Querelle 2013

querelle ‘13 CREDITS & CONTRIBUTORS

CREDITS Editor-In-Chief Ryan Auberson-Walsh

Creative Director Luke ‘Flurolux’ Zorbas

Out of the Loop Josh Thomason

Managing Editor James Wilson

Manager Andie Yates

Homophobes Outed Rosa Gollan

Web Design Hayden Bleasel

Special thanks to: UTS Student’s Association Queer Collective

Memoirs of a Gaysha Buddhist Monk Tony Wongsiri

Family & Friends

Seeing Pink Jerrenn Lam

Cover Art Loren by Amy Blue

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CONTRIBUTORS Colour Me Dang Ally Burnie interviews Joesph Dang Guten Morgen, Berlin Julia Gebhardt Thomas Dämmrich Cunts I Know Ryan Auberson-Walsh interviews Amy Blue

Love is for everyone Elisa Leppanen

Two Straight Girls, One Gay Club Rosa Gollan

Derailed Ryan Auberson-Walsh Taylor Dayley-Case

History with Mr. Howes Wiliam Brougham interviews Keith Howes

Karma Chameleon Michael Day

If the Louboutin fits Jesse Matheson Edison Chen

querelle ‘13 EDITOR’S LETTER

This year I set myself and the date of Querelle off on a journey into the new millennia. With the hope of producing a delightful and dandy piece of work for 2013, I feel as if I can safely say that it was a success.

With assistance from designers in both the print and online mediums, Querelle now has a permanent face online with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the mother ship: the brand spankin’ new website.

For their help in achieving this vision I’m incredibly appreciative. I can only hope that future editions to come can enjoy having a more in your face presence thanks to social media and the World Wide Web.

In this issue, which we have limited the copy to a digital format for wider accessibility, readers can expect to see an eclectic range of content including edgy interviews, sexy art pieces and punchy features. Articles have this year been sent in from far and wide, including from busty Brazil, our motherland England and a quaint German city in beer-loving Bavaria.

So flick through the pages and embrace the talents of our wonderful contributors.

Please don’t forget to pop online and check out our website, querellemagazine.com, and ‘like’ us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Happy reading, Ryan Auberson-Walsh Editor-in-chief, Querelle 2013 editor@querellemagazine.com QUERELLE | 3

3 EDITOR’S LETTER

Contents *Trigger Warning Some factual content within these marked articles may be seen as being queerphobic or sexist, though the author is aiming to provide social commentary. Any offense caused is unintended.

22 SEEING PINK

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COLOUR ME DANG

50 GUTEN MORGEN, BERLIN

54 CUNTS I KNOW

6 OUT OF THE LOOP

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10

18

*HOMOPHOBES OUTED

MEMOIRS OF A GAY BUDDHIST MONK

LOVE IS FOR EVERYONE

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38

DERAILED

KARMA CHAMELEON

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62

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*2 STRAIGHT GIRLS, 1 GAY BAR

HISTORY WITH MR. HOWES

IF THE LOUBOUTIN FITS

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6 | QUERELLE Photo: David Mark @ pixabay.com

You don’t really want to read another article about marriage equality.

“It’s economically sound,” says one journalist; “It’s sinful,” says a pastor; “My gay child has changed my mind,” says the politician. You have had opinions thrown at you every which way and you’re pretty fed up with being told that your rights are a point of contention to be debated, bartered with in elections, and to be rejected or accepted without so much as consulting you. That’s all quite lovely, but this article isn’t going to be about marriage equality.

However, when it comes to talking about “gay rights” these days, it’s become difficult not to also refer to marriage. In fact, at times it almost seems as if having a strong opinion about gay marriage is a necessary condition for being gay.

Those apathetic and naysaying few are excommunicated from our community, and are only called upon to write op-eds for popular news outlets that want to flaunt their impartiality. “Gay person doesn’t support gay marriage,” the headline reads. Well then, let’s all just go home.

Then of course you’ve experienced first hand the barrage of commercials and handbills that the movement churns out: pamphlets, posters, cards, button badges, stickers, temporary tattoos, flags, shirts, Internet adverts and chain emails — it’s

all so exhausting, isn’t it? But over time as your brain becomes saturated you begin to notice a pattern, a very distinct design in the marketing of the cause.

At times it seems to you as if marriage equality adverts are blatantly selling gay people to the general public under the pretense of social change. “Gay people are just like you,” the advert coos, “Look at how perfectly normal they are.”

But soon you notice that some queer folk aren’t fit for public consumption. That transgender person who was politely asked to censor their speech, or the people of colour whose absence in the marketing material is painfully obvious. The more you watch and read and argue, the more that this pattern becomes discernible.

You notice how people snort derisively when the newcomer introduces themselves as “pansexual” or “two spirited”. They obviously just can’t figure out that they’re gay.

Asexuals aren’t treated any better: “You’re just a late bloomer, it’s a hormonal thing,” and “You’re just afraid of sex — how do you know if you’ve never tried?” It doesn’t stop there. Around a dinner table somewhere, people are shooting the crap, “Did you hear about Jo, she reckons she’s bisexual?” Because bisexual people are straight and going through a phase or gay and too afraid to admit it didn’t-you-know? >>>

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Slowly, you begin to notice that certain turns of phrase sound distantly familiar. That documentary you watched on gay conversion ‘therapy’ and that WWII autobiography. Quacks telling queer folk that they are just going through a phase, later that they’re sick. Hormonal imbalance, faulty genes.

Overbearing mother and absent father. There’s a cure for this disease, you deviant, you sinner. Hormonal treatments, electroshock, castration.

Straight people abused the queers, so now the queers are going to abuse themselves. Our community is a diverse species of oddballs stuck in the downwards spiral of familial abuse. You’re not really asexual. You’re not actually bisexual.

Why can’t you be normal, you make such a pretty girl...

It becomes apparent to you that equality isn’t on the agenda.

It hasn’t been on the agenda from the very beginning. You read through Wikipedia articles and blog posts and you piece together the incomplete portrait of some terrible event. “No, no, you don’t understand. Rights for trans people are just too radical,” the 1970’s gay rights movement said, “It’s not your turn for equal rights.”

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You realise that now that those ads are trying to sell gays to the public. The television-watching, tax-paying population get served an exquisite dish and its price tag is equality, only for some. You look through those pamphlets and on those posters and to the characters on sitcoms and drama programmes, and

in a moment of clarity you realise that they’re all the same person: they are all the “Acceptable Gay”.

You know his face well. It’s soft and agreeable and it looks good when he has a beard. He has beautiful eyes and a cute smirk. When he’s in Australia he wears flannel with jeans and flip flops, but his costume changes from place to place. He’s the most perfectly normal man who kisses other men you have ever seen.

He’s also always white, cisgendered, non-ethnic, middle class, and masculine.

And all at once it dawns on you why for the past forty years the queer community has been cannibalising whole sections of itself: to make it more palatable for the public. Those sex workers? No, no, they’re not with us. Not those “transsexuals” either. Have you looked at these gay men though? They’re much more easy on the eye.

Revelation after revelation, everything falls into place. Bisexuals present a problem because anything more complex than a binary is too difficult to pack into a heart-warming television ad. Nobody could possibly ever relate to not wanting sex, so asexuals are cast aside as well. Trans* issues never even reach the public’s eye.

...the campaign for marriage equality is really just a campaign for privileged queers to be included in an exclusive club.

Academic research into homosexuality almost exclusively examines men, because women’s sexuality is something to be controlled, and not understood. Most queer people are simply too complicated for heterosexual people to understand, so they’ll just have to make way for the Acceptable Gays and wait their turn. Maybe in another 50 years, eh?

Soon you start noticing Acceptable Gays everywhere: on public transport, in the supermarket, laughing loudly in public squares. They revel in their mastery of derogatory slurs, “Oh I’m such a f*ggot,” they say, and they’re perfectly fine with straight people using them too. Because they’re just words.

They’re very certain that such and such is gay and just needs to come out — because being out of the closet is somehow mandatory. They feel entitled to touch women’s breasts and genitals because, hey, “It doesn’t mean anything”.

not internalised homophobia at work, but internalised heteronormativity. Nothing is so valuable in the homosexual world as the opinion of heterosexuals: to be validated, recognised and endorsed. That’s why those pornographic adverts are always rudely shoving heterosexuals at you, “Straight girl goes wild with friends,” and “Straight guy sucks cock for the first time,” click here now for 50% off your subscription. In a very real way, the marriage equality movement’s goal is to have the heterosexual majority endorse the Acceptable Gay, actual equality be damned.

