Archer Magazine #8 - The SPACES issue (Jun 2017)

A M AG A Z I N E A B O U T S E X , G E N D E R A N D I D E N T I T Y

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THE SPACES ISSUE

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ISSUE EIGHT CONTENTS

Editor’s note

5

AMY MIDDLETON

Q&A with Alex Lahey

8

DANI LEEVER

Hair and identity

14

JAYA KEANEY

Masculinity

22

RATHINI KANDAVEL

Club Scenes 28

DAVE SWINDELLS

Gay in detention

38

NIMA

BDSM spaces

44

ANNA KINGSTON

Sharehouses 52 VINCENT SILK

The Glitter Underground

Sex worker spaces

72

TILLY LAWLESS

In exile

78

TINA DIXSON

58 JESS AND ALEXIS DESAULNIERS-LEA

Freedom and oppression 84

RAZIA ZAKARYA

Public sex

88

REGAN LYNCH

Desert Migration

94

DANIEL F. CARDONE

Nightlife 102 KANE RACE

Cultural memory 106 KERRYN DRYSDALE Online space 110 LA MOANA

FOUNDING EDITOR/PUBLISHER Amy Middleton DESIGN + IMAGE EDITOR Alexis Desaulniers-Lea LAYOUT DESIGNER Christopher Bosevski CO-EDITOR/ONLINE EDITOR Lucy Watson CO-EDITOR/DEPUTY ONLINE EDITOR Bobuq Sayed CONTENT ADVISOR Lottie Turner IMAGE ASSISTANT Hayley Moroney SUB-EDITORS Josephine Sargent Richard Scott FACT-CHECKER Erin Stutchbury PROOFREADER Amy Russell ONLINE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Dani Leever ONLINE ASSISTANT Timothy Elico WEBSITE DEVELOPER Mark Egan ONLINE STORE MANAGERS Chris Drane Ciume Lochner COVER IMAGE: Tilly Lawless by Byron Spencer Visit us online: www.archermagazine.com.au For advertising and other enquiries, email info@archermagazine.com.au

HUGE THANKS TO Anh Nguyen, Damien Bright, Vicki Likoudis, Gaye Murray, Alissa Relf, Cash Savage, Kent Burgess, Lucy Le Masurier, Niamh Vlahakis, Bahar Sayed, Georgia Verkuylen, Connie Ogan, Natasha Jynel, Mike Ellott, Andrew Burns, Marika Fengler, Cam Miller, Connor Thomas O’Brien, Rachel Palmer, Bec Zajac, Cat McGauran, Nick Finch, Jessica Jeanfield, Nigel Quirk, Kate Callingham, Eddie Diamandi, André Dao, Dana Affleck, Maddie Duke, Natsumi Penberthy Printed in Australia by Printgraphics Pty Ltd.

© 2017. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission from the publisher. Views expressed in Archer Magazine are those of the respective contributors and not necessarily shared by Archer Magazine.

EDITOR’S NOTE Everyone deserves safety, support and a space that’s welcoming.

PHOTO: CONNIE OGAN

Dear readers, Welcome to our eighth print edition (which means we’ve turned 4 in Archer years) – and our first ever redesign.

We’d love some feedback on the magazine’s new look. Send us a message, either on Facebook or through our website, and let us know your thoughts.

This edition of Archer Magazine is called the SPACES issue.

The jury is still out on how this theme came to fruition. It may have entered my mind through the zeitgeist, following a conversation with a friend about her new podcast on queer spaces, Homotopia (thanks for the idea, Bec).

But the overall significance of this theme isn’t lessened by its subliminal inspiration. Space and safety are key to human experience, and for people with diverse identities – the very voices we amplify through this publication – finding safe and welcoming spaces can sometimes prove difficult.

Space isn’t always material. Of course, we all need physical space where we are free to be ourselves and to experiment, explore, consolidate and rally together. As Kane Race writes in his piece on Sydney’s stifled club and bar scene (p102): “Nightlife operates as a zone of playful exchange. It’s a space of exposure to difference that can change your take on things, or how you feel about the world. The best nights make new things possible.”

We also need digital spaces: private arenas in which we can congregate and support, as explored by La Moana in their piece about online communities for queer people of colour (p110).

We need space on our bodies in which to express ourselves, as Jaya Keaney emphasises in her exploration of hair as an important facet of identity coding (p14).

We also need social spaces, in which we can counsel and celerbate ourselves and each other: on p22, Rathini Kandavel describes finding a way to explore masculinity, in all its complex iterations, with members of a newfound community.

Meanwhile, in our geographical spaces, freedom and human rights can be observed, supported, removed and fought for: Razia Zakarya writes on oppression and safety in Saudi Arabia and Australia (p84), while Tina Dixson describes finding her home while in exile from her country of birth (p78).

Spaces can be retrospective: Kerryn Drysdale remembers an iconic drag king scene and reflects on memory as a cultural archive (p106); Regan Lynch explores a global history of public sex (p88); and Vincent Silk describes a legendary sharehouse that reflects society’s shifting gender politics in its tumbledown terrace façade (p52). And, in a confronting examination of the process of seeking asylum, Nima writes about his experiences as a gay man in a detention centre for refugees (p38).

Our cover model, Tilly Lawless, writes on being a queer sex worker with limited access to safety in traditional spaces (p72), while performer Anna Kingston describes finding validation and self-empowerment in BDSM communities (p44).

These stories remind us of the importance of safety, support and validation – rights that aren’t always bestowed upon us by our leaders, our society, or our families.

By sharing these stories, along with the voices that are published on our website every week, we’re working to fight for space in this world for all individuals, regardless of their life experience, background and situation.

Thanks for joining us in this fight.

Amy x

CONTRIBUTORS RATHINI KANDAVEL

Rathini Kandavel is a Tamil-Sri Lankan-American, queer transgender educator and writer who is known for being thoughtful, deliberate, and extremely cautious.

Born and raised in a large Tamil-Sri Lankan community just outside Los Angeles, Rathini lives in New York City.

TILLY LAWLESS

Tilly Lawless is a queer, Sydney-based sex worker who writes on femme invisibility, the intersection between her queerness and her work, and sex worker rights.

Follow her on Instagram: @tilly_lawless

DAVE SWINDELLS

Dave Swindells has photographed the nightlife scene in London and beyond since 1984, and written about it extensively as Nightlife Editor at Time Out in London from 1986 to 2009. His photographs have been featured in i-D, The Face, The Observer, Mixmag and many other publications worldwide.

TINA DIXSON

Tina Dixson comes from a human-rights background, having worked in the areas of LGBTIQ, refugee and women’s rights. In 2011, she drafted and presented the Shadow Report at the UN in Geneva for human rights violations of homosexual, bisexual and transgender women.

PLUS Ann-Marie Calilhanna, Daniel F. Cardone, Kale Chesney, Alexis Desaulniers-Lea, Jess Desaulniers-Lea, Renee Dixson, Kerryn Drysdale, Ali Franco, NFN Kalyan, Jaya Keaney, Anna Kingston, La Moana, Dani Leever, Regan Lynch, Hayley Moroney, Nima, Connie Ogan, Kane Race, Vincent Silk, Byron Spencer, Dave Swindells, Patrick Stevenson, Alan Weedon, Razia Zakarya.

ARCHER MAGAZINE

8 ALEX LAHEY is a singer and songwriter based in Melbourne, Australia.

Q&A

with Alex Lahey

Australian singer and songwriter Alex Lahey chats to Archer Magazine about touring, notoriety and queer visibility. WORDS DANI LEEVER PHOTOS KANE HIBBERD Alex Lahey is a singer-songwriter from Melbourne, Australia.

After winning the $7,500 Josh Pyke Partnership, she played the iconic Splendour in the Grass festival, earned a spot on Triple J’s Hottest 100 and toured around Australia and the UK, following a seriously successful debut EP. Alex Lahey met Archer Magazine team member Dani Leever in a cafe in Melbourne, and the pair discussed queer representation in the media between deciding which pasta to order.

of being a band that’s able to do that calibre of show. You have to become a professional band in four weeks.

The stage is like five times the size of my house. But we worked fucking hard – it couldn’t have gone any better.

Q: How has being a woman impacted your experience within the music industry?

AL: I’ve been pretty lucky, but I have noticed at times that a lot of the business things are 80 per cent dealing with guys.

They’re great guys, but it was an interesting observation.

I remember when I was signing my publishing deal a couple of months ago, and I was just so unsure about it for so long, I realised that all the meetings I’d attended were with men.

That wasn’t anything that threw me off, but I called a mentor of mine who’s a woman and just said, “By the way, you’re the only woman I’ve spoken to about this!”

She was like, “Yep… call me anytime.”

Q: When was the first time you saw someone in pop culture who reflected your sexuality?

AL: The first time was on Degrassi, years ago. The only queer characters I saw on TV were sad and ostracised, which didn’t exactly help me understand myself.

Things are getting better. On Broad City, Ilana’s sexuality is so fluid, and yet so insignificant to the plot. It’s a powerful representation of queerness – entirely normalised.

Q: The last six months have been huge for you. Can you walk me through them?

AL: So, six months ago I released a single called You Don’t Think You Like People Like Me – I literally just put it on the internet. There was nothing special about the way we put it out, but it immediately got put on rotation on Triple J. It was a breakthrough sort of thing for me, which I’d never had before – it was great.

I recorded that song with my producer, Oscar Dawson, as part of an EP we just released.

Q: Do you think underrepresentation of women in the music industry is an issue?

AL: Unfortunately, I don’t think the music industry is an exception to this rule and I think that’s the way it is in a lot of industries.

But one of the beautiful things about the music industry that I’ve noticed, as I’ve been climbing up the ranks in the Australian sphere, is that the girls really look out for each other. And it’s really beautiful.

There seems to be limited space for women, for whatever reason, so I can understand why people would think it’s competitive. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. The women look out for each other.

I’ve had peers who have been in the game longer than me just check in every now and then.

Q: And then you found out you were playing Splendour in the Grass! How was that?

AL: It felt great, and scary! Not only do they give you the opportunity to play Splendour, they give you the responsibility

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ARCHER MAGAZINE

Lahey’s debut single, You Don’t Think You Like People Like Me, was released digitally and got instant rotation on Triple J.

That’s really special and wonderful, and indicative of the industry. But I do notice that I’m a woman in the industry, so I guess that says something.

For me, the norm is that I’m open about my sexuality, and it doesn’t inform anyone’s opinion of what I do.

So, at the end of the day, I just go about it, writing my songs, love who I love, and be involved with who I want to be involved with.

I just do whatever I would normally do, and hope that nobody effectively cares.

I’m very openly gay among my friends, my family and my colleagues – that’s just that!

It’s not that interesting, really. My mantra is to just be myself, and if that means being open about my sexuality, then, fuck yeah, I will be.

If someone really cares about it negatively, that’s far more reflective of them than me.

Q: How has your queer identity impacted you as a singer and songwriter?

AL: As an artist, it hasn’t impacted me at all.

I go about writing songs in the same way everyone else does, regardless of their sexuality. It just so happens that my relationships are with women – but I still write songs about relationships!

I write about my life and that’s part of it, but it doesn’t shape the content to be any different, because, at the end of the day, it shouldn’t be seen to be.

Q: And how has your experience been, navigating your identity on a more public level?

AL: As someone who does interviews and has a media presence, the idea of my private life potentially being of public interest is interesting.

I got to meet Tegan and Sara at Splendour In The Grass, who are pioneers, and I was talking to them about how to manage media as a queer artist.

Sara said to me, “You just gotta express what you think the norm should be.”

Alex Lahey recently returned from the UK after a national tour with Tegan and Sara. Her highly anticipated debut album is due out late 2017.

Dani Leever is a Melbourne-based writer, editor and workshop presenter for PROJECT ROCKIT, Australia’s youth-driven movement again bullying, hate and prejudice. They’re a subeditor for Bits and Bods and online assistant for Archer Magazine.

In their spare time, they hang out with their 100 dogs and make collages about their feelings.

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QUEER IN DETENTION SEEKING ASYLUM BDSM & FEMINISM

THE SPACES ISSUE

TILLY LAWLESS ISSN: 2204-7352

AUD $16.95 (incl. GST)

ON SEX WORK + PUBLIC SEX DRAG KING SCENES FETISH AND FEMINISM NIGHTCLUBS OF LONDON SYDNEY'S RIGHT TO PARTY GAY IN DETENTION

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14

HAIR + IDENTITY

HAIR HAIR

and identity

WORDS JAYA KEANEY PHOTOGRAPHY KALE CHESNEY WORDS JAYA KEANEY PHOTOS KALE CHESNEY 15

ARCHER MAGAZINE

W

HEN I WAS 17, I cut off all my hair for the first time.

I was freshly out of high school, freshly queer, and thrilled by the promise of finding a queer community at university.

I remember nervously holding my own gaze in the mirror as a hairdresser with a magenta undercut and pierced septum asked, “Ready?”, while already starting to snip.

I was terrified. The initial cut felt both shocking and freeing, like a vital ticket into an exclusive community I craved to join.

T

HIS IS NOW logged in my mind as the ‘queer haircut’ memory: a common rite of passage. But, for me, the move had consequences I wasn’t expecting.

Surprisingly, I found that my new hairstyle suddenly downplayed the visibility of my racial identity.

This was an event that demonstrated the inextricable connection between my queer identity and my experience of having a non-white body.

I’m bi-racial, half Indian and half Anglo-Celtic, and born in Australia.

Growing up in a body people have trouble racially categorising has meant constant questions about where I come from, constant sexualising of my ‘exotic’, hard-to-place body, and an ongoing feeling of instability in my own racial identity.

Like lots of mixed folks, I’ve often felt like I don’t fit. I feel culturally inauthentic and ‘too white’ for Indian diasporic community spaces, but I also feel like I have to distance myself from my Indian family and culture in order to fit in elsewhere, and that includes many queer community spaces and events.

More than anywhere else on my body, the tension and emotion of being a cisgender queer person, who is mixedrace and mostly femme-presenting, come together at the site of my hair.

That first queer haircut definitely achieved its goal, affording visibility and increased recognition from other queers in public spaces – something a friend of mine calls the ‘lesbian head-nod’.

What I also noticed, though, was a reduction in the “Where are you from?” questions. This was paired with diminishing acknowledgment from other South Asian folks in public, and

16

comments from my pati and her friends about my ‘modern’ and ‘interesting’ new hairstyle.

Deliberately queering my aesthetic by cutting my hair then also felt like a loss; a strange hiding of race.

Coding queerness in my appearance, it would seem, rendered my brownness less of a question.

These collisions indicate, of course, our widespread cultural failures to think intersectionally – the failure to make space for queer hair and authentic brownness to co-exist – and the failure to conceive of queerness outside white Western aesthetics.

For me, these collisions were also wrapped up with reconciling my mixedrace femme presentation as being both legitimately desi – a self-identifying term used by many people in the South Asian diaspora – and legitimately queer.

M

Y HAIR IS long these days. It hangs around my face in dark, ragged curls that frizz and morph as the weather changes.

Each individual strand is thin but there are many of them, and a visit to the hairdresser wouldn’t be complete

HAIR AND IDENTITY

“More than anywhere else on my body, the tension and emotion of being a cisgender queer person, who is mixedrace and mostly femme-presenting, come together at the site of my hair” without at least one mention, in a tone somewhere between impressed and exasperated, of my hair’s extreme thickness and weight.

I

RARELY BRUSH MY hair, still recovering from years of soaking it in conditioner and detangling spray, then dragging pink plastic brushes through it until my scalp felt like it was splitting open.

I’ve now replaced detangling spray with coconut oil and kalonji oil, sourced from South Asian grocery stores many suburbs west of the queer heartland in which I live.

In these shops I feel like a fake, and I worry that I don’t have enough cultural knowledge to be there, or that the cashier will read me as a white girl appropriating desi culture.

As a teenager, the smell of coconut oil made me gag, reminding me of the Indian girls I sat next to in Tamil class as a child, who seemed so off-puttingly Indian – as though this was a solid category that I could keep separate from myself.

When I was 16 and newly queer, I wanted so desperately to not be like those girls. Now, I lather my hair in coconut oil as a crucial part of what Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, a mixed desi femme writer, would call my ‘brown girl arsenal’.

White queers praise to me the benefits of coconut oil as their own

DIY anti-capitalist method, but for me, applying it is a decolonial action.

The product reminded me of my mum and my pati long before connotations of food co-ops, vegan baking and DIY deodorant, and the smell is good for healing my heart from the sting of racism, as well as healing my dry, split hair strands.

E

VEN NOW, THINKING about cutting my hair always sparks a stand-off between my queerness and my brownness.

