Fishi Soit 2025 (Queer Edition): Week 10, Semester 1, 2025

Queer Honi is produced, published, and distributed on stolen Gadigal land. We pay our respects to Elders past and present. We extend this respect to First Nations peoples who have contributed and helped shape our worldview, as well as this paper.

For over 237 years, First Nations peoples in so-called ‘Australia’ have continued to live

with pride in spite of invasion, genocide, and ongoing settler-colonial occupation. This process involves the violent enforcement of colonial norms, including those surrounding gender and sexuality. In attempts to manufacture consent for genocide, the ruling class has constructed narratives that Indigenous people are particularly queerphobic. We’ve seen

Queer Honi

this both on this continent and in the ongoing genocide in Palestine. We know this to be untrue. In fact, there is no queer justice without Indigenous liberation, and no one is free until all of us are free.

From Gadigal to Gaza, sovereignty was never ceded. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.

In This Edition...

That’s CAP

Sex Worker Inclusion

A Small Inventory

Radfems

Fish Are Not Real

Taking Flight

Abolish Marriage

Abolish Britain

Abolish France

Editors

Earlier this year, USyd management threatened a transgender, asylum-seeking international student with deportation for allegedly writing pro-Palestine messages on a whiteboard. This has been part of a broader crackdown on free speech on campus.

In so-called ‘Queensland’, the LNP state government has banned access to safe and reversible puberty blockers for trans adolescents and rolled back anti-discrimination protections for queer people in the workplace.

Abroad, governments are attacking queer and trans people, most notably exemplified by the Trump administration’s reversal of self-identification laws, border guards confiscating

trans people’s IDs, and the withholding of funds to schools and universities that acknowledge or affirm trans people.

In this past federal election, the (former!) LNP opposition leader, Peter Dutton, promised to condition state and territory school funding on teachers not following a “woke” curriculum. Labor party Prime Minister Anthony Albanese sought to exclude queer people from the census while refusing to support any reform for LGBTQIA+ rights.

The corporations have ripped down their performative rainbow flags and ended their pride parade sponsorships, cozying up to rising fascism. Gen Z queers are partying less than

Cover Art Companion Piece, Hyacint

Projecting from my personal hopes, this artwork tries to explore the organicity and temporal continuum of Queer existence.

Coelacanths are famously recognised as a ‘Lazarus taxon’, or in simpler terms, a living fossil. Therein lies a contradiction: simultaneously pronounced a relic of eons past, and yet still treading the earth today. It is a flow of lineage and vitality across these 66 million years that have gone by. I think there is an innate will to exist that underlies the resilience of LGBTQ+ communities and individuals. The recent

Rohan Baker-Wade, Lauren Bentley, Jamie Bridge, Juneau Choo, Annabel Li, Imogen Sabey, Jean Thomas, Wendy Thompson, Will Winter

ever amidst the cost-of-living crisis, and queer venues are being bought out and shut down.

Indeed, it seems the party is over for performative liberal queer allyship. How did we get here? What do we do now? This is the basis for Queer Honi 2025’s theme, “After the party’s over”.

Things may seem grim, but this context should be taken as an opportunity: a beginning, not just an end. The queer community has faced hostility and oppression before, and we have overcome it through committed activism and solidarity with other grassroots movements. This is what we must do to overcome persecution today.

surges of hate-fueled legislation across the world has led me to reflect upon what lies at the core of Queer resistance. Resistance is positive; it creates, transforms, extends itself in the same way as Coelacanths escaping from fossil records. It is a lifeforce. I wish to reach into the future, to grow old. When following generations look at me, may they see the living proof that Queer people have existed and will always exist.

Hyacint, @clozaphim on Twitter

Purny Ahmed, Rohan Baker-Wade, Tim Duff, Emilie Garcia-Dolnik, Yasmin Jamaluddi, Lauren, Quay-Quay Quade, The Queer Action Collective, Máibh Rafferty, Catherine RatchetMewling, Imogen Sabey, Charlotte Saker, Grace Street, Students Against War, Sav ThillTurke, Sebastian Tuzilovic, Wendy Thompson, Davy Vineburg, Victor Zhang, Selene Zhou

Why We Need an SGM — Vote Against USyd’s New Definition of Antisemitism

Students Against War will see you at the student general meeting.

The Student General Meeting (SGM) to reject USyd’s new definition of antisemitism is happening next week.

On Wednesday, May 14 at 4:30pm, in New Law Auditorium 101, students can vote against adopting a dangerous new antisemitism definition designed to silence the Palestine movement. We need at least 200 undergraduates and 25 postgraduates to attend. Bring yourself, your classmates and your friends and show USyd management we won’t be silent on genocide.

A Dangerous New Definition of Antisemitism

USyd’s new antisemitism definition is the latest attack on the Palestine movement, aimed at stifling support and silencing criticism of Israel’s apartheid state. Pushed by Universities Australia (UA), a coalition of 39 universities nationwide, it is modelled on the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition. This has been condemned by scholars across several universities and human rights organisations like Amnesty International for “dangerously conflat[ing] legitimate criticism of… Zionism with antisemitism.”

Criticising Israel is Not Antisemitic

The UA definition claims “criticism of Israel can be antisemitic … when it calls for the elimination of the State of Israel.” It is not antisemitic to oppose Israel’s system of apartheid, demand justice for Palestinians, or reject the idea of Israel as a Jewish supremacist state. These are widely held political views among millions globally, including Palestinians, progressive Jews and anti-racist activists.

Amnesty International called the definition a “direct attack on fundamental freedoms,” warning that it stifles freedom of speech, protest and academic debate. The National Tertiary Education Union also opposed it for its “likely… effect of suppressing academic and intellectual freedom.”

Management’s new definition is not about protecting Jewish students. It is about shielding the Israeli terror state from accountability, and protecting USyd’s own ties to this genocidal

regime. In fact, by equating Jewish identity with Zionism and support for the Israeli state, the definition risks promoting antisemitism by implying all Jews are responsible for Israel’s war crimes and acts of genocide.

Blood on USyd’s Hands: Complicity in Genocide

USyd holds student exchange programs with Israeli universities deeply complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. USyd maintains a medical exchange program with the Technion, the institution that designs remotecontrolled D9 bulldozers demolishing Palestinian homes in the West Bank. USyd sends students to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJ), which trains IDF officers now assaulting Gaza.

Since breaking the ceasefire on 18 March, Israel has unleashed a new wave of airstrikes, killing over 2,000 people — over a third of whom are children — targeting hospitals and civilian infrastructure. Israel is enforcing a total blockade of food, fuel and humanitarian aid, deliberately starving Gaza’s population. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have concluded that the IDF is committing war crimes and genocide in Gaza. The International Court of Justice has ruled it plausible that Israel is committing genocide, and the International Criminal Court is investigating Israeli officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Since October 2023, over 61,000 Palestinians have been killed and Israel is now intent on forcibly evicting all Palestinians from Gaza.

Free Speech and Activism Under Attack

While Israel rains down bombs on Gaza and slaughters tens of thousands of Palestinians, USyd is cracking down on Palestine activism on campus. Over the past 18 months, management has escalated efforts of repression — threatening students with disciplinary proceedings under the Campus Access Policy (CAP) for speaking at protests and setting up stalls. USyd even threatened to suspend transgender asylum seeker Luna for writing “From the river to the sea” on a whiteboard — a suspension that could have had her deported or placed in detention.

Voting at the SGM sends management a message: we will not be silenced by their antisemitism definition. Despite their attempts at repression, we will keep organising, protesting and demanding that USyd cut all ties with genocide.

Power in Growing Resistance

Collective resistance works. Last year’s 800-strong SGM and persistent pressure from staff and students forced USyd to drop its exchange program with Bezalel — an Israeli art school that sewed IDF soldiers’ uniforms. Management has been forced to walk back some of the CAP’s protest restrictions. Across the country, the tide is turning — University of Technology Sydney (UTS) management have agreed to not implement the UA antisemitism definition and University of Western Australia (UWA) has cut ties with HUJ.

Their victories show what student organising can achieve. We need that same bold, united movement here to fight against the rotten agenda of university managements and the Labor government’s complicity in genocide.

What is an SGM and Why It Matters

An SGM is a powerful tool of student democracy — a forum where students vote en masse on motions around important issues facing the student body.

In August 2024, over 800 students packed out the first SGM in solidarity with Palestine, voting to demand USyd cut all ties with Israel and weapons companies, affirming the right of Palestinians to resist Israel’s occupation, and calling for a single, secular, democratic Palestinian state.

What We’re Voting On

At the SGM, students will vote on key motions to defend our right to protest and stand with Palestine:

1. Reject the UA antisemitism definition adopted by USyd, which aims to silence criticism of Israel’s war crimes.

2. Reaffirm support for a single, secular, democratic state from the river to the sea, where all people live in freedom and equality.

3. Scrap the anti-protest CAP and drop disciplinary charges against students, including Luna, for standing with Palestine.

4. Cut ties with apartheid — end all exchange and research partnerships with Israeli universities and weapons companies profiting from genocide in Gaza.

th of May, 5:30 PM

Book Club

th of May, 11:30 AM

Park @lesbianbookclub.sydney

to Commemorate Al-Nakba

th of May, 6:30 PM, Sydney Town Hall @palestineactiongroup

5. Commit the SRC to support the campaign financially and materially to defend protest rights and divestment.

We must stand united and show USyd that we will not be silenced while Israel escalates its bloody assault on Gaza and demolishes homes across the West Bank. We will not be treated like criminals or smeared as antisemitic for demanding a free Palestine. The real criminals are USyd management, who enable genocide through their ties to Israeli institutions and weapons companies. We will continue to fight for a free Palestine — on our own terms and in growing numbers. Come to the SGM to reject the new antisemitism definition and demand USyd cuts ties with genocide.

Labor wins federal election in landslide victory

Purny Ahmed, Imogen Sabey, Charlotte Saker, and Victor Zhang report.

The results of the 2025 federal election have come in, and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) has recorded an unprecedented number of votes.

At the time of writing, 76.8 per cent of votes have been counted. Labor has won 86 seats, with 76 needed to confirm a victory.

The Coalition have won only 39 seats, none of which had flipped from the previous election.

Notably, Coalition leader Peter Dutton lost his seat of Dickson in Queensland to ALP candidate Ali France, who gained 56.5 per cent of the vote at the time of writing. The seat is one which Dutton had previously held with a margin of 1.7 per cent in the last federal election.

The ABC has estimated that the ALP and Coalition have received 55.1 per cent of the vote and 44.9 per cent, respectively, on a two-party preferred basis.

The beginning of election night saw results come in first from Norfolk Island, which hit 6pm local time. This was one hour earlier than the rest of the country, and Norfolk Island’s voter base initially leaned towards Independents and the Coalition. But as the east coast hit 6pm, it was clear that Labor had a significant advantage.

Independents, such the Teals’ Sophie Scamps and Zali Steggal, have seen a rise in votes, with nine seats won so far. This includes Warringah (NSW) in Sydney’s North Shore and key seat Wentworth (NSW) in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, as well as Nicolette Boele’s seat in the hotly-contended electorate of Bradfield (NSW), which houses the affluent suburbs of Killara, Gordon and Pymble.

The Greens, however, have held only one seat, despite “securing the biggest national vote in our history,” at 11.95%, Greens leader Adam Bandt said. Only one seat, Ryan (QLD), has been retained by the Greens, secured by a swing of 4.2 per cent against the Liberals at the time of writing.

Bandt has not yet had his own seat of Melbourne called in his favour. He is currently leading ALP rival Sarah Witty by around 8,000 votes, though only 60.13 per cent of the vote has been counted. The result

is a colossal disappointment for the party, who had held four seats in the electorates of Griffith (QLD), Ryan (QLD), Brisbane (QLD), and Melbourne (VIC) in the Lower House from the 2022 federal election.

The Trumpet of Patriots, a far-right party who spent an estimated $60 million on advertising, failed to gain a single seat in the House of Representatives or the Senate. The party received 1.85 per cent of the total vote. The Party’s leader, mining magnate Clive Palmer, said he ‘was surprised at the anti-Trump sentiment over the last five weeks,’ which he believed harmed the party’s election results.

Meanwhile, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party gained 6.15 per cent of the vote, an increase from 5 per cent at the last election. The increase in support, particularly for the Senate, came after the Coalition listed One Nation above Labor on its how-to-vote cards in some seats, including some where the party was preferenced second.

Despite efforts by the Coalition to unseat the incumbent Labor MP Anne Stanley in the marginal seat of Werriwa, Labor retained the seat with a 2 per cent swing towards her. In the seat of Fowler, Labor was unable to unseat the incumbent Dai Le, a former Liberal turned independent.

Jacinta Allan, Premier of Victoria, called the result a “historic and

emphatic outcome for not just the broader Labor movement, but indeed for the nation as a whole.”

Politicians such as Nationals leader David Littleproud and Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price have attributed the landslide defeat of the Coalition to a “mud-slinging” character assassination on Dutton.

One reason likely to have contributed to the defeat was Dutton’s backflip on preventing public servants in Canberra from working from home.

In his victory speech, PM Anthony Albanese gave the Acknowledgement of Country, stating that he pays his respect to elders, past, present, and emerging, “today and every day.” He was the first Prime Minister to give an Acknowledgement of Country. This was said as an implicit response to Dutton’s racist rhetoric towards the Indigenous community that was seen throughout the Liberal campaign.

Albanese continued: “No matter who you voted for, no matter where you live, no matter how you worship or who you love, whether you belong to a culture that has known and cared for this great continent for 65,000 years or you have chosen our nation as your home and enriched our society with your contribution, we are all Australians.”

