Outspoken 2020 by UWA Student Guild

OUTSPOKEN

The Cast and Crew of Camp Camp 2020 2

CONTENTS Cover Art by Reece Gherardi and Saskia Mason

Art by The Cast and Crew of Camp Camp 2020

Editorials

Thank You and Contributors

The Stars as Girls I’ve Had a Thing For by Amelia Birch

Reclaiming Gay: The words I didn’t have then by Reece Gherardi

Words by Many

Art by Anna Kimpton

Love Being Lesbian by Many

Masculine Bisexuality: Bisexual men reflect on their relationship to masculinity by Many

The Half of It: Another LGBT movie that misses the mark by Gabby Hardwick and Dana London

The Things You Find on Your Good Days by Reece Gherardi

Pink City in Lockdown: An exercise in separatism by Amelia Birch

Dating Scripts for Lesbians by Anna Kimpton

Bruce Springsteen: Tramps Like Us by Isabelle Bizjak

More Than Trauma: Reframing transgender narratives by Kat Williams*, edited by Paris Javid

Outspoken: 2016 – The Pride Pages by Many

Messages From Home by Saskia Mason

The “Unfaithful Bisexual” Trope in Film and TV by Eva Lowe

Female Film and the Male Gaze by Saskia Mason

I Asked My Father Once by Aidan Maximo

Art by Kei-Kei Koh

Untitled by Jazzar O’Dea

Five Lyrics in Taylor Swift’s Folklore That Make You Go “Hmmmmm” by Isabelle Bizjak

Jellicle Choices: An objective ranking of the Cats (2019) cats by Many

Art by S. Kennedy-Perkins

Art by The Cast and Crew of Camp Camp 2020

Photos by Al Ghanim

Retrograde 2020 Poster by Xander Sinclair

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

REECE GHERARDI

SASKIA MASON

Year and Major I’m sorry, the old Reece can’t come to the editorial right now. Why? Oh, ‘cause he’s… currently being murdered by his thesis!

Year and Major I’m a third-year undergrad, doing Law & Society and Business Law – aka One Law Major Too Many.

HEAD EDITOR

Which Meme Are You? The Kermit the Frog meme where he’s being encouraged by the evil version of himself to stir the pot and cause trouble. Your RuPaul’s Drag Race Entrance Quote “What’s up boys I’m Kath Eine, and just like my namesake I’m here to give you the shits!” Favourite Quote “I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday.” – Lemony Snicket, The Beatrice Letters. Best Thing About Being Involved in Outspoken I’ve been a part of Outspoken since its very inception, and I’ve watched it evolve from a tiny little newsletter called The Pride Pages, to such a – well, in my opinion! – high quality publication that truly gives LGBT students a platform to say things that need saying. The best thing, I would say, is seeing the time and effort the contributors put in to their pieces – more on that on the Contributors Page! Who Would Play You in a Movie? Sandra Bullock. No context.

SUB-EDITOR

Which Meme Are You? The ‘this is fine’ dog- though, really, who amongst us isn’t the ‘this is fine’ dog in 2020? Your RuPaul’s Drag Race Entrance Quote I arrive fifteen minutes late clutching an iced coffee and scurry in wordlessly. Favourite Quote “Even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch.” – Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch. Best Thing About Being Involved in Outspoken Being able to see and to showcase the myriad of viewpoints, passions and talents of our contributors, and getting to work together with so many people to create something bigger than ourselves. Many of the collages included this year were collaborative works- created by groups of people working side-by-side, each adding pieces of their own that together comprised a larger vision, something chaotic and varied and beautiful – and I feel like that sums up the things I love about Outspoken in the most literal sense. Who Would Play You in a Movie? Daniel Day-Lewis. There’s not a huge resemblance but he’s got the acting chops to pull it off.

JUST A THANK YOU OR TWO (OR THREE OR FOUR)

So, before we get to the actual list of contributors for this year’s Outspoken, I just want to say a few words, those words specifically being ‘thank you’. Firstly, thank you to all the contributors this year. This has been our biggest Outspoken yet, and it has been an absolute joy to work with you all. Every contributor here has put their time, energy and effort into their submissions. Just like the theme this year, we’ve taken individual parts and made them into a whole. Reading these (and indeed editing them!), you can really feel the love that went into the submissions, be it writing, photography, or art. I am so proud of each and every one of these contributors. Secondly, I want to thank my Sub-Editor, Saskia Mason (who has no idea I’m doing this so I hope she’s not mad!). I’ve known Saskia since her first year, and I’ve watched her grow from wide-eyed fresher to slightlyless-wide-eyed fresher, to an amazing Pride Officer, to my Outspoken Sub-Editor. Saskia has been such a gem throughout this whole process, and I couldn’t think of anyone I would rather do this with. I’m so incredibly proud of how far she’s come, and how well she’s handled working on Outspoken.