I think frequently about how much more visible I feel as a person of colour, and as desi, when I have long hair. On a body that feels like it doesn’t clearly code what it is, with olive skin and greenish eyes, I’ve always felt like my hair, at least, has a decidedly Indian thickness and curl.

At the same time, I have occasional pangs of wanting to cut it all off, because I feel like my current hair hides my queerness.

This is femme queer invisibility, only made worse by brownness.

Growing my hair out made me feel more Indian, and for a long time, that felt uncomfortable because I didn’t want to look Indian.

It’s exhausting to be asked constantly where you’re from, and to be told by creepy white men that you look like an exotic princess.

It’s also exhausting to hold shame

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and self-hatred for looking Indian, because you fear you’re a fake, inauthentic, or only half.

There is also the shame that comes with growing up in a culture that teaches you that Indian femininity is gross, unattractive, backwards and, crucially, heteronormative.

In my youth, white-dominated Australian society taught me that magenta saris, sparkly bottus and bangles, and thick hoop earrings in gold Tamil style represented tradition, arranged marriages and conservative values, rather than the queer femme revelry they could also connote.

I felt then, and sometimes still feel, ambivalent about looking desi femme, because it looks too ‘straight’.

On another level, the ambivalence was also about feeling that I might fail. I feared I could never perform the beautiful, elusive Indian femininity I see in photographs of my mother in her 20s, because I’m weird and queer and untamed, and I have hairy armpits, and light skin that most people think is Latinx or Lebanese, but definitely not South Asian.

I

BOTH CRAVED AND hated Indian femininity, seeing it as utterly straight, but also exactly the kind of queer I wanted to be.

If these feelings seem clashing or paradoxical, that’s because they feel that way to me, too.

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HAIR AND IDENTITY

19

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“Coconut oil reminded me of my mum and my pati, long before connotations of food co-ops, vegan baking and DIY deodorant, and the smell is good for healing my heart from the sting of racism, as well as healing my dry, split hair strands”

I’m learning that queerphobia and racism gather a lot of power from creating contradictions, making queers and people of colour feel paranoid, crazy, or at fault when they find themselves strung up among seemingly irreconcilable paradoxes.

P

HYSICAL INTIMACY IS an especially loaded site in which to negotiate queerness and race.

Bodies can collide unpredictably and vulnerably with each other in areas of care, sex and love.

I recently fell in love with another diasporic queer person for the first time. On one of the first nights we spent together, they traced the curls of my hair in dim lamplight, smiling a glittery smile as they whispered, “This hair.”

We have very different diaspora stories, and very different experiences of race. But as they pulled each curl like it held a precious secret, somewhere in their whisper I felt a sense of profound mutual recognition of what it’s like to be stretched between clashing

cultural codes, mistranslations and untranslatability.

I felt the recognition that bodies can hold travel routes, stories of love from places that are impossible to return to, and multiple spaces of belonging that might never be reconciled.

My hair offers continual reminders to me that race and sexuality are mapped on the surfaces of the body in intersectional ways.

They don’t stay still; they collide and shift with changes in our bodies, collisions with other bodies and the spaces we move through.

I

DENTITIES ARE VERY malleable things, but the body has a certain indisputability. A body’s material form can be altered considerably, but not infinitely.

In queer spaces and cultures, we’re used to talking about how the body doesn’t always code clearly – that what you think you see may be very different to what is actually there, and that a person’s parts don’t necessarily give

20

you a roadmap to how they identify, how they feel, or who they are.

Race works in similar ways. For me, it’s a slippery process of being read and interpreted, involving misrecognition, and repeated reminders that how I am read is not necessarily in my control, no matter how hard I try to code myself through aesthetics.

Increasingly, this is what my current relationship to my hair feels like: letting irreconcilability exist as the basis for my identity.

These days, I blast Bad Girls by M.I.A. while I oil my hair and find pleasure in its thick, brown wildness.

Jaya Keaney is a PhD candidate and tutor in gender studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her PhD thesis is about race, assisted reproduction and queer families. Her recent interests include revisiting Sleater-Kinney’s entire back catalogue and planning DIY garden projects she might finish one day.

HAIR + IDENTITY

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BOI WONDER WORDS RATHINI KANDAVEL IMAGES NFN KALYAN 22

MASCULINITY

M

Y VERY FIRST IMAGES of masculinity and femininity came from the pictures that hung in my family’s prayer area, inside a small hallway closet with doors that opened like an accordion.

Inside I saw gods and goddesses, either balanced on one leg in a dance pose, or standing with their palms together in prayer. At six years old, I was devout – still too young and innocent to understand the full scope of Hinduism’s contradictions.

In time, I’d learn about the caste system that toxic masculinity had interpreted into Hinduism. But, as a child, I was in love with the beauty and serenity of these idols and pictures of my parents’ faith.

Through these images of Hindu deities, I began to imagine what love and intimacy looked like. The gods and goddesses held their almond-shaped eyes half closed in deep meditation, as though looking lovingly upon me. Their lips were pursed and their smiles made

them seem all-knowing. Their gaze over me gave me such great comfort, just like the folds of my maternal grandmother’s sari and the scent of my mother’s musk.

One of my favourite pictures, which I spent countless minutes staring at, is an image of Krishna and Radha. The two deities stand in an active pose – Krishna, playing a flute, holds Radha in a loving embrace, their arms and legs entwined around each other.

Both of their bodies stand on two legs, a slight difference in skin tone the only clue I could perceive in trying to figure out whose leg and whose arm belonged to whom.

It was hard for me to distinguish between masculine and feminine energy in this image. For example, Krishna’s hair flows past his ears and down his back, and is equal in length to Radha’s hair. Radha wears a sari and Krishna is shirtless, although both are decked in heavy jewellery, tiered crowns and golden halos.

My grandmother explained to me

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that together, the deities represent the energy of the divine – that God, in fact, is neither solely masculine nor solely feminine, but both.

I

N CONJUNCTION WITH the stories from my grandmother’s lips about the Hindu pantheon and their antics, I learned that feminine and masculine divine energy were two sides of the same coin.

While the masculine figures in my life blended together, the feminine figures always stood out. My mother’s feminine energy commanded respect, love and fear simultaneously. She wore a full sari every day, and her anklets gave warning of her mood as she moved through the house, her stride echoing her training as a classical Indian dancer.

My grandmother had a softness about her that was more than just her wrinkled skin. She seemed filled with infinite wisdom and I felt her power in the endless love and compassion she gave me.

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She never raised her voice and always looked upon me with a smile, and I saw my own gentleness reflected in hers.

My mother and grandmother were the epitome of elegance and power, like the goddesses they worshipped.

Masculine energy, on the other hand, seemed more dopey. I learned that masculine gods granted wishes much more easily than their female counterparts, and accidentally made mistakes that often caused havoc on Earth.

I also learned that masculine and feminine energy often interplayed with each other in Hinduism. Gods were both male and female. There is even a story of a male god that became a female-bodied god, then had sexual intercourse with another male god before giving birth to a healthy, male baby god.

As I listened to my grandmother’s stories, I began to realise that gender is not fixed or predetermined. In this way, Hinduism allowed me to think of gender differently.

This was particularly fascinating for me growing up, because I was also becoming keenly aware that although I was assigned female at birth, I exhibited more male energy than female.

I

T WASN’T UNTIL decades later that I understood myself to be transgender. Despite Hinduism’s lax gender lines, my parents were very strict and conservative. I discovered this pretty early into living under their gendered rules, with statements like, “Close your legs, don’t sit like a boy,” or “You can learn to dance and sing, but girls don’t play the drums.”

When I tried on my older brother’s clip-on tie, I was careful to do so when no-one was home to find me.

Despite my parents’ deep distrust of anything outside their strict idea of gender norms, I was dedicated to living a pious life as a Hindu, in an effort to absolve myself of any guilt I felt for being different.

I studied the tenets of Hinduism through folklore and ancient scriptures, as dictated to me by my mother and grandmother. I came to understand that living life was all about learning and doing your Dharma, or duty, and that any hardships or difficulties I had along the way was my Karma, or fate.

I tried to emulate Rama’s example of righteousness, and Krishna’s gentle love and playfulness, all the while revering the female energy of Amman and her eternal, omniscient power. Although I felt like a boy, I was deeply proud of my feminine body and energy as well.

One day, my childlike curiosity and naivety met my family’s reality head-on.

Although I aimed to be virtuous, when I eventually came out about being queer, my parents ultimately refused to accept me for who I was.

This led me to isolate myself from my community, who my parents depended on, and who they felt would shun us all if they found out I was trans.

I became distant over the next few years because I was separated from the rituals and culture I loved and had grown up with. A decade later, I found myself in my mid-30s, living in New York City. I had a stable job that I was deeply unhappy with, and a handful of friends who I was rarely myself around.

In truth, after everything I had been through with my parents since childhood, I barely knew myself at all, but this proximity to ‘normal life’ filled the void left behind by the loss of those familial bonds.

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I recall many nights spent sitting on the couch, my eyes on the television, feeling anger and sadness building in my chest and throat. It didn’t matter what was bothering me, the rage inside was familiar, and years of learned survival mechanisms had taught me to keep my anger inside and to slowly implode instead, to mitigate the impact of my rage.

The only thing that would appease the fire inside me was sleep, so I would go to bed angry and when I woke up, I would feel clear and light again. During sleep, my body somehow compressed my anger into a tight place for safe-keeping (probably my lower back, which had been bothering me for years).

In the morning, after a cup of coffee and a glass of water, I might be able to talk about how I felt with greater clarity.

Although I was keeping much of my anger inside, it had a way of hurting me and those around me. My sadness left me drained, and my thoughts would turn inward so I felt sorry for myself.

I saw others around me as being free of the things that tormented me, and I envied others as I failed to meet my own expectations of myself.

Then, to protect myself, I withdrew from people, and soon felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere.

T

HIS IS ONE of the ways men and trans masculine people deal with their anger and frustration.

I was unhappy. Like my own father, who became violent and mean to those around him when he had no outlet for his own emotions, the only way I knew how to deal with my feelings was to implode when I felt overwhelmed.

The resulting implosion turned my anger into a more manageable sadness

MASCULINITY

“Although I felt like a boy, I was deeply proud of my feminine body and energy as well”

25

ARCHER MAGAZINE

“The combination of seeing, and being seen by, others like me made it much easier for me to see who I truly was” directed towards myself. In this way, I became toxic to myself, and to those around me.

I

T WAS AT THIS time that a fellow queer and transgender Tamil-Sri Lankan cousin who I grew up with suggested that I connect with the Brown Boi Project.

Although I felt desperately alone, I was hesitant to move forward and, for a while, I didn’t: not knowing was easier than being open to something new.

In time, my desire for something different began to outweigh my fear, and I applied for the project. Within months, I was on my way to Las Vegas for a leadership retreat.

At the retreat, I sat in a circle with 15 other masculine-of-centre people of colour, and discussed the intersections of race and gender on our bodies and psyches. We discussed the impact of our different identities on our lives and survival, and our responsibility to take care of ourselves.

Although I had never met anyone in that room before, I felt a deep and acute sense of connection to my cohort.

The experience changed my life. The combination of seeing, and being seen by, others like me made it much easier for me to see who I truly was.

I already knew I was transgender, but the thought of medical transition had always overwhelmed me: too much money, too few resources, and, ultimately, a fear of needles and change.

But when I met these other Brown Bois, some of whom were further into their medical transitions and were happy, I realised that transition was what I wanted for myself, and it was my own transphobia that had stopped me.

Together, we were learning that we deserved more than just to survive, we deserved to thrive.

During this experience, I also began to unpack the ways I had unknowingly been helping my oppressors with their work, by centering white patriarchy in all that I prescribed to, while devaluing the rich medicine provided to me by my own community and spiritual practices.

As I unpacked this, I learned the depths of my own privilege, and began tapping into my ancestral power.

After years spent moving away from my community, the Brown Boi family and my fellow community members reminded me that belonging was very important to my wellbeing. Without roots in a community, I could no longer grow, or even continue standing for much longer.

More importantly, my cohort reminded me that my community was not only the one that I was born into.

Other black and brown, genderqueer, social justice-minded people were also my community.

After those five days, the impact was immediate and powerful. I committed to taking care of myself so I could help and support others. I felt love, power and joy, although I knew there was still a lot of work to be done.

W

HEN I CAME BACK from Vegas, I reached out to as many local Brown Bois as I could find on Facebook.

I met some of them for coffee, and we’d talk for hours; others I met in passing, at various community events throughout the year.

I felt much more empowered and comfortable with who I was after my experience with the Brown Boi Project, and now that I knew what community could feel and look like, the rest of my daily life stood in stark contrast to the love and energy that I felt from other Brown Bois.

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Now, I do my best to bring the same love and energy I felt at the retreat to new spaces and new people.

M

ASCULINITY IS A privilege and I now believe that I am responsible for it. I know I still have a lot of healing to do, but I also know I’m not faultless and I sometimes make mistakes.

I learned from the Brown Boi Project that masculinity is not inherently toxic.

As part of a larger system of patriarchy and oppression, masculinity is corrosive and fragile.

I have to check my behaviour all the time to ensure that I’m not being toxic.

It’s constant work and it always will be.

I’m grateful for the community I’ve chosen for myself. To be seen for who I truly am is a powerful experience. I want to hold those who display toxic masculinity accountable, because, as a masculine person, I believe I have that responsibility.

I also have to believe that people are allowed to make mistakes. If, after a mistake, even after being violent, a person commits to learning from their mistake and doing better, then I also have the power to forgive.

Now, when I think of the beauty in masculinity, I think back to the cool, calm eyes of Hindu gods like Ganesha and Krishna.

Like femininity, there’s power in masculinity. Like the tales I learned from my grandmother, we are nothing without both.

Rathini Kandavel is a Tamil-Sri Lankan-American, queer transgender educator and writer who is thoughtful, deliberate, and extremely cautious. Born and raised in a large Tamil-Sri Lankan community just outside of Los Angeles, Rathini now lives in New York City.

MASCULINITY

A leading Australian literary magazine.

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CLUB FAT TONY, LEIGH BOWERY and MARC VAULTIER at The Jungle, 1985

SCENE PHOTOS DAVE SWINDELLS

Dave Swindells has been photographing London’s nightlife since the early 1980s, showcasing the brilliant diversity of the club scene and its larger-than-life cast of characters.

Q: You started photographing nightlife in London in 1984, over 30 years ago. What drew you to these spaces?

DS: I was introduced to London nightlife by my brother Steve, a musician who started running clubs in the 1980s.

I knew what it was like to queue outside clubs on freezing midwinter nights, but when I went to visit him, I could often sail past the queue with his entourage.

Steve’s club night, The Lift, mostly attracted gay men, but he was adamant that it wouldn’t be another ‘clone zone’, so he billed it as “All human beings welcome” on the flyer. It was polysexual before the name had been invented.

I wasn’t gay (I went home with men once or twice, but found that wasn’t what I was looking for), but what appealed to me about clubs was the idea that people could be whoever they wanted to be. Different clothes and a bit of attitude or chutzpah made anything seem possible, so it was liberating.

Q: Can you describe the positive impact some of these club spaces had on the communities they welcomed?

DS: I always got the impression that my brother’s nights, The Lift and The Jungle, were hugely positive. While I can appreciate that gay men felt safe at men-only nights, for me it was more exciting when gender and sexuality weren’t restricted. The Lift and The Jungle were unpretentious, and people were welcome to dress up or drag up, but no-nonsense street-style was acceptable, too.

The Jungle happened on Mondays, so it was proper weekly clubbing on a school night, attracting about 1000 people each week, once it got going. The positive impact was simple, really: here was a space that people could relax in, and where they could feel free to be themselves.

Q: What party and club spaces do you feel had the most profound impact on London’s culture?

DS: For me, Taboo had a major impact, not so much because of the music (though there were ace DJs) but because the collision of club cultures and personalities marked it out as a sort of highpoint of mid-1980s hedonism.

Most of the people who ran the night were gay, but the emphasis was on looking special. My impression was that appearance trumped identity. The meeter-greeter, Marc, would hold up a mirror and ask, “Would you let yourself in?”

Once inside, even the most extravagantly-dressed tended

to get falling-over drunk, or pop ecstasy pills, which meant people often didn’t make distinctions because they could barely focus at all.

Kinky Gerlinky was another Monday night club, but it was monthly and so very different. Transvestites, cross-dressers and drag queens were the stars, and this was encouraged by the hosts. This was an event that revelled in performance, either with PAs and showcases, or with drag and vogueing competitions on a long catwalk.

Quite a few of the regulars would arrive early with their outfits in carrier bags, making their transformations into wigs, costumes and make-up in the toilets of the club. That way, they avoided potential abuse on the way to the venue.