The ALP has promised the following policies for their second term of

government. Echoing the message of their campaign, they will deliver more bulk billing, open new Urgent Care Clinics, train more doctors and nurses, invest more than $790 million in women’s health, and open more endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics. For education, they have promised to wipe 20 per cent of student debt, raising the HECS repayment threshold to $67,000, and expanding free TAFE.

Coalition Leader Peter Dutton conceded the election to a crowd of dismayed Liberals. He acknowledged that “we didn’t do well enough in this campaign, [and] I accept full responsibility for that.”

Dutton dismally lost his seat in Dickson to ALP candidate Ali France, which he had previously held for 24 years. She received 56.6 per cent of the votes, with an 8.2 per cent swing to the ALP.

France previously worked as a journalist and became a world-champion paraathlete after losing her leg in a car accident in 2011. An unprecedented win; the disability and healthcare advocate said: “I was told that Dickson was not winnable, and it would not be winnable until Peter Dutton retired… he was too popular, too well known, he had too much money… I took all of that in and went yeah… nah.”

In a heartfelt speech, she dedicated her victory to her eldest son, Henry, who passed away from leukaemia last year.

The 2025 federal election has shown that Australians have decisively rejected the Coalition’s conservative rhetoric. However, if Labor wishes to prove themselves as the party of the people, they still have a long road ahead of them. The question still remains whether Albanese and the Labor Party will be able to take decisive action on the crises that face Australia and the world.

Graph by Imogen Sabey

Here’s what to expect from the Inquiry into Campus Free Speech on Palestine

The People’s Inquiry into Campus Free Speech on Palestine officially closed its submissions on 15 April. It received over 150 submissions from individuals, organisations, and collectives that detail the suppression of free speech relating to Palestine by university executives since October 2023.

So, what can we expect next?

According to the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) website, submissions are now being assessed by the inquiry panel, which comprises of representatives from APAN, the National Union of Students (NUS), Students for Palestine, and the Jewish Council of Australia. The panel will compile a report based on findings and provide recommendations based on evidence.

Honi reached out to Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi, who announced the inquiry’s launch in February. She said that “the inquiry will expose the extent to which universities have tried to silence staff and students speaking out on Israel’s genocide in Gaza” where “Over the last 18 months, universities have resorted to harsh measures to silence voices when it comes to standing up for Palestine, one of the biggest injustices of our time.”

Faruqi called the inquiry “a way to amplify

[the student’s] right to speak out and show that their voices matter. The fight for the rights of the oppressed and marginalised is never easy, but their brave actions will help pave the way for a free Palestine.”

Many University of Sydney (USyd) collectives and individuals submitted evidence to the inquiry. Students Representative Council (SRC) Education Officer Luke Mešterović told Honi that “the [Inquiry] represents a monumental opportunity to shed light on how universities have attempted to threaten and shut down student activists fighting for a free Palestine and divestment from weapons companies.”

Mešterović said, “This is a betrayal of what universities are supposed to be about…Instead, we’ve seen the University weaponise the [CAP] to scare and silence students, such as when they threatened to suspend a trans asylum seeker, Luna, who was under threat of deportation.”

Mešterović referenced a suspension request given to a transgender international student and asylum seeker, Luna, over images of pro-Palestine slogans written on a university whiteboard, which were attributed to her in early March. The suspension would have placed Luna under threat of deportation to Malaysia, where she would have been forced to

Emilie Garcia-Dolnik reports.

detransition. The University later cited administrative errors as the reason for the suspension request, before clarifying that Luna would not face suspension. Mešterović said of the incident: “[This] is not good enough. Students should not have to go to the media to publicise every account of their rights being infringed.”

According to the Inquiry’s website, the purpose of the Inquiry is twofold: to establish whether student and staff human rights have been violated by governments and University administrations; and to determine whether universities are upholding academic freedom, as well as freedom of speech and expression as it relates to Palestine.

In response to questioning over USyd’s readiness to respond to the findings of the recommendation, a University spokesperson provided this statement:

“We know many of our staff and students have a direct connection to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, and we’re continuing to offer appropriate support and working to ensure our University is free from any form of discrimination. We’re also working hard to balance our community’s rights to both freedom of speech and safety and wellbeing, and will consider the inquiry’s report and any recommendations once available — as well

as the recommendations of other recent inquiries and regulators that are made.”

The reference to other recent inquiries is likely referring to the Hodgkinson Report, commissioned externally by the USyd last year in response to the Gaza solidarity encampment. In December 2024, the Human Rights Law Centre’s Legal Director Sarah Schwartz said: “The [Hodgkinson] report acknowledges rising Islamophobia, the issue of falsely labelling support for Palestinians as antisemitic, and the diversity of Jewish staff and students, some of whom participated in or supported the encampments. However, its recommendations largely respond to concerns that the encampments made some feel distressed, as well as reports of antisemitism. It recommends banning protests in buildings, prohibiting encampments, restricting the placement of posters, banning student announcements before lectures and introducing a vaguely defined “civility rule”.” She further urged universities to “step forward to provide genuine spaces for education, debate and protest, with any limitations grounded in human rights law.”

Honi is continuing to monitor the developments of the Inquiry.

Read full piece online.

“This system must be ripped up root and branch”: Protestors march through Sydney for justice in Palestine a week out from the federal election

Sebastien Tuzilovic reports.

A great crowd gathered quickly under rain clouds on Sunday 27 April in Hyde Park, to protest the support of Israel by both the Liberal and Labor parties preelection. This protest was organised by the Palestinian Action Group (PAG), the organisation which has relentlessly organised large protests within the CBD of Sydney for more than a year now. It was chaired by Josh Lees of PAG.

Lees began with a series of chants emphasising complicit actions of Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese in Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza. He stated that Aboriginal liberation is linked to the Palestinian fight for freedom, followed with assertions on Israel’s treatment of Palestinian citizens. He stated that Israel is deliberately starving “not just Gaza, but all the West Bank” and repeatedly bombs designated safe areas. Lees concluded that it is necessary to fight for a free Palestine in this election.

A spokesperson from the independent party Muslim Votes Matter performed an Acknowledgement of Country following Lees’ speech. They spoke on the 100 per cent grassroots organisation, which is “for and from the community”. She stressed the necessity of action, saying that an acceptance of the status quo ignores the necessary fight for humanity at the heart of such issues.

Amal Naser, PAG member and lawyer, followed, emphasising that the Australian government, while continuing to claim that Australia is not a player within the Middle East, still sends weapons to Israel. Naser continued to lambast both Labor and Liberal approaches, highlighting Penny Wong’s “delegitimisation of international law” through her inability to state if Australia would arrest Netanyahu in event of a state visit. Her address ended with an iteration of the need to “vote with Palestine at the top of your line” so that

you can “force Labor to act”, accenting the necessity of resistance from all oppressed people to authority.

Mehreen Faruqi, Senator with The Greens NSW, was the next speaker. Her speech accentuated that there can be no social, economic, or climate justice without racial justice. She underlined the ability of voters to make change, and that voters must act so that we may “wake up next Sunday with a new wave of people who refuse to be silenced”. She stated that such voting would enable Australia to expel the Israeli ambassador, end aid to Israel, and commit to arresting war criminals. She focused on the election as “about moral courage”, and that “if you wish to end genocide you must vote for those who have stood on the right side.”

The final speaker of the event was Jasmine Al-Rawi of Students for Palestine. Her speech focused on resistance to protests,

highlighting incidents with university encampments such as USyd’s own, and the recent attacks on students and activists protesting the war criminal Ben-Gvir. She stated that Albanese, if re-elected, will continue to give support to Israel, and that Dutton would be much worse. Ultimately, she concluded with an assertion that every single complicit institution must be torn down.

The protest then began a march down St James Road, Elizabeth Street, and through Market Street. As the body of the protest came into the main commercial centre of Sydney, protestors chanted slogans such as “while you’re shopping, bombs are dropping” to onlookers. The body of the protest continued onto Town Hall, then moved off down Park St, chants ringing through the city.

We Will Be Remembered As More Than Administrative Errors

Luna

Luna is a trans woman seeking asylum from Malaysia. Luna was enrolled as an international student when the University of Sydney threatened to suspend her for speaking the truth.

In January, while Zionist airstrikes across the besieged Gaza Strip were burying families and children under rubble, Luna wrote Palestine solidarity statements on classroom whiteboards. Using a green, non-permanent marker, she wrote that:

USyd invests in weapons manufacturing (Thales, Lockheed Martin). USyd supports genocide in Gaza.

As of 13 January 2025, 46,600+ dead in Gaza. USyd cut ties with genocide.

USyd Vice Chancellor Mark Scott supports Gaza Genocide.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.

In February, while occupation authorities were ethnically cleansing Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, the University of Sydney threatened Luna with suspension for scrawling solidarity messages on whiteboards.

International student precarity

Luna and other international students come to Australia seeking a pathway to legal protections, education, or employment opportunities, and they pay exorbitant tuition (upwards of $20,000 each semester) to do so. While in Australia, international students face precarity in visa systems, expensive and insecure housing, workplace discrimination and exploitation, language barriers, and social isolation. USyd has power over their visas through their enrolment, deciding not just whether they pass or fail classes, but if they will have their entire lives uprooted and be forced back to their home countries.

On ViceChancellor Mark Scott’s watch, USyd knowingly endangered her life with this threat of suspension. Had they suspended Luna, USyd would have notified the Department of Home Affairs, who would have cancelled her student visa. The Australian Border Force would then detain her in mandatory detention.

All of this occurred while USyd was celebrating 10 years of marching in the Sydney Mardi Gras parade (#USYDPride) and during the #Welcome Program, when the University welcomes

#InternationalStudents (#StudentLife).

Disabled students who cannot work traditional jobs, students from regional areas paying high housing or transportation costs, queer students who cannot live with their queerphobic families, and other atrisk domestic students rely on their enrolment for Centrelink financial support. USyd has control not just over whether these students can study, but also whether or not they will face homelessness. USyd also has influence over whether students keep their degrees after graduation and whether they possess pathways to employment that will pay them a living wage.

When USyd wants to silence political dissent to course cuts, to the rapist residential colleges, to university investments in genocide – management leverages students’ financial and social dependence on the university to deter them from speaking up. USyd and other universities know the influence they wield over students’ lives and futures, and they abuse this power and collaborate with the police, the Border Force, and politicians to target, manipulate, and coerce students who challenge their profit-driven status quo.

Campus Access Policy

After forcing the Gaza Solidarity Encampment to shut down, USyd implemented the ‘Campus Access Policy’ (CAP) to further restrict the right to protest and legitimate dissent. USyd’s controversial policy was condemned by civil society organisations, including the Australian Democracy Network, the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, and USyd Law School. According to Amnesty International, the CAP ‘may breach human rights law.’

USyd alleged that Luna’s writing on whiteboards breached the CAP, among other policies. The CAP is a racist, sexist, and queerphobic rule used to police women, trans people, and international students. Leading USyd’s strategic direction in violence against LGBTQIA+ people and Palestine activists, University Administration tried to enforce the CAP to pressure an at-risk asylum seeker student to confess to misconduct and accept being silenced or be detained and deported to serious harm.

If detained in Australia, Luna would face denial of her hormones and inspection by transphobic male guards—human rights violations on the part of the Australian Government and Minister for Immigration, Tony Burke (Labor Party). In the custody of the Border Force, Luna would be misgendered and held alone or in the male compound of the immigration detention centre, and be subject to frisking, humiliation, isolation from other detainees, physical and sexual violence, as a consequence of a racist and Zionist University.

Art by Wendy Thompson

The Queer Action Collective takes the CAP off the marker.

If deported to Malaysia because of USyd, Luna would be in danger of forced medical detransition and conversion therapy in re-education centres, which are openly promoted by the Malaysian Government. Luna would face harassment and arbitrary arrest and detention during raids for ‘cross-dressing’ and be charged with ‘indecent behaviour,’ in addition to violence, blackmail, verbal and physical abuse, assaults by police, and discrimination in accessing employment, healthcare, housing, and education. All at the hands of racist transphobes Mark Scott and Annamarie ‘hermeneutically suspicious’ Jagose.

aid and withholds access to HIV treatment within Gaza, USyd proposes policies to ban the flying of pride and Palestinian flags in campus buildings.

Support Luna, Scrap the CAP

Queers for

USyd has ties to Zionist companies in their private equity and venture capital funds, maintains exchange programs with Zionist universities such as Tel Aviv University, and holds investments in Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) listed companies, including

Rather than repaying wages to casual staff, USyd pays tens of thousands to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for consultation on a business course. Rather than offer queer academics job security, Annamarie Jagose (‘feminist queer studies scholar and novelist,’ and Provost of wage theft from lesbians at the University) raises more money to invest for profit and fund Gaza genocide. Rather than use <0.5% of university profits to provide free pads and tampons in student bathrooms across campus, USyd management funnels as much $$$ as possible into war crimes and imperialism. Instead of offering all staff adequate gender affirmation leave or improving campus life for students, Scott and Jagose are in the business of Zionist settler colonialism, spending millions of dollars financing Palestinian land theft.

While occupation forces bomb neighbourhoods and then hold ‘the first ever pride flag raised in Gaza’ over the ruins – a blatant lie used to justify mass atrocities – USyd invites IDF war criminals to hold propaganda events on Mark Scott’s office floor. While the Zionist regime blackmails queer Palestinians into being informants with the threat of outing them, USyd calls the police on queer students protesting ties with genocide. While Israel cuts off

Rallying behind Luna, a unity of supporters forced USyd to retreat from their suspension threat and grant Luna an extension to respond to the university’s threats until she had a bridging visa, shielding her from immediate deportation.

