage mates to get along. We soon found that close to 50% of the students coming to our meetings were non-year 12 students. Today has also had a recruitment focus. Telling students about the group, advertising our meetings and we’ve planned a special meeting tomorrow with a guest speaker. We spoke at the year 9 assembly, and went around to the year 10 and 11 homeroom classes to advertise the day and the group-In the hope that these students will be able to take on leadership positions in the group next year.
Before we could put on rainbow day or get serious about a campaign to reduce levels of queerphobia we had to have the administration of the school accept that there was a problem in the school. When putting up posters to advertise our group we encountered hostility over the word “make” as in “make NHS a queer safe space” There were some people who disliked the suggestion that NHS was NOT already a queer safe space. Certainly we felt that this was something the school administration could not judge as they’re not students. They don’t experience and witness queerphobia in the same way we do. Suggestion that any queerphobia in the school was the result of “one or two bullies” was highly insulting to the group and put a bit of a block on what we wanted to do. After discussions and several proposed plans we decided as a group we really couldn’t do any work until the school was forced to recognize the queerphobia with in it. We submitted a letter to our school principal and school council detailing our concerns, with some suggestions for improvement including rainbow day as well as collecting anecdotes from students and teachers detailing experiences of queerphobia in the school. This resulted in us being invited to talk to staff meetings and committees- which has raised awareness of queerphobia among staff and has put sexuality and gender diversity back on the agenda.
I hope what I’ve said has been usefull but I must stress what I think is possibly the most crucial point: For their to be real change there must be student led and organized groups! Students will listen more to other students than teachers and a group like Q+A provides an ability for self empowerment of queer and allied students. This sense of being able to make change and stand up for what you believe in creates confidence and students create their OWN safe place.
So far this year Q+A has created a year 7 lesson plan which has been used to a great degree of success, put on an excellent day which sent a clear message to the school that NHS was a place of gender and sexuality diversity and that such diversity deserved to be celebrated, we have raised conscious levels of students and teachers, we have had a commitment from the school curriculum committee to make queer-friendly changes to the education and the manner in which staff are trained and simply by existing and meeting regularly we have given queer and question students a place to feel safe and supported, supported not only in that we will never mock them in regards tot heir sexuality and gender identity, we are also providing a support in which we work together to overcome the discrimination that Queer and questioning students are forced to put up with. We WILL be back next year! In fact our own curriculum committee (a Q+A sub group)intends to meet at the conclusion of exams to make reforms to the year 7 health curriculum which will then be put in place for following years.
Friday 10 October 2008
The History of Queer Pride Flags
Italian peace flag, same design as the Greek peace flag which reads "epihnh" -peace in Greek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_symbol#The_Peace_Rainbow_Flag)
Wednesday 1 October 2008
The Birth of Sexual Opression in Australia.
We generally like to believe throughout history that majority opinion goes from worse to at the very least, less worse. Sadly this isn’t always the case. Governments will use what ever oppression they deem necessary at any particular point in time to create their desired effect; Whether that be anti-Muslim racism and the fear of terrorism to support US imperialism or sexual oppression to ‘strengthen’ the population among other oppressions. Sexual Oppression is sharpest when governments most require the reproduction of the working class. Cipi Morgan points out in her article ‘Colonial invasion and homophobia in Australia’ “heads rolled across Europe like billiard balls as kings, queens and clergymen scrambled for complete control over the lives of ordinary people” We see this also during WWI in Australia, with a ban on the importation of contraceptives, and again in Nazzi Germany when women were recruited to reproduce with soldiers, and queers and feminist were thrown into concentration camps (along with Jews, socialists, gypsies, Jehovah Witnesses and the many other outspoken individuals and groups). There is minimal if any ‘progression’- rather there are peaks in different opinions based on political struggles and the government’s desperate protection of the economy in our ‘national interest.’ We see much time, but little progress between Hennry Parks’s statement in 1866, that in the business of colonisation, “there is only one way to do it-by spreading over it all the associations and connections of family life” and Howard 2000 assertion that children require one mother and one father-ruling out any aberration to the nuclear family.
There can be no doubt of the significant damage done to Australia’s indigenous people and the environment following the British Invasion in 1788. The land was considered to be 'Terra Nullius'- a land which is not inhabited. Cook and the British law of the time had decided that the "Indians" he encountered had no right to the land as they were not 'improving the land'-because we all know how greatly European invasion 'improved' the land.
There is no evidence to suggest that queerphobia existed prior to European invasion. In fact in many pre-colonial and pre-class societies there is evidence to suggest that both sexual and gender diversity was more acceptable though different terms were used. Sister-girls are an example of this in Indigenous Australian communities. (Sister-girl: The acceptance and visibility of sistergirls is often considered far greater than gay men or lesbians in aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Sistergirls are biological men who are effeminate or live their lives as women. Communities will often accept and recognise sister girls as women. Sistergirls undertake the roles and responsibilities of women having relationships with straight men. However sistergirls do not generally identify as transgender.) Societies in North America and Siberia are also said to have practised transexuality and homosexuality. In many ancient societies same sex relations were not only accepted but exalted. Examples include the Mycenaen society of around 12000BC and the Athenian and African societies of 400-300 BC.