Of course, I wouldn’t be able to do this without giving a thank you to Amelia Birch. I started out as Amelia’s SubEditor back in 2019, and I learned so much about the editing and content creation process from her. More so than that, Amelia has been my number one supporter since day one, always there for a chat, a coffee, or a meme. She has been so supportive ever since I’ve known her, and it is without a doubt that the current success of Outspoken could not exist without Amelia. And last but definitely not least, I have to give the biggest thank you of all to Xander Sinclair, the Guild’s graphic designer (well, ‘Creative Officer (Mon, Tue, Fri)’ if you want his actual job title), who is without a doubt the MVP of Outspoken. Not only did he [literally] put the magazine together, he’s also been such a legend in dealing with my sleep-derived, caffeine-addicted, stressy, neurotic, persnickety ass. So thank you, Xander, Outspoken would quite literally not exist without you, and I hope that everybody is as grateful for you as I am! So that’s that, enjoy the magazine everyone!

Reece Gherardi

Anonymous

Saskia Mason

Anonymous

The Original Contributors to The Pride Pages (and Their Original Credits)

Amelia Birch

Alex

Ellen

Eva Lowe

Callum

Reece

Aidan Maximo

John

Avory

Kei-Kei Koh

Haeden

Laura

Jazzar O’Dea

Gabby Hardwick

Fraser

Isabelle Bizjak

Dana London

S. Kennedy-Perkins

Kat Williams*

Eva Orchys

Paris Javid

James Haley

Fraser Windsor

Anna Kimpton

Xander Sinclair 5

THE STARS AS GIRLS I’VE HAD A THING FOR AMELIA BIRCH

Full disclosure: I’m a Gemini. I’ve been following a bunch of horoscope meme accounts for three years which makes me an expert on this. I’ve also had a lot of dyke drama. Mum, don’t read this article.

ARIES

GEMINI

My first ever girlfriend was an Aries! We were 15 and it was a Secret (so obviously everyone guessed what was up) and we were both pretty awful to each other but we can laugh about it now. TBH I feel like everyone is awful at 15 regardless of their star sign. The fact that we are both still friends is a testament to how much we both enjoy talking trash. Aries, you’re the only sign who can make complaining entertaining. You dislike things for no real reason, but you also don’t take much personally. Keep it up.

My mum says how when I was little she would struggle to tell me off because even though I was a pretty good kid, I loved the drama of conflict. Which maybe says why the highest proportion of my interpersonal dyke drama has been with Geminis. Two of my tediously dramatic, pointlessly drawn-out relationships were with women who were coincidentally both Geminis and Swedish. To my fellow Geminis, we are funny and chatty but irritatingly fickle and avoidant. Once I semijokingly cautioned a work colleague against dating a Gemini, and she said “maybe the problem was you were both Geminis, so you were both as bad as one another.” Touché.

Aries song rec: Drink About You by Kate Nash

TAURUS Tauruses get a real easy go of the zodiac. Maybe, as one of the most hated signs, I’m prone to bias on this, but the public perception of Tauruses is that you’re all super chill and loving and go off for bath bombs. Which I totally get, but like, I also dated a Taurus who cut off bits of her hair and posted them to me after we’d broken up. What I’m saying here is Tauruses, congrats on your excellent PR team, because I know the truth is that you’re all secretly NUTS.