Seeking to subject a trans asylum seeker to imprisonment and torture, USyd and Mark Scott were condemned by trade unions, civil society groups, student representatives, the NSW Greens, queer and anti-racist activists. After journalist Alex McKinnon broke news of USyd’s misconduct against Luna, the SRC queer office held a joint press conference with the Queer Unionists in Tertiary Education (QUTE), Pride in Protest, Students for Palestine, and the NSW Greens. News spread like wildfire throughout domestic and international publications and newspapers, including the Star Observer, The Guardian, and the Malay Mail.

USyd scrambled to salvage their public image, claiming the suspension threat sent to Luna was an ‘administrative error’. No clerical error should be able to threaten a student visa holder, and USyd was eager to go ahead with suspension if not publicly called out on their misconduct. With soulless platitudes apologising for ‘any distress caused’, USyd repeatedly denied Luna the extension she asked for. USyd intentionally kept her in danger of detention and deportation for as long as possible, to scare her into admitting fault and agreeing to be silent on Palestine. Even if this ‘administrative error’ were real (it’s not), this would not make up for a misconduct notice that threatens a student’s life and no doubt makes it impossible to continue studying and living as normal.

The Queer Action Collective (QuAC) launched an open letter demanding Luna’s misconduct be withdrawn and the CAP be revoked, gathering over 1,300 total signatures. Local organisations and human rights groups called on the university to protect students’ right to protest and wellbeing. The student community continued to speak against the University’s threats to student safety at protests, denouncing USyd pinkwashing of Palestinian genocide, and delivering a physical copy of the open letter signatures to the management building. USyd emailed back, only to repeat their lie about an ‘administrative error’ and claim they had since reviewed their processes, a change that has only seen more students charged with breaching the CAP.

Over two weeks of pressure and public scrutiny from all sides, USyd was forced to delay their investigation and disciplining of Luna until after she received a bridging visa. With phone calls, statements, social media posts, SRC motions, news articles, Instagram DMs, rallies, speeches, and emails, university students, university staff, and the LGBTQIA+ community came together at record speed to expose USyd’s corruption and to stop an asylum seeker student from being detained and brutally deported to danger.

Despite this win, USyd remains eager to punish. USyd has not released how they are going to penalise Luna, and they have intimidated numerous students speaking about her case at on-campus rallies since. To destroy the anti-war movement, student organisations, and the Palestinian struggle for freedom, USyd will continue to weaponise the precarity of asylum seekers, trans people, and international students. To resist this repression, we all must be united in struggle, fighting for trans justice, refugee and migrant rights, and the liberation of Palestine. Until none of us are threatened with immigration detention or forced medical detransition, these bigoted and lifethreatening policies will come

We Fight With Sex Workers Or Not At All

Lauren (she/her) is a material girl living in a material world.

Real feminists have an understanding of class and global imperialism. Radical feminism offers neither of these, and instead focuses on shaming and criminalising sex workers. It’s past time the left, especially at the University of Sydney, disavows radical feminism in order to fight for the future we all need.

Recent articles in Honi Soit, namely ‘Postfeminism is a plague’ and ‘I am a Radical Feminist and I am Burning My Bra’, blame choice feminism for the support sex workers receive amongst feminists. They summarise choice feminism as a belief that “... all decisions made by women must be inherently feminist and ‘correct’, regardless of the patriarchal context they’re made in”.

This framing misses the forest for the trees. While both articles throw around the word “capitalism” to make their arguments, neither genuinely consider the forces of capitalism through a worker’s lens. The issue with choice feminism is that it reinforces capitalist propaganda: it tells women that under capitalism they have choice as consumers, conveniently leaving out the inherent exploitation and lack of choice we have as workers. While there are plenty of so-called Marxists on campus who will tell you that sex work isn’t work because it won’t exist post-revolution (to which we say, who cares), these articles talk about capitalism and patriarchy, while offering no plausible actions to actually disrupt or dismantle either of

them. They argue women and gender minorities should be discussing more “counter-narratives” about sex work (as if anti-sex work sentiment isn’t the mainstream), and in the more recent and brazen article, suggested women should choose to be less “sexually available to men”. In effect, they are calling for feminists to abandon and shame sex workers without any consideration of the reasons why people do sex work, or what these calls to action will actually achieve.

Both articles misrepresent sex workers as unique upholders of patriarchy, an important artifact of radical feminist ideology. Their arguments follow the well-tread path of those made by sex worker-exclusionary radical feminists (SWERFs) that have come before them. This article will explain why radical feminists will always be sex worker-exclusionary, why people do sex work, and suggests how the feminist movement truly can disrupt the patriarchy to bring about a feminist future.

All Radical Feminists are Sex Worker-Exclusionary

So-called radical feminists reduce feminist struggle to a fight to separate men and women with the intent to dismantle patriarchy. For radical feminists, this segregation is to prevent men from exploiting what they believe to be inherent biological vulnerabilities of women. This is the only way you can argue “heterosexual sex” inherently reinforces patriarchy (that is, penile-vaginal

is the silver bullet against the patriarchy.

Of course, if this is your framing, then any sexual relations between men and women means women are inherently and unavoidably oppressed, and trans people can only be regarded as delusional at best. Oppression functionally becomes the inevitable and defining aspect of womanhood. In reality, motherhood, domestic labour and “heterosexual sex” are not inherently exploitative — it is the societal, political and economic conditions in which they occur which creates disadvantage, leading to violence. These forms of labour are made exploitative by being unpaid, insufficiently supported, and for many, unchosen. It is the interaction between patriarchal ideology which upholds capitalism that oppresses women, not their biology.

Any feminist analysis which aims to build upon the past must meaningfully understand that patriarchy exists in the current society to strengthen capitalism. One cannot reduce intimate partner violence, unpaid domestic work and other patriarchal violences without reducing abusive working conditions, workplace discrimination and other capitalistic violences. This is why feminists must work towards workers rights for all women, regardless of industry. Workers in industries which are socially taboo and criminalised, are far more exposed to the powers of the capitalist class than those who have legally protected workers rights and anti-discrimination laws behind them. Trying to discredit this fight by reducing it to a by-product of choice feminism, is indicative of a culture war far more than a feminist analysis.

Why does it matter?

Sex work is real work, and work is not a choice. This is precisely what SWERFs have to obscure in order to make their argument.

Sex workers do sex work for the same reason anyone works; to make money. Even so, many people hold the implicit belief that your line of work is a “choice”, but when the work otherwise available requires

unworkable hours, pays low wages, has unsafe working conditions, or is casualised, sex work is the only viable option for survival, dignity and safety. The glaring reality is that no work is a “choice” unless you are in a class position where you don’t need to work at all.

Class and background play a massive role. It’s not just the fact that men pay for sex work which makes the industry gendered, but women are also more likely to be unemployed, underemployed and underpaid. Additionally, past and ongoing colonisation and imperialism means women globally must migrate or seek asylum to escape danger. This is especially the case for queer and disabled women. If you’re a migrant whose qualifications and/or language(s) are not recognised, the work available to you is incredibly underpaid and lacks security. For trans people, intense discrimination means you’re likely to face homelessness and less likely to finish school, university, or receive traditional jobs you are qualified for. For some people with disabilities, traditional job hours and expectations are totally incompatible with the reality of disability. For single mothers, sex work may be the only job with high enough pay to look after kids and have time for the other work of motherhood. First Nations people experience all of these things at much higher rates compared to settlers as a result of “Australia’s” ongoing genocide. All working class people need to work to survive, and for sex workers, sex work provides them far more security, flexibility and access to basic needs than otherwise available jobs. As sex worker Nickie Roberts wrote in the 1980s:

“Why should I have to put up with a middle-class feminist asking me why I didn’t ‘do anything –scrub toilets, even?’ than become a stripper? What’s so liberating about cleaning up other people’s shit?”

Radical feminists perceive the exploitation of sex workers by bosses and clients to be different to any other worker exploitation, because they view sex with or for men as inherently bad, no matter the circumstances. In

reality, the exploitation of labour relations within the sex industry is made different, but only by the associated lack of protections that sex workers, just like students in placement poverty, farm workers and prison labour for example, receive. The lack of protections they receive is precisely due to the sex negativity and the sexism involved in devaluing both women and their work, which SWERFs happily contribute to.

Critiques of sex work made by radical feminists without discussion of workers rights, rely on the misogynistic belief that women are incapable of making decisions for their own benefit. The arguments made in the previously mentioned

articles, rely on the same capitalist and misogynistic logic as ones made to prevent sex work being added to the Anti-Discrimination Act and to argue for sex work criminalisation in NSW. Full criminalisation of sex work in which, workers, clients and bosses are criminalised, leads to state surveillance, police and immigration raids, the arrest of workers and the seizure of wages. Sex workers are then locked into violent prisons, and when released, sex work or other criminalised jobs, due to their criminal record.

By comparison, the ‘Nordic Model’ criminalises bosses and clients, but not workers. This is often assumed by radical and liberal feminists to be a progressive law, but in practice it makes sex work more dangerous without changing the predisposing material conditions. A 2004 Norwegian Ministry of Justice report notes, “more abuse takes place than previously, as the women cannot afford to say ‘no’” to those who pay for sex despite criminalisation; e.g. people with violent crime convictions as opposed to safer clients who are deterred. As a result, any theoretical discussion of sex work without advocacy for worker rights furthers the dangers of the job. It does not change the societal structure

that leads to police brutality, poor working conditions, client violence and workplace discrimination of sex workers, and critically, capitalism itself.

Where to next

Sex workers are not traitors to the patriarchy. Neither are any other workers in feminised industries, fighting to survive despite the violence of the capitalist class.

While the author of ‘I am a Radical Feminist and I am Burning My Bra’ quotes Andrea Dworkin, “the left cannot have its whores and its politics too”, it’s important to point out that whores have always been here, in class societies, and have been fighting for women’s rights long before Dworkin or the article’s author. In 1917, 200 sex workers marched in San Francisco in what is dubbed the ‘original Women’s March’. They asked the same question as we do today:

“Nearly every one of these women is a mother or has someone depending on her. They are driven into this life by economic conditions … You don’t do any good by attacking us. Why don’t you attack those conditions?”

I ask, why is it that we are still having to write articles like this? The capitalist class has been manufacturing consent for brutal criminalisation, border crackdowns and disdain for sex workers as those most harmed by capitalism, for well over a century. Radical feminists have been their willing aides.

A feminist future, free from oppression, is possible, but global class struggle is necessary to achieve it. Feminists need to be fighting for workers’ rights and full decriminalisation of sex work, opposing imperial and colonial violence, decentralising marriage to reduce its economic imperatives, increasing healthcare access, and opposing police as the enforcers of state and capitalist violence. It’s well past time we disavow radical feminism as a reactionary ideology, so we can fight for real liberation for all.

A Small Inventory

Tim Duff (they/them) fills in.

They fumble for which demons we bind, which sequence of genomes keeps the body’s score, in that old, virulent lore of /‘wʊm.ən/ and /mæn/. “As concerned parents!” the gender ideo-logues of war drool and bark, the preachers gowned in lobbyist gold, phasing out trans lives with parliament bills, referral cancellations, death merchant pride floats, stalled visas and obituary deadnames. They scramble for which survivals we bind, so I start them off:

- Clothes swap flannels

- Unrequited gazes

- Creased pride flags Blu-Tacked to the wall

- Carabiners without keys

- AIDS generations

- Kandi trades

- Saying no

- Combined incomes

- New questions

- Exchanged Skypes

- Share house couches

- International solidarity

- Spare kettles

- My hands cupping your face and my

- lips kissing your cheek over and over because you’re still here, you’re still here

- Demonia boots with buckles

- Soft rain playlists

- Hands hurling bricks

- Butch aunties

- Sore throats that lower voices

- Supreme Court decisions

- Library meets

- Envies

- Breakcore

- Pink triangles on posters older than you are

- Body hair

- Silent sobs

- Hands gripping placards

- Trashed newspapers

- Gifted zines

- Tattoos on old scars

- Online quiz results

- Interrogation releases

- Borrowed sundresses

- Land Back

- Cosplay accounts

- Years of different lonelinesses

- Pronouns in the languages you speak

- Hands holding hands

I keep grasping for the solaces we bind. From my bunker of a room, over the hips of the valley that finds home in me, I sift through guestbooks of frayed personhood that bloom over my monitor. Eucalypts pierce the sky like leg hairs and I tumble in the sea foam of my own private list.

I have missed so many things, and I will continue to miss so much that they’ll never get us all.

Art by Damien Nguyen

Art by Tim Duff

What if anything? Why radical feminist critique for its own sake isn’t enough.

Quay-Quay Quade (she/her) goes at radfems like she’s Raiden in Metal Gear Rising going into Zandatsu.

“What if anything? What if a bomb drops on your head right now?”

While it contends with his reflections on diet coke, this is likely the most profound observation ever made by Donald Trump— serial rapist, pedophile and architect of the objectively fascist policy agenda in the USA at time of writing.

But truly, what if anything? This is the core of radical ideologies: daring to imagine, and, not only that, but refusing to police the imagined. Within radical thought, we have the capacity to discuss futures we’ve been told are crazy—without gatekeepers, without the neoliberal consensus accusing us of being the ideologue.

But what if a bomb drops on your head right now? Radical Feminism is dogshit because it asks the questions it deigns no-one else dares to, when the reality is that no-one else is asking these questions because they’re fucking stupid.

What if sexy lingerie under mesh tops is what makes men think they can rape women? What if OnlyFans creators are changing male expectations about consent when they find their stepsister stuck in a washing machine? What if women in the workplace wearing lipstick perpetuates the idea that a woman’s lips are made for sucking dick? Fucking what if??