Never so much as now has there been such a divide between the queer rights movement, and the gay rights movement. So no, this isn’t another article about gay marriage. Instead it’s about what’s wrong with the system – and it’s up to you if you feel like changing it.

And suddenly it becomes clear to you that the campaign for marriage equality is really just a campaign for privileged queers to be included in an exclusive club. You realise that it’s

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10 | QUERELLE Photo: mickyroo @ pixabay.com / Design: Luke Zorbas

Exorcising the equal rightspusher within her, Rosa Gollan gets on with outing those who just aren’t on the same page as the majority of sane citizens.

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Not so long ago, in casual conversation with a close friend, he absent-mindedly blurted out something that literally stopped me in my tracks: “I think gay people should be tested before they can have children.”

After I had finished gawking at him, I sat him down on the closest bench and lectured him for a good twenty minutes about how deranged and ludicrous that comment was, and how could he possibly think that? What on earth did ‘tested’ even mean? While I was ranting he looked guilty, confused and pouted, and it didn’t take long for me to realise that he hadn’t considered the impact behind what he had said and most importantly; he actually didn’t believe it either. Quite uncharacteristic for someone who has never been homophobic, so why had he said something so homophobic?

He wasn’t sure either.

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My friend grew up in a small country town in England’s north, the kind of place where everyone is part of a nuclear family and you live and die on the same street. I grew up in Sydney’s inner west, a thriving multicultural hub with lots of lefties and great Vietnamese food, where I knew more gay couples than I did married ones.

I came to the conclusion that my friend, a sweet, unassuming 20-something nerd, was the product of a confusion between two generational viewpoints: the ingrained neoliberalism of the politically correct Millennial Generationers, and an older generation’s traditional moral outlook on gay people making a life together. The latter is what he was surrounded with while growing up, so his automatic train of thought on such matters would have been the norm for him, just not me.

On the issue of gay marriage, young people support it overwhelmingly at around 81% according to Australian Marriage Equality. It’s director Rodney Croome explains that these young’uns “don’t just support it, they passionately support it.”

But it would be unfair to call this just a generational thing there are plenty of older people who aren’t entirely homophobic and there are plenty of under-30s who are. It’s a power thing. Those homophobic people out there who are in the position to make change, whether it be to a country, a policy, a fan base, a community or an impressionable individual, are instead doing little but profess the same archaic, religiously charged opinions of sexuality, marriage, childhood and equality that resonate with the anti-gay and homophobic opinions popular in the past. It’s everywhere, and many of these people are on a public platform so high up that nothing and no one can stop them spreading what can only be considered as hate and falsity.

Fortunately, what my friend said didn’t reach other ears and was one of those mistakes he won’t make again, but there are plenty of people out there who have made homophobic comments even more hurtful, bewildering and unnecessary, and who have said them with conviction and in full belief that their comments were insightful and healthy. We have come a long way in the past 50 years for LGBTIQ equality but we have a long way to go. Instead of wasting our time attacking the right to free speech, perhaps we can take this time to reflect on some of the most homophobic things said by public figures. Why? To figure out how to head in the complete opposite direction.

So who are the culprits?

“Gays need to quit being pussies and not be whining about something as insignificant as bullying.”

“Gay was something kids learn from the media and programming, and that bullied kids should just bust some ass and beat those other little fuckers that bully them, not whine about it.”

“If my son was gay he better come home and talk to me like a man and not [in a high-pitched voice] or he would pull out a knife and stab that little nigger to death.”

“I don’t fucking care if I piss off some gays, because if they can take a fucking dick up their ass... They can take a fucking joke.”

Tracy Morgan, 2011 Not only are these comments from a 2011 show in Nashville not funny, they’re not clever, witty, smart or insightful in any way, they are also fueled by bitterness, violence and anger. It would be hard to imagine anyone would find comments like these entertaining unless they themselves thought the same way. Unfortunately, there are people like that everywhere, but open your eyes Tracy, your demographic generally leans in the opposite direction.

indicates that perhaps his sense of ‘humour’ still needs some

Back to our first lot of his offensive comments, comedian Louis C.K. philosophised in an interview about Tracy’s upbringing, saying perhaps Tracy viewed men in general as having “an obligation to be a man in a certain way. Then, he meets gay men and has no idea how to accommodate that.”

Disappointingly, he is also noted as saying in Tracy’s defence: “Maybe there were gay people there who were laughing. You don’t fucking know…” Um, somehow doubtful.

Louis himself is also all about this ‘shock humour’, but clearly Tracey’s attempt was pretty dreadful. Instead he humiliated his own son with grotesque threats, completely undermined the work done to combat bullying and advocated the perception that being gay is a choice. Sure, free speech should be free, comedy should push boundaries and, if done well, sometimes shock value can work, but sometimes it’s just shit.

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Most people who understand the comedic genius that is 30 Rock can get that being gay isn’t ‘learned’ from ‘the media’. In response to Tracy’s comments his 30 Rock co-star, gay rights advocate and goddess of funny, Tina Fey publically blasted him, calling his rant “disturbing”. And even though Tracy issued a fairly watery apology, just last month audience members walked out disgusted from Tracy’s Melbourne show, which

work. This, of course, just caused hoo-hah as to whether we should just suck it up because we should have known about the bigotry before buying a ticket. Comedian Tommy Little tweeted: “People walked out of Tracy Morgan’s show because it was sexist, that’s like walking out of a musical because there’s too much singing.” Because singing is just like sexism.

“Let us not be naive: this is not simply a political struggle, but it is an attempt to destroy God’s plan. It is not just a bill but a ‘move’ of the father of lies who seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.” Jorge Mario Bergoglio, aka Pope Francis I, 2010 With the new pope came new hope that Argentinian Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis Numero Uno, would come with more acceptance of homosexuality than popes past. This comment shows that it was probably never a possibility, it’s extracted from a letter that Bergoglio wrote in 2010 urging Argentinians to pray away the evil onslaught that would come with the legalisation of gay marriage. I guess god wasn’t listening this time because Argentina voted in the new laws soon after, the first Latin American country to do so.

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Before him, Pope Benedict XVI, the ex-pope who recently activated his retirement funds, was an active anti-gay lobbyist, once declaring that gays “threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself.” He said enough homophobic comments in his seven-year tenure to fill at least five pope hats, one of the most bizarre being that transgender people were going to cause the end of the human race. Considering that the pope, until recently, had banned condoms, it is sincerely doubtful that transgendered people, even if they wanted to, would even be able to slightly dent the overpopulated human race given any amount of time.

Many will argue that it is the ancient biblical morals that direct Catholic leaders to disapprove of homosexuality, but to spread such hate can be incredibly harmful, especially when there are millions of people around the world, who cling onto the pope’s

every word. In fact, the scene in front of the Holy See when the pope steps out for a chat often resembles a Justin Bieber mosh pit; filled with excited, waving, screaming virgins.

UK Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement chief executive Rev Sharon Ferguson summed up the danger of religious leaders spreading hate perfectly: “When you have religious leaders like that making that sort of statement then followers feel they are justified in behaving in an aggressive and violent way because they feel that they are doing God’s work in ridding the world of these people.”

And if you thought the pope and his crew couldn’t possibly be more sanctimonious, consider the update a few years ago to the original Seven Deadly Sins (you know, the normal human emotions they once made into Magnum ice creams: envy, greed, lust, et cetera) One of the new 21st-century-compatible iSins now includes Social Injustice… go figure.

“There is no reason to put forward alternative, unhealthy, unnatural unions as some form of substitute.”

“We get them (homosexuals) in (at church) and you’ll find that many, many of them have been abused.”

“The fact that the homosexual cry is, ‘we can’t help it as we were born this way’, as the cause behind their own personal choice is cause for concern. Every action begins with a thought. There is a choice to be made.”

Margaret Court, 2012 The sports field is a place where gender, race, political views, social class and religion should all be left in the change room. Needless to say they often aren’t, but thanks anyway Maggie for abusing your status as a sporting ‘legend’ – the term ‘legend’ used as loosely as her grip on reality – and for pushing homophobia and bigotry into the spotlight of the 2012 Australian Open, and every preceding Australian Open you decide are worthy of your attendance. After her first offensive shot, the Herald Sun thought it would be a good idea to give her a chance to do even more damage in a highly controversial follow up column to her original comments. Here she got into hot water for writing things like: “Let me be clear. I believe that a person’s sexuality is a choice”, amongst other matterof-factly excrement suggesting the LGBTIQ community were causing the country’s “steep moral decline”.

the all-knowing voice of science can often be drowned out by

Many nations around the world gawk at the way we idolise sporting heroes, even the horses get their own bronze statues.

