Outspoken 2019 by UWA Student Guild

Photo by Lucy Craske

S T N E T N O C Editorials

Contributors

The Bigot Menagerie by Daniel Martis

New Homes, Old Feelings: Reflecting on Growing Up in a Regional Area by Shelby Murdoch

Internalised Homophobia by Lara Miller

Queer? by Anna Kimpton

Lez-B-Honest: The UWA Lesbian Collective Reflects on Their Individual Connections to the Word ‘Lesbian’ by many

Reece’s Non-Definitive and Completely Opinion-Based Ranking of Iced Coffee Sold at Various UWA Outlets by Reece Gherardi

It’s Called Fashion, Look it Up: Camp Fashion as Counterculture by Daniel Martis

Notes on Camp (Camp) by many

Boy Erased: Why We Need to Stop Accepting Sub-Par Representation by Reece Gherardi

We Are Each Other’s Survivors – A Trip to the Lesbian Herstory Archives by Amelia Birch

Photos by Amelia Birch

Fam by Al Ghanim

Her by MJ.

Youth by Anonymous

Top 5 Lana Del Rey Songs That Are Absolutely Lesbian Anthems by Amelia Birch

The Top 5 Sufjan Stevens Songs About Being… uh… ‘with God’ by Anonymous

Photos by Sophie Minissale

Art by Al Ghanim

Photos by Amelia Birch

Outspoken and all content within were produced on the land of the Whadjuk Noongar people. The Whadjuk Noongar people are the traditional custodians of this land. The Editorial Committee and the Pride Department acknowledge that this land was stolen, never ceded, and that the Whadjuk Noongar people continue to practise their beliefs, customs, values and knowledge.

S L A I R O EDIT

REECE GHERARDI

HEAD EDITOR

STUDYING Law and Society and German double major, currently only doing one unit because even though I wanted to defer this Semester, you’re required to actually be an enrolled student to go to Unigames (I know right, unbelievable). CURRENT LGBT MEDIA I’M CONSUMING Literally everything that the Pride Department puts out concerning Retrograde: A Pride Week Rave in Cyberspace. I hear it’s the best uni party all year, and that the tickets are way cheaper than any other – you should definitely 100% come along! Yes, this is a shameless plug.

GAYEST THING I’VE EVER DONE Back in 2016 I ran around at the Business School in a UWA Student Guild shirt and the tightest jeans I could find, wearing a rainbow flag as a cape and rainbow Pride Department-branded wristbands all the way up both my arms, selling tickets to Retrograde (when it was still called the Pride Party). Also, y’know, been Pride Officer.

BEST THING ABOUT BEING INVOLVED WITH OUTSPOKEN The ability to collect, read, and proudly display the stories, experiences, articles, reviews, critiques, and art – along with everything else that was submitted! – of UWA’s LGBT community. Has being Editor been stressful at times? Yes, absolutely. However, I wouldn’t change it for the world. It has honestly been such a privilege to be on the team responsible for producing Outspoken, and I am so unbelievably thankful to everyone who submitted for allowing me to showcase your work. It has been an absolute honour. THE THING THAT KEEPS ME UP AT NIGHT Insomnia, and probably also the excessive amount of caffeine I consume.

DANIEL MARTIS SUB-EDITOR

STUDYING Currently I’m cruising through my undergraduate psychology major (I’m a fresher but get over it I’m just as much of a student as you lol). I really want to work with the LGBT+ community in wider society so I want to become as involved as I can.

CURRENT LGBT MEDIA I’M CONSUMING I mean RuPaul’s Drag Race is literally my religion and it consumes most of my resting hours, but I also enjoy Pose (which is incredibly influential), American Horror Story and AJA’s rap music really gets me going. Also if you haven’t watched Euphoria yet you should probably visit UWA’s global studio because you need some culture… GAYEST THING I’VE EVER DONE I mean I do drag regularly and soon it will make up majority of my time so if you can think of something more gay I urge you to DM me :/

BEST THING ABOUT BEING INVOLVED WITH OUTSPOKEN Getting involved in the community! I love reading and thinking about the multiplicity of the queer experience; it informs my thinking and allows me to question how I can better adjust my behaviour and thinking to support the community!

CONTRIBUTORS LIST

A big thank you to all of the contributors who gave their stories, patience, and energy to Outspoken 2019. Al Ghanim Shelby Murdoch Daniel Martis Matilda Gerrans Anonymous Amelia Birch F Saskia Mason Rigel Paciente Lara Miller Anna Kimpton Reece Gherardi Sophie Minissale Anonymous Lucy Craske Martha J. McKinley (MJ.) Anonymous Xander Sinclair

THE BIGOT MENAGERIE Daniel Martis

CW: homophobia, homophobic slurs. His wife’s words rang cacophonous in his mind as he slept. “If you don’t do it, he won’t forgive you. He will always hold it against you.” Master of sleep for many nights, the moon shone brilliant through the drapes, washing him with doubt and leaving him weak. And he had felt weakness before, but tonight was different. As a parent he had made many decisions for his son, yet somehow this decision was laminated in severity, it grappled his limbs and shackled him with insomnia. When the piece of paper landed in his mailbox like a dove of peace, he immediately clipped its wings. Of course he did, after all – birds can spread diseases! Of the two boxes printed warningly on the stark white, his choice was a rushed, accented slash through the latter. But perhaps he was erratic, tainted by the brashness he was taught as a sign of strength, and without compassion – a sign of vulnerability.

So he lay in the darkness, contemplating the decision that would forever affect his son’s love.The boy would never understand the control needed to parent a child like him, to restrain what had been taught for centuries; and his teacher was no different from the rest. His father had suffered from a strain of tunnel vision, which worsened as the man grew older, and that he was sure he inherited as well. But he was determined to fight the virus as not to pass it to his son, the lad deserved better than that awful ailment that corrupted his mind was his to correct. He completed his weekly work on a sleepless mind, an ordinary man plagued with unordinary circumstance. After all, he wasn’t the first to go through this, and hopefully not the last. As the weeks droned on, his only solace was the distraction of Easter. He would fill his heart with soul food, and for one day, fall into a satiated food coma that would relieve him of sleep deprivation.

Perhaps even his family could shed light on the decision? Yes, their mindless worship would consume what time they shared together, but surely they could spare a moment in his time of need. Jesus Christ! Why not think about the other bearded man for a change!

hearts of his kin. And at once the thought combusted, spraying stentorian shrapnel in all directions befouling everything in the vicinity: “They should be eradicated for disrespecting the natural order” “How fucking vile” “Satan spawn, that’s what those faggots are”.