Gemini song rec: Voulez-Vous by ABBA CANCER I had a crush on a Cancerian when I was 18 and I thought she was so deep and mysterious and dreamy. I ran into her last year and she was pretty much unchanged except what I thought was hot when I was 18 was just boring and pretentious now. Keep that in mind, Cancers. Cancer song rec: Should Have Known Better by Sufjan Stevens

Taurus song rec: No Sex for Ben by The Rapture LEO Never dated a Leo. I’m self-righteous enough, thanks, I don’t need to compete with my girlfriend on that. Leo song rec: Sorry Not Sorry by Demi Lovato 6

VIRGO

CAPRICORN

Once during a particularly low period I spent thirty minutes talking to a woman at the Body Shop. We were hitting it off and when she was scanning through my overpriced lotion she said something about being a Virgo and I told her I was a Gemini and she said, “I don’t know anything about Geminis, are they good to date?” and I said “no, we’re all really awful.” Then I left and my friend pointed out that the woman had been hitting on me and I’d made it weird. Sorry Virgos, you work very hard and have some great opinions on body wash.

The Capricorn symbol is a goat. Goats are so cute and annoying and have a real Attitude, which is fitting, because so do Caps, and I say this with absolute authority because I’ve been dating a Cap for a couple of years. I love this insufferably busy and moral highground-y sign. Caps, you probably love being judgy about everything and everyone except for like a handful of exceptions. For my girlfriend the exceptions are one, my housemate’s dogs, and two, me. Keep up the good work.

Virgo song rec: 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton

Capricorn song rec: Waking Up by Kero Kero Bonito

LIBRA

AQUARIUS

I was quite good friends with this girl who I would go clubbing with every few months and we would casually make out but never seemed to be able to organise ourselves enough to actually hook up. I think she teaches primary school Spanish now. Fun, flaky, and well-intentioned fits Libra like a glove.

A few years ago after leaving uni and being broken up with, I worked a super dead-end job for a grand total of five weeks. Hired at the same time as me was an Aquarius who was the only other dyke at the company. She was an absolute Cool Girl, Brixton born-and-bred, and we bonded over hating our jobs and feeling a general summertime malaise that resulted in a lot of messy gay clubbing. We both quit on the same day; I ended up nabbing a full time job in theatre and she got into art school and moved to Bournemouth. Haven’t spoken to her since but Aquarians, you have this chill, untouchable energy that is sometimes Too Much but sometimes exactly what a gal needs. Stick with it.

Libra song rec: I Was Gonna Cancel by Kylie Minogue

SCORPIO I am fond of Scorpios because they are tied first place with Geminis for most hated sign, but, unlike Geminis, it is NOT deserved. I had an almost-but-not-quite thing with a Scorpio for literal years where we both agreed in another life we would’ve dated, but the timing and geography never quite worked out. Scorpios, you’re secretly sweet and absolutely killer at parties. Shout out to your eternal patience and getting molly for my 21st. Scorpio song rec: God Bless America - And All The Beautiful Women In It by Lana Del Rey

SAGGITARIUS So, some real astro-talk: Gemini and Sag are like, highdrama ride-or-die erratic Mutable sign BFFs. As far as I know, I’ve never had a Thing with a Sag, but I worked with a Saggitarian a few years ago who became one of my best friends, and our entire workplace thought we were dating and trying to (badly) hide it because we spent so much time outside of work together. Anyway I’ve never dated a Sag but you definitely should! They are fun and chaotic and full of hot takes.

Aquarius song rec: It’s Gonna Be Okay, Baby by MUNA

PISCES In 2015 I made a series of questionable decisions after a shitty break-up that resulted in me sitting in a “straight” Norwegian girl’s tiny flat waiting for her to get over her no-homo for long enough to acknowledge why we were both actually there. She made me sit through Jesus Christ Superstar TWICE before she FINALLY kissed me. By that point it was three in the morning and I was exhausted after an evening of having to pretend I cared about Tim Minchin. I had to get a series of night buses home and it took me two hours and I fought with my then-recent ex gf over messenger the entire way. Anyway, the moral of the story is that Pisces are HARD WORK and Tim Minchin was a shit Judas. Pisces song rec: Judas by Lady Gaga

Sagittarius song rec: Parlez Vous Francais by Art vs Science 7

RECLAIMING GAY:

THE WORDS I DIDN’T HAVE THEN REECE GHERARDI

CW: homophobia, homophobic slurs. “I don’t like labels.” I’d always let my curls grow out in summer, and the summer of 2013 was no different. Between the end of the previous school year, and having to lop them off and stuff myself back into my uniform for the next one, I felt them tickle the nape of my neck and let my fringe fall in front of my eyes. I’d feel confident, then, for once, and I’d go at a mile a minute too, the heat of the summer sun making my blood fizz with boundless energy in my veins. But it was when my best friend at the time told me he didn’t like labels, that pulled me to a record scratch stop. What he meant was that he didn’t want to label himself as ‘gay’ – it was too permanent, too binding, too much signing the dotted line at the bottom of a lifelong contract, and agreeing to all the terms and conditions that came with it. I found that, slowly, the more I started to lean into my identity, the more he shied away from his, and the more we drifted apart. It was the one and only time I’ve ever felt ashamed of who I am; I was losing my best friend because of it, even though we were one in the same. I can never truly know why he felt that way, because I never got the opportunity to ask. It only occurred to me after we’d stopped talking a couple of months later, that maybe he was too scared to. I wanted to talk to him more than ever, but what do you say to someone who hates a part of themselves that’s also a part of you? That summer was the loneliest of my entire life. He was gone, and the emptiness settled in my chest, making it hard to breathe. Slowly, my energy began to fade away, the heat became uncomfortable, then unbearable, and my arms and legs shone red with sunburn. My curls knotted and tangled, and I just couldn’t wait to cut them off again. Most days, I couldn’t manage a smile, let alone a laugh, sitting curled up on my couch in a tired heap. Depression was another word I didn’t have back then. And of course that wasn’t his fault, and I don’t blame him, but I’d never wanted him so badly with me than in those days, weeks, months. 8

I’m doing much better now, especially since I have the Pride Department, but I haven’t spoken to my friend in over seven years now; I’m not sure how he’s doing. And, although I do wish him happiness with all the love in my heart, my own happiness is still tempered with a strange and unexplainable guilt for not being better. I can’t help but feel shame because if I’d known then what I do now, I would have known what to say to help him. I know it’s completely irrational, and yet still I can’t help but feel a twinge of sadness every time I smile. I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately, and periodically over the past seven years. It’s occurred to me that maybe I still don’t have the right words now, but I hope I do. I understand that, for some people, the idea of not claiming a label can be freeing. I know that some people do find labels to be rigid and restrictive, and feel that it’s better to just not take one at all. This is not a sentiment I share. Gay is a label, a way of defining your sexuality, that much is true – but it’s so much more than that. Claiming the label ‘gay’, in one way or another, places you in a living, breathing community, connected to the lives of other gay men, not just through your sexuality, but through your shared experiences. Not just that, you claim the history behind being gay; the sadness of the gay men who died from AIDS with no family or friends, the pride of the gay men who fought and died for their right to exist, and the anger of the gay men who had to bury them. But existing as a gay man doesn’t come free. The first time I can remember being called ‘gay’ as an insult was when I was nine. I was in primary school – a different hairstyle, a different uniform, back then – and a boy told me he’d heard I was gay. It was something about the way he said it, voice seeping with disgust, that made me instantly defensive – and made me deny it. I didn’t truly know myself back then, but I knew, without being explicitly told, that gay way a dirty word, something whispered about behind closed doors; a label you would dread being applied to you.

I still feel that sense of dread, but not out of shame. I feel that sense of dread every time some stupid teenage boy looks at me and starts giggling with his friends. I feel it whenever an old man at work asks me “What are you?”. I feel it when a car pulls up and drives alongside me, the men inside it jeering “Faggot!”, and when I choose to keep walking and endure it rather than going into my apartment building because I wouldn’t be able to feel safe if they knew where I lived. In instances of homophobia in my life, I’ve been silent. I’ve kept walking, I’ve endured, because of the sheer terror of what could happen if I didn’t. Every gay man has a story like mine. Some aren’t so lucky. It is essential that we do claim – and reclaim – our labels, our community, and our history, because we live in a society that would prefer we didn’t. So long as gay men face oppression on the basis of our sexuality, claiming our labels, acknowledging our history and forming our community will always be a political act, rooted in defiance. Such beliefs, in fact, are the foundation for the very existence of the Pride Department; Clause 2.21.1 of the Pride Department’s founding document states that “We attest that homosexuality is political, because society oppresses lesbians and male homosexuals.”

I guess this brings me to the last thing I want to say. Matt, I know you’ll never read this – and maybe some part of me never wants you to – but part of me is still holding out hope that you’re still thinking of me. If you ever do, I just want to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to be a better friend, that I wasn’t able to tell you what I would have told you now. Oh my gosh, there’s so much I could tell you now; the Pride Department, running Australia’s first mass gay wedding protest, my exchange, becoming a cheerleader – everything. Most of all, though, I would tell you that I love you exactly as you are, and damn the consequences. I would tell you that I hope you’ve found happiness, even if I’m not there to share it with you. I would tell you that you matter, and that you are enough. And I would tell you that I miss you.