Their every move, on and off the field, is watched, analysed, praised and scrutinised. When they win, lose, drink, shit, fight, swear, pop pills, gamble, text, sexually assault and deeply offend, we know, we see and we listen. That persuasive power is the kind our politicians dream of, and is the kind that can be very dangerous.

If Margaret Court told you to jump of a bridge then no you (hopefully) wouldn’t. If she says in the international public eye that sexuality is a choice, that we are doomed without Christian values, and that “minorities” are ruining everything good in society, then you may choose to ignore it. But for many, these words caused offence, it was hurtful, and had the devastating power to encouraged homophobic bullying and make many people question whether they were normal.

Let the rainbows continue to flow to the Australian Open, let people continue to smother Maggie’s head statue with rainbow scarves and flags. She may have won 24 grand slams but she is on the losing side of the fight for LGBTIQ equality. And let’s be honest, women’s tennis was easier to win back then anyway.

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Court was utterly grand-slammed by mental health experts, blasting her with our good friend science, who says that ‘choice’ has nothing to do with it. Like with many other issues,

those with more fame than facts. Especially when we consider the Australian cultural pedestal on which sportsmen and women, and the sporting industry itself, sit.

“I think we’re going to owe smokers a big apology when the homosexual community’s own [health] statistics are that it has higher rates of drug-taking, of suicide, it has the life of a male reduced by up to 20 years… The life of smokers is reduced by something like seven to 10 years and yet we tell all our kids at school they shouldn’t smoke.”

Jim Wallace, Australian Christian Lobby, 2012 Arguing that it is a bad thing to be homosexual because homosexuals are more likely to commit suicide should probably be included in the dictionary definition of hypocritical, right next to your grandmother saying: “Why you so fat?!”

While plonking two metric tons of dinner down on the table.

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There is little that is informative or insightful in such a comparison between the health risks of a gay lifestyle and a smoker’s lifestyle, and more resembles propaganda than anything else.

Despite Wallace’s protests that the comment was taken out of context, the questionable one and only resource he used from Canada to prove his point also renders his comments somewhat unsubstantiated. And if we’re going to go into health risk statistics, research shows that any left-handed person is more likely to be alcoholic, dyslexic, schizophrenic, have Crohn’s disease, ADHD, mental illness, and are likely to die young and get into accidents. God forbid if you are a left-handed, gay smoker.

Eternity Christian Newspaper editor, and former senior editor at Fairfax, John Sandeman wrote that Jim Wallace should have realised the public and the media were going to go to town with his comments. He also made the point that due to anti-gay comments like Wallace’s controversial statement,

Christian input on the topic is already treated with suspicion, that Christians are “good at talking to [themselves], but not to a secular audience.”

With change can come trepidation and resistance but there is a place for healthy religious debate on gay marriage and homosexuality in the public sphere. This is something Jim Wallace does not seem to understand or appreciate. On ANZAC day 2011, he grabbed the opportunity to tweet: “just hope as we remember servicemen and women today we remember the Australia they fought for - wasn’t gay marriage and Islamic!” One of the best responses was from Vietnam vet Geoff Thomas who corrected him by saying that current soldiers fighting overseas certainly weren’t fighting for the likes of him or the Australian Christian Lobby. #WINNING

“The sun will still rise tomorrow” NZ MP Maurice Williamson, 2013 It is hard to know how to take New Zealand’s most recent win over Australia in amending their marriage constitution.

In Australia it has at least allowed chances for some of the conservatives to let down their guard. Barry O’Farrell came out in support and even Tony Abbott unfathomably said he may consider the possibility of allowing a conscience vote next year if Liberal get in, which still sounds suspiciously like an election promise. Recently, Abbott’s daughters, Frances (21) and Bridgette (20), voiced their support of marriage equality, with Frances saying: “I believe it is inevitable, I believe by the time our generation gets into power I hope and pray something is done about marriage equality and gay rights”. But these girls show that just within one household there can be such a split in opinion.

Photo Credits: Tracy Morgan: David Shankbone Pope Benedict XVI: Agencia Brasil Margaret Court: advodiaboli Jim Wallace: ACL

There is no question here on the right to free speech, there is also no point demanding that the haters stop hating. Instead, we should demand that intense, irrational hate towards the LGBTIQ community not be screamed from unreachable heights, from where it has the power to reach those in the darkest corners.

poo. And even then, the sun will still rise tomorrow.

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As this country travels the slow, difficult path towards equality we hope that over time the opportunities for people to make offensive, hurtful and misleading homophobic and anti-gay comments on a public platform will be less and less to a point when the future will look back on these comments with the same wrinkled-nose grimace given to recently stepped-in dog

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I have to say that when I first agreed to become a Buddhist

stealing, 3) Refrain from lying, 4) Refrain from sexual

monk for a few days in Thailand I swear I had no idea of

misconduct; and 5) Refrain from substance abuse.

the full extent of what I was in for. Sure I knew that I had to shave my head and eyebrows to show that I was no longer concerned with my outside appearance, as well as discard all my nice clothes for orange sheets to be draped over my body, but boy was I not aware of the 218 rules that needed to be followed.

It all started when I returned from Adelaide in 2012 after a week at the annual Queer Collaborations conference. I heard that my aunt had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

She always wanted to see her son in orange robes, but he turned down the opportunity and it was something that upset her deeply.

But hang on! Don’t we all kill animals like bugs and ants?

We step on them all the time. And lying to your mum that her cooking was far superior to how it actually tastes can’t be too evil an act, could it? Well, I had to find out.

My search lead me to a number of Buddhist monks from the local temples where I was growing up, including neighbourhood friend who studied the religion for a lengthy period of time. I was expecting some extreme, zealous responses but they all seemed to respond reasonably. They said it was all about intention; if you killed something by accident, then that’s not breaking a precept, if the action was done out of good intention towards that person or

Perhaps I better inform you that it’s an honourable thing in

creature then it has not been broken either. So lying to

Thailand for a son in the family to become a monk at some

your mum about her terrible cooking so as not to hurt her

stage in their life as honour to their parents. Though unlike

feelings is a good thing to do. Accidentally stepping on an

some other religions, it’s essentially forbidden for anyone

ant is okay, but when you intentionally go seeking to harm

to force, or coerce the person into monkhood, as it must be

them because you just find them annoying, then that’s a

done purely by choice. My aunt was practically my second

breaking a precept.

mother, so for her sake I figured it would be something truly special to give a go.

There was however one tiny train of though that kept crossing my mind at the beginning: would I as a gay man be accepted into this religious institution, let alone be ordained as a higher member of their faith. Simply put, would they allow me to become a Monk?

Upon researching I found that it didn’t really matter, as there are in fact a number of openly gay Buddhist monks around, and one of them is actually a mutual friend.

Although his feminine mannerisms and ability to booty shake might make him a great dancer in the club, it didn’t intervene with his abilities as a great monk. He said that it all depends on the mind, if you can keep it pure by not thinking ill of others and not allowing it to be motivated by greed, anger and lust were all good enough.

I wasn’t sure if this was just his views or the general view of the whole religion but it turns out that he was right.

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people are equal, as long as you adhere to the five precepts you’re fine. And what exactly might these 5 precepts be? As it turns out, they’re very much standard for any dominant world religion; 1) Refrain from Killing (Not just human beings but animals as well), 2) Refrain from

As soon as your actions are evoked by negative intentions such as greed, anger, hatred, lust, or just for meaningless fun, then that’s breaking your precept. But man! Those ants and bloody cockroaches are darn annoying! I dislike them!

No, despise them!

In response to that the monks offered me an alternative.

They said: “if you store all your sweets and don’t leave food out, would they come into your house?” I suppose not. But what about those dangerous ones, like snakes and spiders?

“Well,” they said, “you’re afraid that they would harm you, but have they harmed you in anyway yet? No, just call Reptile control or capture it and have it released, no need

to end their lives.” I suppose their suggestion was reason-

ceremony my sisters attended in Sex and the City garb, a

able - no more swatting spiders with the Sunday paper

fully-fledged Buddhist monk.

then. They said that people tend to solve problems when the effect has occurred and not backtracking to see where the problem once arose. For example, if you’re becoming greedy and wish to steal or gamble away your money, why not stop at the cause and quell your greed? Stealing may lead you to end up in prison and gambling will cause you to lose your hard earned dosh. When these consequences happen as an effect of your actions, this is when people freak out. Fix the cause was their advice.