At Easter lunch he welcomed his family into his home, he fed them well and cleaned their leftovers while they prattled gayly for hours. The son stowed quietly in the background, absorbing whatever bullshit he could from the brainwashed babble. He asked his son if he was having fun.The boy shrugged.Throughout the day the family rejoiced the return of the saviour: lover of all in need, but only to whom it is convenient… Was he providing love to one in need. Or only doing what was convenient? The thought encompassed his mind – filling his brain with shame and guilt – until it seeped out into the room, like a gas leak, tainting the

A menagerie of bigots, with the gnashing of teeth and spew of prejudice, each born of rage, unleashed in this very moment. And in the corner, a glass lyrebird, who for years mimicked the machismo of his father, and of his grandfather, and of his great grandfather and beyond. In an instant, shattered by the voice of malice, the voice of ignorance; which plagued him for many days. The boy froze in fear, a statue petrified by the weight of disapproval and the piercing thought that they would never accept him. And once he had witnessed his sons spirit fracture, he knew what had to be done. He marked the letter, folded the envelope and dropped it into the red hollowness. And he was a symbol of change, and it was a triumph of love.

TRIUMPH OF THE HEART. THE BIGOT MENAGERIE, WILL NOT SMASH OUR PRIDE. 7

NEW HOMES, FEELINGS: D L O REFLECTING ON GROWING UP IN A REGIONAL AREA Shelby Murdoch Albany is certainly neither the most remote nor rural that Western Australia has to offer, but a community half designed for retirement and half designed for new families doesn’t exactly boast diversity. As a hometown, it also lacked the anonymity Perth offers; instead it offered the everlingering fear that going to one Pride meet-up or coming out to one person would set the dominos falling. And even if you were certain coming out wouldn’t come with consequences, it was best not to test the waters. I wasn’t even aware of

any Pride events in my hometown until after I left it. There’s a sense of security in the city, far away from your roots, that allows for certain new freedoms. The only thing to fear about attending Pride events is social anxiety, and coming out to new friends is nothing but a test to make sure you’re not accidentally befriending someone who thinks ‘lesbian’ is a bad word. I recently read about Pride groups in Albany hosting bake-offs and roller derby nights now, and it doesn’t quite connect with the reality of my

hometown as I know it to be. Maybe it’s helping the queer youth who are there now, but I don’t blame them if they’re waiting for the siren song of Perth’s anonymity.

INTERNALISED HOMOPHOBIA Lara Miller Picture the scene: I’m 15 years old, very gay, talking to my friend about a girl I thought was amazing. I said, “she can’t be gay, she’s too cool.” My friend replied, “that’s homophobic.” I now realise how ridiculous my statement was, but at the time I was taken aback at the accusation of being homophobic. Could I, a gay person, really be homophobic? Unfortunately, yes. This was when I realised I had an issue with internalised homophobia. Since that moment, I have realised that internalised homophobia is an issue which has not only affected me, but so many other people who have grown up in societies where gay people are viewed as less than. There are many ways in which homophobia can sneak into our subconscious from a young age, and it’s important to recognise it in order to combat it. The word ‘gay’ is used as a playground insult. Jokes are made where a person being gay is the punchline. Gay people are reduced to a stereotype - the butch lesbian, the feminine gay man - with their only defining characteristic being 8

their gayness. Gay couples are viewed as a minority, separate from the norm. People debate whether or not same-sex couples should raise kids. A nation-wide vote is held to determine whether same-sex couples should have the right to marry. All of this took a toll on how I perceived same-sex relationships, even though I consciously believed that homophobia was wrong. Negative stigmas do not just influence the way straight people view same-sex attracted people, but it can affect the way we see ourselves. It’s really difficult to come to terms with your sexuality and be proud of it, when deep down you have internalised the belief that non-heterosexual identities aren’t valid. I struggled to see lesbianism as valid because it was not positively represented in any aspect of my life growing up. As a child I didn’t see same-sex couples being celebrated in TV or movies, and I still struggle to find decent romance novels that aren’t heterosexual. When I began to see positive representation in my teens it both amazed and confused me, because I’d never seen anything like it.

Internalised homophobia as a samesex attracted person can be dangerous because it involves disliking something which is a part of yourself. This can affect your self esteem, as well as the way you form relationships with other same-sex attracted people. When I was in the closet I despised my attraction to women because I thought it made me less normal and less valid than other people. I wasn’t just concerned about other people’s negative perceptions of me, I thought those negative things about myself! I felt like coming out would mean admitting that I belonged to a group who was less valid than everyone else, and I didn’t want to join that club. Everyone was very accepting when I came out, and I really appreciate that. However, it took a lot of work tackling my internalised homophobia before I really accepted it myself. Now I’m proud to be who I am, but getting to this point took years of actively rewiring how I was conditioned to view same-sex attraction.

R E E U Q Anna Kimpton

The word ‘queer’, where do I even begin with this? A term that has apparently been ‘reclaimed’ for all sexually and gender diverse people, a ‘useful umbrella term’, they call it, to pile us all together. I want to start on the point that being referred to in formal social settings and the corporate world as ‘queer’ is literally the most confusing, dehumanising term I have ever come across, and this is coming from a lesbian. Not only does piling every person from the LGBT community together under one word (which is also a literal slur, but we’ll get to that later) remove any form of individuality or recognition of the discrimination being intersectional in any form, it leaves no room for individual voices to be heard and the struggles to be acknowledged. It classes all sexualities as one, as if they all had the same experiences, as if a gay man and a bisexual woman could say that throughout history they have been equally discriminated against. It fails to then acknowledge these past injustices that have been inflicted upon certain groups and not others, where male homosexuality was a crime and female homosexuality was an illness where a woman would be sent to a mental hospital, or be taken away from her children. It comes across as meaningless and confusing when you could be going to a ‘queer’ movie or event and not even knowing which group it refers to, it leads to cases where maybe only one or two groups may be showcased that you don’t belong to, but because you are piled in to the same category, it must somehow apply to you. I love being told by straight people that the word I am getting offended about has been ‘reclaimed’. It comes from such a place of power and privilege to be able to say that. I’d love to see how the white, privileged, private schooled, city

living, cashed up ‘queer’ youth of the day go about explaining to the same older generations that were literally ridiculed and ostracised from society and their communities by that word that their offence is unnecessary and it’s all been fixed. We haven’t been given enough time to heal from the injuries of the past, and the discrimination and laws against us to which have left us with many victims still living today, to decide that suddenly a word that has caused so much division and ostracism is no longer offensive. It has almost developed into some kind of weird, privileged subculture when people claim their sexuality is ‘queer’ – an appropriation, of sorts, of a variety of different identities, combining them into one meaningless title. It becomes very obviously only an umbrella term for the privileged, western world when you do the research and realise that this ‘empowering’ and ‘reclaimed’ word is only either of those things if you live in the west, and is still actively used as a slur to this day. One of the many reasons the very publishers of this magazine successfully changed their name from ‘Queer Department’ to ‘Pride Department’ was literally in recognition that international and culturally diverse students would still blatantly see this as offensive. A word that is reclaimed should look something like how the ‘n-word’ exists as a successfully reclaimed word today. Today, the only people who can use it are African Americans or those who identify themselves as being a ‘black’ minority. The word is used informally amongst themselves and not adopted by institutions and corporations to formally address the minority through such a slur. While those who are unable to use the term (white people) still do, it is not particularly accepted in mainstream society, or by the communities reclaiming it. There is a very big difference in the sense that the term ‘queer’ is 1. An existing slur that literally still operates as one