I understand the weight of the label every time I say I’m gay, and I will now and forever be proud to say it. Reclaiming gay gave me my voice back. There is another reason though, something I haven’t yet acknowledged: the future. Not only does claiming gay connect us to the present, but also to the future. In doing so, we show the future generations of gay men that they too can be accepted, form a community, and live a wholesome and happy life. I feel a duty to gay men growing up now to show them that being gay is more than the set of stereotypes that they’ve been taught. To them, we are the gay men they look up to, we are the ones who fly our flags proud; we are the gay men we all wished we could see when we were young.

MESSAGES FROM HOME SASKIA MASON

1:14pm, 04/10/19 so i’ve been Thinking

It was early October; I’d turned nineteen two days prior. The atmosphere on campus was imbued with chaos; violent storms overnight had felled trees, dragged down enormous branches. The persistent winds, still strong, carried newly-fallen leaves and sticks across the mostlyabandoned grounds; caution tape fluttered in the breeze. Huddled in Reid Library for shelter, I was restless, thoughts drifting to anything but the assignments I was supposed to be working on. It was here, the most mundane of settings, that I finally came to a revelation that felt long overdue. It felt like a momentous realisation, one that had only just come to me fully-formed then; the winds of change blowing through.

i think i’m just a lesbian lol maybe

I messaged this tentative new conclusion to my friend, a fellow lesbian, as soon as it came into my mind- I was scared if I didn’t share it, confine it to permanent record, that revelation would drift away untethered and be lost to me. I didn’t expect my friend to be surprised. In the year we’d known each other, I’d identified myself as bisexual- as I had for almost eight years by that point, all the way back to sixth grade- an identity label to which I’d attached countless disclaimers, an elaborate set of terms and conditions. I’m bisexual but with a preference for women- a strong preference actually, I’m definitely more into girls; I don’t really want anything to do with men, honestly, I could go the rest of my life avoiding them and I wouldn’t mind at all. This message came after months of self-doubt- months occupying a kind of limbo-state between identities; wishing I was a lesbian but thinking I couldn’t possibly be one, clinging to the label of bisexual that I’d carried for so long but feeling increasingly estranged from what it meant. Initially, during this period, I still thought of 10

myself as attracted to men. What I’d labelled as attraction for years only really existed in theory- in practice my few real experiences with men were invariably negativeand I’d grown to regard that supposed attraction as an unwelcome presence, something akin to a curse I’d been stricken by and resented deeply. That this drawn-out crisis-of-self, the liminal stage I had found myself confined to, had eventually culminated in a realisation that could be contained in a message as glib as ‘I’m a lesbian lol’ felt surreal.

How do you feel about it?

idk mainly like scared I’m gonna change my mind

Scared you’ll actually turn out to be into men? Being scared about that is a very common Lesbian feel. And the fact that that scares you is like. Probs a sign.

Retrospectively, it feels obvious that the way I felt towards men was devoid of genuine attraction- nothing but a lingering symptom of compulsory heterosexuality. The idea of compulsory heterosexuality supposes that female attraction to men is societally mandated, part of the political institution of heterosexuality under which lesbian existence is either vilified or rendered invisible. Certainly, I didn’t consider myself heterosexual, and really never have- I was consciously aware of my interest in other girls by age ten, and too young to have formulated any real identity before that. But the machinations of compulsory heterosexuality are twofold- the coercive forces that act to deny the possibility of attraction between women also act to

mandate their attraction to men. To overcome its influence and decipher my real feelings- sift through what had been instilled into me, separate the way I was supposed to feel about men from how I actually felt- felt like an impossible task for quite some time. The prospect of potentially coming out as a lesbian and then, at some point, changing my mind terrified me for some time, though I couldn’t quite articulate why. In my mind, the worst case scenario I pictured over and over was this: that I would come out as a lesbian and then, at some point in the future, would somehow find myself dating a man. I had no intention to ever do so; still, I couldn’t quite shake the idea of relationships with men as some kind of dreaded inevitability. To come to understand myself as a lesbian required me to look past the fear and uncertainty I still felt, to consider with a critical eye the signs I had dismissed for years. I had to teach myself to ignore the voice of doubt- made manifest by years of compulsory heterosexuality- that refused me the possibility of a life defined separately from men that I so desired. Storm raging overhead that day, resplendent in quiet revelation, it felt bizarre that I could have a realisation that felt so thrillingly momentous and, yet, look no different to the people that surrounded me. The feeling of joy and relief- the sheer rightness of being able to call myself a lesbian that drowned out any lingering doubtfelt so great as to be palpable to those around me. It felt like uncovering something that was lost, hidden from me for years; it felt like finding my way home.