Yet I was still more curious about the ‘no sexual misconduct’ branding. What’s their definition of this? If I was to lack back at my own sexual conduct, I’d have to be an honest and say that I’ve done stuff with many people- I’m still single after all - though does that mean it’s wrong?

What about those who are in polyamorous relationships?

Precepts are built around not causing harm to others and oneself, such as a bit of a drink at a party isn’t socially unacceptable, but drinking in excess and winding up in a bar fight with the unfortunate case of causing burden on your friends and family; in that instance, you’ve broken a precept. In this sense, falling under the category of sexual misconduct would be where someone is harmed physically and/or mentally. Therefore cases of sexual assault, stealing someone’s partner and cheating are seen as sexual misconduct. In polyamorous relationships, it’s fine as long as the partners negotiate their can and can’t do’s and then adhere to them, so as not to hurt one another.

But what do I care? When I’m a monk I have to be abstinent, only ordinary people get to follow these five precepts. It was daunting when they told me that I have a few hundred to follow. What the hell?!? I wasn’t allowed to run or eat after midday and I had to get up at the crack of dawn to beg for my meals and that was all that I had

After all the glamour of the procession and ceremony was over, I finally went to rest in my room and it was time for orientation by my roommate monks. A strange enough conversation emerged there – I definitely wasn’t expecting a discussion about masturbation. Woah! Woah! Back up! Masturbation? What about the abstinent thing? The monks said that even though many Buddhist monks spend years trying to discard their desires including the emotions of lust, the monks understand that until that happens (which won’t be for a very long time), the head Abbot will grant you special considerations for you to take care of yourself. But that is only for those who want to remain a monk for a considerable amount of time, I was only there for a working week, so it’s a no go for me.

Five days of eating people’s offerings (locals in Thailand are usually poor, so the food isn’t exactly five star gourmet), frequently having to shower because I wasn’t allowed to beautify myself with perfumes, and of course lots of meditating, the last day was finally upon me.

to eat, I wasn’t even allowed to pick things up that didn’t

In those remaining moments, I wandered into the temple,

belong to me (even if I was picking it up to return it to the

greeted by monks chanting as I have back the 218 precepts

owner). How then was I supposed to survive? “Be humble,”

and received the main five in return. I discarded my orange

was what mum said to me, which was easier said than done.

cloth and dressed into my normal clothing. I turned and

Apparently I wasn’t even allowed to touch members of the

headed out, stopping for a brief moment to look back

opposite sex at all, or even allowed to be alone with one.

inside and reflect on my time over the past week. How was

January came around, I flew off to Thailand, head shaved, sunset orange robes and celibate. I was, following a brief

it? It was humbling. It was moving. It was inspiring. Would I do it again though? Perhaps, but not for a BLOODY long time!

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Sadly there wasn’t any backing out of it now, so when

Jerrenn Lam investigates where queer folk are sitting on the career spectrum and whether or not we’re all about being creative queers.

What do you first think of when someone mentions ‘gay man’ to you? Do you imagine someone who wears the latest fashion trends, whose face looks as smooth as a porcelain bowl and who works in the fashion industry? If you do, then it’s not a surprise. Just look at how gay guys are portrayed in the media.

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Given how queers have been highlighted in pop culture, you

Take for instance Pride in Diversity’s 2012 Australian Workplace Equality Index- the report established that more Australian companies, especially larger ones, are moving towards accepting gender diverse employees and finding ways to accommodate these people in their organisations through reviewing and changing policies, encouraging engagement and involvement in queer networks as well as providing diversity training.

However, remarkable as the report may be in showcasing the giant leaps forward that Australian companies have managed to make, a very obvious (or maybe not so obvious) insight was that all of the top 10 employers are in the accounting or

would probably guess that they only exist in reality television, boutique clothing stores or upmarket hair salons. Interestingly enough, not much is written about real-life people who identify as queer. Where are they? How are they different from heterosexuals? Do they bear any similarities to what you see in pop culture?

business industries - so not exactly ‘pink’ industries.

Australian workplaces are slowly but surely becoming more diverse and tolerant towards employees who identify as queer, but the big question remains as to how accepted LGBTIQ people really are.

“I do think that the bigger companies are better at recognising the needs of its GLBTI staff,” he says. “Employers need to be well equipped to look after their employees.”

Interestingly, a 2005 study conducted in Melbourne concluded that three quarters of Australian workers conceal their queer identities from colleagues in order to avoid being discriminated against. Though arguably, this is no longer the case as the Australian workplace has become a much more tolerant place.

Jason Gipps, Production Manager at Joy 94.9 FM, believes that while the Australian workforce today is indeed shifting and understanding its employees better, there is still a lack of understanding about the queer community in general.

Of course, there is hardly any information that can be found on any statistics or even insight into queer representation in different industries and whether these stereotypes of gay men hold true. Gipps for one did not think so. “People of different genders will have different levels of masculinity and femininity,” he says. “For example, the ‘bear community’ remind people

that you can be gay and masculine. I think stereotyping happens when there isn’t understanding of a community.”

But what is it about industries like fashion, art, communications and others that stereotypically attract gay men? On this topic Gipps had a rather interesting comment.

“I personally think that there isn’t really an industry that is likely to attract gays and lesbians so to speak; it’s just that some industries are more open for someone to share their sexuality, and for men it is the creative industries.

“If everyone was completely open to sharing their sexuality there would be people in supermarkets, call centres and more.

If you can work in an industry that’s fine with people being gender diverse it is more attractive, isn’t it?”

One of the key issues brought up from the discussion with Gipps was the topic of workplace discrimination.

“Discrimination and homophobia does still exist, perhaps in an industry that’s stereotypically ‘blokey’ for example, like building and construction,” says Gipps. “It’s not just gender discrimination, of course, but it does still happen”.

For example, just this year a bill was passed for Julia Gillard to inform the Australian Christian Lobby that religious groups are now allowed to discriminate in hiring and firing those considered to be sinners- faith based organisations are now able to ‘engage staff who have the same values as the organisation’.

Perhaps this is a sign that pink industries are simply more accepting – though if we’re to move forward in the future and see a more comfortable working environment for all, perhaps the next politician to bring up anti-discrimination laws should look back at something that very recently passed to please a few privileged religious organisations.

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In a report on ‘pink’ industries, Sydney recruitment firm Salt & Shein, mentioned that women now take up over three-quarters of the roles within public relations. The report also mentioned that the PR industry is undergoing rapid ‘feminisation’, & that this trend is seen in university. This term has also now been stretched to include gay men, as Josh Shein, a partner at Salt & Shein was quoted saying that women and gay men flock to PR because of the perception of the profession’s softer skill set.

In Victoria, the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 and the Fair Work Act 2009 protects individuals from gender discrimination.

However, the question that needs to be asked is whether these laws are able to actually prevent such forms of discrimination from happening.

love is for everyone

The world we live in is not all in black and white.

Everyone is different, and everyone has their own way to love and to express it. Life is simple when you look around, so why couldn’t everyone just love each other? One photo can capture countless things, but the final perception is in the viewer’s eyes: what do you see? What do you feel?

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Photography by Elisa Leppanen

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Derailed

By Ryan Auberson-Walsh Photos by Taylor Dayley-Case

Australia’s international drawcard city has this year lost a chance to reinvigorate a queer cultural mecca. Ryan Auberson-Walsh investigates why.

Resplendent in her usual office garb of a fitted charcoal suit and a choker wrapped around her tough councillor’s neck, the Queen of Sydney is battling the Surry Hills locals that plague Her Majesty with endless chitter chatter. A few quick words leave her mouth and the room falls silent, now in her thrall.

In just under two minutes at Sydney Boys High, Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, has established her presence at a community consultation for the planned Randwick light rail route for the emerald city’s congested streets.

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A long-time supporter of greening up Australia’s largest westernised city, she’s become infamous in the eyes of residents and rate-payers for her radical plans to tear up the streets of the seventh most traffic-congested city in the Western world and lay down bike lanes.

Now pushing forward in her plans for Sydney’s increasing population, the Mayor has turned heads with the notion of carving up George St in the CBD and pedestrianising the busy strip between Hunter and Bathurst streets.

But that’s not where all her transport woes stop.

Now a rift has developed between Moore and NSW transport minister Gladys Berejiklian after Moore publicly announced that she disapproves of the current plan for light rail down a narrow semi-suburban street in her electorate.

Moore announced where her support lies in front of the tense crowd, striking the transport minister with an embarrassing blow. “I was surprised, as I know you were too, to hear that the government’s preferred route was for Devonshire Street… I’m concerned about the lack of detail and consultation with the Surry Hills community,” she says.