both domestically and internationally to this very day; and, 2. It is used consistently by straight people to label LGBT people. As much as we hate to admit it, there is no sense of ownership over this word whatsoever. I have straight people regularly calling me the slur I never chose to identify under. The amount of times I have had to sit through and bite my own tongue whilst a person I’m having a conversation with casually slips in that I’m a ‘queer woman’ has been the least bit empowering to me. This is very much prevalent in the eastern states where I have heard the word ‘reclaimed’ around me by the straight population left, right and centre. The connotations are awful and to see corporations as well as universities uncritically jumping on board and establishing initiatives such as ‘Queer Collectives’, ‘queer studies’ and ‘queer activities’ does NOT allow at all for any self-determination and still labels a whole group under such a vulgar and undignifying term. The point also needs to be raised that the term ‘queer’ is still very much a current and existing synonym for the term ‘weird’, meaning ‘differing in some way from what is usual or normal’. I don’t see how any form of reclamation has been successful when this is the case. The term ‘LGBT’ for me is something that connotes strength and pride; for me, it depicts a united coalition of different perspectives and identities without erasing the voices of individual groups. It’s also not a literal slur, which is always a plus. 9

: T S E N O H B LEZ THEIR N O TS C E L F E R E V TI C E L L O THE UWA LESBIAN C IAN’ B S E ‘L D R O W E TH TO S N O INDIVIDUAL CONNECTI

I love the word lesbian, I love being a lesbian, but it took me a long time to be comfortable with the word. My aunt’s a lesbian too, but she came out after having two kids, so it was kind of a shock to the family. ‘Lesbian’ was whispered around me as a small child, always accompanied by worried looks. No-one wanted to explain to me what it was, and so I assumed it was something bad. When I came out to my family and friends, I didn’t really use the word lesbian. I’m gay. I like girls. I’m queer. But I started following lesbian blogs on Tumblr, telling myself that I was a lesbian while looking in my rear-view mirror, shouting it over loud music. Now I can say that I’m a lesbian without any hesitation or fear; now it’s something to be proud of. It means embracing who I am and being part of a loving community that shares in my joy of being a lesbian. LET’S GO LESBIANS! Matilda Gerrans

Recently in conversation I heard someone tentatively refer to Ellen Page as bisexual. “She’s a lesbian”, a few of us corrected him, and he conceded immediately, saying “I just didn’t want to assume”. It was a passing comment, but I’ve been turning it over in my head for the last few days while I’ve been thinking about what to write for this collab. There is so much stigma around the word ‘lesbian’; everybody is aware of this, and it shows itself in the most quiet, unassuming ways. It took me a long time to become comfortable with the word, what I understand now to be internalised lesbophobia surrounding my own singular attraction to women. I distinctly remember standing in Gay’s The Word (a gay bookshop in London), terrified of lingering too long in the lesbian lit section lest someone figure out I was attracted to women! It seems laughable in hindsight - I was in a gay bookshop, for fuck’s sake - but it circles back around to the burning shame I felt whenever I heard the word lesbian, like it was the worst possible thing to be called. Luckily, it’s been years since I last felt that, and I now feel immense pride and strength in getting to refer to myself as a lesbian. It is more than just a label, it is the way I live my life, the choices I make, my politics, and a term that connects me to all the powerful lesbians who lived before me. It reminds me of my connection to my lesbian cultural heritage. But I absolutely understand why some women are not comfortable with the word, when we are reminded in daily conversation that being labelled as a ‘lesbian’ is something bad, to be feared, not to be presumed. Personally, I love it when people presume I am a lesbian. Presume away. Amelia Birch

I always dissociated myself from the word lesbian. To me, it always sounded strange – in the way that some words just don’t sound nice. My family always used the word lesbian referring to something dirty, or something you wouldn’t want to be seen in public as. I don’t use the word for myself and I don’t think I ever will; it seems to have so many connotations and is so final. I think of myself as fluid in terms of sexuality and largely refer to myself as ‘queer’ or a ‘gay woman’. It also seems that if you tell someone that you’re a lesbian, they put you in a box of expectations of how you will be. You will be a tomboy and assume the stereotype. You will not look at men. Like suddenly you’re stuck in a box where you are homosexual and homosexual only. But for me, referring to myself as queer leaves things open for interpretation and the real fluidity of sexuality in which I may look at men, I may look at non-binary people, I may not even look at anyone. I may be non-binary or a woman or none of these things, as in dissociating from anything except simply being as I am. I’m someone who is quite resistant to change but am getting better at it. Using ambiguous terms such as queer allows me to be myself not just as I am at this point in time, but how I may be tomorrow or next week or in ten years’ time, and continue to become more aware of my identity as I continue to grow up and change. Anonymous

Why has it always been such a struggle for me to form the word ‘lesbian’ in my mouth? I have felt for my whole life connotations of being dirty, predatory and promiscuous. It has always been so much easier to say ‘gay’ or ‘into women’ instead of the other word. The word ‘lesbian’ has reflected to the world so many things, firstly being used as straight men’s porn and a sexualised view of female homosexuality. It has been a term that has been so fetishised and dissolved of any form of voice or power for decades. It has scarcely been reclaimed until recently, during my own childhood it was still a word of disgust and shame. A word used in mockery to denote the lowest form of female attractiveness. I remember vividly being told in year eight whilst waiting for the bus home that “No one would ever like you or touch you, not even if you were a lesbian”. As if being lesbian was the lowest sense of worth in a woman or the lowest level of female desirability. The use of the word ‘lesbian’ and the derived meanings from so many people in my life made me feel disgusted in using the word myself. I am still to this very day stared at by straight guys in confusion after I tell them “I’m a lesbian”, waiting for the moment where I break out into laughter and reassure them “I’m kidding” and how perverse that would be. I have literally been told I cannot simply be one, “Trust me, I know lesbians, you just aren’t one” a random straight guy would tell me after 15-year-old me might work up the courage to confess. As if the word ‘lesbian’ has all these pre-existing characteristics and features I had to fit in order to have the privilege of being referred to as such by my male counterparts. Why do I now use this word all of a sudden? Because it shouldn’t be like what I have described. Because girls shouldn’t have to view their identity as a slur and feel as disgusted by their own emotions and feelings as my generation did. Anna Kimpton

Graffiti in Riverside Park, NYC, 1978. Courtesy of the Lesbian Herstory Archives

The word ‘Lesbian’ is sincere and that’s part of why I struggled with it for so long. To take on that word feels as if to take on something beyond it. It is a big deal. It is a declaration of your intention, as a womyn, to identify yourself with other womyn. To reject the centring of men in your life. When I was younger, I felt this as being never able to access the normal world. I’m still always on the outside but I know there have always been womyn like me, Lesbians, on the edges causing trouble. The word doesn’t tie me to a history. History is dead. It places me within the living spatial and temporal web of lives of womyn lived in resistance. I look to my path through that web and draw on it for strength and peace in my body (hairy.) My politics (man-hating.) And how I relate to womyn (Lesbian.) So, I’m a Lesbian. Capital L. F

REECE’S NON-DEFINITIVE AND COMPLETELY OPINION-BASED RANKING OF ICED COFFEE SOLD AT VARIOUS UWA OUTLETS Reece Gherardi

My name is Reece Gherardi, and I am addicted to caffeine. It’s well beyond a joke at this point; the first thing I do before I start uni and work is get coffee, and sometimes I can drink upwards of three or four per day. Yes, I am aware that this is not good for me, and probably has long term health implications. On the flipside, I’ve tried the coffee from every UWA outlet that sells it, on main campus at least, and have come up with a ranking that is both non-definitive and completely opinion-based, so please don’t cancel me if I didn’t put your favourite café in the top spot, okay? For reference, my coffee order is a large iced latte made with skim milk, and that is what this ranking is based on.