These delusional fever-dreams are posed as questions from a movement with no horizon. Radical feminism in its various incarnations (TERF, SWERF — one and the same if you take an honest look —

and similar) will make departures from the orthodoxy, but without any sense of destination. To them, “away from” is good enough. Where this rapidly falls apart is that, in an eagerness to depart from a perceived feminist orthodoxy, these socalled feminists so easily fall onto paths approaching all-too-familiar reactionary, right-wing niches.

If gender is a problem; do we need to reform it, abolish it, deconstruct it or reinterpret it? No, we simply need to critique it, and the solution will materialise. If the “female” body is commoditized by men to the detriment of women as a class, how do we solve that? Critique those females! Those impressionable harlots who contort the standard by which women are evaluated by men, remaking the platonic ideal of a woman into a product for men to buy, are clearly the source. And as we isolate that which is and is not woman, we must as well confront the transsexuals who clearly fetishise and commoditise us too. And as both are to our eyes, mere simulacra of women, it must be that the transsexual and the sex worker are both nothing better than men themselves!

Our theorist is a fucking idiot.

True, it wouldn’t take a genius to look at the degraded state of the women’s movement and assess that faillennial women vlogging about their job in the armed forces didn’t destroy the patriarchy. Uncritical veneration of women choosing whether and how to participate in patriarchy and its adjacent capitalist structures has given us a choose-your-own-adventure of “got mine, fuck you” for a lucky few. Will you be a girl-boss landlord raising the rent, or a rightwing all-meatdiet stay-at-home influencer-mum? Those without loaded parents need not apply. For all the talk of “choice” feminism, the fundamental choices of those suffering under patriarchy are often out of reach. Even abortion is still up for debate in several parts of Australia and abroad, both its provision and even its criminality.

But it’s equal parts bewildering and unsurprising that the critique of this era has been simply to home in on the advocacy for sex workers and trans people. It bewilders, because sex workers and trans people are on the frontlines of oppression, facing the most degrading example of any struggle a woman might face. Whether you’re dealing with the healthcare system, employment, or sexual violence, if you are trans or a sex worker, you will have it worse. God forbid you are both! It fails to surprise, however, because when considered by the lazy and wilfully ignorant brain-trust of the radfems, claiming “feminism has failed because women are too fucking stupid to realise sex work is bad and trans people are a conspiracy” sounds airtight!

myopic view of sex is getting as dignified response as it is owed: I LIKE GETTING FUCKED! The sex strike assumes those in opposition to patriarchy stand to lose nothing by withdrawing from sex, assumes transphobic and queerphobic notions about the dynamics of pleasure in sex, notions which in turn reinforce a patriarchal idea that those with vaginas should not expect their partners to find ways to pleasure them during sex. And the hard question has to be put to these radfems: WHEN a man breaks the strike, and rapes a woman, as they already do, does that make her a scab? Because you are placing the onus on women to maintain this vow of chastity.

And notice, when radfems make this impulsive diagnosis that “some women went too far”, how quickly one finds friends on the right! Look to the US, where the campaign to “protect women’s sport” has come to finally bore fruit, and radfems unabashedly thank Donald Trump for his sudden interest in their cause. With not a moment of introspection at the fact a rapist pedophile is the knight in shining armour for their supposedly feminist cause. Similarly, we have seen a million jingoistic QAnon freaks who want to expose supposed sex trafficking, which by now we can instantly identify as cover for racism, homophobia, transphobia and eliminationist white supremacy. And yet class-comfortable radfems tidily insulated from the bigotry these conversations inspire, will wade in so often like “Ok but seriously, we need to talk about sexual exploitation.” Maybe somebody should! The groups actually affected by these issues have been! Here’s an idea: if you have a passing interest in their liberation, maybe hand the mic over to Asian Migrant Sex Worker Advisory Group (AMSWAG) and other grassroots sex worker action collectives and SHUT THE FUCK UP!

And something has to be said of the proposed antidotes to patriarchy that these thinkers suggest. Bizarre proposals of a “sex-strike”. There is a toxic idea of sexuality embedded in this that erases queerness. Dynamics such as top/bottom/side/vers/etc all give way to a heteronormative understanding that cedes territory to the patriarchy; the penetrator/dominant and the penetrated/submissive. And I’m sorry but this

As our contemporary breed of fascism metastasises, it seems trite to write more polemics on radfems. They have been the useful idiots of the right wing, who laundered the dismantling of feminist progress under the rationale that reforms represented a movement losing its way. We may not have to suffer them much longer: when you can openly advocate for sending minorities to concentration camps, you no longer need a liberal to sanitise your rhetoric. But their example should be remembered as one of liberatory politics which buckled to reactionary forces for lack of a view to the future.

Should choice feminism have a considered critique and evaluation? Absolutely. But a sober analysis of where-from and where-to is fundamental to avoid running headlong into a conservatism for whom those who are leading this adventurism didn’t even have the foresight to define. Without it, we are not charting a course for a new wave of feminism, but simply dismantling the furthest we’ve come yet. Radical thought and action succeed when it is in service of a coherently imagined future. Taking the steps no one else dares to take is not so inspired when you are marching off a cliff.

There is no “Basic Biology”

Davy Vineburg (he/him) is tired of feelings-based pseudoscientific transphobia.

Fish don’t exist. Not as a biological category, at least. Yes, you can say, “I know what a fish is, it’s basic biology!” But that doesn’t mean it’s basic biology. Bony fish, or Osteichthyes, are the descendants animals that include most species which we consider “fish”. There are two types: lobe-finned and rayfinned. Ray-finned fish contain the usual suspects (eels, salmon, tuna), but lobe-finned fish have the lungfish, coelacanth and tetrapods. A tetrapod is every descendant of the tiktaalik; any fourlimbed vertebrate. If we want to define fish as “any Osteichthyes”, then reptiles, birds, and you would be fish. “Fish” is a word that is perfectly acceptable in day-to-day discussion, since we all have an unspoken definition of what they are. But this is separate from what actually differentiates organisms biologically. This is the problem with attempting to insert socially constructed concepts into biological contexts. Just like the idea of

behave. There is no statistical basis for trans women being a “threat” more than cisgender women. In fact, this fixation on “protecting real women” by targeting anyone who doesn’t fit the expectations of white Western womanhood threatens the well-being of every woman. The onslaught of legislation against transfeminine individuals is another extension of our society’s violence against women. This is especially the case for those who deviate from the picturesque ideal of the 1950s white American housewife. This extends to transmasculine and nonbinary members of the community, albeit in a different way. We, transgender men, are viewed by cisgender society as “lost” women; mentally unstable and “trend followers”. For nonbinary people, it’s 50/50 whether people tailor their bigotry to you as if you’re a woman or a man, and it is entirely dependent on which makes it okay to be discriminatory.

Transgender people are under some of the worst attacks on our rights in recent history. The UK Supreme Court has recently ruled that the usage of “women” in the 2010 Equality Act is only applicable to “biological women”. It’s a choice entirely made in hatred for trans people, because if we look at the facts, there is no tangible difference in how trans and cis women

This fixation on bioessentialism is founded on the idea that sex is fixed. However, the expression of sex characteristics is not fixed, instead being controlled by a whole host of factors like sex hormone levels, nutrition, genetics and environment, all subject to change. Being assigned as ‘male’ or ‘female’ at birth doesn’t automatically make you either a “strong, powerful abuser” or a “helpless, fragile caretaker”. However, this is essentially what legislation based on assigned sex at birth implies. The most difficult thing to get through to cisgender people, including allies, is that transmisogyny is misogyny. Transgender individuals are just seen as a more socially acceptable target for it. The transgender women in my life experience magnitudes more scrutiny than I do on the basis that they are women.

Biology, in reality, is anything but basic. Unfortunately, transgender and intersex people are simply too complex (the scientific term is “fucky”) to jam

into Angus and Ethan, who took year 11 biology to cut up frogs. This doesn’t mean that whatever’s beyond the high school curriculum doesn’t exist. Western science is not an end-all justification for everything. It’s subject to change, overwriting itself as we come to understand the world around us more.

Finally, the most irritating part, transitioning, is overwhelmingly the remedy for gender dysphoria. A review from Cornell University showed that 51 the 55 studies

gender transition improved trans individuals’ overall well-being. Genderaffirming surgery has some of the lowest regret rates of any surgery available.

Art by Davy Vineburg

These gender transition studies exist in spite of the health field’s biased funding and samples, especially for women and other minorities. Research in medicine is famously filled with racial biases that lead to worse health outcomes and poorer treatment decisions. Similarly, trans people are famously understudied, and most studies that have been conducted have small samples. This, in turn, affects transgender healthcare, with even worse outcomes for transgender individuals of colour. I’m sure if you’re reading this and are on hormonal replacement therapy (HRT), you’ve heard the line: “Could this be a result of the hormonal replacement therapy?” The last time this happened to me, it was acid reflux from eating pasta with lemonade. Our bodies are still barely understood by the wider medical field, and it feels like there isn’t an effort to try and understand.

I wouldn’t be here if I were made to wait any longer for testosterone. If I didn’t get to socially transition at 16, I

wouldn’t have graduated high school. My whole adolescence felt like being cocooned in black hoodies and r/asktansgender posts, and my friends were in the same boat. Transitioning saved our lives, hopefully letting us become slightly less maladjusted young adults. But transphobes don’t give a shit about us. Most haven’t even seen a trans before. We’re simply an easy scapegoat to distract from wider-ranging structural issues in society. Genocide is ok, but if Madeline gets to play casual soccer on a women’s team, the end times are coming and the American empire will fall. Gender ideology is coming for your kids, so vote for the coalition and have books banned, First Nations flags removed, and $9 bottles of milk. Good god, I’m exhausted, what the hell did we do?

The coelacanth didn’t wait until it was found alive to keep existing. The clownfish doesn’t need a troupe of specialists to change sex. Why do I need my existence to be peerreviewed?

Analysis

The War on LGBTQIA+ Migration

Selene Zhou (they/TA) wars against border security.

A war on immigration is the highest stage of border violence.

Declaring war on LGBTQIA+ migration, so-called Australia deploys harsh, punitive and racist border controls against queer asylum seekers and migrants, especially those who are displaced by rich, well-armed and powerful Western nations.

These nations have forced LGBTQIA+ migrants to leave their homes, jobs, communities and everything as a result of:

— the bigoted legacy left by European colonisation (e.g., Section 377 and Offences Against the Person Act under British colonial rule) and Christian churches (e.g., U.S. religious conservatives pushing for anti-homosexuality laws in Africa), or

— anti-queer changes in US and Western policies (e.g., laws banning proper genderaffirming care, legislation mandating that trans children be taken away by the state, federal agencies and government publications altering the acronym ‘LGBTI’ to ‘LGBI’).

And against these queer migrants, Western nations are expanding immigration restrictions.

‘Open the borders’: Border imperialism

In Undoing Border Imperialism, activist Harsha Walia writes that ‘border controls are most severely deployed by those Western regimes that create mass displacement.’ Most oppressively, immigration restrictions are deployed against those who resort to migration as a result of the imperial violences of Western regimes.

For queers and other communities, an example of border imperialism is the funding freeze on the HIV response and the ‘health criteria’ of every visa application in Australia. Directly impacted by changes in US policy, HIV response organisations

who are already most vulnerable to HIV such as queer communities, migrants, sex workers and detainees. Facing the loss of community support, even more people are forced to migrate to find medical care.

In response to the sudden loss of billions in funding for HIV prevention and treatment, Australia is NOT removing HIV from the list of conditions that may lead to a visa refusal. In Australia, the Department of Home Affairs attaches prejudice against HIV-positive people in the form of a ‘health cost threshold’ that migrants cannot exceed. Considering their treatment and engagement in community a burden on Australia, immigration officials refuse a permanent visa to someone who is HIVpositive and impacted by geopolitical shockwaves of the new administration in the US.

‘Refugees are welcome here’: Entry screening

Part of their war on LGBTQIA+ migration, the Australian Government subjects travellers to the entry screening process to identify asylum seekers, including queers.

In 2019, two gay Saudi journalists, Sultan and his partner Nassar, were detained in Australia when seeking asylum. Despite having valid visas, the gay Saudi couple were processed through entry screening and singled out from other passengers when officials suspected that they intended to apply for protection.

Found nowhere in Australia’s migration legislation, entry screening was established by the Australian Government to deter access to asylum. As a result of Australia’s asylum policies, LGBTQIA+ would-be asylum seekers are policed by immigration officials and turned back at the border.

How officials decided on vetting Sultan and Nassar is unclear, but the Australian Government operates an extensive system of visa requirements, surveillance technologies and other processes to stop asylum seekers. For example, they employ Airline Liaison Officers (ALOs) at major overseas airports to spot travellers who might claim asylum, including Saudi women suspected of fleeing maleguardianship laws, and cooperate with

officials in the Asia Pacific and other countries to prevent them from reaching Australia.

Due to entry screening, Sultan and Nassar faced the threat of being sent back to Saudi Arabia once their visas were cancelled and officials decided that they were not allowed to apply for a temporary protection claim. LGBTQIA+ asylum seekers are put in a precarious position by the Australian Government on account of Australia criminalising the right to seek asylum.

‘No bad whores, just bad immigration laws’: Operation INGLENOOK

Besides processing passengers using entry screening to target queer asylum seekers, the Australian Border Force (ABF) also profiles trans women, especially Southeast Asians, at the border and exposes them to invasive searches and coercive questioning.

Founded allegedly to ‘rescue’ sex workers from ‘trafficking,’ Operation INGLENOOK is led by the ABF to disrupt migrant sex work. As a result of INGLENOOK activities, Asian migrant sex workers are refused immigration clearance or sent underground by raids on their workplaces.