If the proposed route is to wind down Devonshire Street in Surry Hills, it is known that one apartment building, Olivia Gardens, opposite Moore Park may have to go, costing around $100 million in relocation costs, and local residents aren’t happy with the premise of losing their homes.

“In order to get any major public transport project up, I need to demonstrate: how many people will use it, that it is actually feasible to build it, that we can afford it and that it fits in with the local environment and that is why on all those counts the Devonshire St route ticked all the boxes,” Mrs Berejiklian says.

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With a look at the NSW government’s approach to building rapport with the community in the area, it’s fairly easy to see just where they went off track. The forum held at Sydney Boys High on April 15 should have proved to the transport minister that her lack of support isn’t coming just from her regular ally, Ms. Moore.

Stephan Györy is a 39-year-old who owns a business just off Oxford Street, and is one of the residents in greater Sydney who would prefer a light rail route to travel along Australia’s premier LGBTIQ strip. The Potts Point resident has spearheaded a campaign, with social media pages and an online petition to boot, in order to build up support for his preferred line that would see a large number of buses replaced by a clean, more efficient transport service.

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“My biggest concern is taking 220 buses off Oxford Street. If the light rail were to go up Devonshire Street, it means Oxford loses a bit of its high street and we want that foot traffic of people getting on and off trams.”

Györy is definitely on the side of the people who were almost demanding blood at the April 15 meeting. Angry about the drastic downfall that might arise with an implemented tramline in their leafy suburb, residents critiqued various aspects of the minister’s plan, from the lack of parking to the disruption during construction.

“One thing that’s probably going to happen is that commercial rent on Devonshire will skyrocket and this end of Crown St will wither. Unfortunately this government doesn’t care about Oxford St or Surry Hills,” Györy explains. “It’s as simple as this: They’re setting up a $1.6 billion transport project to move hundreds of thousands of people per year. We’re just the backbone of their city-wide network and we’re going to suffer.”

The deal however appears to be locked in, with Mrs Berejiklian announcing herself that the route won’t be changing at the meeting. Touching on that very topic is what brought a change of tone in Györy’s voice as he rattled a near-defeated answer down the telephone line to the question of what he thought of the proposed Surry Hills section.

“There was no community consultation. There never will be.

I think it may have been naïve to expect consultation on a project this big. Seeing Gladys at Sydney Boys High, we all know that there is no changing this decision. It’s just not going to change… it’s a done deal.”

Though judging by the flow of that meeting back in mid-April, it might be worth the transport minister having another glance over those drafts, because Mrs Berejiklian’s head is now on the chopping block.

Photo: Transport NSW

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I went to catholic school. I’ve heard the mantra to pray away the gay. I’ve seen the Westboro Baptists on TV. I’ve read about gays executed under Sharia. I was convinced queers and religion were not meant to mix. I was convinced religion was irrevocably heterosexual. That was until I found out about a world of transgender gods, their faithful transsexual brides and the priests who marry them!

I’m referring specifically here to the annual Arvani festival to the Hindu god Iravan. Each year trans and intersex Hindus known as Alis, along with other straight men, dress as brides and marry Iravan. As I was to discover however, this is only one dimension of a long gender-bending tradition in Hinduism.

The Hindu sacred texts are littered with tales of gods and humans transgressing gender norms - men become women, women become men and usually they prefer the switch!

What’s striking is that gods, the most revered beings and the holy role models, are the most notorious for being gender ambiguous or for making gender transgressions. Take Ardanari whose body is transformed to be half male and half female.

Ladies and gentlemen I give you an actual intersex god! Even more astounding is the temple of Khajuraho, whose walls exclusively depict scenes of male and female homosexual acts!

To me then it’s clear in Hindu cosmology that gender is only one form of manifestation that divine and human souls may take. Contrast this to our own cosmology which sees gender as innately tied to your eternal spiritual identity. Through Hinduism then, an entirely different gender matrix is created and known. A gender matrix far more fluid and far more exciting than our own.

Despite all this religious gender queering, homosexuality wasn’t decriminalised in India till 2009. This was largely due to hang on from the British penal code, a 19th century colonial attack on Indian sex mores.

Up until today however, the religious have continued campaigning against the Delhi High Court decision. In stark contrast to their Judeo-Christian counterparts, these Hindu crusaders have an absolute absence of any scripture to argue from. Instead they only speak of vague references to homosexuality being against the ‘culture’ and ‘values’ of India.

Haters gonna hate.

This however remains the fringe position. The news of Delhi’s High Court decision was met with wide global praise. The Hindu Council UK was quick to declare its support, proclaiming that Hinduism does not condemn homosexuality. In an official statement, their general secretary, Anil Bhanot, stated that “homosexual nature is part of the natural law of God; it should be accepted for what it is.”

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Closer to home, the Hindu Council of Australia seems to be of a more mixed opinion. Clergy from the council have gone on record stating, “we believe in the right of the gay community to assume equal participation in the life of the Australian nation.” Yet during parliamentary debates on marriage equality last year, chairman of the council Professor Nihal Singh Agar affirmed the Hindu definition of marriage as entirely gender bound.

I attempted to speak with the council to check up on a few matters, but my calls were not returned.

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Back in India, this debate is set against a cultural backdrop already hostile towards ‘love-marriages’. Certain right-wing Hindu groups have even been known to violently protest Valentine’s Day. Opposition to same-sex unions is bounded up with this general disdain for the perceived influences of western eroticised and commercialised love. Hindu scholar Paola Bacchetta terms this xenophobic queerphobia - a type of queerphobia which views queer Indians as originating somehow outside of the nation. To them queer, or gay more specifically, is an entirely western import. I think they’ve got a point.

Photo: pixabay.com

Hinduism’s traditional gender fluidity reveals a deep civilisational history without the need for ironclad sexual categories.

Of course I don’t want to grossly oversimplify a complex civilisation, but it’s true these fixed categories - homo, hetero, trans - weren’t part of Hindu ways of thinking until the arrival of the British Empire. Interestingly, prohibition and stigma only came after these labels entered Hindu ways of thinking.

Despite this, the influence of western sexual ethics on Hinduism is a catch cry used on both sides of the argument.

One anonymous queer Hindu blogger declared “homophobia is not native to India but forced on us by foreign conquerors”.

According to this side of the argument, there is a total lack of any prohibition of homosexuality in any of the Vedic or Dharmic texts (correct!). India’s hostility towards queers comes entirely from British Christian missionaries.

Laying aside the issues of post-colonial cultural politics, I see a parallel here between Hindu society and our own. Religion, Dharmic or Abrahamic, is highly contested ground when it comes to queer politics. Like with the Christian right and left, both sides use doctrine to validate their arguments. But does god hate fags or does he love everyone? Just between us, I don’t know and I don’t care. The more pressing question that I’ll leave for you to answer, is whether religion actually has

anything useful to say about (queer) politics, or whether it’s just something groups use to bolster their position?

Given all this, I find it remarkable then that what we would consider ‘queer unions’ have been occurring in Hindu temples for some time now. The most common of these being female same sex unions. “Souls are genderless, marriage is the union of two souls,” a spokesperson from the Hindu Council UK said via correspondence.

This is not the only type of queer marriages Hindu temples may perform. As I mentioned earlier, there is a strong cult surrounding the god Iravan for his polymorphous gender by those known as Alis. These may be either those born intersex or men who have undergone castration to produce a kind of transsexuality. Likewise, there is a strong tradition in Hinduism of the Hijra, men who sacrifice their genitals to a god.

In exchange for their sacrifice, the Hijra gain the power to confer fertility upon married couples; a service they sell at certain Hindu rituals. So it would seem then that gender changes are actually an institutionalised rite within Hindu cults.

We should not however be blinded by an orientalist curiosity.

Despite the queer overtones in many Hindu texts, we should not forget that as Hindu queers across the globe come to assert themselves, they still face our common struggle with identity politics, legislative discrimination and queerphobia.

I’m still skeptical of when queers and religion try to mix. But what I have found in Hinduism is a spark of hope – a hope that religion and tradition could actually be polymorphous and dynamic, that they could utilise fluid and open categories, and that they could just be queer.

Critically, castration does not transform the Hijra from man into woman. They are neither man nor woman to begin with, but occupy what is known as the ‘third sex’. This is why I find it difficult to call this ‘straight’ out transsexuality. Hijra castration is not a movement between two sex categories, but recognition of fitting somewhere outside of the masculine/ feminine dualism.