Kinky Gerlinky started in a 400-capacity club but soon expanded to the venerable Cafe de Paris and eventually onto The Empire, a huge double-decker venue right on Leicester Square, where it carried on until 1993.

I remember meeting South Africans and so many Italians, French and Germans who said they’d travelled to London just for this party.

Q: Has the rise of social media affected the process you use to shoot and publish?

DS: Oh, yes. I no longer feel like a photographer who takes pictures and doesn’t give them back, because it’s so much easier to share now. That’s wonderful.

It also means everyone else can share, too. So, because billions of photos are taken every day, photographers’ work is generally far lower paid. That’s show business.

I think it’s great that everyone can be a photographer and record their own experiences, even though that means they often resent the idea that a photographer can take a photo they don’t control. People want to edit my photos, saying: “Oh, God! Delete that one. I look ghastly!”

In some clubs there may still be freedom of expression, but it’s far less frequent, precisely because people know that images of their reckless abandon could well be online long before they’ve left the club, let alone got over their hangover.

Social media has generally made people more cautious about their behaviour, and keener than ever to control their own image ‘rights’, and when you consider the consequences of photos or video going viral, that’s perfectly reasonable.

Q&A with Alexis Desaulniers-Lea

FABULOUS RIO at Kinky Gerlinky, 1991

Partygoers at Karpe Diem, 1998

From top: LEIGH BOWERY at Taboo, 1986 / Kinky Gerlinky, 1991 (model unknown)

Performer at Dodos, 1984

From top: The Embassy, 1985 / Helter Skelter, 1985

DJ WOLF’s fashion night at The Embassy, 1985

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IN DETENTION

WORDS NIMA 38

GAY IN DETENTION

Nima, 29, and his partner Ashkan, 25, were incarcerated in Australia’s offshore detention camp on Nauru. Until last year, same-sex sexual activity was punishable by imprisonment. It is still legal to discriminate against homosexuals there.

A

T THE MOMENT, my partner and I are in the room not going out. We always live in fear.

I studied engineering at university. I worked as an elevator technician until I left Iran. I really liked that job. I would like to start my own small business, that is my goal.

When I was in Iran, I was harassed by people because I am gay. I was harassed at school and in public. I was slapped and sexually assaulted.

When my father found out that I was gay, he couldn’t tolerate me. He was slapping me a lot and also torturing me.

I was really tired of living.

Homosexuality is a crime punishable by death in Islamic law. Neither the government nor society can accept a gay man.

After I was tortured and sexually assaulted, this forced me to leave Iran and seek asylum in Australia.

When I arrived on Christmas Island, I told the authorities, “I am a homosexual man. I am gay.”

I entered Nauru in 2014. Everyone knew I am gay. In the Nauru detention centre, asylum seekers have come from many different nationalities. When I went to take a shower they would open the bath door. They wanted to enter the bath by force and wanted to harass me; to sexually assault me. It happened many times. I didn’t feel safe.

The showers were like cells, their roofs were open and they could be

easily entered from the top – other asylum seekers did it many times.

Though I have reported this issue, it wasn’t followed up.

I wasn’t in a good psychological condition because I wasn’t safe. In detention there were tents, and in every tent, nearly 40 individuals were living without any partition or any room. The tent was shared.

When I fell asleep, other asylum seekers were harassing me, touching my buttocks and waking me from sleep.

Always I was living in fear. I wasn’t good mentally, because I was thinking, “Why am I still living in a place where I am being harassed?” I fled Iran for that reason, but here, again, I was psychologically and physically abused.

M

Y PARTNER, ASHKAN, was one of the first single men who arrived on Nauru. He is a Kurd, from Iran. He arrived three or four months earlier than me. He had more experience about what was going on in the detention centre, and he was showing me around.

At that time we didn’t know about one another. But when I realised that he understood me – that when I needed something, he helped me – I started to trust him slowly.

I slowly started to confide in him and I shared the truth about myself. He promised to be by my side, to always take care of me and support me.

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After that we shared our relationship with our psychologist, our case manager and immigration authorities.

Everyone was aware of our relationship.

From that time on, we have kept our relationship going. Ashkan is very good.

I love him. He is always kissing and cuddling me. And we have loads of sex.

Ashkan is in touch with his family.

They don’t know about our relationship.

It is forbidden in our culture and people can’t talk about it openly.

W

E WERE LIVING in separate tents. We had no place to live, to have private time. It was all a shared place, even the showers were public.

We told immigration authorities that we needed to live together, in the same tent. We needed a place or room where we could have privacy, but we received the answer that it wasn’t legal for us to live together.

Because other asylum seekers had complained about us, they said that they didn’t like us to sleep on one bed.

As a result, security guards came and warned us not to sleep together in the same bed because it was illegal here.

They said, “If you persist, we will inform the Nauru police to arrest you.”

We were told this. We were threatened.

We were scared. All the asylum seekers knew about our relationship, they knew that we were partners. Some people were religious extremists.

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They said, “We will kill you.” Or they were shouting at us saying, “Don’t talk to us. You are dirty people.”

W

HEN WE WERE in the camp and Ashkan had yet to receive an answer to his case, the case officer called us to visit them. On this visit we were handed a letter in English which said not to reveal our relationship to anyone, including the government, the police, and the people of Nauru, once we started to live in that community.

The letter was interpreted to us, and our case officer gave us the letter to sign it. We didn’t sign the letter and we did not accept it.

We said that we are homosexual and partners, there is no reason to hide it.

We don’t hide our relationship.

After many months, Ashkan received his answer: he was accepted as a refugee. According to the law, I should have been able to go out of detention with my partner when he was accepted.

But Ashkan left and I remained in the detention centre.

We were both devastated. I was crying and I went to his bunk to smell his bed. He had long hair and I searched for his hair.

I was in love with Ashkan.

I asked my case officer why I was left behind. They said, “It’s illegal for you to live with your partner in Nauru.”

The day Ashkan left the detention centre, I shouted a lot for them to take me as well. I shouted so loud my scream echoed around the whole camp and people came and watched from behind the fences. I shouted so much I felt my throat tear apart.

I hit my head with a stone and fractured my skull and I became unconscious. I was taken to hospital and my head wound was dressed.

After I came back I still wanted to hurt myself. I did not eat and did not go to the bath. My condition was so severe I was put on high watch.

Ashkan was taken out to the Nauru community. He took 30 tablets. He tried to commit suicide. He was taken to Nauru hospital, they put the hose in his body... He had not been in a good condition. After one month, I was taken to visit the case officer. I wasn’t in a good condition.

I was taken to Ashkan.

I

WAS TAKEN to a place with single rooms for refugees. Nearly 50 or 60 refugees were living there. It was for singles, not for families. It was named Fly Camp.

Each room was 6m2 , without a kitchen, bath or toilet. It was only a room with one bed. When I was taken to see Ashkan, I was expecting we would be with each other, to have one bed. But when I entered Fly Camp, Ashkan was in room number 19 and my room was number 27.

If I wanted to go see Ashkan I had to pass many lines. It meant that we were still separated from each other.

After one week, immigration came to visit Fly Camp. I asked them, “Why our rooms should be separated? We would like to have one bed and live together.”

Immigration replied, “It is illegal in Nauru. You cannot have one room together. It is designed for one person.”

Months passed. For seven months we lived in separate rooms, but most days

40

Ashkan and I were together.

We had a refugee from another nationality next to our room. One night he came and knocked the door and said, “Why are you together? This is a bedroom for a single person.”

I told him, “Ashkan is my partner, that is why I come to see him.”

When I said this, we argued. He punched me in my chest.

W

HEN WE WERE in the detention centre, everyone knew us. Nauruan officers knew us. When we entered the Nauruan community, and when we went out for shopping, the Nauruans knew us – they knew that my partner and me have a relationship. They could not accept that.

If we were walking on the beach, they were swearing and harassing us, throwing rubbish on us, spitting on us.

They threw rubbish on my face. Once, I was punched in my head.

When we were in Fly Camp, one man came to our room, he wanted to break in and assault us. We have reported all these incidents and complained but no-one has followed them up, nothing has happened.

F

INALLY, LAST YEAR, we came to the new place where we are living now.

The last time we were beaten was in July 2015. It was 6 o’clock in the afternoon. We went shopping.

It was about 15 minutes’ walk from our home. We did our shopping and when we returned, the path was dark and full of trees.

Three Nauruan people, they stood in our way. All our body was under stress.

IN DETENTION

“Security guards came and warned us not to sleep together in the same bed because it was illegal here. They said, ‘If you persist, we will inform the Nauru police to arrest you.’

We were told this. We were threatened”

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ARCHER MAGAZINE

“Now, in the room for this long, we have mental problems. We are tired, mentally and physically. I have been seeing a psychiatrist and I am taking medication for the trauma I suffered in my home country and in Nauru”

They said, “Are you partners?” We said, “Yes. Everyone knows that.” We did not like to hide it.

They said, “You are dirty people and rubbish.” They abused gay people. It may have taken two minutes or less, or one minute or less.

I don’t know. It was sudden. They attacked us with sticks.

F

ROM THAT TIME, Ashkan and I do not go out. We are in a room where it is closed from all sides.

We lock the door because we are scared.

To buy shopping, our case manager goes with my partner once a week, for half an hour, and they return back to the room and have no other activity.

We have neighbours, from Iran and other nationalities, but we don’t have any relation with them.

We are really getting tired and crazy.

We are losing our reason.

Now, in the room for this long, we have mental problems. We are hurting ourselves. We are tired, mentally and physically. I have been seeing a psychiatrist and I am taking medication for the trauma I suffered in my home country and in Nauru.

When Ashkan and I became refugees we could not go for work.

The money given to us is insufficient so we cannot buy most things.

We cannot afford to use the internet a lot. We use it only for talking and no more than that. To say to you, “We are really tired.”

If you would like to contribute to a care package or send a note to Nima and Ashkan on Nauru, you can contact the Human Rights Law Centre at admin@hrlc.org.au and +61 3 8636 4450.

This is an excerpt from They Cannot Take the Sky, an anthology of oral histories by people who have been detained by the Australian Government under its mandatory immigration detention policy.

They Cannot Take the Sky is published

by Allen & Unwin and available at all good bookstores. The audio version of the book is available through Audible.com.au

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IN DETENTION

& S U O M Y N O N A I T B G L FREE & G N I L L E S N U CO L A R R E F RE PH

T A H C ONE &

7 2 5 4 8 1 0 0 18 U A .

G R O .

QLIFE DAYS

5 6 3 / M A 2 3PM-1

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KNOW NO

BOUNDS WORDS ANNA KINGSTON PHOTOS ALEXIS DESAULNIERS-LEA 44

BDSM

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I

WAS RECENTLY suspended in ropes in a dusty paddock, while being watched by the impressive Grampians mountain range and massive, 200-year-old gumtrees.

It was getting dark, and in my near naked state I was working pretty hard to mentally manage the cold chilling my body, as the rope artist worked to unwrap me from his binds.

I was also surrounded by thousands of young people, in the middle of a techno music festival.

About an hour into the performance, while I was fully suspended, a woman approached me to ask if I was okay.

Not content to take my collaborator’s word for it, she insisted on hearing it for herself, forcing me to come out of performance mode to reassure her.

I hold nothing against the woman, who was acting out of concern, but it was a reminder of just how much of what I do as an artist, working with themes of BDSM and fetish, can be difficult for the mainstream to reconcile with concepts like feminism.

From the outside, and without any context, I can see how the image of a woman being tied up by a man could be seen as the opposite of what feminism strives for. For a movement which seeks to subvert and destroy the patriarchal stronghold, and to allow women to regain agency over their bodies and sexualities, an image such as the ‘near naked woman bound by man’ can be seen as problematic.

I’ll be the first to admit that my own understanding of feminism has been challenged, but ultimately grown, through my involvement in BDSM and fetish performance.

S

AFE, SANE, CONSENSUAL: this is the mantra in my fetish scene.

BDSM is known for its use of techniques to physically cause someone pain. To be able to use these techniques, one needs the skills to inflict pain safely,

and all parties must be fully informed and able to give consent.

This means all players must not be impacted by drugs, alcohol or mental health issues to such an extent that full consent cannot be given. If you are seen to not be complying with these three words, you won’t just be kicked out of the club you’re playing in – there’s a good chance you’ll be kicked out of the entire community.

The scene is not completely free of predatory behaviour, mostly by those that feel they can take advantage of the alternative sexual dynamics for their own gain. But, for the most part, I’ve felt a greater sense of safety exploring my sexuality in the fetish community than any other.

I

WAS INTRODUCED TO the fetish community by a previous lover.

Unaware and completely green, I remember going to my first BDSM party not with whips or floggers, but with a jar of pink jellybeans and a branch of fake blossom, wearing a black G-string and a cut-off Madonna T-shirt.

I’ve never been shy about my body, but there used to be an arbitrary line I wouldn’t want to cross that told me when I was moving from dressing ‘sexy’ to ‘provocative’.

When previously attending clubs, I had consciously dressed to be admired, but not so much as to invite unwanted touching, longer-than-comfortable stares or sleazy pick-up lines. But here I was, entering a club wearing what I felt sexy in, rather than something to be admired by others, and feeling totally safe to do so.

I had never thought that picking my G-string wedgie in public could be so wonderfully liberating.

I threw myself into this fascinating new scene of liberated butt cheeks with fervour. I attended skill-shares, parties and workshops, but something didn’t quite fit. At parties, I was acutely aware

46

that I didn’t slot easily into any of the roles my newfound kinky friends had embraced. I wasn’t submissive – too headstrong for that. I’ve never enjoyed pain for the sake of pain, which counts me out as a masochist. And, while I’ve got a pointy edge to my personality at times, I’m no sadist.

Eventually, I found that my kink was in performance: I got off performing in front of others, and I would happily partake in sadomasochist activity if I was on a stage.

I’ve never questioned my transition from performing in the contemporary arts, among white-walled galleries and proscenium arch theatres, to performing to a queer-friendly crowd of kinksters on a stage sticky with beer and glitter.

I love the proximity to the audience in these spaces, and the complete lack of pretentiousness – it’s raw, and it keeps me honest. Unlike theatres, in a club you can see faces: you can see if your audience is smiling, or bored.

I find I have to consciously decide whether or not to make eye contact. In my heightened state during an erotic performance, making eye contact with someone in the audience feels just like making eye contact with a lover during sex. Sometimes, for me, that connection is too much.

A

T THE END OF 2014, I created a performance group called Strange Beast Collective.

This was partially to cleanse myself of the past three years of academia, but also to create a space to produce my own BDSM-inspired performances.

The performances I’d previously seen in fetish clubs seemed to fall into one of two categories: they either took the form of burlesque and sideshow performances, costumed to appeal to fetishists; or two people performing their particular type of ‘play’ before an audience, such as flesh suspension, shibari or flogging.

BDSM SPACES

The writer, ANNA KINGSTON, suspended in ropes tied by Shibari artist GARTH KNIGHT.

“Given the current lack of acceptance for women to discuss their sex lives and fantasies openly, without fear of being seen as promiscuous or deviant, performance can offer an interesting window into human inhibitions” With Strange Beast Collective, I wanted to attempt to match all the theatrical elements of burlesque with the authenticity of S&M scenes.

This was also my opportunity to weave in my own feminist values around sexual empowerment and agency, through the use of body and performance techniques.

S

HIBARI, THE STUNNING and technical art of Japanese bondage, is a common performance feature

at fetish nights. While I appreciated the technicality of the artform, I found it often wasn’t dynamic enough for a stage show, and, for the most part, was executed by a man tying a woman.

In Strange Beast Collective’s debut show, I attempted to challenge this.

I developed a performance in which I suspended myself, to represent the dominant and masochist elements of my personality.

While tying the ropes around myself, I recited a story about my first kinky

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experience. This took the focus away from the tying of ropes, which is a slow process, and introduced elements of storytelling and voice.

It was a challenging predicament I had put myself in: to safely suspend my own body while simultaneously reciting and performing. It drew on all of my training as a performer to be able to remain present to the audience, and to utilise improvisation techniques while being acutely aware of the tightness of the rope around my ankle.

ARCHER MAGAZINE

ANNA KINGSTON combines BDSM practice with 48 more traditional performance techniques.

BDSM

STRANGE BEAST COLLECTIVE runs workshops and performances across the country.

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ARCHER MAGAZINE

With the right guidelines in place, BDSM communities can offer 50 a safe and respectful space to explore sexuality and identity.

BDSM SPACES

“It’s very satisfying to masturbate my long, black strap-on underneath my school skirt, only to rip it out, unveil my bushy vagina to the audience and have my co-performer orgasm glitter over me as a symbol of our sexual empowerment” It was difficult not to be distracted as my latex pants rode higher, and my legs slid further apart, allowing my labia to wave hello to the crowd.