Sonya, a trans Filipina sex worker, was detained at Villawood Immigration Detention Centre and deported in February, during Mardi Gras season. Because she was a trans woman from the Philippines, Sonya was stopped at the international airport. Her phone was taken and she was given no options when the ABF invasively searched her luggage and phone for intimate photos without her consent.

to find deleted messages and uncovered connections to past sex work. Thanks to bad immigration laws, trans sex workers and queer migrants are detained and deported from Australia by the ABF in spite of NSW decriminalisation of sex work.

‘No Pride in Detention’: Immigration detention

Immigrants not immediately deported face the threat of indefinite immigration detention. The Australian government enforces mandatory detention for people awaiting visa outcomes and indefinite detention to hold migrants for years without visa decisions and no freedom in sight.

Transgender women held in Villawood Immigration Detention Centre are separated from both the women’s and the men’s quarters and forced to live alone in family housing, restricted from even walking around because of the families also housed there.

Inconsistent regulations to accommodate trans detainees mean they are ‘treated like experiments [with]... made-up rules,’ said Kayla, a trans woman moved across the country to Villawood last year with other trans women. The ABF keeps their policies opaque to let officers abuse detainees’ isolation from community supports.

Art by Damien Nguyen

Sonya was unfairly targeted by the ABF based on her physical appearance and on racial grounds, due to the opinion of border officers about a mismatched gender marker on her Philippine passport. In August 2024, a Freedom of Information request revealed that INGLENOOK disproportionately targets female, 20- to 29-year-old travellers from Asia Pacific countries (Japan, China, Thailand, etc.). Regardless of any actual sex work history or intent to work in Australia, Asian transgender women are profiled as sex workers and disbelieved about their travel purposes at the border.

Because of INGLENOOK, Sonya was forced to sign a notice of visa cancellation after the ABF performed digital forensics

Six officers followed four women detained together in 2024 from morning to night, invading their privacy and telling them no one would care if the women reported being intimidated. Transgender women detained by the ABF have been denied hormone replacement therapy and sexually assaulted by other detainees and guards.

What happens in detention centres is kept under tight lock and key with the federal Labor government passing legislation in November allowing ABF officers and detention centre staff to confiscate detainees’ phones, further cutting

Australia’s offshore concentration camps, face near-complete communication blackouts with even lawyers and human rights workers denied visitation.

‘We’re here, we’re queer’: The War on the War on Immigration

In Not Your Rescue Project, organisers Chanelle Gallant and Elene Lam write that Western regimes ‘have created millions of economic and political refugees’ and in fact ‘are the real human traffickers, forcing tens of millions of people to leave home and into unsafe migration.’ Essentially, LGBTQIA+ individuals and communities are displaced by imperialist policies, and their movement is policed by Western borders.

To oppose the war on LGBTQIA+ migration, the queer community must support queers, asylum seekers and migrants, and especially queer asylum seekers and migrants. In 2021, two undocumented immigrants from Senegal, Ibrahima Diack and Magatte N’Diaye, risked deportation to stop a gay bashing in Spain and were then ‘adopted’ by their city, and in Sydney queer activists are intervening to stop the detention and deportation of trans women in Villawood, 21 km from the University of Sydney.

A war on our migration is the last stage of border violence, Western imperialism and anti-queer, transphobic bigotry, and the LGBTQIA+ community must fight back for trans justice, refugee and migrants

Bird Vignettes

Wide lemon eyes, gnarled feet on the fluted spire -

rights, queer liberation, prison abolition and full decriminalisation for all sex workers. On the front line of LGBTQIA+ migration, we must declare war on immigration restrictions, border controls, imperial violences, mandatory detention, forced deportation (‘refoulement’), entry screening and Operation INGLENOOK. No pride in detention, no one is illegal and permanent visas now!

Join the campaign to demand freedom, dignity and safety for trans women in detention:

pied currawong lsdkfj

eastern rosella

This girl bows on the Chemistry Building. Their black tail perks up and she leaps out to lick the air with the smatterings of their white wingtips.

Her cannon of a beak lets fly “oowip-qua!” while she looks for a nesting place in the curves of sandstone reliefs.

She dances in aerial silk at dogfight speed, whistling and whirring with every wing-beat as if scrubbing the air to a fine polish. Each tumble and flick flashes a new angle of rainbow accent on her fighter-jet dress. This is a performance for herself and I have intruded by wording its majesty.

pied butcherbird

Boygirls tend to sing when the wind picks up, or in rain - it’s called a subsong, a secret conversation with groaning storm clouds warbled at the tops of gum trees.

This beautiful boy, she sings in showers and gets to pick who listens.

She braids his melodies with generations of virtuosity.

It is better to say “I want to be a bird”. It is so much easier to say “I want to be a bird” because when a girl dries her wings by daring the sun to magnify her brilliance, the screaming halo that bursts between her feathers is no bigger than her size.

Her belly stays full of warm light when she dives like a dart from her rock to her pond, and I stay full of my self.

People are unstoppably beautiful in flight. Precise bodies, bones filled with wind, sculpted with their own soft hands into obsessive symbology.

When the November sun bursts down, girls dye their crests turmeric and perch on the gentle backs of cows.

I am grounded. This dirt digs into my feet and this analogy digs into my brain like talons (of course, like talons) but I am grounded. I am steadied. I will keep my gaze level, lest I look for birds and find my body on the lips of the blinding sun.

Tim Duff (they/them) calls and preens.

pied cormorant

cattle egret

eclectus parrot

Art by Tim Duff

Beyond Visibility:

Acephobic Discrimination and the Place for Asexuality in Radical Politics

Content warning: this article discusses violence and queerphobia, including sexual violence.

Asexuality is experiencing little to no sexual attraction to others or experiencing it only conditionally. It does not necessarily define a person’s sexual activity or romantic orientation.

Asexuals are often seen as part of the queer community but not part of its struggle. We are not understood to have a stake in discrimination issues. Allonormativity— the concept that all humans need and desire sexual and romantic relationships— is pervasive, even in queer spaces. Among the asexual community, most activism simply asks for visibility; for recognition, even in name only. Meaningful left-wing campaigns are few and far between.

However, we are collectively missing crucial opportunities for solidarity. While asexual personal expressions often look undeniably different from other queer identities, discrimination and violence against asexuals manifests similarly to oppression of other queer people. Asexuality, like other queer identities, requires the complete dissolution and reshaping of our social structures for meaningful acceptance and autonomy.

Are you sure you don’t have a hormone imbalance?

Asexuals are offered or undergo conversion therapy 10% more often than people of any other sexuality. A recent UK study found 31% of respondents believed asexuality can be “cured” through therapy. Low sexual desire, interest, or activity is highly pathologised. Even where asexuality is recognised, such as in the DSM-5—the American manual for diagnosing psychiatric disorders—it is included only to say patients should not be diagnosed with a hyposexuality disorder if they already identify as asexual, putting the onus on the patient to come out and leaving all allonormative diagnostic structures intact.

One of the most frequent reactions from medical providers upon learning their patient is asexual is to pivot to trying

to determine and reverse the “cause” of their asexuality, often impeding the care actually needed. Asexuality is also frequently wrongly assumed to result from childhood sexual abuse. Therapists sometimes even recommend patients force themselves to have sex, to work through assumed but nonexistent traumas.

Asexual people are often prescribed unwanted birth control because they are assumed to be sexually active, despite self-assertion otherwise, before being able to access medication that could harm their nonexistent fetuses, such as dermatological treatments. Conversely, many asexuals are denied STI vaccines or gynecology/urology referrals because healthcare providers believe they would never need this healthcare, fundamentally misunderstanding what asexuality is.

Acephobic medical practices also overlap with women and trans people being disbelieved about their own health and denied care and bodily autonomy. A 2023 study of acephobic violence and discrimination includes anecdotes such as one from a pregnant asexual who was denied necessary medication for a fetus that was too small. The doctor did not believe when the patient said they had no further sex past the baby’s conception, insisting the baby was younger than she was. This resulted in the person miscarrying and losing their child.

TERFs weaponise acephobia to restrict gender-affirming care for minors. They wrongly claim puberty blockers make children asexual and argue children should not be “denied” a “normal” sexuality. Transgender asexuals face barriers to healthcare on all sides due to both of their identities being medicalised and discredited.

You just haven’t met the right person yet!

Medicalisation of asexuality occurs due to the belief that the only healthy body is a sexual one, but sexual engagement is required at every level of society. In social settings, being single or a virgin must be either a temporary state or a

depressing affair. Seldom can anyone express disinterest in sex or romance without being told to “just keep trying!” These comments are the tip of a cultural iceberg where our social structure, built on heteronormativity and rape culture, views sexual disinterest as a deficit that the “right person” can, and should, fix.

“Corrective” rape—a term initially coined to describe men raping lesbians in an attempt to make them straight—is a form of conversion “therapy” perpetrated against asexuals at high rates. Whether they are out as asexual or not, asexuals are especially vulnerable to sexual violence in both cis-het and queer spaces. We have fundamentally different relationships to sexuality from allosexuals that are often obvious to and punished by those with power.

Asexual rights are thus targeted by TERFs and the religious right because asexuality is the ultimate transgression against their tight control over bodily autonomy. Allonormativity is the most universal and fundamental expression of rape culture. Conservative control over bodily autonomy does not merely manifest in abstinence-only sex education or slutshaming (whether socially or legally). It sets out guidelines for when and how having sex is acceptable, e.g., heterosexual marriage, and then it says that people must have sex in these situations. If people were allowed to completely refuse sexual relationships and reproduction, which go hand-in-hand for the religious right, they would be unmanageable by control structures such as purity culture. They would be able to opt out of the nuclear family used to isolate workers and ensure perpetual creation of future laborers. Sexual violence is thus wielded on both state and interpersonal levels to punish anyone who deviates from the relationship structures and sexuality expressions acceptable under patriarchy and capitalism.

Do you take them to be your lawfully wedded tax benefit?

One of the most present ways sexual (and romantic) relationships are both required and privileged in society is through the

institution of marriage. Asexuals and aromantics are much less likely to get married than the general population, so they are locked out of one of the fundamental ways people find community and financial stability.

The privileges gained exclusively or most easily through marriage are innumerable to ensure marriage is the only feasible option for most people to own a home, raise children, and manage their health and workload. Job schedules are set with the assumption that someone else minds your home and children, while the cost of living makes housing and children unaffordable on a single salary.

Marriage is so entrenched as a universal milestone that single people are viewed as less mature, responsible, and stable. This idea enables landlords to privilege married couples and families over single people for housing. It enables managers to pass over single people for promotions in favor of the trusted “family man.” It makes it harder for single people to adopt children as they must prove they have the same stability and finances as married couples.

Getting married is also incentivised through tax systems. In Australia, the amount that spouses have to pay for certain charges is based on their combined income, usually lowering the fee, and they typically get more money refunded to them. There are exceptions, such as disabled people getting locked into poverty by oppositional tax and welfare

Wendy Thompson (they/them) is tired of asking for crumbs.

systems, but the general expectation is that marriage provides financial benefits.

In countries without universal healthcare or where healthcare is tied to employment, being someone’s spouse or parent (up to a certain age) is usually the only way to ensure they are covered by your health insurance plan. Unmarried couples, siblings, friends, disabled adults living with their parents, or adults taking care of aging parents face complex barriers to health insurance and high costs of care.

Marriage also provides a legal structure to enforce rape culture. For much of history, marital rape was legal as women were considered the sexual property of their husbands. Consummation laws allow spouses or external parties to declare marriages invalid if couples don’t have sex within a specific time period. Even when laws around sex in marriage are not present or enforced, there is a pervasive attitude that a sexless marriage is a failed one, with a lucrative industry of sex therapists, self-help books, and arousal medication marketed toward couples with “dead bedrooms.” Relationships involving little to no sex are assumed to be unfulfilling and broken. Because of the substantial privileges afforded to married couples, legally or socially tying marriage to sex is necessarily coercive.

The solution is not to make marriage friendlier to asexuals. The institution of marriage reinforces all existing class inequalities, and there will always be people excluded. Equality movements are better suited to fight for the decentralisation of marriage, affordable housing for all, fewer work hours with higher pay, free or subsidised childcare, and universal healthcare. We must prioritise community-based structures to support people to live good lives regardless of their marital status.

Love Wins, but only if you can prove it’s LoveTM

In colonial states, immigration is heavily regulated as a way to maintain control over the population. Invasive and discriminatory practices, drenched in allonormativity, are the norm. These acephobic practices manifest most clearly in the partnership visa and asylum seeking processes. Couples must prove their relationships to continue to see each other, and LGBTQIA+ asylum seekers prove both their queerness and their suffering to remain safe and in their communities.

Queer people can get married in many

countries and are theoretically eligible for the same marriage privileges and immigration opportunities as straight people. However, marriage equality campaigns like “Love is Love” pushed for the legalisation of gay marriage under the promise to cis-het society that gay marriage would be exactly like straight marriage but with two men or two women. This was an exclusively reformist campaign, and it did not change the fundamental issues with legally classifying intimate relationships. Gay marriage being legalised in this assimilatory way has enforced a narrow view of queerness that continues to exclude asexuals.

This understanding of queerness means couples must assimilate to allosexual conceptions of what a committed partnership looks like. This includes dating and/or living together for a required number of years and having physical or digital proof of their relationship. Migrants must convince border officials they are in (romantic) love with their partner, detail their affection and formalised ties to each other, and give corroborated stories of their sex lives. These are bigoted criteria on their own, and queer people are targeted with more invasive screening than cis-het immigrants.

Asexuality is also not a recognised sexuality anywhere except in New York (USA) and Tasmania. Asexuality not being named, whether as a protected or outlawed identity, means acephobic discrimination in queerphobic countries is not considered real. For example, an asexual Algerian man applied for asylum in the Netherlands in 2018 due to fears of persecution and of forced marriage to his niece, but the Dutch Council State denied his application, stating that asexuality “is not punishable” in Algeria and cannot be included under special provisions for LGBTI refugees.