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COLOUR ME DANG TRAVEL WRITER AND FOODIE ALLY BURNIE HAS DISCOVERED A TRUE GEM OF A FASHION BLOGGER. SHE CHATS TO THE LOVABLE SELF-PROCLAIMED GAYSIAN JOSEPH DANG ALL ABOUT HIS BLOG, PERFECT PARTNER AND A FEW OF HIS FAVES.

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1) WHAT’S YOUR BLOG ABOUT? To be honest I have no idea what my blog is about. It’s pretty random. Sometimes its about fashion, but most of the time it’s just a recount of random things that happen to me with a picture of some outfit I wore. But for business reasons I say it’s a fashion/lifestyle blog.

2) WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO START WRITING COLOUR ME DANG? It was the next step in my quest for world domination.

3) WHERE DID THE NAME OF YOUR BLOG COME FROM? I asked my friend what I should call my blog name and they said “FuckmeDang” which I thought was brilliant but I probably couldn’t build an empire from that. So really ColourmeDang is just a PG version of

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that.

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4) TELL US THREE THINGS ABOUT YOU THAT NO ONE ELSE KNOWS. I seem to relate heaps to the overly attached girlfriend memes, The Harry Potter movies scare me, and I was reported missing in China!

5) WHAT ARE YOU STUDYING AT UNIVERSITY RIGHT NOW AND WHY DID YOU CHOOSE TO STUDY IT? Public communications majoring in PR. I’m studying it because I wanted to be Samantha from Sex and the City.

6) AND WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN THE FUTURE? Hopefully still alive.

7) WHERE IS YOUR FAVOURITE PLACE IN THE WORLD? In front of the fridge.

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8) WHAT’S THE ONE BIG REGRET YOU HAVE IN YOUR LIFE? None. I’m happy with the person I am today.

I think every decision changes you for the better and without those choices/regrets I would be a totally different person.

9) IF YOU COULD DATE ANYONE IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW, WHO WOULD IT BE? Probably some really hot bogan in some country town. It’s funnier because I’m not even joking.

10) TELL US WHY YOU THINK YOU’RE THE ONE TO WATCH IN 2013.

How do I even answer this? I don’t think I’m the person to watch in 2013. Probably 2016.

Let’s have a follow up interview in 2016.

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http://www.colourmedang.com/

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The first CSD in Berlin was rather small compared to today’s estimated figures - only 400 queers came to the streets, partly due to fear of socially ostracised. The colourful parade has since risen to the status of one of the world’s most recognised pride events, with strong efforts of continuing to encourage and enliven the queer community and its allies for a brighter social, cultural and political future.

Every major city in Germany now holds a local version of the parade, with notable celebrations occurring in Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt, Erfurt and Cologne, the mecca for queers in Europe where the largest CSD parade in the country takes place.

Germany has steadily grown more tolerant towards the gay scene. A tax equality law for same-sex couples was recently introduced and there’s current political discussion as to whether or not LGBT couples should be allowed to adopt, or if the traditional notion of family should be protected.

The world’s largest car-exporting nation is bounding forward for LGBT rights. Julia Gebhardt tells us what Christopher Street Day has to do with it all.

The 60s were a time of rapid change. Most people on this planet would be aware of the early days surrounding the queer movement’s establishment following a police raid at New York’s Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street. The media brought the act to mainstream attention and a year later, over 4,000 queers allied together in remembrance and to leap forward into the new millennia for LGBTIQ rights.

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Soon enough, cities the world over from Sydney to Berlin began embracing pride and hitting the streets to share their stories. It was back in those early hours of June 28, 1969, that Germany’s Christopher Street Day was born.

An event celebrated throughout many European metropolises, it’s really in the land of beer and BMWs that people swamp the streets in such large numbers. Beginning in the northern cities of Berlin and Bremen in 1979, the pride parade increased awareness of the growing LGBT presence in post WWII Germany. One notable feat for the queer community was the annulment of paragraph 175 in 1994; removing a law that criminalised homosexual acts between men. It was then that LGBT citizens began more widely speaking out and fighting for their rights.

The process of morphing Germany into a pro-queer country is gathering pace and queer activists show no signs of slowing down until the community is equally on par with the wider population, but there is still a measurable amount of work to be done. Moulding more traditional perceptions is considerably difficult considering the extent of European conservatism, with certain politicians still releasing negative statements, the majority of which come from the leading Christian parties.

For them, it’s understandably difficult to stray from their own upbringing, being taught of the picturesque 50s family setup of two opposite-gendered parents. Clearly this is an ideology that warrants serious attention as there’s yet no legitimate proof of children being raised in same-sex families that they’re worse off, and this is one example of where CSD has a vital social role.

As a day, much alike the world’s other great queer pride parades such as Sydney Mardi Gras and Europride, CSD provides an opportunity for local and international queer folk to let their freak flag fly and truly be themselves through any expressive means they choose. It isn’t however just about the glitter, glitz and glam – it’s also a day when LGBT citizens can come together and mount peaceful protests against ill-produced laws that condemn certain rights that the wider community may take for granted. It’s a day for conversation and awareness. It’s a day of acceptance. And it’s a day to share as much rainbow love as possible.

Christopher Street Day will remain a time of joy and frivolity, but continue to be a chance for those who are still fighting for certain rights to do so – and it’s a very large change from the first days of protesting in the seventies.

As Germany’s political and global capital, Berlin is a city that has embraced its queerness, multiculturalism and exotic appeal, shrugging off any naysayers & party-poopers. Though until LGBT Berliners have access to every possible right that those within the straight community do, there’s one heck of an attention-grabbing party they need to keep throwing.

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A flick through these glorious artworks and it’s easy to see that Amy Blue has talent. Ryan Auberson-Walsh had a brief chat with her about the inspiration.

What was it that got you inspired to start producing these pieces?

The Cunts I Know series began in 2012. It started with a portrait of my friend Loren, who at the time was one year into her search of her missing brother, Daniel O’Keeffe.

Loren’s life was flipped upside down, and I have seen a significant shift in the way she looks at the world now. Everything is an opportunity to find Dan.

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She has made significant changes in the way people look at missing persons and has fought through copious amounts of defiance from many of the outlets that should offer help.

I present Loren as a warrior, as a strong and noble sister. As an amazing friend. It was after drawing Loren that I decided I wanted to continue this collection with some other friends who inspired me.

Who are these awesome images of exactly?

The subjects are women in my life who inspire me, who have shaped me or who simply just make me laugh.

With the portraits I do I want to create a visualisation of who I am drawing. These are people who the viewers don’t necessarily know, so I use symbols and quotations to convey elements of the subject’s personality.

How long did it take you to produce each one?

Each piece is different. Cherelle, (‘Yo man that shit’s fucked up’) only took me a little over an hour, where as Angela, (Beer’O’Clock) took a couple of days! It really varies.

What originally became your motivator for creating art?

The end product. It’s an awesome feeling when you have the tangible creation in your hand at the end of the ‘ordeal’.

Where can we see more of your work? behance.com/amyblue

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Rosa Gollan asks those tricky questions surrounding straight girls in queer venues.

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The issue of straight people in gay bars is hotly debated.

For all the ‘straight’ bars that exist, there are only a handful targeted to the gay community, but many argue that straights should stay well away. There is certainly a point to be made about those who rock up to a gay bar simply to demean people or cause violence and offense, and it is also understandable that the gay community wants their own space to mingle. Some venues have even gone to the extent of banning straight people from entering all together.

But does defending gay territory promote the segregation that both gays and straights are fighting so hard to overcome? Or is it not worth the degradation, condescension and ignorance that sometimes follow straight visitors in through the door.

In the case of straight women, as American freelance writer Zach Rosen puts it: “For every woman who just wants to grab a drink with her homo friends or legitimately likes the music, there are sixty more who show up for all the wrong reasons.”

Why do straight girls head to gay bars? Besides my gay friends being the best partiers I have ever met, one common reason for me, and many other girls, it is to avoid interactions with a sleazy predator. For women, a chat up is not an unrealistic expectation when out hitting the bars and clubs, so grabbing a drink and a carefree dance with your gay friends (with minimal risk of being hit on) can often seem like a more appealing option. This is assuming that women are safe from prowling seedy men. You are not always safe; they catch on, adapt to their environment, and start hunting out straight girls at gay bars like young antelope.

“At a well-known gay bar one night, some guys came up and asked what we were doing there all alone, kept telling us how pretty we were and invited us back to their place,” Hannah, 23, says. “When he started touching my neck and I just told him to fuck off and left. Many other times I’ve seen straight guys lock onto the first girl they see and not leave them alone.” It really makes the experience crappy for all.