7. Catalyst Café

Formerly known as ‘Science Café’, it’s ranked last for a very good reason – I have never ordered a coffee from this café that wasn’t burnt and, judging from reports I’ve heard, neither has anyone else.The first time I got coffee from here, I genuinely considered not finishing it, it was that burnt – but it was still coffee, so I did, which really is a testament to how bad my caffeine addiction is. I was warned not to go here, and I didn’t listen. This is coffee you’d only buy if you want to kick your caffeine addiction, and unfortunately for Catalyst Café, I do not. Rating: fix the coffee machine/10

6. Village Café

The vast majority of stereotypes about how bad so-called ‘Guild food’ is come from this outlet. I’ll admit, Village Café doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to, well, anything really – potentially why Guild Council decided to replace it with an IGA. As far as coffee goes, it’s okay, and it’s definitely not burnt! However, that’s all I can really say about it. Sometimes it’s good, but most of the time it’s just average. It scores points for being the closest to the Pride clubroom (i.e. where I spend most of my time), but not much else. Rating: 2.5/10

5. Rocketfuel

Having never been there before, I was excited to try Rocketfuel for this review! I had high hopes for the only privately-owned coffee outlet in central UWA – surely a business that survives on literally being a café would do it well, right? Unfortunately, years of relative monopoly appear to have dulled its competitive edge, as it suffers from many of the same problems as Village Café; the only exception being that the coffee is good more times than average. It’s certainly not worth the price hike, though – sure, Rocketfuel is priced like a normal café, but the coffee I got was literally half the size you’d expect. Rating: 4/10

4. Quobba Gnarning

Opened in late 2016, UWA’s newest café hits some sweet notes – and is the first in this ranking that actually scores well. Quobba Gnarning is a very busy café due to its location in Reid Library, but unlike Rocketfuel and Village café, it doesn’t get traffic solely because of its location.The coffee is quite good, and it’s definitely worth a walk! As an added bonus, the café is open much later than the others, and has provided me a much-needed late-night buzz many a time. This one mainly ranks here just because the three above it are better. Rating: 7.5/10

3. Hackett Café

As someone who exclusively takes the bus, Hackett Café is a very familiar sight; it’s the first thing I see when I get to UWA, and the last thing I see when I leave. As a result of that, it’s become tradition for me to get coffee from here when I get to uni. With regards to the coffee itself, it’s only slightly better than that of Quobba Gnarning, but what Hackett really has going for it is the atmosphere. With its wooden floorboards, comfy couches, bookshelves, and photo walls, the whole café has a really ‘homey’ vibe – this is the one you want to sit in with your friends for hours. Rating: 8/10

2. Ned’s Café

Okay, so I’m cheating a little. This isn’t technically a UWA outlet, but it’s close enough, and a lot of students go here, so I’m going to include it anyway. I have absolutely no complaints about the coffee – it’s amazing, and extremely well-priced for what you get, considering that it is also privately-owned. In terms of atmosphere, it’s even got Hackett beat; a cosy little nook stacked with large armchairs, where you could easily curl up with a book and lose yourself for the better part of a day.The only downside is that it’s so far away from anything, and that’s the only reason it loses points. Rating: 9.5/10

1. Business School Café

Anyone who knows me knows that I rave about the coffee at the Business School Café, and for good reason. It is, without question, the best coffee sold on the UWA campus. I can’t say anything else about it other than that it is absolutely phenomenal. Despite the fact that Business School is a trek, I deliberately make the effort to go here, because I always know that I’m going to get an amazing coffee (and I haven’t had a bad one yet!). If that wasn’t good enough, it’s also the cheapest, only setting you back about $4.40. Go to Business School Café, trust me, you will not regret it – it’s so good it breaks the rating scale. Rating: 11/10 So that’s what I think; this is my non-definitive ranking of iced coffees you can get on the UWA campus, based on my completely biased opinion. As an aside, though, I genuinely can’t believe that “Is the coffee burnt?” is a metric I had to use to write this (no, seriously, please fix the coffee machine in Catalyst). Hopefully, now that I’ve published a review, I can finally claim the title of ‘coffee snob’ – or, at the very least, ‘caffeinated wanker’. I’ve been Reece Gherardi, and I hope you’re having a good day! P.S. Special thanks to Quobba Gnarning for staying open late enough for me to buy coffee and muffins in my late-night caffeinefuelled editing frenzy.You’re still only ranked fourth though. Sorry.

It’s Called Fashion, Look It Up Camp fashion as counterculture. Daniel Martis

How long do you spend choosing what to wear every morning? 5 minutes? 15? 30? If you’re not pedantic like me, you can probably decide what to wear fairly quickly and be happy with it. But let me tell you there’s a reason why I plan outfits days or even weeks in advance. Fashion and style are very important; after all, it’s your first point of reference when making an impression on someone and trust me you can tell a lot about someone based on the way they look. For me, my clothes are not just something to slap on so I’m not naked in public, they’re an expression of my gender, my sexuality and, at the core, my pride. Let me tell you a little story, my leavers experience was really weird. For some divine reason, the time I was the most experimental with my fashion coincided with the sweat- and booze-filled extravaganza we like to call leavers. I, being as pretentious and vain as I am, decided to plan out my outfits weeks in advance. Little did I know that pushing the style boundaries during an adolescent hormone-fest was not my brightest idea. My friends were petrified for me each night, and I wasn’t sober enough to notice that drawing genderchallenging attention at leavers was doomed from the start. Thankfully, nothing major actually happened to me thanks to the protection of my friends and a stroke of good luck, but I heard more than one story of people who tried the same thing but weren’t so lucky…

This story is why fashion and style are so important to me and other members of the LGBT community. While having a tiny pride parade every time I step out of the house in a spicy outfit is incredibly empowering and even essential for many, there are dangers too. Although leavers was a contained environment where the extent of what I received were some nasty comments on the bus and some aggressive looks, in other areas of the world queer people are bashed, assaulted and even murdered for dressing in clothes that they feel comfortable in. 26 transgender people were murdered in the United States last year and at least 37 gay men were assaulted within Australia in the last 10 years, and let me tell you these numbers should be zero. Can you honestly tell me one good reason why a man wearing heels or a woman with a shaved head should lead to assault? It’s a difficult thought that those who identify with gender nonconformity or non-binary genders must face a constant battle between “do I want to be safe today?” and “do I want to be comfortable in my clothing?” And yet, many members of the LGBT community exhaust themselves with these thoughts every single day.

The sad fact is that gender-nonconformity is, and probably will always be, a form of counterculture.