I

HAVE ALWAYS tried to challenge the norms and clichés in my scene.

Part of this has been about finding my feminist voice in performance.

It’s very satisfying to aggressively masturbate my long, black strap-on underneath my school skirt, only to rip it out, unveil my bushy vagina to the audience and have my co-performer orgasm glitter over me as a symbol of our sexual empowerment.

This performance aims to show that age should not be a barrier to sexual assertiveness, that gender is not bound to our genitals, and that being able to tap into the explicit nature of what turns you on, whether that is deviant or not, is definitely cause for celebration.

Of course, I don’t expect an audience at a club at midnight to pick up on all this. And it doesn’t really matter if they don’t – the intention is what matters most for me.

It also matters that they are being entertained. If they’re being challenged or enlightened by some of the content, that’s even better.

Another piece I performed was called Pussy Cube, during which one audience member is invited into an enclosed cube, entering through a pink lycra slit and sitting to face me.

I am blindfolded, so the audience

member remains anonymous as I ask them a series of questions about their sexuality. They can answer by either touching my left hand for no, or my right hand for yes.

This performance is as much about the audience member being able to be open and honest with someone in a safe and anonymous place, as it is about me being able to ask questions I would never normally ask someone, especially a stranger.

Performing in an improvised manner for one audience member for a length of time is hard. Add to that being mindful of potential triggers (they can opt out of a question if they do not want to answer it), being able to converse through only yes or no questions, and putting my own vulnerability out there by inviting people to write on my naked body while I remain blindfolded in an enclosed space – all this can be exhausting.

But it’s worth it when I realise how liberating the experience has been for audience members, who freely bare parts of themselves and their sex lives that are not normally shared.

Although taboo topics do come up, it’s often the simple questions, such as ‘Are you satisfied with your sex life?’ or ‘Are you happy in your relationship?’ that are most confronting for people.

I

DON’T PROFESS TO be an expert in BDSM. I’m in awe of professional dominatrixes and often visualise myself taking on the role, but I lack the

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set of skills required to dish out pain for pleasure and mental domination.

I’ve found excitement in exploring the sexuality of myself and others, and the deviant corners of the mind, through performance.

I’ve found freedom, as well as the permission to do so, by involving myself in a community that is inclusive of diverse sexualities, genders and bodies in all their wonderful forms.

Given the current lack of acceptance for women to discuss their sex lives and fantasies openly, without the fear of being seen as promiscuous or deviant, performance can offer an interesting window into human inhibitions.

Creating Strange Beast Collective has been a surprising venture for me, giving me the opportunity to collaborate with some inspiring artists while growing my own style of performance art with a focus on kink.

I never expected to see myself here.

I never expected kink to inform and empower me so much, with regards to consent and sex positivity.

I no longer see the beast within me as being so strange after all.

Anna Kingston is a Melbourne-based performer and activist, and founder of Strange Beast Collective. She studied a Masters in Choreography as well as Community Cultural Development, and has performed at Dark Mofo in Hobart, Adelaide Fringe in South Australia and the Melbourne Arts Festival.

DIRTY H A B IT S WORDS VINCENT SILK PHOTOS ALAN WEEDON

ARCHER MAGAZINE

Housing is crucial to marginalised groups for safety, wellbeing and belonging – and sometimes for a good dose of local mythology.

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E ALL KNOW about a sharehouse that has been given a nickname – either for its location, or the street it sits on, or some other landmark.

Squats, which sometimes double as music venues, are often given names, making them seem less like a home and more like a community space or venue.

Unlike official places, these names aren’t signposted in any way, and you only come to know them through word of mouth, elevating them to something kind of mythological – people always remember the tales of a house that is more than just an address.

The Dirty Habit is one such house.

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HE DIRTY HABIT, a massive, free-standing Victorian terrace on a street at the northern end of Newtown in Sydney’s Inner West, has been a queer sharehouse for the past 16-odd years. The building, initially known as The Nunnery, is heritage-listed as a former presbytery.

The neighbours that have lived next door to The Nunnery for more than 20 years remember a time when nuns actually lived there. Since the early 2000s, however, it has existed as a queer sharehouse.

In 2011, the then tenants were evicted so the house could be used as a location for the film Not Suitable For Children.

In the film, the house plays itself: a run-down sharehouse in Newtown. The

key difference is that the movie is about straight people.

After filming was finished and some renovations done to the kitchen, the house was up for lease again.

When it became available, my flatmates and I, and those of a friend, were all evicted at the same time. Amid Sydney’s ongoing housing crisis, it was pretty difficult to find a place for one person, let alone for two whole households worth of occupants.

In 2012, it had been ages since I’d thought about The Nunnery. It was part of the fabric of queer Sydney, and I’d of course been to parties there during my late teens, and known people who had lived there.

Like everyone else, I vaguely knew the history of the place – its evolution from actual nunnery to separatist feminist house, and eventually to a queer household. I had thought this run-down old mansion was archived; lost to the queers forever.

When we saw the opportunity, we hustled our connections and found we had a mutual friend in common with the owner. Miraculously, within two weeks we were moving in, pushing caravans into the courtyard through the rear lane.

Like many inner-city households, we managed to pay the rent by maximising on space, shoving co-habitants into every available room and living area, even the garden.

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Eight of us moved in. It seemed important to rename the house, because we were a fresh group of people and this was a fresh start. Moreover, the legacy of The Nunnery, despite its importance in Sydney’s queer history, was deeply associated with biologically essentialist notions of what women were.

A

T THE TIME OF The Nunnery’s eviction, plenty of trans men and people identifying outside the binary were living there, but that doesn’t mean the household or its neighbourhood were perfect in terms of trans inclusivity.

Back then, it wasn’t that hard for trans masculine people in Sydney to find housing with other trans masculine people, but the same inclusion and opportunities weren’t readily available to trans femmes.

This trans-misogyny was part of the wider culture in this particular enclave of queer Sydney, and it was something in which we consciously aimed to intervene. Changing the name was a symbol of that intervention. The Nunnery had had its time.

I recently asked my friend Cinnamon, one of the current housemates of The Dirty Habit, what she thinks about the house’s history. She, too, remembers hearing about the house towards the end of The Nunnery era.

“Before I had even been here, I remember a trans woman talking about

SHAREHOUSING

the period where the house composition was based on ‘female history’,” she says.

This reminds me of a time when I was a very young, freshly-out trans boy, watching and participating in all the ways queer communities were trying to ‘do’ trans inclusivity.

Cinnamon reflects on her own political trajectory, and how it may have helped build an interest in living at The Dirty Habit: she, too, felt the desire to intervene in the trans-misogyny that played out in some queer communities.

But that wasn’t the only appealing thing about living in this particular house, says Cinnamon. “Old, strange houses like this, I think, just attract folklore, for those who live in it and outside of it.”

Indeed, when we moved in, a friend of mine had pointed to the big hooks screwed into the high ceiling.

“That’s from the nuns,” they said.

“That’s where they used to hang their sex torture instruments.”

It wasn’t true. It was also rumoured that the couple living in the room before us put the hooks in for the purpose of rope bondage suspension.

In reality, I think they were probably just for curtains.

This kind of storytelling and layering of rumour adds to the house’s mythology, of course. But sometimes, a hook is just a hook.

Recently, someone from down the street commented to a housemate, “Oh, you live in that house that all the witches live in.” It does look like a witch’s house. The heritage listing means everything inside and out has to be retained as original.

I suspect the heritage listing might be why a bunch of queers are still allowed to live there – landlords often deem maintenance on these properties to be too expensive and difficult, instead opting to wait for them to fall down, so they can bulldoze and redevelop.

This is why the marble mantelpieces are all fixed with gaffer tape, and the front balcony is permanently reinforced with temporary scaffolding.

“The neighbours complained to the landlord about the sloping balcony,” Cinnamon tells me.

“So a lot of people think the house is abandoned at first sight now.”

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T

HIS HOUSE EXISTS in an area with a history of great disparity in wealth since colonial invasion.

The house is situated on Gadigal land, an area that is home to the first and longest-running Indigenous resistance to colonisation since 1788.

Activism and resistance continue in the area, and nearby suburbs Redfern and Waterloo are also important sites of urban Indigenous activism.

The area around The Dirty Habit was part of a land grant given to William Bligh by the governing invaders in 1806, which comprised 240 acres of stolen Gadigal land. The particular place where the crumbling mansion stands was named Golden Grove, after one of the supply ships in the First Fleet.

During much of the 20th century, the house was used by the St Kieran’s Parish as a presbytery and home for nuns, and the area, like much of inner Sydney, was home to poor, Catholic families. Current multi-million dollar property values are the result of more than a few decades of gentrification – they are the product of almost 230 years of dispossession and theft.

ARCHER MAGAZINE

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SHAREHOUSING

“The safety of living with people who share your understanding of the world, who you don’t have to explain choices to, is something that still characterises queer communal living” The tension that comes with being non-Indigenous, living on stolen land and wanting to act in solidarity with First Nations struggles, while also wanting to forge your own space in a hetero- and cisnormative world, was definitely present when I lived at The Dirty Habit.

Subcultural groups like white queers are intrinsic to the progress of gentrification. And yet, queer houses like The Dirty Habit are often held up as institutions: it’s a venue, a magical home and a space for connection, where people get to navigate their dynamics and build chosen families.

In this context, it’s easy to gloss over this community’s role in continuing colonisation. By destabilising the myths that make these places seem ‘magical’, perhaps settler queers can better acknowledge that the positive connotations we have for such spaces sit uneasily beside a history of invasion, theft and gentrification.

I

T’S TRUE THAT there’s safety and community in queer sharehouses, and, in this way, there is something extraordinary about them.

I know that historically, in Sydney, houses where gay and trans people lived were raided by police all the time. The safety of living with people who share your understanding of the world, who you don’t have to explain choices to, is something that still characterises queer communal living.

Maybe it’s powerful and necessary to find different ways of living under capitalism, even while renting.

P

ERSONALLY, I’M NOT VERY enamoured by the idea of ‘chosen family’. I prefer a bit more autonomy and independence in my living situation, so I prefer symbolism like accountability in friendships, rather than the assumed loyalty of family relationships. But, having said that, I do have friends who feel like family.

During my time in that house, the powerful support, friendship and connections I had with my housemates and friends were invaluable, particularly in rough times.

Maybe the magic of the house was a part of it – the years of communal spirit in that big building led us to act more like a unit and help each other. Or maybe my housemates were just good friends to me.

Regardless of the rent hikes and complaints from neighbours, The Dirty Habit is still going strong.

The housemate base has shifted slightly from where it used to be, reflecting the changes in the ways the Sydney queer scene is currently doing gender politics.

There are definite pathways for entry into the house – as Cinnamon comments, “Subcultural language and lifestyle are still sort of a prerequisite.”

But there are fewer hard-and-fast rules these days, and it’s definitely different

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from the strict entry policies of the earlier Nunnery years.

“I don’t see it as an institution, or treat it like one,” Cinnamon says. “It has a history that I see as, like, whatever.

I’ve come to treat queer communities the same.”

I like this attitude. After all, things are mutable and unfixed. The legend can exist while still allowing for many complexities and different histories, and the legend doesn’t have to be just one single story.

Cinnamon also says the housemates are thinking of changing the name again, because it’s good to keep things fresh.

T

HE DIRTY HABIT is still a shared home, and a place for human connection.

Maybe one day there will be a final, too-steep rent hike, and everyone will be forced to vacate, shoving the caravans out into the lane again, and ripping up the astro-turf.

Maybe the balcony will fall down. Or maybe, one day, the owner will hand the title deeds over, and it will be a queer sharehouse forever, held together by gaffer tape and scaffolding.

Vincent Silk is a writer living in Narrm/ Melbourne. His fiction and non-fiction work has appeared in un Magazine, Going Down Swinging, Seizure, and Wormhole (Next Wave). Vincent is currently a 2017 writer-in-residence at Firstdraft gallery.

THE

GLITTER UNDERGROUND

PHOTOS JESS & ALEXIS DESAULNIERS-LEA

Australian experimental and contemporary dancer, JAMES ANDREWS, channels Lolita at the beach, for drag circus cabaret comedy group, YUMMY.

An ongoing body of photographic portraits from twin sister photographers captures the nonconformity, fantasy and sexuality of visionary performers.

Q: What drew you to photographing cabaret, burlesque and drag performance?

ADL: Jess and I moved around a lot growing up, with both our parents working in the entertainment industry. We were exposed to all kinds of communities in the performance world, and introduced to many people from diverse cultural and artistic backgrounds.

We’ve been photographing since the age of 14, but we got into the more underground and alternative performance stuff in our early 20s. We both lived in Vancouver then, and decided to drop out before our last year of university to pursue music, photography and travel in our own way.

JDL: The Wall Street recession had hit around that time and I was living paycheque to paycheque, which meant that travelling would have to wait. I had to rethink how to keep photography in my life.

A friend invited me to a burlesque show and it resonated with me immediately – this was something important that was happening in the world. I didn’t realise it at the time, but this photographic work is photojournalism; it’s my fieldwork.

ADL: I had been exploring the kink and fetish community around that time and was introduced to drag and burlesque by watching strip-show performances in small clubs and play spaces. I remember seeing incredibly gritty, sexually-charged shows that were thrilling, unapologetic and celebratory.

I was turned on by what I felt was this visceral and public ‘fuck you’ to sameness and uniformity.

relevant than ever. We face so many global issues around inclusivity and these performers use the stage as a platform to express our internal and external struggles, and our humanity.

Q: What connects drag, burlesque and cabaret with the LGBTIQ and women’s rights movements?

ADL: This type of performance has a long history of mirroring the times we live in. At the heart of drag, cabaret and burlesque is celebration of our individuality, sexuality, bodies and identities through the use of comedy, drama and elements of fantasy.

These performance spaces are safe spaces – they are melting pots where several communities come together for a shared experience that resonates no matter who you are and how you identify. The crossover of performance styles and communities is welcomed with open arms.

JDL: Right now, what these performers are doing is more

Q: What’s the secret to capturing powerful live images that encapsulate a mood, energy and environment?

ADL: I think the secret is a combination of truly loving what and who you’re photographing, being present, and really listening to the music or what’s being said. There’s a rhythm to everything.

I also think a respect for the craft, the art form and the performer is paramount. These performers are often coming from such a personal place, which I imagine would feel quite vulnerable, when your heart and soul are on the line, night after night.

They are modern muses, but they’re also just like all of us.

Q&A with Archer Magazine

Q: Why do these genres resonate so much with people?

JDL: Live performance is one of the few experiences that still feel primal. We can’t recreate it, it’s in the moment and it’s communal: it has to be experienced with others.

ADL: There’s something about the way these performers interact with people, and celebrate themselves and their audiences, that is really unique. They’re risk-takers, whether it’s the way they use their bodies as a form of activism, or how they use humour and drama to tell the truth about the world, these performers find inventive ways to connect with people.

Q: How have these genres changed over time, and how do you see them evolving?

JDL: When I assigned myself the task of photographing and interviewing Michelle DuBarry, who holds the record as the world’s oldest drag queen at 86, it was definitely an eye-opener for me in learning how drag in particular has changed over time. For many people, I think performing in these genres is an act of defiance and protest, but there has definitely been a shift as humanity has come to celebrate and support the work of these artists on a larger scale. Nowadays, we’re seeing fantastically produced shows with lots of public support that meld all of these genres of performance together.

KAREN FROM FINANCE backstage before curtain call at The Butterfly Club in Melbourne, Australia.

LOLA FROST, rock ‘n’ roll flapper and body-positive activist, performs at the annual Vancouver International Burlesque Festival in Canada.

IMAGE ESSAY

Gender-transcendent diva, cabaret artiste, jazz singer and community activist, MAMA ALTO, during her show, An Audience with Billie Holiday.

One of the world’s oldest performing drag queens, MICHELLE DUBARRY, attends an event at which she was crowned Empress of Toronto.

First lady of fierce, MISS JANE DOE, fuses funk, Latin and strip-hop styles for a sold-out audience during feminist variety show Baby Got Back.

Internationally renowned New York burlesque performer, PERLE NOIRE, captivates an audience with her signature high-energy performance.

Acclaimed New York drag artist and singer, JOEY ARIAS, backstage at the Palais Theatre in Melbourne, Australia.

Afro-Caribbean American performance artist, writer and producer Natasha Jynel as BENI LOLA for Auto Bio Queen.

The writer, TILLY LAWLESS, wears flame top by @WETNATURE.

MAKING S PA C E WORDS TILLY LAWLESS PHOTOS BYRON SPENCER

ARCHER MAGAZINE

As a sex worker and queer woman, Tilly Lawless doesn’t always find safety in traditional community spaces.