Or maybe it’s the flamboyancy that straight girls love? The song and dance, the colour, glitter, drag costumes and the funny drink names. For example, the Schlong Island Ice Tea at Oxford Street’s new hangout, the aptly named Gay Bar, is not only potent and delicious but it’s hard to not giggle at the cheeky name. In discussion with a few gay friends, Adam, 25, tells me: “I think one reason gay bars are overzealously glammed up is to humourise the culture, so that people who go there feel that they’re in a space which accepts who they are, even when it’s sometimes ludicrously played up and very camp, it’s meant to be fun.” And it is fun, but a drag show is not to be pointed and laughed at as some strange, foreign, misunderstood cultural practise; a lot like a blobfish at the aquarium (seriously, Google that shit), it is to be enjoyed and appreciated at in all its brilliant, albeit slimy, glory.

But to ban women from coming all together, surely that’s too far?

In recent years, some gay bars and clubs started forbidding bachelorette parties. Perhaps that seems like an anti-equality reaction to what is essentially an innocent celebration. No, it’s not. When marriage equality is not a reality in this country, then celebrating a bachelorette’s upcoming wedding at a gay bar is little more than a slap in the face for the gay community.

The Peel, a gay bar in Melbourne’s inner city suburb of Collingwood, went to the extreme and their decision in 2007 to refuse entry to all women and all heterosexual men caused controversy. Hotel manager Tom McFreely argued that large numbers of heterosexual men and women, and even lesbians, change the atmosphere causing his gay visitors to feel uncomfortable.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) agreed to the bar’s exemption from the Equal Opportunity Act, which was supported by a number of LGBT rights organisations.

However, TransGender Victoria condemned the decision, stating: “Segregation doesn’t stop violence and increases further isolation of a minority group in society (…) If we want to tackle homophobia, we need to look at prejudices in society,

to start another rivalry between these two brilliant cities, but Melbourne’s gay scene is, for the most part, relatively secretive and underground and the smaller number of gay venues are quite spread out. The Peel is one of the only well-known gay bars that is still thriving, so it isn’t hard to see why McFreely is keen to protect the interests of his clientele.

A quick search online will show there is no shortage of documentation of the things straight girls do wrong in gay bars, even though, according to queerty.com, “girls have been a part of the gay bar scene since some prehistoric cavefag poured the first cosmo in Lascaux.” In the numerous StraightGirl’s-Guide-to-Attending-a-Gay-Bar-type articles that exist, some of the common gay bar etiquette suggestions make total sense: don’t expect to be the centre of attention, keep your hands to yourself, don’t talk about your boobs, don’t cock block, no bachelorette parties (we’re not your strippers), and don’t ask for a cosmopolitan (it’s not Sex and the City) etc.

The list of stupid things some straight girls do surprised me, and frustration is certainly a warranted excuse. One principal rule they need to understand is: what a gay bar actually is.

A gay bar is not just a bar full of gay people, and on that, not all gay people are the stereotype you might see on Glee.

However cliché, a gay bar is a place of safety where many gay people can go and not feel society’s eyes burning into the back of their skull like an outcast. Rosen calls them social spaces, meat markets, therapy groups, pop-up bacchanals: “They are repositories for the cripplingly horny and terminally lonely alike.”

While I think that my gay friends deal with so much shit in society that they more than deserve their own breathing space, I don’t know if barring women is the answer for every venue. There is no reason why we all can’t have a great time out with one another, but clearly some of us straight girls out there really need to get our shit together.

what fuels them and how we can change them. A blanket ban on all women and straight men is certainly not the solution.”

VCAT later amended the law so that women and straight people could still be refused based on ‘character’.

As a former Melbourne resident, I would argue that it lacks the busy, glamorous gay scene that is Sydney’s Oxford Street. Not

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What on earth does that mean? In the case of entering The Peel, it means that women or gay guests with female companions are required to queue separately and agree to certain terms and conditions upon entry including: not engaging in ‘heterosexual’ behaviour, not ‘interfering’ with the boys and not be caught kissing a man or risk being kicked out. “I told them I was gayer than a rainbow pancake laced with sequins.” My lesbian friend Allison, 20, said. “They weren’t impressed.” Is it extreme? Perhaps. Necessary? Perhaps.

Photo: Bob Workman

Photo: William Brougham

History with mr. Howes

by WilLiam Brougham Chatting with one of the people at the forefront of queer media liberation, William Brougham looks at a man whose writing ruled in the 70’s.

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“There was a bare white wall with scruffy bits and pieces on it and we were stressed and desperate but doing our best. That was life in the Gay News office. No frills, no perks, low pay, long hours, and lots and lots of fags.”

Keith Howes’s smart and spacious ground floor apartment in Sydney’s Elizabeth Bay is a far cry from the often cramped and smoky offices in west London of Britain’s pioneering fortnightly publication Gay News. It was there he was features editor between 1976 and 1979.

These days he is semi-retired, lecturing at Sydney’s Theosophical Society and has just written a book about the name Elizabeth. It was in the 1970s however when he was one of the United Kingdom’s first openly gay journalists writing on homosexual issues.

Gay News was launched in the June of ‘72 as a collaboration between former members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and members of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE). At the newspaper’s height, circulation was between 18-19,000 copies.

Howes joined the newspaper in 1976, having previously worked as an arts and entertainment writer for SHE magazine, which

was renowned for covering controversial subjects ignored by other publications such as abortion, sexually transmitted diseases and lesbianism. In fact it was the first magazine in the United Kingdom to write a sympathetic article on gay liberation. Keith remembers it well as he wrote it.

He says that before and during the early days of Gay News, the mainstream press tended to ignore stories involving homosexuality unless it was a murder, someone caught having sex in a public toilet or something involving vicars and choirboys.

People would be named and shamed and often forced to move address and go into hiding. It was very much about scandals or sensationalism.

One particularly strong memory of his was a two page spread in a Sunday tabloid in 1963 on ‘How to Spot a Possible Homo’ and this was someone who was limp wristed, close to his mother and wore perfume.

“It was all the things which today would just be laughable but they took it deadly seriously and this was because of the security leaks, the spy scandals of the 1960s leading to the Profumo case with its prostitutes and call girls. It was very much that gays were burrowing under the surface. They were seen as in collusion with our enemies,” he says.

Howes recalls that the mainstream press would ignore events such as the annual gay pride marches though the situation started to change in the late 1970s when singer Tom Robinson recorded ‘Glad to Be Gay’ and they then started to take more of an interest in gay liberation and politics.

When Howes eventually joined Gay News in 1976 it was seen as quite a coup as he had previously worked for various mainstream publications. He interviewed many celebrities as its features editor, including singers Dusty Springfield and Peter Allen, actors Angela Lansbury and John Hurt, Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim and even Australian comedian Barry Humphries in the guise of his creation Dame Edna Everage. His favourite celebrity interview was with artist David Hockney who he describes as adorable.

However, some celebrities did turn down interviews for various reasons, including actress Vanessa Redgrave, actor Dirk Bogarde and singer Elton John. Keith even had a run in with a very popular and clean cut pop singer after he was provocatively introduced to him by the actor Robert Morley following an appearance on one of Michael Parkinson’s chat shows.

Surprisingly, Keith claims many of the strongest critics of Gay News were actually gay themselves. >>>

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“He brought me before him and grandly announced ‘this is Keith Howes, the features editor of Gay News’. His face was an absolute picture of total horror. He said ‘oh no not a gay lib banshee!’ and he and his manager fled to the lift and were never seen again,” he recalls.

“Certainly the bitterest conversations I had were with closeted gay people, mainly in their forties, fifties and sixties.

“In the main they saw us as dirty scruffy hippies; or, worse, terrorists wrecking their lives by making homosexuality more and more visible so that they would have fewer hiding places,” he says.

He would often work long hours and the staff would have to deal with regular homophobic abuse on the phone. To make matters worse, the United Kingdom’s leading newspaper retailer WH Smith refused to stock the paper. Finding a copy was not easy unless you were prepared to go into a gay bar, or a Campaign for Homosexuality Equality meeting or disco.

Many readers received their fortnightly copies discreetly in a plain brown envelope through the post.

Another challenge was writing for such a wide readership, as according to Keith, the newspaper attracted everyone from Oxbridge professors to people who were virtually illiterate.

The newspaper faced legal issues in 1974 when it successfully challenged a charge of obscenity after featuring two men kissing on its front cover. However, its greatest challenge was to take place two years later.

It occurred in 1976 after the paper published ‘The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name’, a poem by James Kirkup. It was written from the point of view of a Roman centurion and describes him having sexual relations with Jesus after his crucifixion. The poem also claims that Jesus had sex with numerous disciples, guards, and even Pontius Pilate.