There will always be people who want “men to dress like men and women to dress like women” – a phrase I have definitely heard more than once. Personally, I find this statement contentious as images of what a ‘men’ and ‘women’ look like change vastly across time and between cultures. The Scottish kilt, for example, which is a Gaelic symbol of masculinity, can be seen in other cultures as a skirt, a traditionally ‘feminine’ garment. These contradicting and fluctuating trends of gender throughout cultures make coding gendered style in a binary extremely difficult, so much so that it makes people’s heads spin. Yet if this is the case, why should we even have a binary? Shouldn’t we just let people wear what they like to wear and be happy that they are free and able to express themselves? Prominent drag queen Sasha Velour summarises that judging whether a person is male or female based on their clothing “is questionable because the limits of what women and men look like is expansive and endless”. There has been a recent shift in contemporary fashion, however. Labels such as Zara, H&M and, even more recently, Louis Vuitton have, among other things, embraced the beauty of androgyny and have showcased their fashions using androgynous models on international runways. Even in this year’s Met Gala, arguably the largest fashion display in the world, the theme was “camp”, meaning anything celebrating exaggeration or artifice, a queer idea in part derived from Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay Notes On “Camp”. Camp is an idea deeply connected to queer art and the LGBT community, and its visibility in the Met Gala truly caused ripples in social spheres. It personally sparked a lot of conversations between me and my friends about representations of glamour, gender, style and the intersections between them. However, although the Met Gala attempted to showcase the fashions embedded in the queer community, for me personally many designers and celebrities missed the mark. I witnessed plenty an outfit that made me cringe at the watered down and conservative takes

on camp (which is the exact opposite of camp), whilst heteronormative thinking was still very much prevalent. This is especially true for singer and prominent (sex) icon Shawn Mendes, who said: “I thought camp meant like camping tents and stuff,” coupled with his attempt to ‘camp up’ his conventional suit with “gold-streaked hair”. Although I understand this was an attempt to be funny, I can’t help but notice his vacant expression when being explained to about what camp actually means. This, amongst the many other interviews and outfits I observed, showed a subdued and uninformed take on “camp” with many comments demonstrating a lack of camp knowledge, its deep roots in the LGBT community and its place in fashion culture/counterculture.

Needless to say, the well-intended yet naïve attempt of the Met Gala to represent an iconic queer art form serves as an example of the presence of queer thought within heteronormative mainstream culture: A for effort, but C for execution. The bottom line is that queer fashion and style are integral to the LGBT experience yet act as counterculture to mainstream audiences. Even heteronormative ideas of ‘camp’ and queerness, whilst scratching the surface of breaking down gender binaries and opening up the full spectrum of colours and experiences, do not have the authenticity or reverence that queer fashion deserves. At the end of the day, the little boost of adrenaline that I get from wearing heels to a formal event or a smoky eye look to the club should not come at the cost of my safety, my status, or my dignity in expressing myself how I choose.

So everyone, wear what you want to wear no matter how long it takes you to dress and be proud of what you’re showing to the world! 15

: N O S E T O

The appeal of Camp Camp is ultimately within the people you share the it with. Be it on the drive over, the murder mystery that rocked the first night, or the scavenger hunt that ruled Wednesday, the entire experience was enriched by the wonderful people I got to share it with. Everyone brought a little something to the table, a little character, a little charm. It’s a wholesome and lovely trip that gave me the chance to bond with the individuals who came along and with me. I’m so glad to have been able to share such a fun ‘glamping’ trip with the people of the Pride Department and I’m sure everyone else who came along agrees. Al Ghanim

Camp Camp for me was an opportunity to meet some fellow LGBT students I hadn’t yet met, and it didn’t disappoint.The murder mystery night was a wonderful feat of creativity and an atrocious mess of accents, but also an unexpectedly effective activity for socialising with new people (despite the difficulty of having to remember both their actual names and their character names). It was a fun scramble for clues, a good mix of red herrings, and concluded with some shocking reveals around the campfire. The rest of camp was conversations past midnight, an elaborate scavenger hunt that was maybe taken more seriously than anticipated, divine cooking, one (1) game of bingo, a party that devolved into a dramatic reading of My Immortal, and hauling stumps closer to the fire because aren’t we all pyromaniacs? I’m glad I didn’t talk myself out of going, even if I could barely stand on my own feet at the end of it all, and I’m very thankful to all the hard work put into making the camp possible. Shelby Murdoch

Camp Camp was the highlight of my semester break, mainly because of the people I got to spend it with. I had been missing my uni friends terribly, and the camp was the first time for us to see each other altogether since end of Semester 1, due to conflicting schedules (and some slight flaking on my part, to be honest!). Al, Amelia and I were heading over earlier to pick up the food and get everything set up, meeting with the rest of Pride Committee in the Department beforehand. Let me tell you, the moment we met up, we fell right back into old habits; jokes, puns, expressing how much we love Yvie Oddly – even the odd spicy political conversation! I remember feeling relief and safety at the comforting sense of familiarity, as if I was coming home. Camp Camp itself consisted of an amazingly creative murder mystery night (thank you Fraser for putting so much effort into it!), a scavenger hunt, some of the best rap performances I’ve ever seen in my entire life, me cooking all the food for everyone, and, really, just a bunch of gays being idiots out in the bush for a few days. It made me realise what I’d been missing out on; the Pride Department is such a tight-knit group that I’ve been involved with for so long, they’re like my family now. And as much as I love my housemates, workmates, cheer team, and other friends, the experience of camping with the Department is like no other. It was like somebody pushed a reset button in my system, and I came back refreshed and ready for Semester 2 (but not before queuing a bunch of my music and promptly falling asleep in Al’s car, leaving him to be subjected to my music taste – sorry Al!). Reece Gherardi

WHY WE NEED TO STOP ACCEPTING SUB-PAR REPRESENTATION

Reece Gherardi

BOY ERASED: 18

CW: conversion therapy, sexual assault, homophobia. Boy Erased tells the stories of many young gay men sent to conversion therapy to try to ‘cure’ them of their homosexuality. Based on Garrard Conley’s memoir of the same name, the film chronicles the experiences of Jared Eamons (played by Lucas Hedges) as he discovers his sexuality, is outed to his parents, and is forced to submit to conversion therapy. The film received mixed – though generally positive – reviews, with critics praising the way Joel Edgerton, the director and screenwriter, explored the intersection between religious belief and homophobia, while noting the film’s issues with character development and connection. Upon first seeing the trailer for Boy Erased, I was hopeful; an emotional and compelling story about a young gay man’s experiences of conversion therapy sounded like a story that needed to be told. In reality, the film suffered from lacklustre performances, poor pacing and storytelling, and troubles converting a memoir to a screenplay. I can think of no better way to start this review than by discussing the acting. Stories that are told using high emotion require talented actors to adequately portray the characters’ emotional states; the cast need to seriously engage with their characters and commit to the roles. This was, unfortunately, where the film fell flat. Despite a cast composed of both seasoned actors (Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Joel Edgerton) and young, but experienced, actors (Lucas Hedges, Joe Alwyn), the performances were not particularly compelling. The actors, unfortunately, felt unengaged with their characters, to the point where the performances became one-dimensional, with a lack of organic character development or dynamic characterisation. This is not to say that the acting was terrible, because it wasn’t – it just wasn’t anything to write home about. The only exception to this being Troye Sivan. For all his many talents, there’s a reason that he didn’t receive a Best Supporting Actor nomination for this performance. So, not off to a great start! The film saw Edgerton utilise flashbacks in a major way; the film juxtaposes Jared’s experiences in the past – of growing up, university, and life – with his stark, present-day reality of attending conversion therapy. Using flashbacks is, by no means, a new way of telling a story, and it has been done with great success in the past (ping The Usual Suspects, Forest Gump, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). However, Boy Erased struggled to emulate the success of the examples given. While the use of flashbacks in the aforementioned films provided exposition, set the foundations of the narratives, and allowed the audience to connect with the characters, it had the opposite