Welcome home, Saski. You can leave whenever but like you’re home for now and that’s what matters.

THE “UNFAITHFUL BISEXUAL” TROPE IN FILM AND TV EVA LOWE

CW: biphobia. NOTE: For the ease of the reader, I will be defining Bisexuality (attraction to same gender and other gender/s) as an umbrella term for Pansexuality, Omnisexuality and Polysexuality. I in no way mean to exclude members of these sexualities by using this term. Queer representation in Film and TV has made a significant shift in recent decades in response to changing views on homosexuality. However, as a whole, LGBT characters are still widely underrepresented in mainstream media, often used for dramatic purposes or as a means of forced diversity. Queers often wait seasons for a homoromantic kiss often to find that the relationship doesn’t work out. Lesbian representation in film, for example, often coincides with depressing plots such as Carol or A Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Meanwhile, Gay men battle the feminine gay stereotype often seen as the outcast such as Kurt Hummel in Glee. Bisexuality has been, and still is, copping a bad rep on the screen. Identifying as a Bisexual myself, I have been exposed to some pretty malicious characterisation informed by societal Biphobia. Commonly misconceived as a ‘phase’ between sexual identities, TV and cinema has bombarded the Bi community with characters that appear to recklessly experiment with their sexuality often destroying any existing romantic relationships they’re already in. Here, I present to you, the ‘Unfaithful Bisexual’ trope. Below, I’ll list some irksome portrayals I’ve noticed in my recent travels and why they can be harmful in representing Bisexuality.

EXHIBIT A: KILLING EVE (2018-2020) Ah, Killing Eve. Starring Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer, It’s a rollercoaster of sexual tension and disastrous love. MI6 Agent Eve Polastri works a chain of international assassinations committed by Russian Mob Killer, Villanelle. When their two lives cross paths, Eve immediately appears to throw her married life under the bus to pursue a dangerous relationship with the assassin. This storyline unhealthily fantasises WLW relationships in an Ariana Grande-esque “break up with your boyfriend coz I’m bored” way. The relationship represents Eve’s Bisexuality as a disaster waiting to happen as she appears to throw all commitment to the wind to pursue a dangerous woman. EXHIBIT B: ATYPICAL (2017) Another portrayal of the “Unfaithful Bisexual” comes in double in Netflix Original series Atypical. In later seasons, protagonist Sam’s younger sister Casey gets herself tangled in a confusing affair with her best friend Izzie which leads to both parties cheating on their respective partners in some fashion. It is clear that Casey is attracted to her boyfriend Evan but can’t help her desire for Izzie. Like Polastri, Casey leaves her partner heartbroken while she’s consumed in the excitement of her new affair. This perpetuates the stigma against Bisexuals as untrustworthy partners. I also get the sense that the producers are trying to promote the message that “it’s not cheating if they’re the same gender” which also dismisses the homosexual community.

BONUS EXHIBIT: GLEE (2009-2015) Glee has been great for representing the LGBT community but that comes with some faults. One of which is the way Bisexuality is talked about by the characters. In season 2 episode 14, Kurt dismisses Blaine’s sexual questioning by saying “Bisexual’s a term that gay guys in high school use when they wanna hold hands with girls and feel normal for a change.” This is hard to hear as the producers of Glee ruined a great opportunity to show support to their Bisexual male demographic. We then don’t hear anything of Blaine’s Bisexuality again and are made to assume that he identifies as Gay. Why is this harmful representation? Well, this scene paints the “pick a side” narrative in which Bisexuals are made to feel guilty for being attracted to more than one gender. If Blaine were Bisexual, this scene illegitimises his attraction to women and/or non-binary folk. Biphobia is an influence that alienates Bisexuals from various areas of life including parts of the LGBTQ+ community. Depictions of Bisexuals as homewreckers and hopelessly misguided individuals just reinforces the idea that we cannot be trusted. So what is good representation? I’m glad you asked. NBC’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine showed us that you needn’t have a Bisexual to cheat for the audience to know they’re Bisexual. In 2017 Stephanie Beatriz’s character, Rosa Diaz came out as Bi to her friends after her long term relationship with her ex Adrian Pimento. You know what’s even better? Beatriz herself identifies as Bi. I hope that representation like this becomes more commonplace in TV and film, especially for male identifying Bisexuals whom are more subject to Bi-erasure due to society’s rampant heteronormativity. Until then, I look forward to watching the Disney’s new animated series Owl House with a cup of tea in my hand.