However, even if asexuality was nominally protected, immigration systems would still deny refuge to asexuals. Yasmin’s article on page 17 explains the Australian process of gender and sexuality testing, used to “verify” queer asylum seekers’ sexuality and persecution claims. It would be impossible for an asexual person to pass this testing.

While domestic policy is notoriously cruel, acephobia intersects with racism worldwide. Immigrant couples in the UK, especially where one or more partners are Asian or Muslim, have reported the Home Office raiding their homes early in the morning to check if they are sleeping in the same bed, or interrupting their

weddings to interrogate them about their sex lives. Partnerships that fail to live up to arbitrary standards are deemed “sham marriages,” and the couples are detained and/or forced apart.

Asexuals constantly have to explain that our relationships are legitimate and important. We are not in fake relationships when partnered with other asexuals, and we are not deceiving or abusing our partners with our sexuality when partnered with allosexuals. Immigration systems make chiding remarks into policy that separates families and forces queer people into further invisibility and danger. The state should not have jurisdiction over our relationships, and marriage and immigration policies ignore the material reality of our social structures.

So, where to from here?

Understanding asexuality necessitates a broadening of our concept of sexuality from “who” to “how” and “if at all.”

Asexual experiences cannot be confined into Western cis-het-allo understandings of queer sexualities. The asexual struggle is about defying capitalist and patriarchal requirements for our interpersonal relationships and reproductive labor. These are struggles also long fought by other queer activists, but asexuals face them in a unique and thus far underappreciated way.

While often not completely linear, the assimilation of queer identities into modern Western society follows a path somewhat like this:

Relatively complete lack of visibility, understanding, or acceptance

Visibility but not acceptance or understanding

visibility but not widespread acceptance or consistent legal protections.

Asexuality is struggling to reach the second step of this process. Outside of queer spaces, few people know of asexuality at all. Within queer spaces, most have heard of asexuality but lack understanding of asexuals’ day-to-day experiences and struggles. We have a long way to go before achieving any semblance of rights, and, as explained above, face serious societal neglect and danger due to our invisibility. However, we are also in a place of exceptional opportunity. The asexual rights movement is poised to be able to avoid some of the mishaps and liberalisation of the gay and transgender rights movements because we can still catch them early.

Prior to the diversion of the queer community’s energy into fighting the AIDs crisis, there were many radical activists who did not want marriage equality as a main queer rights demand at all. They fought instead for the decentralising and deconstructing of the institution of marriage because they worried that gay marriage equality would require them to sanitise and simplify their desires, relationships, and lives. They were right. The marriage equality movement failed to challenge the sexist and racist aspects of marriage, nor did it change the way nuclear families are privileged over all others. It simply gave gay people the opportunity to get a slice of the privilege pie. Gay rights struggles concluding here forces queer people to fit into the same systems that have historically oppressed them in order to obtain social recognition or financial and legal equality.

Increasing societal understanding, beginnings of legal protections

Widespread acceptance, many or all basic assimilatory legal protections in place v v v

Homosexuality has essentially completed all of these steps in Australia. While severe inadequacies in policy remain, especially affecting otherwise marginalised gay people, homosexuality has been assimilated into our cis-hetallo world such that many gay people can live openly and accumulate capital. The fight for transgender rights follows the same path but a few steps behind, with transgender people experiencing hyper-

With the insight gained from the loss of radical goals and the subsequent liberalisation and defanging of the gay rights movement, asexual activists can and should aim higher. We need more than visibility, and we need more than being tacked onto a list of sexualities nominally protected by fundamentally queerphobic laws. Asexuals face specific, targeted exclusion that overlaps with, but is distinct from, discrimination against other sexualities. For any chance at truly dismantling the medicalisation of queerness, rape culture, the dominance of the nuclear family, or border controls, asexual rights must be included at the forefront of radical struggles. Upending allonormativity is not just a bonus—it is a necessity—without which true liberation cannot exist.

Art by Damien Nguyen

The Missing Man — The revealing nature of The Right’s Treatment of the Transmasculine

Being trans over the last few months in particular has been extremely exhausting, with attempts to legislate us out of existence abroad, sham healthcare inquiries, and a looming moral panic back home. But, even as I am hit with yet another TERF yelling on my feed, I can’t help but notice something: much of this hysteria is directed towards trans women and femmes, with the occasional grifter kicking up a stink about nonbinary people in the mix, yet the panic reserved for trans men is built upon one very specific character: young

‘girls’ somehow being forced by Big T (Transgenderism) to mutilate their bodies and forsake some preconceived vision of a feminine future.

To the average right wing pundit, it is impossible to believe that a person who was born a ‘woman’ would choose to undergo any form of healthcare that might be masculinising. If I, a fully grown adult, elected to undergo testosterone replacement therapy in order to feel more comfortable there is no explanation that the political right could surmise, in which I did so of my own volition. Whilst this might seem odd at first glance, when one considers what the right perceives as female, this surprise is immediately quashed.

This perception isn’t just that the female body does not deserve autonomy, it is that there is simply no way that someone who is categorised as female can make the decision for themselves. The ‘female’ must be coddled, protected from all bad influences and slowly coaxed into what is perceived as ‘natural’ — presumably marriage or motherhood.

This narrative of coercion fits nicely into many of the detrans grifters of today, with many spreading misinformation about trans healthcare based upon the fact that they were somehow tricked into transitioning medically. Now, of course, having experienced this system myself, I know that it operates based upon an informed consent model. Providers often take the time to talk to patients about what it is that they want, as well as answering any questions about side effects — just like any other medical procedure. But, because of who is making the decisions — those of us who are presumed as female — it’s not believed that we would make decisions to alter the very core of our being.

However, it goes even further than that, where even the idea of the trans man is simply not a possibility. Much of the bigotry aimed at trans women centres around a caricature of the trans woman. She is a sex pest, a predator who wishes to attack people in toilets and steal your daughters’ baccarat trophies because her manly man thighs give her some advantage (or whatever the hell the mould in J. K. Rowling’s walls is saying these days).

But no such vision exists of the trans man — he is nothing, and the closest thing to him is a girl that has been forced to have her body pumped full of hormones by doctors who want to make

a quick buck off of feminine self-hatred.

Because fundamentally, what the transphobe views the female as is: a commodity, a constraint, a constant, with a fundamental set

Sav Thill-Turke (he/they) uncovers a missing person’s case.

something that has been misplaced upon a body, but something that exists solely for others. My body is not for me, but for a supposed future child that — according to those who do not believe in my existence — I have repressed my desire for. But, much of that also hinges on something else entirely, something much more material.

It doesn’t take a PhD in queer theory to figure out that the character of the detransitioner as created by the right, often has white skin. The obsession with trans men being seduced by this supposed Transgender Craze is, as well put by my favourite creator for introspective people, Kat Blaque:

“...They could have become a viable mother for a white child...”

It is these racial and misogynist undertones that fuel this panic. Grifters and ‘concerned citizens’ seek not protect people from supposed injustices, but to put us in our place. When stripped bare, the panic about trans men is just as much built upon sexism as it is transphobia.

For trans men, this is based on the assumption that, for one reason or another, we simply cannot do something with our own bodies.

To do so would be to forsake what is demanded more and more by a racist patriarchy. With some of the greatest figureheads of the anti-trans movement saying the quiet part out loud, it is clear that first and foremost to these people, my body is not mine.

This is not to say that this is the most important issue facing trans people at the moment — but it does illustrate an element of the moral panic which currently exists. The fear of the transmasculine is one greater part of the crumbling hegemony that only favours the few. By writing about this, I hope to expose the right’s view of bodily autonomy, trans men, and thus, women as a whole. First and foremost, it is a moral panic about bodily autonomy, and thus, medical transition is the ultimate rejection of social expectation, and reveals just how insidious the right’s view of the body really is.

The Department of Homophobic Affairs, end gender and sexuality testing!

The white Australian gay is at the Mardi Gras parade. He is at the party, proud of the bars, gay clubs, and queer spaces.

The queer refugee of colour is not at the Mardi Gras parade. The party is too loud, too policed, too welcoming of Zionists (Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions motion failing at Mardi Gras Annual General Meeting; Dayenu Sydney supporting the Gaza genocide), too friendly to transphobic and anti-refugee universities (University of Sydney threatening to deport Luna), and the after-party is too $$$.

Where are they?

They are applying for a protection visa or waiting for the outcome of that application. To apply for protection, the queer refugee of colour gathers their documents and prepares their application. They, the queer refugee of colour, of [Australian address], must make the following statement in support of their claims for protection:

- The following is a summary of their claims for protection, not an exhaustive statement of what has happened to them in the past or the reasons why they cannot return to [country]. They will, and must, provide further information in relation to their claims during any interview with the Department of Home Affairs.

- They must also relay trauma despite pain destroying language. They must translate experiences to English in spite of linguistic barriers. They must effectively convey their background in accepted terminology, although they may not identify with the Australian LGBTIQA+ glossary of common terms (“cisgender,” “deadnaming,” “dysphoria”).

- They must keep score of hardship and distress to carry over suffering. They must simplify life events and circumstances to articulate a Westernised narrative. They

must align their experiences with chronological telling and expected emotions.

Besides having to produce documentation and records of being persecuted in their home country, and navigate a Kafkaesque bureaucratic system during the asylum-seeking process, and find their own social support, and so on and so forth, the queer refugee of colour must pass gender and sexuality testing, too, with high distinction. They must be perceived as the gender and sexual orientation they identify as, or else their visa will be refused, they will be held in immigration detention, and they may be deported from Australia to death, imprisonment, and torture.

More than an “Am I Gay?” quiz on BuzzFeed, gender and sexuality testing is an interrogation process of queer refugees at risk from conversion therapy, or severe beatings in police custody, or forced medical detransition, and under threat of mandatory detention in Australia and deportation to danger. The Department of Home Affairs has a specific idea on what it is to be “gay,” and it is not to be a lesbian in Sri Lanka, or a queer in China, or a trans woman in Malaysia, but to be a white Australian gay.

To obtain status in Australia, queer refugees of colour need to perform culturally recognisable identities and narratives, strategically conceal the Malaysian trans woman or the Chinese queer or the Sri Lankan lesbian, and be the white Australian gay. “Out and loud,” the white Australian gay is flamboyant and gregarious, looks for dates and hookups on Grindr, and actively seeks sexual relationships on cruising apps. Besides having to deal with the psychosocial effects of an intensive application process (as well as the set of conditions that led them to initially apply) and collect testimonials from partners and friends, queer refugees of colour must be the white Australian gay at the Mardi Gras

parade in glitter, pride flags, and rainbow sequins, “out and proud.”

“Where were you at Mardi Gras?” asks Home Affairs when the queer refugee of colour attends an interview requested by the Department.

Having met regularly with migration lawyers or casework services and located attachments and supporting evidence (including photos of them participating in queer activities in Australia), queer refugees of colour are then cross-examined and have their autobiographies and personal histories studied by Home Affairs. In great detail, queer refugees of colour are aggressively questioned about sexual acts, investigated by Home Affairs officers reviewing their experiences and expressions of sexuality. Their private lives, emotions, and relationships are analysed by asylum officers probing into sensitive information including physical anatomy, stages of physiological arousal, frequency of sexual activity, psychological aspects, and sexual attraction.

Put under high levels of scrutiny and pressure, queer refugees of colour are tested on their gender and sexual preference and quizzed about queer knowledge to prove themselves, having to describe sexual practices and behaviour in depth and at length. In 2019, a Freedom of Information request revealed the list of intrusive questions a gay Bangladeshi couple was asked by Home Affairs. Both asylum seekers were denied permanent protection visas despite having to answer sexually explicit questions including:

-in which room they had sex, -at what time of day they had sex, -whether they used condoms, -in what order they gave oral sex, -whether they ejaculated, -whether they were circumcised, and -whether they swallowed semen.

In 2020, the Federal Court considered a decision of the Tribunal rejecting the asylum applications of a gay Pakistani couple (BFH16 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection). Both asylum seekers appealed after being denied permanent protection visas because asylum courts initially found their sexuality “implausible.”

Where is the queer refugee of colour?

They are at the Palm Sun day rally. Queer refu gees of colour are at the protest, out of the closets and into the streets. The pro test is proud, not welcoming of cops, acknowledges Abo riginal land and rec ognises Palestine, and the after-protest is free.

In The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You, Iranian-American novelist Dina Nayeri writes that “to satisfy an asylum officer takes the same narrative sophistication it takes to please book critics.” Processed with gender and sexuality testing, the queer refugee of colour must tell an asylum story deemed credible to satisfy a Home Affairs officer, write a LGBTQ+ tale worthy of Queer Honi, a Queer Honi that reads:

“After the party and the protest are over, the white Australian gay and the queer refugee of colour walk into a bar. They greet each other at the gay bar, share a pitcher and a conversation. The queer refugee of colour invites the white Australian gay to a fundraiser party, and the white Australian gay gives the queer refugee of colour a spare ticket to a Mardi Gras after-party event and one more kiss. Happy Mardi Gras, goodnight.”

Not Just Semantics: The UK Supreme Court’s Ruling on Gender

On 16 April 2025, the UK Supreme Court (UKSC) handed down its ruling in the For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers case on the meaning of ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010. The decision has triggered a snowballing of new announcements, guidance, policies, and an uptick in harassment of trans people across the UK. With this being just one part in a global trend to backtrack on trans rights, its developments could shape further changes globally. Here’s what you need to know.