S

HE ASKS ME: “How do lesbians have sex?” Just five minutes ago we had shared a cock together, looking up between mouthfuls to laugh with our eyes in joyful collusion at the client’s expense.

I’m slightly shocked that in her years of working, she’s never come across a “real lesbian”, as she calls me; that in her unending roll of sexual experience, there hasn’t been one splice of queer among the hetero; that she lives what others would consider a fringe lifestyle, yet never encountered a queer girl.

Also, I hate that question.

“Do you mean how do I have sex, like, with my girlfriend?”

That’s a pretty personal question. I hold off from saying so, but peel my skin off the sweaty couch and move a foot away from her, creating a physical gulf that mirrors the now growing space between us.

“No, like, how is it possible to have sex? And how do you deal with vagina?

It’s just so gross.”

I

SOMETIMES FORGET that the girls’ room at work isn’t a safe space. In that tiny box, legs and hair extensions entangled for nine hours of the night, laughing over the way that client came, or the sass you gave when he tried to haggle, or the sponge you forgot was inside you – it’s easy to think you’re in some sort of sisterhood, united against the world.

Easy to think, until a girl refuses to intro an Indian client, and you realise racism slides off her tongue more easily than the bronzer will come off her cheeks.

Easy to think, until the woman who shared her Thai food with you makes a comment about not wanting to have to share a changeroom with “lesbos”.

At work, we are brought together by one thing: the fact that we all do sex work. The nature of the work creates an accelerated intimacy: we spend large chunks of time stuffed into a too-small room, and we often know the most secret parts of each other’s lives.

We help each other hide our work from boyfriends, abusive husbands, or housemates.

We tell each other when a tampon string is showing, or give a heads-up that the guy who just walked in pays $300 for full service without question.

It’s easy to confuse all this for a wider solidarity. In fact, there are often no shared politics. We come from vastly different backgrounds, having walked different paths to get to that same point, and sometimes I am shocked by the language used. I forget that not everyone has been exposed to the kinds of political discussions I’m used to, or had the privilege to be educated in the same way I have.

Not everyone knows what it means to gaslight someone. Not everyone understands heteronormativity, or knows that the use of incorrect gender pronouns can violently undermine someone’s identity.

I am disoriented when one of the girls I get along with best is a vocal Trump supporter. When I talk excitedly of Mardi Gras, I am shattered when the Russian girl I have a crush on says, in her thick accent: “On Mardi Gras, the boys wear dresses. Disgusting.”

T

HE QUEER CLUB isn’t a safe space for me, either. In my own imagining, the club is a utopia of queerness; a berth far from any groping, straight hands.

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Instead, I am told by a gay guy: “Don’t class yourself with those dirty prostitutes, babe, you are actually so pretty and could really do something.”

I’ve been to lesbian nights a total of three times. I have been pushed up against a wall and kissed by a straight man, approached by a girl and asked, “How does it feel being the only straight girl here?”, and ushered to the stage because a security guard assumed I must be a back-up dancer.

After that, I gave up, and instead immersed myself in lesbian literature in order to feel part of some community, if only one that exists solely between the pages of my latest paperback.

There is no space in these queer realities for my femme-ness, unless there is a butch standing beside me, thereby legitimising my ‘choice’ to ‘look straight’.

At another queer night, I sought refuge in the men’s bathroom: although I am mistakenly welcomed there as a ‘fag hag’, it’s better than the women’s bathroom, where I’m called a slut, and berated for wearing no top.

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HEN I SPEAK about this, I’m told I’m whingeing. I’m told I have it easy, because I’m ‘straight-passing’.

But, is it easy being shut out of my own community?

Is it easy to feel as though I have to cut my hair, and change who I am, for my sexuality to be validated?

Is it easy to be asked, “Are you two here with your boyfriends?” when I’m standing with my femme girlfriend at a queer club?

Is it easy having to listen to jokes about ‘dykes’, because people assume I am not one?

LITTLE HOLLOWS

TILLY LAWLESS is a feminist, sex75 worker, activist and queer woman.

ARCHER MAGAZINE

Traditional community spaces aren’t always welcoming to those with intersecting identities.

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SEX WORK

“As a femme queer whore, I am used to sounding out the other girls at work, desperately hoping I will find someone else like me” Is it easy to have my body constantly man-handled like public property, or private moments with my girlfriend turned into a free-for-all, because a relationship between two femmes must be performative?

B

EING ‘STRAIGHT-PASSING’ is an incredibly double-edged sword. I have all the benefits of not being visible: I’m at less risk of being bashed, or of corrective rape, or being turned away from a job based on my sexual identity.

But femmephobia is alive and well, and while others are ostracised from the straight community, I am ostracised from the queer.

It’s important to me to be read as gay, because queer friendships sustain me. Because I am just as much queer as I am a woman. Because, in my whole eight years of being out and not read as queer, I have thrilled for any moment of recognition.

How do you make someone else understand that queerness seeps through you, and out of you, until the trim box overflows? Or that in the crook of my elbow, the sprigs of veins come up queer?

That behind the shelf of my pussy, in the very depth of me, I am damp with queer; that it hammers inside me, against my skin, begging to be seen and to be recognised.

O

NLINE FEMINISM ISN’T a safe space, either. There, I’m told that I’m catering to the patriarchy because I’m a sex worker, as though I only exist as a vessel of womanhood, and I’m not using my

earnings to fund a lesbian reality with my partner.

I’m called a “blow-up fuck doll” by someone who professes to have my best interests at heart.

I’m called a “vagina on legs” by a feminist, who reduces me to one aspect of my anatomy far more effectively than a client ever has.

Hollywood also bars me from feminist spaces. Lena Dunham said that “part of being a feminist is giving other women the freedom to make choices you might not necessarily make yourself,” but then signed a petition against a proposal by Amnesty International to decriminalise sex work.

Meryl Streep, who was applauded for her speech in which she said, “When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose,” did the same.

This was a high-profile campaign by white actresses, secure in their ivory towers of wealth, that railed against sex work and those who do it.

What is this if not an example of the powerful bullying others, and taking away the rights of the marginalised?

W

HAT DO YOU do when the spaces in which you should belong don’t accommodate you? I build a nest within them: a concave in the intersections, warmed with fronds and friends, and the beating of bodies of those who accept all of what goes into me: not just the sex work, not just the queerness.

I’m used to having to build my own spaces, by tooth and nail, stiletto and pen. A small space clawed out of an unforgiving, formidable cliff is not unusual to me.

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Queers are used to making little spaces where we can shut out the rest of the world, and huddle with our friends like babushka dolls, packed tight and finding belonging in numbers.

Sex workers are used to pseudonyms, and layers of knowledge about fellow whores – an intricacy to intimacy that means you know what a person’s labia looks like inside-out, but not the name their bills are addressed to.

We work among the coded language of sex acts, encrypted messages, and a kind of political organising that prioritises our privacy.

Solidarity and confidentiality shield us, together, from the rest of the world.

A

S A FEMME QUEER whore, I am accustomed to sounding out the other girls at work, desperately hoping I will find someone else like me.

I’m used to inviting the new queer girl on shift to sit by me on the couch, so we can have our own little corner of queer solidarity, and the comfort to cringe, or sometimes correct, when someone says something that is particularly grating.

With these tools at my belt, I have given up my search for the perfect space. Instead, I’ve moulded my own space, with the rage and frustration of being unwelcome in others.

I’ve smoothed it with my tears of rejection, and then stepped inside it.

The one place I can be safe.

Tilly Lawless is a queer, Sydney-based sex worker who writes on femme invisibility, the intersection between her queerness and her work, and sex worker rights.

TINA DIXSON is a human rights advocate and activist.

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IN EXILE

WORDS TINA DIXSON PHOTOS RENEE DIXSON

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ARCHER MAGAZINE

Finding a home in a new place is difficult, especially when your rights to that home are constantly called into question.

T

HE MOST COMMON question I get asked in Australia is: “Where are you from?”

It is asked at a party, by an Uber driver, and in a bottle shop, when I mistakenly call a six-pack a case.

It is asked whenever my accent is mistaken as a sign of otherness. It is asked everywhere, by almost every person that I meet.

“Where are you from, Tina?”

“I am from Newtown,” I answer.

My response is rejected straight away with visible confusion, asserting the power of a native English speaker. “You did not understand my question.”

“I think you did not understand my answer,” I say in my head.

It always amazes me, in these instances, how immediately I am defined as not capable of making my own decisions and identifications, and how my identity is somehow ‘obvious’ to other people.

But, you might ask, what is the problem with the question? We are a multicultural country and we like to know where people come from.

“Where are you from?” is a kick in the guts that makes you gasp for air. It feels like someone grabbing your shoulders and pushing you backwards.

“Where are you from?” is a power game. “We get to decide who calls themselves an Australian. You do not belong here, you are not one of us.”

It is a trauma trigger, reminding you of the past.

I

MET MY partner Renee in 2007, when she founded the first human rights LGBTIQ organisation in the

region where we both lived: a young queer woman trying to resist the state machine of systemic violence.

The state operated on the so-called social discourses derived from their traditional (read: orthodox) values.

They strictly opposed all the ‘gay propaganda’ they thought was being imposed on them from the West.

Your life and body were valuable for the state only when they fulfilled their roles: submission, reproduction, subjugation and conformism. This is the legacy of the coloniser.

When I get asked “Where are you from?”, I do think of a home.

I remember the woods on the edge of town. We used to go there with friends,

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we would make a fire and bake potatoes in the ashes.

I think of the markets in front of our building, full of fragrant strawberries in May and juicy watermelons in August.

I think of elders chatting in the yard under the cherry tree, and us teenagers catching the final glimpses of summer.

My imagination also floats to my adult life: the cozy apartment Renee and I made our home.

I also see us playing with our cuddly shar-pei, Teddy, and getting ready for work, which meant the world to us.

I think about our parents and our community – I think about these things with love. But then I remember that we left everything and everyone behind.

IN EXILE

Several years later, in Australia, someone who knew us relatively well introduced us by saying, “This is Tina and Renee. They are refugees.”

There was no mention of anything else about us. Our bodies now mattered as long as our suffering was available for public consumption. We were not deemed worthy in any other regard.

T This image was taken by RENEE DIXSON for her exhibition, Stories About Hope.

An overwhelming feeling of shame encircles me: shame for leaving, and shame for surviving.

Shame is paralysing. We fought but did not win. We could not stand it until the end. We were strong, but became weak. We ran away.

When I get asked “Where are you from?”, I also remember a different story of home.

Unlike the majority of people who were forcibly displaced, and fled because of armed conflicts, and who may long for their homes, I was banished, exiled, evicted, rejected and betrayed for being an unworthy citizen: for being a woman, a queer and a human rights activist.

My home has given up on me. I was not worthy to be protected. Is that the home I should want to go back to?

Is that the home you want me to identify with? Is that the home that should be missed?

D

URING OUR LAST year in the country, we ran workshops on human rights for the law enforcement body.

One of the police officers said about gay people: “I would take a gun and shoot them all.”

I responded: “I’ll be the first then.”

It has stuck with me how the man’s face did not show even the slightest sign of repentance.

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HERE ARE TWO expectations of you when you are from a refugee background. The first is that you perform your refugee identity for people in a particular way – in other words, as a victim.

The second is that you are keen to tell your story over and over again.

The more tragic details you disclose, the better you perform your refugee identity, in the public’s view.

You become an object of voyeuristic fascination. Your story is just another one that makes someone feel lucky to be born in Australia. There is no justice attached to it.

When Renee produced her social art project, Stories About Hope, which aimed to portray people from refugee backgrounds through the prism of dignity and strength, initially it did not gain much attention. When you are not portrayed through a lens of victimhood and vulnerability, the absence of your suffering invalidates your experience.

For some people, strength is not worthy of attention.

At an event in support of refugees, a humanitarian aid worker said a last name hyphenated with Smith would imply marriage to an Australian and increase our chances of finding a job.

ARCHER MAGAZINE

The writer, TINA DIXSON (left) with her partner, RENEE DIXSON. 82

IN EXILE

“Queer community is not ready to embrace me, I am the ‘other’, with too much of a heavy load... for a refugee community, I am a toosensitive topic, a taboo” Again, our queer bodies only seem to matter when they fit into heterosexist, reproductive narratives.

D

ESPITE EXTRAORDINARY progress in achieving equality and inclusion, social discourses on what is considered ‘normal’ still abound in Australia.

Queer is not normal outside Newtown or Fitzroy – ‘your friend’ is how my partner is referred to, more times than I can count.

Refugee is not normal outside Sydney or Melbourne metro. Imagine when you are both refugee and queer.

I’ve never been someone that people could easily define, or fit into a box.

Even before coming to Australia, people would always assume we were not local to our town.

Back then, we would take that with pride, because it meant that we were forward-thinking.

Now, the depravation of locality in Australia has pushed us into a nonexisting place.

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OR ME, THERE are two key things to feeling at home: safety and belonging. But the more I think about them, the more idealised they become.

Jean Améry, an Auschwitz survivor, had been living in Belgium in exile for nearly 30 years. He stopped speaking his mothertongue in an attempt to ease the pain of betrayal, and yet never felt at home again.

In her book, An Archive of Feelings, feminist theorist Ann Cvetkovich quotes a queer immigrant, who has

experienced no forced displacement, yet states: “I will remain a partial stranger anywhere and everywhere.”

Anthropologist Didier Fassin claims that to be a refugee means to be missing simultaneously from ‘there’ and ‘here’.

In order for me to belong ‘here’, I must detach myself from ‘there’, which is idealistic in itself, with the constant “Where are you from?” questions.

For me to feel at home, I need to have a community where I am safe, and where I belong.

Queer community is not ready to embrace me – I am the ‘other’, with too much of a heavy load to understand.

For a refugee community, I am a too-sensitive topic, a taboo. My ethnic community is my lost home that won’t ever be recovered.

I need to dismantle this illusion of absolute safety. Women and queers are never safe.

We who sought safety here are not safe from judgement or exclusion. Our home will not ever be perfect again. It is a site of fight and struggle.

These are the axioms that we must accept. By taking a risk of engaging with our never-perfect homes and their conflicts, I can open up more ways to reclaim them.

Even when the space is narrow, I will always try to create more room for myself to move.

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SING THE WORD ‘us’ is a part of feeling at home. My ‘us’ starts with Renee, but it could include more.

‘Us’ can include you, when you stop asking me where I come from, and

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accept with no judgement that I am from Newtown.

‘Us’ can include you, when you stop forcing me to tell my story of trauma for your entertainment, and accept that I have a survival story that aims to make you feel rage, and a thirst for justice.

‘Us’ can include you, when to ‘welcome refugees’ would be about actions, not words: justice, solidarity and holding together. ‘Us’ can include you, when by accepting me, you change something in yourself.

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AM RECLAIMING MY new home by wearing an Aboriginal flag T-shirt on 26 January; by being socially and politically active; by reducing my ecological footprint; by buying from farmers and not corporations; and by getting a coffee in my Keep Cup, instead of a paper one.

I am reclaiming my home by using my experience as a unique source of knowledge, to empower other women.

I will continue to reclaim my home, finding other ways to express gratitude and leave my trace.

I am learning to navigate society by gently shifting the walls it wants to use to confine me. I am learning to feel included by creating space for women like me.

I am learning how to be at home, in exile.

Tina Dixson comes from a human-rights background, having worked in the areas of LGBTIQ, refugee and women’s rights. In 2011, she drafted and presented the Shadow Report at the UN in Geneva for human rights violations of homosexual, bisexual and transgender women.

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The writer, RAZIA ZAKARYA, at her home in Sydney, Australia.

REBEL WITH

A CAUSE WORDS RAZIA ZAKARYA PHOTOS HAYLEY MORONEY 84

FREEDOM AND OPPRESSION

From Saudi Arabia to Australia, rebellion is one way to fight against a society’s oppressive regime.

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WAS BROUGHT into this world by two individuals who knew all too well how fragile a society can be.

Two individuals who led comfortable yet separate lives in a then peaceful Afghanistan; from two families that had etched a place for themselves, only to find that foreign powers had other plans for their country.

Two individuals, now refugees, whose paths crossed in a foreign land as they began a journey to a world where the social constructs seemed more in tune with peace.

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WAS BORN AND raised in Sydney, Australia, and although my childhood memories include Aussie standards like driveway cricket, Agro’s Cartoon Connection and running through the sprinkler to cool off, I was also brought up with stories of how great things were back “home”.

Whether it was about the landscape or how fruit tasted, my parents relished sharing stories of this bountiful land, and I listened just as enthusiastically.

As a child, I wistfully wondered what it would be like to live in a place where I wasn’t the only kid with my name, and where my parents weren’t different from all my friends’.