effect for Boy Erased. At best, the flashbacks did not particularly relate to the present-day story as it was occurring, and as such made the story disjointed and incoherent at points. At worst, we were being shown flashbacks just to fill screen time; without any exposition or context, some scenes did not make any sense, and as a result actively detracted from the viewing experience. Unfortunately, as a result of flashback misuse, the audience was not given enough time to actually identify, or properly empathise, with any of the characters. Without this strong emotional connection, we were unable to feel the full weight of the story, thus limiting its effects in portraying the horrors of conversion therapy – more on that next. There is great difficulty in converting a memoir to a screenplay, and Joel Edgerton deserves major props for his halfwaydecent attempt. However, in doing so, Edgerton shifts the focus away from Jared – and away from Garrard Conley’s real-life experiences. Instead, the film focuses more on the character of Jared’s mother, her feelings of shame and guilt for sending her son to conversion therapy, and, for want of a better word, her ‘redemption arc’. Unfortunately, this means that less time is dedicated to the huge part of what makes the story compelling; Conley’s actual memoir focuses heavily on his personal thoughts and feelings, his experiences, and how forcibly attending conversion therapy impacted, and continues to impact, his life. This, coupled with a lack of character development and disjointed storytelling, made the plot itself rather boring, forcing the film to rely on two ‘shock value’ scenes – the attempted rape of Jared and an attendee of conversion therapy being beaten with bibles by the group – to keep the audience interested. Personally, I feel that the film does a disservice to representations of conversion therapy. By taking out a huge portion of Conley’s internal monologue, as well as the years of counselling and deprogramming Conley had to go through, the stories and experiences of gay men forced into conversion therapy are trivialised and sidelined – all for the sake of a minor character’s story arc. While I admire Edgerton for attempting to tell an important story, and acknowledge the difficulty of converting a memoir to a screenplay, I do not think that Boy Erased translated well to the silver screen. Now, I do actually have something positive to say about this film! The soundtrack was absolutely phenomenal, and every song fit its scene so perfectly, to the point that I genuinely cannot think of any better songs to add. The lead song, Revelation, sung by Troye Sivan and Jónsi (fellow Eurovision fans, you know who he is!), is fantastic, and made me tear up a little when I first heard it. I don’t remember the last time I praised a soundtrack this

much, so good job Boy Erased! A consistent theme among the many reviews I read in preparation to write my own was the importance of ‘queer representation’ (which, by the way, I found immensely ironic, using a slur to describe the very people whose lives and experiences you’re talking about, especially considering that the film you’re reviewing makes frequent use of it as a slur). Note the use of the term ‘representation’ rather than, say, something like ‘experiences’ or ‘narratives’, and believe me there’s a remarkable difference.Within the past few years, there has been a big push for diversity in Hollywood – with ‘representation’ as the buzzword leading the charge – resulting in an explosion of LGBT characters, amongst other equity groups, garnering praise and support (though not without its fair share of controversies). But having LGBT characters without reflecting LGBT lives, experiences and stories is meaningless. Without those, we’re just tokens, pawns on a chessboard for directors to move around until the studio is satisfied that they’ve hit quota. We might as well not be there to begin with. Now, maybe I am being a little harsh. Yes, the idea that any representation of LGBT people within mainstream media is good because it normalises our presence in society has been floated to me plenty of times. And my answer to that is no. I am done accepting tokenistic LGBT characters. I am done accepting the idea that any representation at all is a privilege. By doing so, we get films like Boy Erased, and with them the trivialisation and outright sidelining of our experiences. That is what we endorse when we heap praise on mainstream media for having a single token gay with about ten minutes of screen time and a handful of lines. My recommendation? Download the soundtrack, skip the film, don’t bother reading the reviews, and stop accepting LGBT ‘representation’ with a grand total of zero substance.

WE ARE EACH OTHER’S SURVIVORS N IA B S E L E H T O T IP R T -A HERSTORY ARCHIVES Amelia Birch

The Lesbian Herstory Archives has been based in its current location, an unassuming brownstone in a side street off the sprawling Prospect Park in Brooklyn, since 1993. It was founded in 1975, when a group of women from the Gay Academic Union realised that lesbian history was disappearing as swiftly as it was being made. My own trip there felt monumental, making the solo journey on foot across the park on a baking hot afternoon in June on the day before World Pride took over New York City. I’d been excited to visit the archives for months, but when the day came I was slightly embarrassed by how nervous I felt. Should I have called ahead? I’d left my best (heterosexual) friend back at our Airbnb, maybe I should have brought her along for support? Honestly, I needn’t have worried. Immediately after pushing the door open, two middle aged lesbians stopped their conversation and welcomed me enthusiastically to the archives. One of them, who introduced herself to me as Deb, told me to head on through and look at anything I pleased. “I’ll collect you when we reach a critical mass, and take you on a proper tour.” Allowing myself to be ushered through to the main library, I was met with a large, highceilinged room lined from floor to ceiling with books, the shelves marked with little masking tape categories such as “photography”, “romance”, and “history”. 20

There were women scattered across the room, some huddled in small groups, and some alone like me. I made my way over to the art shelves, and a woman who looked in her forties caught my eye and smiled. I started to relax. That “critical mass” Deb spoke of turned out to be three of us - a youngish married couple from Washington state, and me. We gathered obediently, a giddy respectfulness permeating the small group, as Deb ran us through a brief history and what each floor contained. She would be showing us the ground floor - the main library - and the first floor - pamphlets and international records. I got the impression the basement was a less meticulously organised storage space, and the second floor was an apartment reserved for a friend of the archive who got to live there rent free for taking out the bins and making sure the building was locked up and safe. (Learning this, it has absolutely become my dream to be the lesbian who lives above the archive and takes out the trash.) Much of Deb’s enthusiastically comprehensive tour passed in a whirlwind. Some parts I remember in excruciating detail, and some are just complete blanks. What I do remember is how it felt like the three of us were being let in on some kind of glorious secret at this place of