The UKSC’s case

and decision

This case originally arose in response to the Scottish parliament passing the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018, alongside an amendment ensuring trans women would be included under the Act, regardless of GRCs. FWS launched a judicial review, leading the Scottish parliament to only recognise transgender women with a GRC as women. Dissatisfied, FWS launched further judicial reviews on the definition of “woman” which were dismissed, resulting in FWS escalating the case to the UKSC.

The outcome of the UKSC judgement was that the terms “woman,” “man,” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refer exclusively to “biological” sex. This means the Scottish parliament’s attempt to widen the definition of woman to include trans women with a GRC is now unlawful.

Developments and implications

The UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has issued interim guidance on the ruling which may restrict transgender individuals’ access to singlesex spaces aligned with their gender identity. These spaces include bathrooms, hospital wards, and sports teams. Scottish Trans argues that this risks outing trans people and is in breach of Article Eight of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to privacy.

The UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, and his Labour party immediately legitimised the judgement. Despite affirming that “transwomen are women” back in 2022 as leader of the opposition, Starmer’s official spokesman now says, “the Supreme Court

judgment has made clear that when looking at the Equality Act, a woman is a biological woman”, affirming their stance: transgender women are not women.

Relative to the resulting guidance for public bodies, the British Transport Police have used the ruling to advise that same-sex searches in custody would be conducted “in accordance with the biological birth sex of the detainee” — meaning that any trans woman will now be strip-searched by male police officers, and vice versa for trans men.

Calling the attempt to segregate trans people in public spaces “almost certainly unlawful” and outlining that it is not statutory, TransActual have also cautioned people to “expect an uptick in violence” against all women. This violence will be disproportionately wielded against trans and gender non-conforming cisgender women alike.

Fighting back

The anger and fear caused by the ruling has channelled into action on the streets

Grace Street (she/her) has cut through the legal jargon and TERF rhetoric for you.

throughout the UK. On 19 April, just three days after the ruling, it is estimated that more than 20,000 people joined the snap protest in London.

Workers and institutions are taking a stand too. Resident doctors working in the NHS as well as the British Medical Association’s (BMA) have condemned the ruling as having “no basis in science or medicine”.

The ruling may only apply to the Equality Act, but its effects are rapidly spreading across UK law, policy, and public opinion. It is clear that this is not just about definitions — it’s about trans and queer people’s right to exist safely in public, or at all. The response needs to continue to be proportional to this existential threat, and we should be aware of a domino effect of legal challenges and increased bigotry across the world.

Yasmin Jamaluddin (they/them) grades Australia “Fail”.

Art by Damien Nguyen

‘Inclusive language’ is both a social and linguistic movement aimed at challenging gender hierarchies and increasing recognition for non-binary identities—particularly in languages with grammatical gender. In such languages, nouns, pronouns, and adjectives are gendered, often reflecting patriarchal traditions where the masculine dominates. This system marginalises women and nonbinary people, prompting decades of efforts to reshape language in more inclusive ways, especially as right-wing ideologies resurface globally.

Grace Street (she/elle) steps outside of the English language and gender binaries.

Feminist, inclusive, and post-binary language in French and beyond

Interrupción Voluntaria del Embarazo (Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy) Bill (2018).

This may seem a foreign concept to those who only speak English. When it comes to inclusivity and gender-neutrality in English, we tend to only require two strategies: neutralising nouns (e.g. ‘flight attendant’ instead of ‘steward/stewardess’), and using the pronoun ‘they/them’ in the singular form, or using neopronouns like ‘xe/xir’.

However, in French, for example, there are two gendered forms of “they” - “ils” [masculine or mixed gender] and “elles” [feminine]. A phrase like “the beautiful president” must be fully gendered – “le beau président” [masc.] and “la belle présidente” [fem.] – where each has a gendered pronoun, adjective, and noun. In Spanish, even the term ‘non-binary’ is gendered – “no binario” [masc.] and “no binaria” [fem.].

As the inclusion and visibility of women, trans, and queer

However, inclusive language is being used as a scapegoat to justify “anti-woke” ideology. It has extended beyond a debate about inclusivity and become a fight to maintain the power of Western empires and the status quo. This has emboldened centre and farright political actors in France to continue their witch hunt against “le wokisme” while tying it into fears about migrants and foreign values bastardising the French language and culture.

The French language that we know today has been artificially imposed and standardised over the last few centuries as a political project, beginning in the early 17th Century as the French monarchy imposed the Parisian dialect of French across the nation. At this time, the infamously conservative Academie Française (French Academy) was formed as the principal French council for matters pertaining to the French language, whose founding fathers referred to the masculine as the more “noble” gender. Yet today, many people adamantly deny that the French language is sexist. However, numerous scientific studies by psychologists and language specialists, such as that by J. Kim et. al (2022), have proven that languages with grammatical gender do have a masculine bias which influences social attitudes amongst speakers of the language.

Office québécois de la langue française (Quebecois Office of the French Language), a full 42 years before the Académie Française did so in France. Francophones in Belgium have followed suit, but the conservative France lags behind.

In 2022, far-right presidential candidate Marine le Pen used her election campaign to stoke fears around ‘protecting’ the French culture and language from ‘external influences’ of inclusive language and “en masse” immigration. French centrist parties have also for years been banning the use of inclusive writing in official communications and in schools, and Macron has been on a warpath to assert that the French language “forges the nation,” asserting that inclusive language is “unreadable” and unnecessary.

When inclusive language has been “banned” in certain institutions, this is generally referring to the use and teaching of simple and common terms that combine the masculine and feminine forms using the point médian or interpunct (e.g. président·e, to combine président and présidente). It is claimed that such terms are complicated and look ugly, or make the language hard to use and learn.

All the while that French politicians have been arguing about and trying to ban the use of inclusive language, progressive parts of Francophone society and grassroots groups have moved way beyond onto new and innovative ‘post-binary’ transformations of

technology” capable of expressing queer and non-binary identities. They understand typography as an “emancipatory technology” that “offers the possibility of materializing queer, non-binary, genderfluid, agender, and genderfuck existences.” Their work includes new symbols that visually merge masculine and feminine endings, offering alternatives to the criticised interpunct.

Like Bye Bye Binary, we see that it’s often young people who are leading this struggle; the youth in Buenos Aires demonstrating against gendered Spanish and inclusive language being banned in Argentinian schools, the Groupe d’action trans (Trans Action Group) of the University of Sherbrooke, and the Conseil québécois LGBT (Quebec LGBT Council) in Montreal who are advancing this struggle and coming up with resources on gender-neutral and non-binary inclusive writing.

This is why many people are now taking the fight to foreign language classrooms (in countries where inclusive language is not banned), in order to disprove arguments that inclusive language models are complicated and hard to learn, and to have as many speakers of a language as possible use it in a way that accommodates and respects all gender identities.

This week, students are putting on a workshop on gender-neutral writing in French in collaboration with the Discipline of French and

Art by Davy Vineburg

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE FALL OF

Why Queer People Are Not to Blame for the Decline of the Roman Empire

Societal Collapse is Rohan Baker-Wade’s (they/them) Roman Empire.

If you have recently been on Elon Musk’s X, you may have noticed a steep rise in popularity of accounts that have taken an interest in Classical aesthetics and ideas. These so-called ‘statue profile accounts’ — named for their fondness of using images of classical busts of Roman and Greek philosophers as profile pictures — often perpetuate harmful and misguided beliefs about the course of Classical history, ideas that have been spreading for centuries.

The narrative of weak queer men being the progenitors of societal downfall does not hold as many parallels to history as right-wing proponents may have us believe.

One popular image depicts the four panels comprising Victorian painter Thomas Cole’s The Course of Empire showing the decline and graphic destruction of the Roman empire. This is accompanied by the text “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good timwes create weak men, weak men create hard times” — a quote attributed to dystopian fiction author G. Michael Hopf. Many iterations of this format claim that we currently reside in this last stage, in a society suffering through the degeneration of men causing societal collapse — drawing parallels to the fall of the Roman Empire.

Historians once blamed the fall of the Roman Empire on the ‘degenerate’ and ‘decadent’ nature of emperors based on writing during the terminal part of the Empire. Common targets are emperors such as Nero and Elagabalus. The latter was described in Roman and modern texts as indulgent, effeminate, and delusional in their desire to be referred to as a ‘lady’ instead of a ‘lord.’ Elagabalus was also described as seeking what we may now call a vaginoplasty from their physician and dressing up as the goddess Venus, the pinnacle of

female beauty in the Roman world. European scholars considered this behaviour indicative of a more widespread cultural decline which saw material culture — particularly the famous bone white, masculine statues — become effeminate and weak.

As European colonial expansion increased, fear of an apocalyptic decline and collapse of empires rose. As Western explorers happened upon hitherto ‘unexplored’ lands, they discovered many spectacular ruins. The Mayan pyramids at Chichen Itza, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka — wherever it was, it seemed to them that the remnants of great lost civilisations scattered the earth. These societies were seen to have followed a similar fate to Rome, where their culture and identity was completely eradicated and replaced by a new group of people in a Dark Age of intellectual regression, who would have to rebuild civilisation from the ground up. What is most disturbing is that these beliefs were particularly favoured by the Nazis who saw themselves as a culturally advanced society, like Rome, at risk of destruction by degenerates. They did not want to follow the same fate.

In reality, none of the ruins colonists encountered were ‘lost’ and none of these lands were ‘unexplored.’ For the examples listed above, climate played a big role in their abandonment. All of them were abandoned due to climatic fluctuations around what we call the “Little Ice Age,” which saw large scale failure of crops in massive low-density equatorial cities due to increasing intensity in monsoons and droughts. Indeed, the so-called ‘Late Antique Little Ice Age’ saw a cooling period during the terminal years of the Roman Empire negatively impacting harvests, a great detriment to its political system and a likely cause of subsequent geopolitical fragmentation.

In other words, the abandonment and ruin of a society’s spectacular civic structures does not indicate the destruction of culture. Social structures shift when

they are no longer sustainable, such as in the face of climatic uncertainty.

We know that the descendants of those living around Angkor Wat moved south to Cambodia’s current capital of Phnom Penh, and the residents of Sri Lanka’s giant cities moved to the south of the island. Moreover, Rome’s ‘fall’ did not come about because it was destroyed by barbarians or its culture was ruined by ‘degenerates’ as Victorian historians claimed.

in a period of climate change and political volatility. In times such as these it is only natural to want to look back into similar times in the past for guidance. The right does this by blaming concrete groups of people who exist today and can be used as targets for the fall of civilisation, based on loose connections in ancient texts (i.e. queer people, people of colour, disabled people etc.). But the reality is much more complex; empires, whether that be the Roman or the British, are not sustainable and their political

President

Angus Fisher

Things are constantly evolving at USyd, and it’s my job to make sure students aren’t getting a rough deal in that. The university is looking at overhauling degree planning to “streamline” students’ experience. This is in response to USyd having the worst student experience scores in the Go8. Whenever “streamlining” gets mentioned, I have to ensure that this doesn’t mean unnecessary course and/or staff cuts. Regardless, there is more to come on this, and just like I saved 5-day simple extensions earlier this semester, I will guarantee the outcome is best for students.

Last week, I took part in a roundtable discussion on the university’s definition of antisemitism. Representatives from university management, the NTEU, staff, and, of course, students were invited to critique the definition and the process by which it was implemented. What was

highlighted was that trust in university management has been seriously eroded. Some members believed that any definition could and potentially would be used to stifle free expression by the university. For the SRC, repairing this trust between us and management would require a dedication to being involved in genuine consultation and consideration of our members’ (YOU!) opinions.

In other news, the SRC Legal Service now has a migration lawyer! I am so happy I get to deliver this service to our amazing international student cohort. Please don’t be afraid to reach out if you have any questions.

In solidarity, Angus

Vice Presidents

Shovan Bhattarai, Bohao Zhang

I hope everybody has had a relaxing mid semester break.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working with the International Student Collective on a range of initiatives. We have been conducting street interviews throughout campus to get a better feel of what students would like to see from the Collective, alongside as material to post on socials – so keep an eye out for it! We have also hosted another movie night, and are planning a market day – which will take place on the 6th of May, Tuesday, from 3pm at the International Students Lounge! Hoping to see everyone there!!

In my capacity as Vice-President, I have been continuing to advocate for increased FoodHub support. To that end, I have met with USU staff to better understand what needs to be done for an improved and expanded FoodHub, and how exactly

the SRC would be able to fit into that picture. While the feedback I am getting is that a lot of the problem stems from lack of funding, which can only be resolved through enlarging the budget of the USU next year, the SRC would still be able to pitch in through providing a regular set of volunteers – something I am now working on organising.

Also, consider this report an invitation to help make FoodHub better. Chuck me an email if you’re interested in getting involved with FoodHub at vice.president@src.usyd. edu.au

Best, Bohao

Education Officers

Luke Mešterović, Jasmine Al Rawi

The fight for free education continues. As you may be aware, there was an election on Saturday. As you may also be aware, the Australian Labor Party has returned to power with an increased majority.

There are some things to celebrate. Yes — it is heartening to see Peter Dutton lose his seat, after running a campaign predicated on stoking racism and spouting vitriol. Yes, the utter decimation of the Liberals is something that ought to be celebrated.

But students deserve better than what Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Party are offering. This is a party that is opposed to free education, preferring to only shave 20% off our HECS. It is a party that is opposed to meaningful climate action, opening 10 new coal mines or expansions. It

This week is the week of Reclaim and Resist!

We have an array of engaging educational and creative workshops this week. Ranging from panels about the legal system, a writing workshop with Hasib Hourani, and an open mic night to finish the week off, you will not want to miss this!

All details for the Reclaim and Resist schedule can be found on our Instagram @usydwoco.

In addition to this, we have seen an intense and worrying rise in far-right abortion abolitionists. They have been on our campus many times intimidating students at City Rd.