So, when I was 12, and my dad told me we were relocating to Saudi Arabia for his career, a part of me was eager to go. I wanted to experience being part of the majority. The fact that I lumped being Afghan in with Saudi Arabia was a testament to how anglicised my world view was, or perhaps the insidiousness of religious homogeneity.

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EING IN SAUDI felt nothing like I had anticipated. I felt no sense of belonging there. In fact, I had never felt more lost.

The country’s strict laws, particularly those targeting women, were jarring for me. Suddenly, I was part of a group of people who were thought to be so

sub-human that we needed basic tasks like driving carried out for us by men, and required a male relative’s approval if we wanted to leave the country.

I remember my mum pacing the room, late for her shift at the hospital because her driver of the ‘correct’ gender had slept in. It struck me as odd that an ER doctor wouldn’t be trusted behind the wheel, yet the conservative types that held those ideas would need to trust her with their lives.

This wasn’t the first time I had witnessed oppression defying logic, and it wouldn’t be the last.

In Saudi, I learnt that oppression wasn’t just systemic, it was tangible. It crept inside you and tightened its grip on the essence of your being, leaving a knot in your gut and a crushing feeling on your chest.

When my dad took my brother and me horseriding, I was told that girls were not allowed. I remember my dad mirroring my despondent expression, and my brother, six years my junior, trying to downplay how much fun he’d had afterwards.

I loved my family for understanding, but I resented being in that position.

This is what the oppressor wants: to rid you of small rights, along with your sense of self, to the point where you are grateful you’re allowed to exist, and programmed to anticipate punishment or shame for demanding more.

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N PAPER, IT COULD appear that Saudi Arabia took something from me but, in fact, it’s where my favourite part of myself was born: the rebel.

I don’t think I ever consciously made the decision to rebel – the action felt as innate and natural as holding your hand up as a visor on a sunny day.

Conquer or perish, I was a teenager and I wasn’t going to let my vagina get in the way of me being me. So I did all the things I wasn’t allowed to do, and

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anyone who knows about crime and punishment in Saudi Arabia knows that I was playing with fire.

The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice might sound like something from a draconian novel, but it was a very real government agency in Saudi Arabia that operated in its own jurisdiction.

Officers from the department were known as the Mutawa, and they had a reputation for being unrelentingly violent. Horror stories about run-ins with them were traded between expat kids like urban legends.

Naturally, I was afraid of them.

This rebellious new side of me came to a head at the local shopping mall when I was approached by a Mutawa loudly accosting me for not wearing a headscarf. I had a kneejerk reaction: to nonchalantly tell him to shut up, and continue on my way.

The nonchalance was misleading. I remained highly alert as I walked away, only stopping to look back when I could no longer hear the hate pouring towards me. He had given up on me, turning to eyeball a group of young women a few metres away.

It was at that point that I realised the bully’s biggest weakness: stoicism.

Oppression can be whittled down to the pathetic attempts of fearful people in undeserved positions of power, who are desperate to cling to their towers by stepping on minorities.

Luckily, I came out unscathed, and the oppressive machinery never got hold of me or my spirit. Saudi Arabia was not my home, so it was natural for me to leave. Many people do not have the same opportunity.

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ACK IN SYDNEY, watching a VB beer ad had me contemplating cultural relativity as I juxtaposed the images onscreen with the ferocity of conviction against alcohol I’d witnessed in Saudi Arabia.

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“In a perfect world, we would be governed by scrupulous politicians, but we live in a society where standing up for your basic human rights is an act of rebellion” As the bubbles floated to the top of the schooner on the telly before me, a headline I had read in the Saudi Gazette flashed into my mind’s eye: ‘Man caught selling alcohol faces 1500 lashes, jail’.

All nations are entitled to their own cultural laws and to maintaining sovereignty. But being back in Australia had me feeling relieved that the place I called home allowed people to make their own choices.

Now high-school aged, I was making new friends and planning my future, safe in the knowledge that I could make decisions for myself, and would not be barred because of my gender.

It was at this point, a few years into high school, that I came face-to-face with the complete image of who I was: a queer woman.

Nothing can compare to the period during which I acknowledged my true self; it was exciting and terrifying in equal parts. Identifying as queer felt authentic for me, and left me feeling self-assured, but I was also suddenly vulnerable to a new litany of criticism and self-doubt as I found myself a member of yet another oppressed class: the LGBTIQ community.

I was not immune to the hate-speech.

My late teen years were burdened by the mental grappling it took to believe in myself outside a sphere of preconceived notions based on my sexuality.

In Saudi, when the oppressed class was all women, I was fortunate enough to have a strong mother as a role model.

It was impossible to believe that women were inferior when your mum was kicking career goals in an intensely competitive field.

But as a young queer woman living in Sydney’s conservative Hills District, there weren’t any role models around.

I felt isolated, which made it much harder to mute the hate. I found being closeted the hardest part. I was leading a double life, which made it difficult to forge meaningful relationships with people. I’d get on well with someone, but then pull back out of fear that they’d hate me because I was gay.

I also found myself putting distance between myself and my mum, as I anticipated being disowned when she found out.

Even bringing up the ‘coming-out dialogue’ in the first place was hard. In our household, conversations about sex and romantic relationships were not had. It didn’t feel like I was crossing a line – it felt like I was steamrolling through a no-man zone, reinforced with barricades, barbed wire and sniper fire.

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OMING OUT WASN’T as dramatic as I’d expected it to be, but it wasn’t as liberating, either. I learnt that coming out is a twophase process: the first is controlled by the person coming out, in the form of disclosing who they are. The second is influenced just as much by the recipient of the disclosure, who, in this instance, was my mother.

I expected the arc to begin with coming out, peak at acknowledgement, and eventually slope towards either acceptance or rejection.

What I ended up with was less an arc, and more a Slinky: at first there were tears, then there was curiosity, followed by the silent treatment.

Then there was the dinner invite. I thought things were looking up until it was made painfully clear, by actions like referring to my girlfriend as my ‘friend’, that my mum’s idea of coping was denial.

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At the time, glad not to be disowned, I began self-editing. I convinced myself that I was self-editing not out of fear of being myself, but rather out of respect for my mother.

I also saw this as a bargaining chip, swapped in gratitude of her tolerating me and my partner in her life. After all, she did invite us both over for dinner.

I

HAD LEARNED in Saudi that the oppressor wants me to be grateful for simply being allowed to exist, and to anticipate punishment and feel shame for demanding more.

Once again, only this time back in Australia, I found myself oppressed for a part of my identity over which I had no control. Except, this time, it wasn’t forced on me by rhetoric or the Mutawa.

Instead, it was self-imposed, in the interest of keeping the peace. Feeling grateful for not being disowned led me to be complicit in my own oppression in the family home.

When I recognised these familiar feelings of oppression, the rebellious side of me was reignited. I started questioning why a compromise had to be made in the first place.

I realised it was illogical to think that my mother’s pain and tears were induced by my homosexuality, when really it’s the sense of otherness that society places on us queers, and our families, that causes this pain.

It was then that I realised the extent of the damage caused by anti-LGBTIQ rhetoric. I realised I’d been incorrect when I sat in front of the telly and concluded that my home was governed by laws that allowed for personal freedoms. The laws in Australia may allow women to drive on the road, and citizens to enjoy an alcoholic beverage,

FREEDOM AND OPPRESSION

RAZIA and her partner ANH share a home with their dog, CAVIAR, in a progressive neighbourhood.

but there is still a cultural doctrine being enforced on us.

In Australia, you’re free as long as your belief systems fall in line with those of our politicians, who are quite comfortable legislating for the ostracism and oppression of LGBTIQ people. As long as discrimination is embedded in our legislature, I cannot consider Australia my safe space.

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HESE DAYS, MY partner and I live in a lovely, progressive Sydney neighbourhood, which is fortunate because we are one of those gross couples that often engage in PDA. My girl is an avid homemaker and has ensured that our place has a healthy dose of rainbow flags and queer media on display. You can safely say that we have embraced our queer identities.

My mother comes over for dinner, and although we have come a long way, I still find myself toning down my queer side when she’s around.

Some of us are lucky to have family members who are insightful enough to see that the only thing wrong with being queer is that we are currently vulnerable and oppressed.

Others, like myself, are not so lucky, and have family that just sees stigma.

The institutionalised disparity in Australia feeds this stigma; it stokes the fears of young queers and affects how we are seen by our peers and our families. It legitimises hate-speech from those who seek to oppress us, just as the laws in Saudi Arabia legitimise men who wish to control women.

Political landscapes will always shift.

But as my migrant parents can tell you,

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the direction of the shift is sometimes unpredictable. In a perfect world, we would be governed by scrupulous politicians, but the reality is that we live in a society where standing up for your basic human rights is an act of rebellion.

As queer Australians confronted with oppression, we need to be comfortable in our skin, and to embody the rebel.

Society does shift, and we all deserve a safe space. But some of us need to fight for our place within it.

Razia Zakarya is a PhD candidate in the University of Technology Sydney’s science faculty. She has come to the realisation that she needs more hobbies outside of work and socialising. Her secret superpowers are mondegreens and malapropisms, and she has been described as a ‘typical Aries’, whatever that means.

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IN EXILE

PUBLIC SEX LIBERATION AND THE DEATH OF

WORDS REGAN LYNCH IMAGES ALI FRANCO 89

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More than a historic act, public sex between men can reclaim an iconic past, and embrace the playfulness and promiscuity that once characterised queer culture.

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E’S BEEN PADDLING in the pool for 20 minutes, locking eyes with every member of the water polo team. I’m reclining by the edge of the water, my shirt unbuttoned.

When he gets out to sit on the grass, I get up and walk towards the showers. A few minutes later, he follows me in.

We each shower separately, and get dressed with our backs to each other. As I walk out, I say, “Hey,” in passing.

We have a meaningless conversation that still leaves me blushing. There are long silences, but our eyes don’t break contact. He asks if I want his number, and we both pull out our phones but before I’ve even unlocked the screen, he kisses me.

We fuck in one of the showers, periodically peering out of a crack in the door, with wry grins. It feels like we know each other, but we don’t.

We exchange numbers first, and, eventually, names.

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OR MANY OF US, the emergence of our queer selves did not take place in the domestic comfort of the family home – it happened in a toilet cubicle, or the park, in the body of a stranger. Although some sections of our community try to repress the queer history of public sex, some of us cannot help but remember.

Cruising – the act of picking up strangers and having sex with them in public – has been a practice of queer men for centuries. Hidden in plain sight, in a body language that has developed into a kind of physical slang, cruising has given men who have sex with men a sexual outlet in societies riddled with bigotry and homophobia.

“Like poems, cruising carves privacy out of public spaces,” author Garth Greenwell said in March 2016, in an interview with The Guardian.

“Poems are a kind of private communication that occurs in public speech. I think cruising is that, too: a training in reading occult codes; a way of seeing a significance in the world that most people don’t see.”

Cruising reveals our most private desires in public. Eye contact, ways of dress, movement and other codes can load bustling public spaces with sexual potential. These spaces are known colloquially as beats.

Although cruising can happen anywhere and at any time, there are popular, well-known beats around the world, such as Central Park and Fire Island in New York City, Nehru Park in New Delhi, Hampstead Heath in London and Flinders Street Station in Melbourne, Australia.

Although there is sometimes a public outcry to shut down known beats – as in the case of nudist beaches such as Little Congwong in Sydney, and Campbells Cove in Victoria – such spots have proven resistant to law enforcement and public shaming.

The practice continues. To this day, one can spy sandy nooks hidden in the bushes on the way to Little Congwong, into which men sometimes disappear.

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S GAY SEX HAS become more accepted and domesticated in many Eurocentric countries, the practice of cruising has become less common. The subculture is impacted by a whole range of factors besides social progress – public sex practices adapt to

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legality, discretion, medical advances in sexual health and, of course, safety.

For instance, in cultures where gay relationships are criminalised or made dangerous, public sex can provide a rare opportunity for intimacy, due to its anonymous nature.

Simply put, where sex is deemed inappropriate for the home, it will be pushed out into the public.

Interestingly, where private queer sex has become more acceptable – whereby some degree of social progress has led to gay couples adopting lifestyles and family structures that are more similar to straight people – public sex has become a form of rebellion.

In such cases, engaging in public sex may be a continuation of gay tradition, and a way to connect with a lineage of queer ancestors who came before us.

For a generation whose forbears were devastated by death, disease and fear, this form of sexual time travel becomes a way to reclaim queer history, which threatens to be buried beneath the mounting pressure to look and act like everyone else.

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N A BOOK BY Carlos Motta and Joshua Lubin-Levy, Petite Mort: Recollections of a Queer Public, more than 60 gay men draw the spaces where they’ve had public sex in New York City.

The book is an act of community imagining, a subjective map of a city that remembers a more liberated queer culture, before gay sex moved from the public realm to the conjugal bed.

“I was drawn to the expression ‘petite mort’, a French phrase which translates to ‘little death’, because it is used as a metaphor for orgasm,” Motta says.

PUBLIC SEX

“Risk, trespassing, breaking or resisting the law… public sex can be thought of as a little social death.”

These little social deaths can be linked closely to the wave of AIDSrelated deaths, which were in part fuelled by government negligence and conservatism, and which decimated the worldwide population of gay men during the 1980s and early 1990s.

The AIDS crisis led to the mayor of New York padlocking any place deemed to be a gathering spot for gay men.

Today, decades later, the power of a narrative whereby promiscuity equals death still lives on.

Nic Holas, an Australian writer who founded The Institute of Many – an organisation dedicated to increasing resources and advocacy for people living with HIV – wrote in Archer Magazine in 2014: “The generation of sex-positive gay men lost to AIDS is an ongoing issue, because these men who would now be our elders have been replaced with a largely conservative voice that preaches monogamy, and tells young gay men to prioritise marriage over pleasure.”

It is this “conservative” voice that

sees cruising as a sad anachronism that caters to a promiscuous gay stereotype.

And this, really, strikes to the heart of how public sex is disseminated socially.

Public sex perpetuates the image of the bad gay: the gay slut. It endangers this new ideal of ‘respectability’, which many elite gays have spent decades cultivating. Apparently, it can even endanger lives.

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HERE FEAR OF HIV and its associated stigma was once enough to give sex-shamers a platform, the rise of antiretroviral drugs has begun to sap their power.

These days, HIV-positive people are living long and healthy lives. With access to treatment, they can attain an undetectable viral load, with next to no chance of infecting sexual partners.

Moreover, access to Pre- and PostExposure Prophylaxis (PrEP and PEP) provides gay men with a sense of sexual empowerment that was stolen from us during the AIDS crisis.

As a result of these medical advances, a new sexual revolution is underway among men who have sex with men.

With the vice-grip of ingrained fear

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beginning to loosen, despite rising rates of some other STIs, a pre-AIDS culture of public sex and promiscuity could be rising from the ashes of the crisis.

When I told Mum I was gay, the first thing she said was, “The lining of the anus is thinner than the lining of the vagina, so you have to be more careful when you have sex.”

Although this is not a very sexy thing to think about, it definitely crossed my mind the first time I fucked on PrEP without a condom.

At the time, I was on top of a natural amphitheatre, above a sprawling tent city, with a mob of wallabies feeding in the dark nearby.

I remember looking out over the woods and up at the night sky, and feeling, for perhaps the first time in my life, completely free.

When it was over, we shrugged and smiled at each other. He said goodbye, and I never saw him again.

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OR THOSE who don’t conform to the new gay ideal of monogamy and respectability, public sex affords intimacy while still avoiding this restrictive identity.

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“Instead of distancing ourselves from acts of sexual deviance, we should be publicising and embracing them. As well as ‘love’, we need to start crying ‘sex’ from the podium” Meanwhile, access to this gay ideal is restricted for many people of colour, people who are homeless, and folks who are gender non-conforming.

Many individuals are excluded by parts of gay culture either due to entry fees, abuse or discrimination.

This pervasive exclusivity narrows the ‘gay scene’ down to a privileged few. For those who cannot enter these spaces, who don’t feel comfortable in them, or who need to be discreet because of age, relationship status, circumstance or closetedness, finding intimacy in public can offer a more suitable option.

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VEN THOUGH THE rise of tech-based cruising apps like Grindr and Scruff has greatly reduced the need for men to cruise in person, some don’t have a private space in which to fuck, and there will always be those who feel more comfortable with the anonymous, fleeting nature of public sex.

This is especially true in countries where homosexuality is criminalised.

In Egypt, Iran and India, especially in areas where access to electricity or the internet is restricted, cruising remains a necessary reality for queer men who fuck despite the ever-present threat of police entrapment.

Homosexuality is not technically illegal in Egypt, but having public sex is. Under the debauchery law, many gay establishments, including private house parties, have been raided since 2013, resulting in more than 250 people being arrested during that time.