Moral rights activist Mary Whitehouse successfully brought a private prosecution against the newspaper and its late editor Denis Lemon for blasphemy. The defence lawyers were Rumpole of the Bailey creator John Mortimer QC and young Australian lawyer Geoffrey Robertson.

Denis was found guilty when the case came to court In July 1977 and was sentenced to a suspended nine month prison sentence and fined £1,000. Fines and court costs awarded against Denis and Gay News amounted to nearly £10,000.

After several appeals the suspended sentence was dropped but the conviction remained in place.

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Much of the paper’s time, energy and money went into fighting the various appeals but the trial had an unexpected effect on the newspaper. Up until the blasphemy trial the mainstream press had taken little notice of Gay News.

Keith says: “It was both our most frightening hour and our most important hour because Gay News suddenly changed from being a little backwater newspaper into being, briefly, a world famous newspaper with even Time Magazine mentioning the case.”

Suddenly, Gay News was seen as heroic for challenging the establishment. Some staff members were invited to literary lunches by the satirical magazine Private Eye and its editor Denis Lemon was invited to join the famous Reform Club.

More and more advertisers came on board with the magazine and more and more people wanted to be interviewed or profiled. But the problem of distribution remained.

Despite all these difficulties Keith says he really loved his time working with the paper as he felt he was working at the epicentre of the gay world.

“We were the young lions attempting to make some sort of community from the many disparate communities, schools of thought and ideology.

“We had no idea of what lay ahead and just jumped in head first into whatever was of concern, relevance or sounded like fun,” he says.

However, he adds: “Working for Gay News was not a social asset in the 70s, within the gay world or in the straight. Only amongst certain more progressive, bohemian types was it chic and right on and brimming with street cred.”

His relationship with his colleagues had always been good.

He says they came from all sorts of backgrounds but essentially the main jobs were male dominated. Women felt that they were being marginalised from the content of the paper because all the editorial staff and the large majority of contributors were men.

This state of affairs started to change when Alison Hennegan joined the paper as Keith’s assistant and literary editor, she brought with her a whole new vivacity, depth and

intellectualism. Keith found working with both Alison and news editor Michael Mason stimulating and harmonious.

But after the blasphemy case his relationship with his editor Denis Lemon deteriorated. Keith feels that Denis was courted by various rich gay men who wanted to make Gay News slicker and more American in style with articles on disco and New York gym queens and so it was losing the friendly local newspaper feel that it had enjoyed.

Following financial problems, one of the paper’s two directors resigned and its editor Denis remained its sole director and owner. Keith felt strongly that Gay News should not have one sole director, particularly the editor, and voiced his concerns that there was a confusion of ideals between a business and a community political newspaper that was trying to improve the lives of gay and lesbian British citizens.

Keith believes he was increasingly cut out of discussions over the features pages at planning meetings and it all came to a head when he had an argument with his boss during which he told Denis a few home truths regarding the blasphemy trial - Denis accused Keith of not supporting him during the trial.

Keith resigned as features editor in late 1979 but agreed to freelance as a theatre reviewer and to write occasional articles, which he did until the paper’s demise in April 1983.

Eventually Denis sold the newspaper but it folded and closed in 1983. “Denis Lemon was the paper’s greatest asset and, because of his vanity and emotional immaturity, became its greatest liability,” Howes says.

However, Keith does have some praise for his former boss.

“He was a professional and he did, at least until the post-trial period, lead the paper and make sure that it appeared on time, and that it constantly improved, mainly in response to readers’ demands and wants.

“So, I don’t want him cast as a villain, only as a human being who was shoved into the spotlight through one unconsidered act, and that spotlight blinded him,” he says.

Keith used his resignation to spend more time with his Australian boyfriend Peter and went on to work on challenging projects like the UN’s International Year of the Disabled and British Film Year.

Eventually Keith moved to Sydney with Peter in 1986 and was one of the first overseas partners of an Australian to be allowed to settle permanently in Australia on the basis of a same sex relationship.

has appeared on radio, lectured on film and written books,

More recently, he has worked as a bush regenerator helping to reclaim native plant, bird and animal habitat, and has given regular talks to Sydney’s Theosophical Society. He has most recently published a book about famous women with the name Elizabeth for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Keith believes that today’s British gay publications such as Gay Times and Attitude are so far removed from Gay News particularly because of improved technology in terms of printing and colour, as well as the increased focus on body image and less on diversity and meaningful discussion.

But does Keith feel that Gay News would survive in the market these days?

“It would be laughed out of the arena now as it just looks sweet and cosy,” he replies.

30 years may have passed since the last issue of Gay News was published but Keith believes that the newspaper he joined nearly 40 years ago has left behind one very important legacy.

“I think it was putting the word ‘gay’ out there. I think the fact that we have no problem at all, whether we’re ultra conservative or ultra liberal, in saying words such as ‘gay marriage’ without putting inverted commas around the word ‘gay’ is owed partly to papers like Gay News.

“It wasn’t bent and it wasn’t queer. It was GAY,” he says.

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He went on to work in Sydney as an adviser for the Gay and Lesbian Immigration Taskforce, wrote a weekly television column for the gay newspaper Sydney Star Observer and

including one called Broadcasting It, which was a lengthy, 3,000 entry encyclopaedia on television, radio and film.

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Looking at some of Disney’s most delightful dames, Jesse Matheson theorises what it might be like if they weren’t exactly princesses.

But what would happen if they weren’t in fact princesses, rather simply gay men? Would much change? Here’s what might just happen if Disney princesses were gay men:

You know the stories as if you watched them just yesterday; these princesses and their films have filled our hearts with joy since we first laid our eyes on their infallible beauty and kick-ass musical numbers (which most, if not all of us, certainly know off by heart).

Cinderella - The Determined House Boy Who wants to clean all day especially when your home is a crappy town house that you share with your evil step-mother and your just as evil step-sisters? No one, that’s who. This boy dreams of more. He doesn’t want to just clean houses, he wants to be a house boy! A house boy for a prince!

All it takes is a trip to the fairy drag mother for some quick fashion advice and some bitchin’ blue Christian Louboutins and you’ll be ready for the royal ball, and once your clothes are out of style (you’ve only got until the clock strikes 12, those gays can be so fickle...) maybe he’ll still love you. Maybe.

Pocahontas - The Culturally Aware/Political One Do you even paint with all the colours of the wind? Didn’t think so! Down to earth and sensitive, yet strong. This boy knows what he believes in and fights for it.

He pockets mulch, is a vegan and has a bird on his shoulder.

Seriously, if you like nature this boy has got you covered.

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Belle - The Kinky Bear Chaser He’s beautiful, intelligent and sophisticated; everyone in town knows his name. The sexiest man in town wants him bad but he’s not interested, no, this boy has someone else on his mind someone much... hairier. A beast. Woof!

This beast of a man treats him rough, throws him around the room and locks him up for days. “You’ll eat when I tell you to eat,” the beast says to which the boy replies “yes sir, I will sir.”

It’s a tale old as time really.

Ariel - The Drag Wannabe He’s not like other boys. He dreams of being up there, up where they walk, up where they run, up where they dance and lip-sync in time with the music. But first he needs a drag mother, oh Ursula will do, after all her whole character is based on the famous drag queen Divine. Yes, give him a new body (he’ll need those legs to dance). Now there is only one more change needed to make this boy the perfect drag queen - Take away HIS VOICE! Yep, drag queens are to be seen, not heard. You won’t need your voice where you’re going kiddo, you’ll have Madonna, Gaga and Beyoncé to do that for you...

Jasmine - The Sheltered This poor boy has the strictest parents you’ve ever met.

Sure, he’s rich and pretty much royalty, but he’s never really been out on the town except for maybe once or twice with a chaperone or in a disguise.

That is until a special young man called Aladdin manages to sneak him out on a magic carpet ride, sings him a song and shows him just how amazing the world is outside of his parent’s clutches. The two manage to melt the hearts of the boy’s parents and they get married, but not before signing a pre-nup!

Mulan - The Honourable What was that about cultural insensitivity? Ok, lesbihonest, this boy fucking rocks. He may be a bit of a klutz but he loves his family and would do anything for them. He’d fight for them, die for them, even if that means dressing up as the opposite sex and learning how to be a soldier via montage.

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And, maybe more importantly, he’ll fight for you and who doesn’t like being fought for? Nobody, that’s who. He also comes with a talking dragon voiced by Eddie Murphy - SIGN ME UP!