pilgrimage. Each room we went into felt familiar, even though I’d never been there before - I felt nostalgia for this place I’d never been, a place that lesbians before me had built from the ground up. In a back room, Deb showed us a bookshelf full of lesbian pulp novels from the 1950s - “a lesbian thought we ought to have these, so she sent us a few, and then we just started getting sent them from all over,” she explained, laughing - and one of the women I was with let out a small, thrilled noise, reaching across to touch the book spines. “We had these covers as table centrepieces at our wedding!” Our guide explained to us that another archive founder, Joan Nestle, referred to the pulp novels as “survival literature”. Up until the early 1960s, these novels (written usually by

straight men, for male audiences) were often the only books where a lesbian might find representation of herself, even though the books usually ended in tragedy. Something that Deb stressed to us was that they were still and always had been community focussed. “We take anything that lesbians want to send us about their lives,” she said multiple times, “It is our duty to collect and correct.” Collect the things that speak of the lives of lesbians, and correct the erasure and misinterpretation of those lives by the rest of the world. Their broad collection approach meant the archive at times seemed haphazardly organised, but that didn’t seem to matter much. The building felt like it stood as a testament to community organising and solidarity between lesbians over the decades. Deb led us up to the first floor, a winding maze of interconnected rooms with boxes stacked along each wall. In one corridor she stopped us to show us a comprehensive collection of lesbian pins from the 70s and 80s. On another wall there was a rug mounted with labrys and venus symbols woven into it. I stopped in the back room, kneeling on the floor to pour over an open box of newsletters and periodicals from the late 80s, half-listening to a wholesome intergenerational conversation between

an older lesbian in her sixties, and a couple of younger women around my age. The newsletters featured event adverts, intracommunity disagreements, legal and health advice, ruminations on lesbian life, and funny little cartoons. I flicked open to a page at random, and was hit with an article from a woman arguing the pros of her life as a lesbian on the fringes of mainstream society. “To love another woman is to love yourself as a woman, and it is more. It is the rare opportunity in a culture of hierarchy and coercion to experience the love shared by equals.The world fears us because we are ahead of our time.” It was impossible to read these words, so painstakingly written by women who fought so hard for their right to exist, and not feel them aching in my chest. Down in the entry hall, surrounded by framed photos of lesbian protests and gatherings from the 80s (I manage to pick out a younger Deb in a few of them, same haircut even then!), I got talking to Deb about the archives. She asked where I was from, and if I had been to the Lesbian and Gay Archives in Melbourne. “We actually lost one of our founders to Melbourne,” she told me, grinning, “she fell in love with a woman who was… how do we put it? Geographically inconvenient, and they ended up moving back to Australia together.” I wanted to ask her so many things - this strong, funny

woman who, together with her friends, built this place with their bare hands because they believed it should exist, that it was essential to the knowledge and continuing significance of living Lesbian lives. I thought about how many women like me she has met, how many women have made the pilgrimage across Prospect Park to be floored by the tangible proof of so many lesbians living, working, and loving long before they was born, let alone knew what the word “lesbian” meant. But it’s the day before World Pride, the archives are bustling, and Deb had more tours to lead, so instead I thanked her profusely for her time, bought a tote bag (while getting to use what must’ve been the oldest credit card machine in the world), and watched as she launched into another tour with a group of excitedly reverent women. One of the documents I read just before I left was an archival report that dated from 1984 that highlighted the commemorative purpose of the archive. “As a people we have been deprived of the rituals of communal sorrow [...] Often in newspapers, a euphemism for the death of a Lesbian is ‘there are no known survivors’.This is not true. We are each other’s survivors.” I carried those words with me down onto the street, and sat on the subway in a daze. When my best friend asked how my afternoon was, I have no idea how to answer other than “it felt so important.” As I write this article it has been over a month since my visit, and I still don’t know how to sum up my experience succinctly. I have always been curious about women who have lived before me, interested in community building, but now more than ever. It is imperative that we as lesbians continue this work laid by our foremothers, that we invest in our own communities and carry on the documentation and exploration of our own lives, the lives that were lived before us, and their shared meaning.

We are each other’s survivors.

The Lesbian Herstory Archives can be found at 484 14th St., Brooklyn, NYC. You can visit them there, at www. lesbianherstoryarchives.org, or follow them on Instagram at @lesbianherstoryarchives.

Photos by Amelia Birch

FAM Al Ghanim

A home, away from home. A group, to call my own. Free to be me. Great to be free. Joined in proud, solidarity. Months of good times. Reap a good rhyme. Sowed into my soul. Happiness untold. So let us all toast. Rainbows flag a-hoist. To the most, Welcoming and loving fam.

HER MJ.

She’s the flame inside the heart, and the heart in side a flame. When I do something stupid she’s the voice without a name. And though she makes me laugh this love is not a game. I’ve seen this big world through her eyes and it’ll never be the same.

YOUTH Anonymous

You’re pretty, you’re beautiful, sit there watching me. That grin on your face making me smile too as you’d cheekily grab my book and throw it away, cup my face in your warm hands and kiss me. It felt like forever, laying in the park that Sunday, with my head against your chest, hearts beating in time, I could feel yours and you could feel mine and the textbook definitions lay forgotten on the grass. Over cups of coffee, or hot chocolate, in my case, we shared the memories that made us special. I’ll never forget when I held your hand in public first: your fingers fit the gaps of mine perfectly, people stared and whispered in each other’s ears but you held me close, firm grip telling the world you weren’t afraid. We stayed up all night on cold July evenings, for no apparent reason other than to cuddle under blankets, nestled beneath doonas and quilts and mountains of pillows (occasionally watching slasher flicks because we both loved them). And on those hot February days we’d go to the beach, you’d flaunt what you got because you could, and for me, while I stayed covered up, strung by my insecurities. But you’d get me in eventually, convince me I was perfect even though I’m not - and reward me with your smile. Together, we’d tread the deep waters, thrown by waves that swell between us. We were both strong swimmers, we braved the ocean, and we’d easily find our way back. Hold each other tightly, rocked to shore by breaking waves, lay on wet sand, kiss with the taste of salt in our mouths. In gentle March nights, we’d watch the moon in her cradle and pretend we were up there, fishing for hopes and dreams. Together we lay, you held me tight, and I’d feel safe again. And I dream of you. I still dream of you.

TOP 5 LANA DEL REY SONGS THAT ARE ABSOLUTELY LESBIAN ANTHEMS If you’ve had the pleasure of following me on Spotify or listening to one of my party playlists then you will know that my embarrassingly normie music tastes are 75% Lana Del Rey. Now, I still haven’t recovered from the shock of Lana coming out as a Cancerian rather than the moody Gemini pop princess we all thought her to be, however my commitment is unshaken and I am ready to break these songs down and deliver a carefully curated top five definitively dykey LDR tracks. I know y’all needed this in your lives.You’re welcome.

5. Born to Die, Born to Die (2012) Let’s start off with an absolute classic. This is textbook falling in love with your best friend in year 11 lesbian romance. High drama? Tragique? Sweeping violins with a sick beat? Check, check, check. “Come and take a walk on the wild side / Let me kiss you hard in the pouring rain”, come on, we all wrote this shit in our sad gay diaries. Big props to Lana for that particular trip down memory lane, I absolutely would’ve hit repeat on this during many emotional rainy bus rides at 16.