Pro-Government journalist Mona Iraqi famously raided a bathhouse with the help of police, and broadcasted it on live television. She later faced six months in prison for defamation.

Cruising apps can also be extremely dangerous. In Chechnya, undercover police have been reported to flirt with gay men online to entrap them into criminality, later trawling their phones for other queer people.

These forms of entrapment make anonymous sex one of the only viable options for intimacy in some countries.

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N A GAY RIGHTS movement defined by ideals of respectability and domestication, ongoing acts of public sex – and the existence of cultural texts like Petite Mort – show that men who have sex with men engage in non-normative behaviour, are happily non-monogamous and, in many cases, aren’t even gay or bisexual.

The mainstream narrative that claims ‘We’re just like you!’ is often inadequate, for the glaringly obvious differences between many queer men and heteronormative society.

We need politics that speak for all of us. Instead of distancing ourselves from acts of sexual deviance, we should be publicising and embracing them. As well as ‘love’, we need to start crying ‘sex’ from the podium.

The late George Michael, famously caught cruising in a public toilet in 1998, is a great example of what sex-positive activism can look like.

In an interview back in 2005, the musician was recorded saying:

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“Gay people in the media are doing what makes straight people comfortable, and automatically my response to that is to say, ‘I’m a dirty, filthy fucker and if you can’t deal with it, you can’t deal with it.’”

When harassed again in 2007 for cruising, he fired back at photographers: “Are you gay? No? Then fuck off! This is my culture.”

By leaving behind consensually promiscuous expressions of sexuality, or convincing ourselves that they are immature, dirty or invalid, the gay rights movement is just as motivated by shame as it is by pride: the shame of being different, and the shaming of anyone who embraces that difference.

The bridge, the church, the park and the pool have long been sites of fleeting companionship and anonymous fucks.

By disavowing public sex as morally repugnant, we not only divest ourselves from our own histories of persecution, but also distance ourselves from those who continue to face persecution, stigma and discrimination.

We need to question our increasingly conservative forms of activism. It’s time to pick up the pieces of our past, and reassemble them into a revived, sex-positive and truly queer politic.

Regan Lynch is a theatre-maker and writer based in Brisbane, Australia. His work in fiction, non-fiction and theatre is interested in kitsch, camp, genre, queer subcultures and reclaiming the unwanted. He seeks to create bold, liberating experiences for audiences and readers that question understanding and attack common sense.

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DESERT

MIGRATION IMAGES FROM A FILM BY DANIEL F. CARDONE

A group of men living with HIV in the 1980s migrated to California’s Palm Springs, seeking respite from society and stigma.

The film Desert Migration tracks their passage and explores themes of mortality, age, rebirth and resettlement.

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ROUND HALF OF THE people currently living with HIV/AIDS in the United States are over 50 years old.

These people, whose lives were saved because of anti-retroviral therapies, are now dealing with a barrage of new problems as their ageing bodies struggle to maintain the upper hand against the treatment’s side effects. These can include insomnia, depression, neuropathy, bone degeneration, kidney failure and cognitive disorders.

Many also struggle with post-traumatic stress, having lived through a period of decimation and debilitation, which remained largely unacknowledged until recently.

Desert Migration, a film directed by Daniel F. Cardone and produced by Marc Smolowitz, focuses on gay men living with HIV who have sought out an oasis in Southern California’s Palm Springs, where their homosexuality and health conditions are not just tolerated, but understood.

These men migrated to this desert community with memories of watching their friends die, all believing that a similar fate would befall them.

Desert Migration was designed to be immersive. It is less a traditional documentary and more a meditation on the subject of ageing with HIV and its surrounding themes, such as mortality, loneliness, community and survival.

The film seeks to evoke a true sense of place, recreating the variety of physical and emotional states experienced by these men.

Metaphorically, the constant maintenance required to keep the harsh desert of Palm Springs looking green and vibrant symbolises the constant effort required by each man to keep the virus at bay.

As the audience watches the everyday activities of the film’s subjects, voice-overs lifted from intimate interviews emphasise the weight of the past, and the worries and thoughts about the present and future, that are carried by each of these men.

“So many of us flooded out of our communities, it was like an exodus,” remembers one of the film’s subjects. “We did lose our homes – we couldn’t afford to manage this illness.”

“So many people from my era have it,” another voice says.

“The ones who have it here, now, are the ones that were able to survive.”

Over the course of a single on-screen day, we observe the group as they work, eat, sleep, love, recuperate and grieve.

By sharing these stories, the film raises issues along the way: how do we approach our own ageing, and the notion of mortality? What gives us the will to create, to achieve, and even to live at all, as our bodies and minds deteriorate? And how resilient is the human spirit?

Words by Daniel F. Cardone Desert Migration is distributed through Passion River Films. The DVD is available globally through Amazon and the trailer can be viewed online at www.desertmigrationmovie.com All images: © 13th Gen

From top: SAGUARO HOTEL, Palm Springs / ERIC JANNKE in the desert

Clockwise from top: DOC DUHON relaxes in the jacuzzi with a cigar / DOUG GRAHAM stretches at the gym / JUAN-MANUEL ALONSO basks in sunlight

Clockwise from top left: WILL GRANT in the desert / MICHAEL PATTON walks among the windmills / Sweeping views of the Palm Springs wind farm

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D E K C Y O T L B PAR WORDS KANE RACE PHOTOS PATRICK STEVENSON 102

NIGHTLIFE

Before the rise of app-based cruising and the suffocation of Sydney nightlife, there was the party – an opportunity for random friendships, unexpected conversation, and a community of care.

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AST YEAR WAS one of collective agitation in Sydney, which came to a head in exciting, vibrant and effervescent ways.

For what felt like the first time in years, Sydneysiders pulled themselves away from their laptops and TV streams and massed together. People placed bodies onto streets to rage against the disappearance of something that was hard to pin down, but widely and viscerally registered: a sense of access to the transformative possibilities of recreational space.

Nightlife is many things to many people – a place to dance and socialise, to look for love or sex, or to hang out with friends. But one of the special things it provides is the opportunity for chance encounters with unfamiliar people and things – the random banter, the unlikely intimacies.

Nightlife operates as a zone of playful exchange. It’s a space of exposure to difference which can change your take on things, or adjust how you feel about the world. The best nights make new things possible.

Throughout 2016, it felt like Sydney was recognising the rapid disappearance of these possibilities.

The collective agitation that ensued made me think in new ways about nightlife, which might be understood in terms of the events it enables: the coming together of diverse elements, people and things, which allows something new and exciting to emerge.

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N A RAINY FEBRUARY day in 2016, Sydney’s unrest boiled over into something wondrous.

It was Fair Day – the annual one-day

carnival ahead of Sydney’s Mardi Gras parade. I had spent the morning volunteering for Unharm, a drug-policy activist group.

Unharm’s stall at Fair Day was a response to the communal frustration caused by the use of sniffer dogs to police urban and party spaces. Its goal was to build support for alternative strategies such as on-site pill-testing at dance events.

My partner Stephan and I rattled donation buckets and talked with punters in the grizzling rain at Victoria Park in Camperdown, then made our way across town to join the throng assembling in Belmore Park for the first ‘Keep Sydney Open’ rally.

We arrived with our ‘Ditch the Dogs’ and ‘Pill-Testing’ placards, just as the several-thousand-strong crowd pulled itself together to make its way through the CBD like some huge, undulating centipede composed of banners and beaming faces.

This wasn’t a queer-only crowd, but it wasn’t entirely straight, either. These were people who cared about music, dance and nightlife, and who knew very well that their lives, or livelihoods, were impoverished without it.

The atmosphere was electric. We were in the midst of something that seemed to change form the more immersed in it we became; always in motion, impossible to predict, energising those gathered along its irrepressible course.

The mood was one of playful excitement: live music enthusiasts marched next to drag queens, young families alongside club kids and ravers, all there to protest licensing restrictions

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imposed by a conservative government, which had effectively shut down the city’s nightlife in just two short years.

When the rally reached its destination in Hyde Park, in the middle of Sydney’s CBD, we milled about and mingled with the crowd, cheered on the speakers and watched live performances.

Then, we did what many Sydney gays do these days to keep the party going: we headed home to download music, upload images of the day to Instagram, and use whatever means possible to extend the temporality and impact of the day’s event.

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E’RE IN THE MIDDLE of a radical transformation of sexual geography in many Western contexts, which is inextricably connected to changes in the regulation of nightlife. Given our contemporary lives, digital technologies are no doubt implicated in whatever might emerge from these transformations.

Throughout the 20th century, cities served as beacons for sexual outsiders seeking companionship and community. Social gathering in urban centres contributed to the distinctive public culture of these spaces. But, as the century drew to a close, the character of these urban zones began to encounter various pressures including gentrification, licensing laws, policing and mainstreaming.

In Sydney, the intensity of the state assault on nightlife over the past few years has left many of us reeling as bars, clubs and parties, and the experience of street-life that connects them, gradually vanish through closures, curfews and intensive policing.

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The urban conditions that once made it possible to imagine Sydney’s LGBTIQ population as a heterogeneous but inclusive sexual community seem to be changing rapidly and inexorably.

The growing popularity of online hook-ups seems both to have hastened these changes and softened their blow, at least for gay men, whose social scenes have long been magnetised by sexual pursuits.

Since gay cruising moved online, gay sex has been reformatted. But what has been lost in the process?

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O LOOK FOR sexual partners today, the digital context asks me to format my erotic curiosity according to a list of specific interests and preferences, which it assumes I have already established.

Cruising websites and apps presume a sexual actor knows exactly what they want in advance; with preferences and interests that precede their worldly engagement with others.

For all the benefits and convenience of digital sorting and searching mechanisms, these functions minimise the chances of having to engage with unlikely sexual and social ‘others’ during the course of realising one’s sexual interests.

As a result, the complex relational fabric that has long characterised urban sexual communities such as Sydney begins to unravel.

If I had always organised my search for sexual partners in this way, would I ever have encountered the butch dykes, drag queens or girly boys that played such a significant role in my sexual formation and sociopolitical outlook?

What opportunities would there have been to develop frank, affectionate bonds with queers from different walks of life, had we not been thrown together on dancefloors, in bars and in gutters, in collective states of disrepair?

Sharing space with other people, including those you don’t consider your ‘sexual type’, can lead to mutually transformative exchanges that produce new ways of feeling, understanding, and relating with people.

The most exhilarating pleasures are often those you never imagined could function as a source of enjoyment; that move you beyond yourself, and introduce new ways of experiencing yourself and others.

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YDNEY’S HISTORY OF public partying can be conceived as a particularly dynamic and volatile scene of ‘context collapse’ – where worlds and bodies, the public and the private, the social and the sexual, all unpredictably collide.

In these environments, you were likely to run into your high-school French teacher while trashed on the dancefloor; or a friend from primary school while cruising for sex; or a work

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colleague while dancing vigorously on a podium in a state of undress.

This collision of social worlds elicited considerable apprehension among partygoers, and sometimes generated feelings of unwanted exposure. But it also created unique occasions for self-disclosure, communal pleasure, care, understanding and support. It generated unlikely friendships and intimacies and encouraged playfulness, hilarity and gossip, all of which kept the party going long after the lights went up, giving rise to a diffuse but keen sense of fun and collective belonging.

It’s precisely this sense of collective belonging that enabled many of those affected by the horrors of the HIV crisis to make it through some of their darkest years, and find ways of withstanding the devastating impacts despite enormous loss.

The widespread use of drugs such as ecstasy through these years made people emotionally available to each other in new ways, and sparked unusually intimate forms of disclosure and honesty that allowed many of us to process the ravages of the epidemic more constructively.

We learnt new ways of enjoying and caring for each other, got to know people who might otherwise have remained strangers, and remembered those who had died.

Just the presence of a mass of people presumed to share some sense of the

NIGHTLIFE

“This is what Sydneysiders have been mourning and fighting for over the past couple of years: the collective belonging created by the collision of different social worlds on the dancefloor” epidemic gave many of us the strength to commit to something larger than ourselves, something we sometimes referred to as ‘community’.

But if it was a community, it was undeniably a queer one, composed not only of friends and acquaintances, but also strangers.

One of the most striking features of queer mobilisations around drug policy in recent years is the sense that our critiques of drug policy connect practices of harm reduction to questions of access to public space.

The view we have come to share is that harm reduction is not simply a technical exercise, but also requires a collective horizon of support, care, belonging, and shared commitment to something bigger than oneself.

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HIS, I THINK, is what Sydneysiders have been mourning and fighting for over the past couple of years: the collective belonging created by the collision of different social worlds on the dancefloor.

It’s why slogans such as ‘Keep Sydney Open’ resonate beyond their literal reference to closing hours, and have come to signify the loss of a playful culture of exposure to difference.

This is caused not only by restricted access to nightlife, but also by the changing vibe of public space, in a context where more and more people stay home to network quietly and selectively on their apps.

Those who are joining the growing movement committed to changing drug policies care deeply about parties and recreational space.

These advocates know very well that the culture of public partying that shaped us as queer activists – from the first Mardi Gras, through the HIV years and beyond – has provided one of the most crucial contexts in which diverse and friendly cultures of care have been generated and sustained.

These supportive cultures of care make recreational space into a zone of transformative experience, and a space in which things happen.

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Digital technologies need not feature as the antithesis of these possibilities.

Indeed, these technologies often play a pivotal role in the forms of mobilisation we’ve recently seen in Sydney.

If we can bring to the digital context what we have learnt about the powers of socialising with strangers and the pleasure of exchanges across difference, and if we use our hashtags and search terms to create new and unlikely relations, we might well extend the sense of open playfulness that many of us first encountered on the dancefloor into a digital realm, and back to our present experience.

Kane Race teaches gender and cultural studies at the University of Sydney. He is the convenor of the queer contingent of Unharm, a grassroots, drug-policy activist organisation, and the author of Pleasure Consuming Medicine: the queer politics of drugs (Duke UP, 2009). His new book, The Gay Science: intimate experiments with the problem of HIV, is forthcoming from Routledge in 2017.

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REMEMBER THE KING WORDS KERRYN DRYSDALE PHOTOS ANN-MARIE CALILHANNA 106

CULTURAL MEMORY

Every Wednesday night, inner-west Sydney came to life as lesbians bowed down to the drag kings. But what happens when a social scene fades?

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USED TO LIVE diagonally opposite the Sly Fox Hotel on Enmore Road in Newtown, in a decrepit onebedroom apartment above the local chicken joint.

Back then, Wednesday nights in Sydney’s inner west were known as Dyke Night, during which groups of women weaved their way along the congested sidewalks, as bars and pubs hosted lesbian-targeted events for this one night of the week.

At around 10pm, scores of women would make their way to Queer Central, an event hosted by the Sly Fox, where drag kings featured as the headline act for more than a decade.

Repeated week after week, drag king events quickly became the basis of a thriving social scene, which I knew well.

Even though the last show was usually over by midnight, the drinking, dancing, catching up and hooking up went on long after the performances were over, and the onslaught of sound penetrated my little flat.

The drag king scene soon became an object of fascination for me. Not being able to sleep anyway, I decided in 2010 to start documenting these events as part of my doctoral research.

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RAG KINGING IS A type of performance in which women and sometimes gender-diverse people consciously enact masculinity.

Drag kings perform in most urban queer centres around the world, but these events in Sydney were deeply significant for me and many others.

The event wasn’t just about the drag kings on stage; it offered much more in the way of social and sexual possibility.

On a good night, interactions on the dancefloor segued into conversations

outside, which sometimes culminated in an offer to spend the night, or even a relationship that would outlast the ephemerality of the moment.

Or sometimes not: the impromptu kisses on the dancefloor and deep and meaningful conversations over beers and cigarettes could dissipate in the early morning light, leaving people to wonder if they’d see that girl again, pinning hopes on the next week.

On the promise of these good nights, masses of women would congregate in and around the venue, filling the streets with the sounds of, as described by one person, “those bloody drunken lesbians”, until night turned to early morning and taxis lined the street to take exhausted partygoers home.

Those who frequented the Sly Fox back then speak about the intensity of being there, and the pleasure of being pressed up against one another in a small, dark space, while all around, women roared their approval for the drag king on stage.

For many of us, it became difficult to imagine doing anything else on a Wednesday night. But what happens when scenes fade, as they invariably do?

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HE LONGEVITY OF Queer Central as an event catering to same-sex-attracted women is somewhat of an anomaly in Sydney’s historic commercial infrastructure.

Most lesbian and queer events have operated on temporary arrangements, as there is little sustained financial investment in permanent social spaces for queer women.

Queer Central was first established in 2002 as Kingki Kingdom, by drag king legend Sexy Galexy, and it continued for 10 years under various management.