Martha

Barlow, Ellie Robertson

We urge you to stay away from them for your own safety, as the hate and violence these people permeate is disgusting. Instead, join us in a sit-in on campus on Wednesday, 14th May. Bring your signs, bring your banners, bring masks if you feel more comfortable when doing so. We urge you to be there and show that these harmful narratives are not welcome on our campus.

Pop us a DM on insta if you’d like to get more involved in the Women’s Collective.

In love and rage,

Martha and Ellie

Global Solidarity Officers

The Indian occupation of Kashmir has increased its attacks and targeting of Kashmiris since an alleged terrorism attack in Pahalgam on April 22nd, a town in Kashmir frequented by tourists. Since then, imperial forces have collective punishment against Kashmiris, detaining over 2000 people; mass demolitions of Kashmiri homes; and harassment of journalists. Kashmir is the most militarised region in the world despite being hailed as a tourism spot. This is settler-colonialism in action. We must stand in solidarity with the people of Kashmir in shared struggle against imperialism and setter-colonialism – a struggle that parallels that of the Palestinian people, and Indigenous struggle globally.

May 15 will mark 76 years of the ongoing

Nakba in Palestine — displacing over 700,000 Palestinians, with over a year of the ongoing siege on Gaza and the bombardment of the West Bank. The Nakba Rally this year will be at 6:30 PM on Nakba Day, May 15, where we urge you to mobilise you and your collectives to attend and escalate the fight for a free Palestine.

Over in the imperial core, an incredible mass mobilisation of 55,000 people joined a strike called by the Service Employees International Union in America, a reaction to continued failed negotiations with the state on bad faith interaction and 44 labor law violations. Stand in solidarity with our American comrades and join the National Day of Protest against Trump on May 24, calling for our government to cut ties with Trump’s America.

is a party that is opposed to bringing house prices down, committing to policies that they admit will drive them up.

We need to let this government know that students cannot, and will not, be taken for granted. The EAG was not created to fight for 1/5 of our HECS debt to be forgiven. It was created to fight for free education for all. And we will carry on fighting until that becomes a reality. Follow us on Instagram at usyd. education.action to become a part of our Stop Cuts campaign and send a message to university management and this government that we will not rest until our education is fully funded. The Liberals may have lost, but fight for free education continues.

Emma Searle, Dana Kafina, Jessica Heap, Taleen Jameel

Late Discontinuation Under Special Circumtances

What is a DC?

A DC (Discontinue Not to Count as Fail) indicates that you were enrolled in a Unit of Study, but sometime after the census date, were unable to complete the unit because of illness, injury, or misadventure, that was unexpected, and outside of your control. DCs do not count towards your WAM or academic progression.

What supporting documentation do you need?

Both your written statement and your supporting documentation should specify the affected unit/s of study and set out the reasons why your circumstances:

(i) were beyond your reasonable control;

Check with the SRC what documents you will need to get for your application. You can appeal the decision if you are not successful, but you only get one opportunity for appeal.

Who can provide this documentation?

Reporting your income to CENTRELINK - Student Survey

(ii) did not make their full impact until on or after census date;

(iii) made it impracticable for you to complete the affected unit/s;

The documentation needs to come from a doctor, psychologist, or psychiatrist, who is registered in Australia.

We know that Centrelink is challenging, but we want to know what you think about the changed way you report your income.

(iv) could not be addressed by special consideration or disability adjustments; and

What happens if you are not successful when you apply?

To have your say, head to: bit.ly/3tu6Kv0

(v) if you successfully completed other unit/s explain why only the affected unit/s were impacted.

If you did not complete an assessment, you either need to have applied for special consideration or your supporting document needs to explain why you did not apply for special consideration.

Your documentation does not need to be a report, it can simply be a professional practitioner’s certificate, provided it contains all those necessary detail

If you are missing some documentation, sometimes you will be given 10 days to provide the necessary documents. Check with the SRC what documents you will need to get for your application. You can appeal the decision if you are not successful, but you only get one opportunity for appeal.

When are DCs not available?

If you have completed all the assessments in a subject, you will not be able to get a DC. If the subjects are more than a year old, you will need compelling evidence showing why you couldn’t apply earlier.

Read the article with links to resources: Scan the QR

Ask Abe

SRC Caseworker Help Q&A

Working Students - Student Income Bank (SIB)

Youth Allowance and Austudy recipients have a Student Income Bank (SIB), which allows you to work while receiving a Centrelink payment. This can accumulate to $12,000 a year

Dear Abe,

How much can I work while I’m on Youth Allowance?

Working

Dear Working,

Youth Allowance and Austudy recipients have a Student Income Bank (SIB), which allows you to work while receiving a Centrelink payment.

Each fortnight you are allowed to earn $480 $528 without any reduction to your payment. If you earn less than $528 in that fortnight, the remainder is carried over to the next fortnight. This can accumulate to a maximum of $12,700 a year. If you earn more than your SIB in a fortnight, your Centrelink payment is reduced by 50 cents per dollar for every dollar between $480 $528 and $575 $633, then 60 cents per dollar for every dollar afterwards.

Abe

If you need help from an SRC Caseworker start an enquiry on our Caseworker Contact Form: bit.ly/3YxvDUf

Gay men are afraid to speak out. It’s up to straight women to speak up.

It was set to be a fantastic Thursday evening. “UrbanSteve 48” had been messaging “MagicMike 18”. “Sooo your profile says you’ve got the clap... call me Gaga cause i live for the applause”. 30 minutes later, they were upstairs by the gloryholes at Sauna X. Steve is that soft spoken florist-gay who realised his true self a little later, not a bear, not a twink, certified average and here for good honest fun. Mike was a little on the bearish side, but everything seemed routine. That all changed in the cubicles. Steve was only a dozen thrusts in when he felt the horrifying sensation. Suddenly, flashbacks to his failed marriage hit him like a freight train. BIOLOGICAL PUSSY. He had been tricked into heterosexual STI transmission. After he climaxed, the sense of violation was swift. This was meant to be a positive experience. It was now Steve’s worst nightmare.

Steve is one of my gay friends. He’s a bug-chaser. As a gender-critical straight woman, I’m a steady shoulder to lean upon for my gay male friends. They come to me for support, for advice, for tea and scones (yes, that kind of tea too, I know my gay slang). Recently, fissures have strained their community, as a minority of activists force their values on them. They feel afraid that if they express their distress, they will be shamed.

So I’ve decided to speak for them.

“Bug-chasing” is a fetish within the gay community and cruising that relates to the desire to contract and propagate STIs. Though born out of the nihilism of the AIDS crisis, it has since evolved into a healthy space, where gay men leverage their autonomy to reclaim the power STIs hold over NSA (No Strings Attached) sex. What previously made these men pariahs is now celebrated. But recently, attempts to push diversity and inclusivity have invited a different kind of virus into the community…

Gender madness has come to cruising, and vulnerable groups like bugchasers are being hit the hardest. To an outsider, more vectors for infection sounds great, right? As usual, straight people project their ideas of sex onto the gay community and misunderstand it entirely. If you know gay men like I do, you understand how sacred giving and receiving STIs anonymously can be. When a bug-chaser receives a positive STI diagnosis, it connects them to their partner. What they now have inside them was inside another man, and they now share that journey; apart, but together. Bug-chasers no longer have that certainty.

Two Trucks Having Sex

The amber light of a streetlamp was not PR1V-4’s favourite lighting to be seen in, but the freight-hauler pushing her up against the wall behind a Stop-n-Gas didn’t seem to care too much how her optics reflected. She was an older model, bigger, built tough for long hauls, and her firm grip on the little courier’s hip actuators reflected that. A light squeeze brought a quiet gasp to her lips, and the older woman smirked, pressing closer to brush her own lips against hers.

“Component sensitivity turned up a little, huh Priva?” BRIG-37 murmured, the husk in her voice modulator sending tremors down Priva’s spinal mount as each bot’s supple thigh crumple zones slipped together and against each other, drawing a moan from each.

“J-just a little, Bridget,” whispered Priva, hooking her leg over the big-rig and hauling herself upwards, “You know, t-to get a better feel for the road, and all that…”

“Uhuh, sure~. Say, are you okay interfacing with a fembot that has a clutch? I was born a manual, after all.”

Priva’s response came in the form of a kiss, a deep, slow, lingering exchange of coolant, her engine revving as Bridget’s inefficient radiator delivered a flood of liquid, finally parting and leaving both of them slick with the warm, blue fluid. Swallowing greedily, Priva looked deep into the big-rig’s optics, answering a questioning look with her own needy gaze.

“I need you, Bree. Quickly. Please.”

The urgency of her plea brought Bridget’s exhaust stacks to red hot, her revs kicking up as desire overcame hesitation. Before she even knew what was happening, her gearbox was pressed up against Priva, slowly shifting into first with a drawn-out, ecstatic grind. Priva, for her part, leant her head back and

Written by Catherine Ratchet-Mewling. Edited by Quay-Quay Quade (she/her).

This transgender-related panic that is overwhelming bug-chasers has desecrated the casual encounter. Innocent hookups now have the threat of transgenders tricking gay men into sex. “Slippery 47” intimated to me of an encounter with a “twink” at a gay sauna:

We were in a darkroom and I was, you know, inserting myself. At the first stroke they let out this incredibly feminine moan. I panicked, I was like “whoa, are you a woman? Are you a crossdresser?” I feel their chin for some beard or stubble then I realise, what if this is a transman?? They had a penis but it wasn’t erect so I started feeling around their balls for the pump, they have a pump there you know that’s how they... anyway they push me off and storm out, leaving me feeling unsafe, I don’t know who or what I’ve just penetrated! I pursued them, trying to get answers, and eventually staff removed me from the venue! Other men were clearly disturbed by this, but were too intimidated by the progress flags plastered everywhere to say anything. Some even told me to stop “harassing” this weirdo out of fear they might be cancelled by their peers!

This isolation is hurting gay men, much like it does for us in the female community. Uncertainty over woke thought-policing hangs over every conversation; you could cut through the tension like a surgeon with a knife. This transgender craze causes irreversible damage to these spaces. Indeed, some gay men are striking out, unable to compete with younger, nubile transexuals seducing potential mates. Bug-chasing has become a bisexual’s game. As my friend “SmallPackages67” put it:

Things are getting worse. Our spaces are no longer sacred. If I’m at the gloryhole in the men’s room, I’ve got no trust in who is on the other side. I see the progress that women like yourself have made with transgender bathroom bans, and I think that’s a good thing. But I worry it’s going to give transvestites license to invade our spaces and push their inclusivity agenda on us. As a gay male, I don’t feel safe with these mentally unstable crossdressers.

As a biological woman, what SmallPackages says resonates deeply. We are turning back the tide of gender ideology for women, reclaiming our single sex spaces in the US and UK. But for us to be a truly liberationist feminist movement, our struggle has to be intersectional. The next step for radical feminism has to be the protection of our gay male siblings. There must be a concerted effort to ban trans people from shared male spaces. Any veteran bug-chaser on the scene can tell you, you don’t end a course of antibiotics early just because the symptoms pass, you keep going till that bug is gone for good.

Máibh Rafferty (she/her) revs it up.

moaned, exulting in Bridget’s passionate rush, the wheels in her forearms gripping at her partner’s shoulders, rubber against metal tingling along her onboard systems.

Bridget stood at nearly twice the size Priva did in humanoid form, a fact that garnered attention often when they were together out in public. But here, it only meant that Priva couldn’t have stopped Bridget’s hands from teasing open her bonnet in the centre of her chest even if she had wanted to. Priva’s engine sputtered, the sudden airflow nearly disrupting the strokes of her six cylinders, as its owner pushed it forward and against Bridget.

The courier’s hips set a steady pace, the groan of stressed metal accompanying Bridget’s breathless shift to second gear as those big, strong hands gently caressed Priva’s engine housing, enough power to haul 16 tons of freight around her living, beating heart. It was dizzying, intoxicating, her pistons firing harder and harder at the thought that at any moment, her life could be crunched short.

“M-more, please, more,” she begged, looking down at her open chest and those huge, strong arms buried in it. “Short-circuit me, Bridge. Spark up my systems and make me purr for you…”

Just like that, the big-rig roared into third, rocketing through fourth and fifth, bolts and rivets rattling in their welds as she squeezed her precious cargo tight and put all her horsepower into one final rev. Bridget’s wheels screamed as her brakes held firm against all the torque her drivetrain could impart and her voice modulator crackled with ecstasy, one last cry of pleasure as her shift into sixth gear put her over the edge into orgasm. Priva giggled and pulled herself closer, the bots’ lips meeting once again in a passionate kiss.

A kiss cut short when Bridget’s fingers found the wire leading between Priva’s battery and the part of her positronic brain responsible for pleasure, and she

*Grindr profile details used throughout this article including profile names, self-reported weight, height, age, and penis length/girth have been changed/redacted to preserve the anonymity of victim/ survivors for fear of cancellation if they speak out.

tugged. Instantly, the courier’s headlights flickered on, then her high beams, pulsing in time with her jagged moans and gasps for air as Priva came on her lover’s fingers in a shower of warm, sticky motor oil. For an eternity of seconds, neither said a word, each absorbed in the bliss of mutual satisfaction and the smell of burnt rubber, metal shavings, and lubricant. Then, at last, Priva spoke up:

“Y’know, for a girl with a manual clutch, you sure know just where to touch an automatic~!”

Bridget laughed, lowering Priva gently to the ground where the smaller woman simply collapsed back into vehicle form* to recover. Sitting down against the wall, she picked the courier truck up and settled it into her lap, stretching and reaching into her cabin for a cigarette. “What can I say, love? When I go in for a lady, I’m in it for the long-haul!”

*Yes, cisformers can do that too!