4. Money, Power, Glory, Ultraviolence (2014) Fifty percent tongue-in-cheek, one hundred percent not giving a shit. She’s telling men to run away from her, she’s dismissive of organised religion. Lesbian women statistically earn more than their heterosexual peers and this song backs that. Plus when I googled the lyrics, someone on a forum pointed out that MPG stands for miles per gallon, meaning that Lana is not only interested in women, but also interested in a fuel-efficient car. Nothing dykier than wanting a fuelefficient car. 26

3. God Bless America - And All The Beautiful Women In It, Lust for Life (2017) It’s an easy misconception that this song is simply about patriotism. Is LDR gay for Lady Liberty? No, no, you see, the entire song is about the NYC lesbian scene. It’s simple - NYC is the site of the Statue of Liberty, she talks about hearing “the sweetest melodies / on the fire escapes of the city” and we all know New York fire escapes are iconic (see: Friends, Rent, and now, this song), plus NYC has one of the strongest lesbian communities in the world, which is why Lana wrote a whole song about how great it is! So happy for you, Lana.

1. Cherry, Lust for Life (2017) Wow, just, wow. “real love, it’s like feeling no fear / when you’re standing in the face of danger / ’cause you want it so much”. These aren’t the words of a straight woman. Remember the first time you kissed a girl? Yeah, that. Cheers, Lana. Every second of this track is petty, aching, intimate, and categorically not written about a man. 10/10 lesbian content.

2. Venice Bitch, Norman Fucking Rockwell (2019) By the time this article is published we will have all been blessed by Lana’s sixth album, so who knows, maybe she will have topped this entire list - but for now, let’s talk the sleepy summer dykey journey that Venice Bitch blesses us with. It’s no coincidence that LDR stands for longdistance relationship as much as it stands for Lana Del Rey, and we all know lesbians are suckers for both. The pacing on this is phenomenal, all heady golden resignation over the reality of being apart from the woman you love. It’s sheer summery intoxication and Lana really takes us lesbians there.

Honourable mention: This Is What Makes Us Girls, Born To Die (2012) So not only is this an absolute teenage drama bop, but it’s a throwback to the 2018 Pride Department Quiz Night where the blessed Outspoken Editor Reece patiently held my hands while I, two bottles of rosé deep, informed him that this was a song about lesbians. Shout out to you Reece, this one’s for you. Thanks for that special moment I can’t really remember, and thanks for indulging me with this very serious article.

THE TOP 5 SUFJAN STEVENS SONGS ABOUT BEING… UH… ‘WITH GOD’ Anonymous

Being a devout fan of Sufjan Stevens’ work, keen eyes from within fan sites have spotted some.. umm... ‘christian’ themes within Sufjan Stevens’ work. These themes never particularly stand out either, which develops an ambiguity in his work; is he hinting towards some sort of relationship with Jesus, or just a plain ol’ queer as most people generally read it as? After looking at this selection of songs, we can garner an insight as to any sort of ‘praying’ he might’ve done in his life. 5. Mystery of Love Sufjan wrote this song (and another, Visions of Gideon) for the movie Call Me By Your Name, about a young boy discovering his bisexu— bispirituality with a slightly, but noticeably, older man that stays at his house for a couple of months. Context aside, one lyric “Like Hephaistion who died / Alexander’s Lover” refers to the supposed lover— pastor of Alexander the Great, entwining the movie’s plot with its Ancient Greek aesthetic. 4. Futile Devices The opening track of his 2010 album Age of Adz (coincidentally - well,‘coincidentally’ - this song was remixed in the soundtrack of Call Me By Your Name as well). His echoed voice revisits a memory of his past lover and the moments of intimacy they shared. One of the memories he recites is of the strings on a guitar buzzing, which is reflected in the song’s extra guitar strings being played as the lyric is sung – must have been an especially vivid for Sufjan. It is only on the last lines of the song where he sings “I think of you as a brother / Although that sounds dumb / And words are futile devices”. Clearly, Sufjan is referring to a brother of the church, as they both serve God and all those previous moments of intimacy are intimate moments shared with God, and not a man with a corporeal body. 3. To Be Alone With You The album this song is on is abound with gay kissing smooch smooch themes; you only need look at the song titles In the Devil’s Territory; Abraham, and; The

Transfiguration’ – all of them are pretty clearly GAY. However, it is in this song, one of the first in his discography (and one of his most popular songs to date), where allusions to his Christianity arise. And it very much plays with ambiguity here, allows plausible deniability if confronted with the risks of getting outed as a Christian. Rather than using clear, Christian terminology, it’s left for the listener to piece it together. “You went upon a tree” instead of a wooden cross, “you gave your body to the lonely / you sold your clothes” follows the actions of Jesus Christ, but without direct reference, only those in-the-know of Jesus’ actions could tell. So while the song was obviously gay, there were some definite ‘Jesus’ vibes going on there and it ignited the fire, the quest for representation, that the Lord God Bible Testament community sought from him. 2. The Predatory Wasp of The Palisades Is Out To Get Us It was on his next album, Illinoise, in 2006, where the first overt Christian theme showed in his work. It follows a story of a wasp (symbolic, undoubtedly) attacking him and his relationship with God. The other character in the lyrics, his best friend (i.e. Jesus) gets stung by a wasp and what follows is best said by the source itself: “Oh how I meant to tease him / Oh how I meant no harm / Touching his back with my hand I kiss him / I see the wasp on the length of my arm”. It goes on “we were in love, we were in love / Palisades, Palisades / I can wait, I can wait / I can’t explain the state that I’m in / The state of my heart, he was my best friend”. This is definitely

about how praying improves Sufjans’ life and only through this and through church he can finally be at peace with his “best friend” (again, just for clarification, it’s Jesus). 1. Venus A less publicised release, a deep cut if you will, of Sufjan’s discography. This song featured on his collaborative album, Planetarium, and the song is named after the Roman Goddess of Love. I’ll only show the necessary lines in the song to illustrate this complex, abstract metaphor for the Pope: “Methodist Summer Camp / You show me yours, show you mine / Sensitive Thunderclap... / Red-headed, horny eyed devil / Crazed nymphomania / Touch me if touching’s no sin / heart-shaped anemone felt from within”. Here the heart shaped anemone is a symbol of the Pope, who through the gospel can touch all from within. This acts as the resolution to the sexual temptation led by the red-headed devil. Truly, a masterpiece in the small canon of Christian songs about loving… ‘Jesus’.

Sufjan has left a subtle but lasting legacy for all those who consider themselves quee… Christian, and perhaps the light touch to these themes serves as a beacon to those who aren’t open to their families as ga… religious, or prefer to not have a label at all.

Photos by Sophie Minissale 28

Photos by Al Ghanim

Photos by Amelia Birch

Pride Week Pride Week Pride Week Pride Week Pride Week Pride Week

e d a r g e o d r a t r e R g o e r d a r RReet g o e r d t a r g o e rrr d ttt a eee r RRR g o e d a r g o Pride Week

A PRIDE WEEK RAVE IN CYBERSPACE

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Tickets:

$15

https://retrograde-event.getqpay.com OR Pride Room