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In 2012, the Sly Fox Hotel stopped hosting Queer Central after a series of renovations failed to renew interest.

This closure occurred around the same time as a broader decline of drag king events elsewhere in Sydney.

It would be difficult to pinpoint a single reason for the scene’s demise, but a combination of factors made these events unsustainable in a changing cultural economy.

This also meant that just three years into my research, the demise of the scene cut short my process of collation and archiving, forcing me to consider the ephemerality of lesbian and queer social life instead.

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S PART OF MY research, I held focus groups a few months before Queer Central’s end, when there was already some resigned acknowledgement that the scene was decreasing in popularity.

Although it felt like the end of the world at the time, this sense of loss helped me to understand how cultural phenomena can take hold in social memory. In this respect, these focus groups captured the feelings of people in a scene that was in danger of fading from social view.

As Adrienne Rich, a notable lesbian academic, famously wrote, “The story of our lives becomes our lives.”

Stories are fundamental to how people construct and participate within scenes. In any given social moment, scenes are not experienced as a ‘scene’.

Rather, scene experience is something that takes place retrospectively.

What we feel in a particular place at a particular time is a set of immediate impressions that could never be fully interpreted in the moment.

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“The stories took on a life of their own – they changed through the processes of questioning, agreeing and disagreeing. The living, breathing nature of stories is powerful, and it shapes the contours of the scene itself” Many of my research participants enjoyed the opportunity to talk about their scene experiences with others recruited for the study.

The discussion worked similarly to the way people get together with friends the next day, to discuss the night before: conversation was filled with puzzled questions of what they had seen in a performance, gleeful accounts of who said what to whom, and coy disclosures of who they may or may not have got together with.

In telling stories about their own experiences at drag king events, people were sorting through and making sense of what they felt.

The individual reflections and stories then become a collective experience, or a scene, shared by everyone there but which took shape long after those original moments.

I discovered that the focus groups enabled participants to collectively turn

social experience into shared cultural memory. The stories told took on a life of their own – they changed through the processes of questioning, agreeing and disagreeing. The living, breathing nature of stories is powerful, and can shape the contours of the scene itself.

Like so many other participants in myriad social scenes, at the point where my research participants told stories about their experiences at drag king events in Sydney, they were already engaged in a process of bringing this scene to life.

So, why does that matter, when a scene is dead?

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HILE I WAITED for my daily coffee at my favourite cafe, the barista and I would often chat about my research.

Like many of the people I spoke to around that time, much of my barista’s earlier experience of Sydney’s lesbian

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social circuit had revolved around drag king events, and she, too, keenly felt their absence.

On one particular day, almost three years after the last drag king show at Queer Central, she told me that she had recently hosted friends visiting from overseas, and decided to give them a historic tour of Sydney’s most iconic lesbian sites.

Entering the Sly Fox for the first time in years, she found a burlesque trivia night in progress.

Compared to a few years earlier, when a late Wednesday evening arrival meant pushing into a venue filled to capacity, her visit had revealed just five people inside.

She shook her head as she told me she couldn’t even finish her beer there. The trivia didn’t accord with her memory of the once-thriving venue, and she preferred to leave her drink unfinished, and her memory intact.

CULTURAL MEMORY

This exchange of stories sedimented our memory of the Sly Fox as a drag king venue. Even now, I picture it as the same unkempt site I knew much more clearly than its present-day sleek fixtures and polished furnishings.

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Y FOCUS GROUPS also discussed the importance of the venue in understanding their scene experiences. One woman remembered the old venue well: “I’ve been going there for so many years, from the time when it was the dancefloor in the front, to the time where they’d just re-laid the carpets.

“I remember when I was with you, Kerryn, the first night we were walking in there, and we were like: ‘What the hell has happened? This carpet is nice.’

“We were walking around making spongy effects with our feet. But, when you first walk in, you think, ‘Okay, this is the Sly Fox, it’s gonna be dirty, it’s gonna smell like stale alcohol, smell like lesbians’.”

While she was speaking, her body also told the story of her memory: her feet retraced her steps, mimicking the tactile encounter with the carpet; her nose compressed as she relived the odours; her gestures became expansive as she invoked the lesbian “smell”.

In this anecdote, the venue was literally permeated by the smells of our social and sexual encounters.

In talking about a place nostalgically, she signalled the hold the venue has on all of us. Nostalgic expressions often work as an idealised process, ignoring the reality of poorly maintained venues, or the complexities of negotiating sexual interactions in a close-knit circle.

Taking on a mythical role in our stories, the old Sly Fox will always remain central in our memories, and therefore central to how we talk about our histories.

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CENES FACE BACKWARDS, despite their forward momentum into co-option by the mainstream (in the case of some underground music cultures), or into oblivion (in the case of Sydney’s drag king scene).

In fact, these movements can have the same consequences. Much like punk’s ‘God Save the Queen’ T-shirts now on sale at Kmart, they offer the opportunity to invoke a social context forever experienced as the past, but available to be relived in any given future moment.

It is because they face backwards that scenes produce a sense of the eternal.

As LGBTIQ historian Jeffrey Weeks recently explained, our histories involve more than just the excavation of a buried past; they also shape and reshape memories that give meaning to our present. Our backward-facing scenes will always hold the capacity for our future-oriented feelings.

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ERTAINLY, WOMEN STILL congregate in various pubs, bars and other venues, that may or may not strategically court their presence. But these nights seems less atmospheric to me than the vibrancy of those drag events in the past.

Perhaps this change mirrors the widespread shifts in Sydney’s economic arrangements that push against the commercial viability of LGBTIQ spaces.

Or perhaps it points to important changes to our social circles, which include trans and gender-diverse friends who may not share the same attachments to drag events.

Or perhaps it is indicative of my own lifestyle changes: as I edge closer to 40, midweek social events lose their appeal.

I no longer live in that old flat, having moved to a much nicer house years ago.

Either way, my direct experiences of Sydney’s drag king scene can no longer be found in those former sites.

Worryingly, there is very little material evidence that this scene ever existed. There is certainly no trace in any institutionalised archives. We need to look to our own social practices to find new ways to preserve LGBTIQ experience, before it disappears from social memory.

Sydney’s drag king scene lives on in collective memorialisation through the stories told about it. This is why talking about LGBTIQ social experiences, the

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very experiences deemed insignificant by outsiders, is so important.

In the wake of material consequences on LGBTIQ spaces, whether from draconian lock-out laws, the processes of gentrification, or violence enacted by homophobic bigots, the inherently social process of storytelling may work to counter the assumed ephemerality of LGBTIQ social spaces.

Scenes come to life through the stories told about them. They endure in our social memory, forming a living, breathing archive.

Kerryn Drysdale completed her thesis on Sydney’s drag king scene in 2016. Her current work is around feminism, cultural studies and queer theory, but her passion remains the preservation and celebration of otherwise ephemeral LBGTIQ social spaces.

DIGITAL LIFELINE WORDS LA MOANA

Apps and social media can be a source of support for those left out of traditional spaces.

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LTHOUGH IT feels like no time has passed, it’s been nearly seven years now since I left an abusive family home, at age 18.

I sometimes feel frozen over what happened to me there and it’s not a nice feeling. Since leaving, I have struggled to manage the after-effects of a childhood of severe psychological, physical and sexual abuse and trauma.

Insomnia, complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) along with a debilitating chronic illness echo this previous existence, and continue to permeate into my adult life.

Estranged from my mother and the Samoan side of my family since age three, I have no family support.

For now, I am surviving as best as I can on my own, while I slowly figure out how to hold everything that happened to me, and be alright with it.

I still have so much healing to do, and it’s in QTIPOC (or queer, trans and/or intersex person of colour) spaces, both offline and online, that I am able to fully engage with that process.

Since that tumultuous and formative time, I’ve been perpetually seeking the sense of stability and safety you’re supposed to receive from family.

Initially, I found some of this support in the queer community in Melbourne: spaces like club nights and house parties offered acceptance and love for me, and for other queer people who experience hardship.

However, the whiteness of the queer community made it impossible to receive the specific forms of support, care and understanding I needed.

Often, queer people of colour are able to nourish themselves for a time in mostly white queer communities, but eventually we are left yearning.

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’VE BEEN PARTICIPATING in online communities since I was a child, and they’ve played a huge role in the development of my social being and my personhood.

In 2012, I began to immerse myself in POC (people of colour) communities online. This inevitably led down the

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path of unpacking my own racial, sexual and gender identity.

I don’t remember when I started identifying as a QTPOC (queer and/ or trans person of colour), but the complexity of overlapping identities is something white queers often struggle to understand.

When you are a person of colour raised in a white home, your caretakers are often too culturally ignorant to provide you with an appropriate cultural upbringing. This was the case with my white abusers, who had no interest in instilling any sense of Samoan cultural identity within me, and raised me to hold their racist, homophobic and transphobic views.

Identifying as a QTPOC has helped me create my own sense of identity around my ancestry and who I am now, in contrast with what happened to me.

I am proud to be a brown, queer, non-binary, disabled survivor of child sexual abuse. Identifying with these parts of me has been an empowering tool to regain and heal my sense of self.

ONLINE SPACES

I’ve also struggled with the term QTPOC, as have many others who use it. QTIPOC and POC are limited umbrella terms, because they attempt to categorise a very significant amount of people’s lives and experiences.

They also position our identities as a reaction to whiteness, and the white gaze, which is naturally problematic.

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AVING IDENTIFIED AS A QTPOC for a long time now, I’ve had a lot of time to think about how it fails people, and also where its potential lies. Something that’s helped me to understand myself as a QTPOC, and to explore how the term fails us, is the Facebook group I started last year, called ‘qtipoc qtpies’.

The group, which now includes more than 450 members, is an interesting microcosm of a larger community based in Melbourne, Australia.

group is fundamental for us to forge our own understanding of ourselves and our experiences, within our specific socio-political context.

Even the group’s early name change reveals the significance of language and context, and the failings of identifiers like QPOC and QTIPOC. The group was initially named ‘qtipoc supremacy tbh’ – a tongue-in-cheek flip of the term ‘white supremacy’.

Part joke, part reclamation, it was intended as a light-hearted jab at white people, and a shout-out to other QTIPOC with a message: you are supreme, and you are welcome here.

As the group increased in capacity and grew into a more legitimate online community space, the need for a name change arose. Through discussions, it was addressed that the current name failed to reflect the complexity of our large community.

I’d just moved into an all-QTIPOC sharehouse with two wonderful people, and their friendship and support, along with the friends I made living there, helped me to heal.

As I began to spend more time with other QTIPOC socially, I realised that I already knew many QTIPOC, but that I hadn’t prioritised pursuing friendships or meaningful connections with them.

I have a sense that many other QTIPOC experience this as well: we feel frustrated and isolated in white spaces and at white queer events, yet most of us don’t take the time to try to cultivate non-white spaces of safety and support for one another.

I wondered why there wasn’t already a Facebook group for QTIPOC, so I gauged interest and set one up, and it slowly developed from there.

The need for a QTIPOC-specific group has been illustrated by other local

“Ultimately, we just have to carve out our own spaces if we want to be heard” At different times, members of the group might raise frustrations with the white queer scene, or with their families; pose philosophical questions about who is and isn’t included in the language of POC; and hold each other emotionally in many ways.

There is also a large contingent of members who live in other regions, and the group is incredibly useful for connecting QTIPOC networks in different cities, and linking those living in rural communities who may not have access to queer spaces.

It’s been important to have an online space run by us, for us. The group helps define our identity as queer people of colour living in colonised Australia, and helps to situate our focus away from US-based politics, and onto our own real experiences.

American-based identity politics have been hugely influential for so many QTIPOC, and access to these ideas often takes place via online communities. But having our own

For a primarily non-Indigenous QTIPOC social network to claim supremacy on stolen land, where Indigenous sovereignty is crucial, the title’s light-heartedness was lost.

It became clear to the group that it was inappropriate for non-black and non-Indigenous QTIPOC to attempt to reclaim violent terminology that was historically used to target and harm black and Indigenous communities.

These kinds of discussions are what the group is all about.

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T’S OFTEN IN online spaces that people are able to fully flesh out their political ideas, and address issues that come up in ways that are conducive to growth.

When I created the group, I had recently been through a painful mess with white loved ones.

I felt unsupported, gaslighted and abandoned by a circle of predominantly white friends, and I desperately wanted to be around other QTIPOC.

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queer Facebook groups. The infamous Queer Meme Group, for example, was started by Melbourne-based queers at the beginning of 2016. The page rapidly grew to more than 4000 members, which led to the meme-sharing being periodically interrupted by racist comments and antagonisms.

By the end of 2016, the group had devolved into race wars, wherein countless QTIPOC were attacked by the influx of new white members who failed to recognise the rights of QTIPOC to openly discuss racism through memes.

Some queers took particular issue with #QTIPOCThursdays, a day that was dedicated to posts and memes that centered on race. This eventually led to a separate, QTIPOC-only meme group being created in response.

The race wars raged on for weeks, as bickering queers attacked each other across hundreds of threads.

The group was shut down for a week by admin in an attempt to slow down the drama, to no avail.

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“The Facebook group may not be a refuge from each other’s awfulness, internalised issues and ignorance, but it helps a lot” This demonstrated pretty accurately what it’s like to be a QTIPOC in a predominantly white queer scene: ultimately, we just have to carve out our own spaces if we want to be heard.

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OC AND QTIPOC ARE NOT homogenous cultural entities.

We are not all unified in our similar experiences of oppression, and we fight about stuff. A lot.

There’s so much work to be done, and so much internalised racism, and anti-blackness, and settler colonial privilege that needs attention.

It hurts to think that the greatest commonality that links QTIPOC together is our deep sense of anger, frustration and isolation, but I don’t think that QTIPOC value each other enough. There’s a lot of mistrust of one another, a lot of defensiveness around differing politics, and a lot of emotions.

Many of us are unwell, carrying a lot of trauma and struggling with housing and financial instability.

Many of us are vulnerable and, as the saying goes: hurt people hurt people.

I’ve seen more than enough proof of that over the group’s evolution.

At the same time, I’ve also seen so much generosity and solidarity, and gleaming moments of community strength. A lot of support is coordinated through the group: QTIPOC house each other, get each other rides when they’re in bad spots, donate to each other’s fundraisers and go to each other’s events. We also check in to see if there will be other QTIPOC at various queer events, because many of us feel unsafe if events are too white-centric.

Ongoing, direct support is given to vulnerable members with safety

concerns and family crises. One QTIPOC was extracted from a lifethreatening domestic violence situation in Queensland, thanks to the careful coordination and fundraising of group members in Melbourne and elsewhere.

It’s all this that makes me feel a true sense of belonging to a community that actually wants me.

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EING THE ADMINISTRATOR of the QTIPOC group has been a struggle, because there are so many issues that come up.

These issues relate back to the way the term QTIPOC itself masks the diversity of our experiences, our cultural upbringings and all our other intersections. It lumps us all in together in a way that’s ironically convenient for white folk, despite it being a term created to empower us as marginalised bodies living under white supremacy.

One of the most pressing issues in QTIPOC spaces, online and offline, is how often POC ignore their settler colonial privilege. In decolonial theory, it is the responsibility of all those with settler colonial privilege to invest time and energy into nurturing meaningful connections with Indigenous peoples and communities, and to do what is asked of us in Indigenous activist efforts to decolonise.

Time and time again, QTIPOC are unable or unwilling to offer solidarity to those who are Indigenous.

After an Indigenous poster expressed discontent about the lack of QTIPOC attendance at a rally they helped organise, another member of the group addressed that it was disappointing as an Indigenous woman to see that it seemed to be white people, not people

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of colour, who were their community’s most active allies.

If non-Indigenous POC are united with mob in our shared experiences of racial oppression, then why aren’t more of us showing up when it matters?

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HILE IMPERFECT, the ‘qtipoc qtpies’ group is still an important refuge from whiteness and heteronormativity.

The group may not be a refuge from each other’s awfulness, internalised issues and ignorance, but it helps a lot, especially for those of us who have never had access to a QTIPOC space before, and who desperately need connections with other QTIPOC. When QTIPOC face homophobia, transphobia and other abuses within their family homes and their cultural communities, while simultaneously being subjected to racism at work, in sharehouses and at white queer events, it is crucial to hold space.

My hope for the future is that QTIPOC who are hurting find their way into each other’s arms with ease, so that we may share our pain, and so that we may build together.

In years to come, I hope this little nationwide community, which is only just beginning to get to know itself, will have grown and matured exponentially, both online and offline. And I look forward to growing with it.

La Moana is a Melbourne-based, disabled queer person of colour (QPOC) who sometimes creates things, but whose main focus is trying to stay alive. They are doing a pretty okay job so far. They are interested in the intersections of creativity, art/artists and community.