Even with the rise of the church “homosexuality” as a separate sexual or identity category remained unknown. The term “homosexuality” was first coined by a German scientist;
According to Australian historians R.W. Connell and T.H. Irving, the panic around sexuality flared up in the 1820’s. with Governor Arthur’s booting out of officials for offences such as “adultery” and general sexual immorality. They argue that “particular venom was directed against homosexual relationships formed by many convicts and pastoral workers” adding that “unmarried convict women got a fair pasting as sluts and whores” They also point out that although the “1812 parliamentary inquiry into transportation had hardly raised a question about sex, the 1837 inquiry…positively smouldered with innuendo, scandal and moralising.”
Morgan points out the sexism inherent in the over used metaphor in colonial studies which “depicts the agent of colonisation as man and the tragic subject as woman (some kind of irresistible “wilderness” for man’s exploration).
The new ruling class of settler Australians struggled to gain control of the largely prior-convict working class. Family units have long been understood as being an effective way of controlling workers. For the creation of families, wom*n were essential. There were offcourse few wom*n in settler Australia. The Port Philip District (now the state of Victoria) had 75 women to 2000 men in 1838.
The use of “decent” working class families by the ruling class in Australia mirrored that of England; With the intensifying of gender stereotypes and the extraction of unpaid female labour in reproducing, feeding, clothing and caring for workers. At this same time the first of the trials of homosexuals were occurring, including that of Oscar Wilde in 1895.
Homosexuality was not invented in Colonial Australia however it certainly made it’s debut as public enemy number one in the eyes of the ruling class.
The old fashioned, conservative, bloodstained and oppressive values of the ruling class are no less prevalent in today’s society, though they tend to manifest themselves in different ways. Like all oppressions, sexual oppression is a tool used to keep the working class in it’s place.
Writting Themselves in Again
Key finding:
•Young women were more likely to identify as bisexual or no label than men
•More than a third of young people realised their sexual differences very early in their lives. (over half of young men and women cited realising they were not heterosexual before the age of 14)
•There was no relationship between age at first realization of sexual feelings, current attraction and gender of sexual partner.
•Once young people reframed their experiences oh homophobia as an issue of bullying and not of truths about themselves, they were more likely to feel better about being same sex attracted.
About Your Sexual Behaviour
•SSAY (Same sex attracted Young People) were more likely to be sexually active earlier than their Year 10 and 12 peers in secondary school
•SSA were more likely to be having sex that matched their sexual attraction in 1998.
•65% used a condom at their last penetrative encounter (58% of young women and 68% young men)
•10% reported being diagnosed with an ATI
•11% of young women had been pregnant (one third of these women identify as being attracted exclusively to their own gender), 10% of the 15-18 year old sub-sample
•6% reported having been diagnosed with some form of hepatitis
How do People Treat you?
Key Findings:
•38% of participants reported unfair treatment on the basis of their sexuality
•44% reported verbal abuse and 16% reported physical abuse because of their sexuality (figures are largely unchanged since the 1998 report)
•School was the most dangerous place for young people to be with 74% of young people who were abused experiencing this abuse at school (80% young men, 48% young women)
Impact of Discrimination and abuse
Key Findings:
•Homophobic abuse has a profound impact on young peoples well-being
ØThose who had suffered abuse felt less safe at school, home, on social occasions and sport
ØThose who had experience abuse were more likely to self-harm, report a sexually transmissible infection and use a range of legal and illegal drugs
ØYoung people felt the most safe at home and the least safe at sporting events
About your drug use
Key findings
•In 2004, the reported use of all drugs, including alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, part drugs and heroin was down on reported use in 1998 (percentage of young people who had injected drugs dropped from 11% to 4%)
•Drugs remain substantially higher than for heterosexual youth, for example, over double the number of SSAY have injected drugs
•There remains a significant relationship between homophobic abuse and drug use
•Drug use serves a number of important functions in these peoples lives.
Disclosure and Support
Key Findings
•Support from all confidants was higher in 2004 than it was in 1998
•Young people who had support felt significantly better about their sexuality
•There was an increase in support from teachers and student welfare coordinators in 2004
•Almost three quarters of young people had spoken to someone on the internet about their sexuality
Sex education information
•The internet was the most important source of information about homophobia and discrimination (71%), gay (73%) and Lesbian (60%) relationships and gay (69%) and lesbian (54) safe sex
•80% of these SSAY found sex education at school to be useless or fairly useless, while 20% found it to be useful