FEMALE FILM AND THE MALE GAZE SASKIA MASON

Late last year, after seeing Portrait of a Lady on Fire with a friend- and after the initial few minutes following its ending, which stunned us into a breathless silence as the credits started to roll- the two of us raved extensively about the film, in all its details. One thing we both noted was that Portrait of a Lady, written and directed by lesbian director Céline Sciamma, feels like a richly authentic and intimate portrayal of the love between women-‘you can tell it was directed by a lesbian’, we declared. In the category of films about lesbians, this is surprisingly rare. Blue is the Warmest Color, The Favorite, Carol, The Handmaiden, to name a few- all critically-appraised lesbian films, all directed by men. Making our way home from the cinema post-Portrait of a Lady, my friend and I- both lesbians ourselves- remarked on this, drawing particular comparison to The Handmaiden. Though they take drastically different directions narratively, there are many thematic links that may be drawn between the two films- each historical dramas, stories of the forbidden love between women- one

aristocratic and bound for a marriage she does not desire, the other, hiding a secret, sent to serve as her companion. The distinct difference between the two we both observed, however, was that, where Portrait of a Lady feels like an authentic, intimate depiction of love between women, The Handmaiden’s depiction of the intimacy between its lead female characters feels confined to the realm of the male gaze. When the The Handmaiden was released in 2016, it was broadly commended by critics. Reviews that mentioned the presence of the male gaze addressed it with praise‘The Handmaiden averts the “male gaze” in its portrayal of women’, ‘The Handmaiden deconstructs male gaze within lesbian love story’, and so on and so forth. It was endlessly frustrating to see reviewers- many of them men- praising a male director, Park Chan-Wook, for deconstructing the male gaze in his depiction of lesbian intimacy. The male gaze, a term coined by film critic Laura Mulvey, describes the depiction of women from a heterosexual male perspective- the representation of women as to

render them attractive objects for male consumption. Films about lesbians, directed by men, are often subject to such portrayals- Blue Is The Warmest Colour, perhaps most famously, has come under fire for the heavilyfelt presence of the male gaze in the long, graphic sex scenes between its lead female characters. When The Handmaiden portrays lesbian intimacy gratuitously and through a voyeuristic lens, it is merely the latest addition to a long tradition of male-directed films wielding the male gaze against lesbians for shock value, to titillate an audience of men. There are justifications within The Handmaiden itself for the way it depicts its female characters- in interviews, Park Chan-Wook has spoken about trying to ‘trying to make a film about the violence of male gaze…to make a movie that is a criticism of these kinds of violent male gaze’. The scenes of intimacy between the female lead characters, however, are intended to be free of such a gaze- ‘I would ask, please, that you forget the fact that I am a male director and, please, try to look at the film objectively,’ Park asks of his audience. ‘To depict a woman as having sexual desires, in a frank manner-

to be showing a nude female body, and show it in a beautiful way- does that automatically make this fall into the male gaze category?’ I agree with Park, in a broad sense, that it does not. However, I cannot help but feel that, as a male director, you cannot meaningfully ‘deconstruct’ the male gaze while still directly wielding it in your depictions of lesbian intimacy. In a film with many positive qualities, I feel this is ultimately The Handmaiden’s failing- that, even when its male director is aware and critical of the violence of the male gaze, his earnest attempts to depict love between lesbians free from the voyeuristic presence of men are still ultimately subject to that same male gaze. I think back to Portrait of a Lady on Fire, a rare work of lesbian film directed by an actual lesbian, and the frank, authentic intimacy it depicts- it feels nothing like the kind of eroticised voyeurism oft seen in similar works by men. Perhaps it is impossible for male directors to depict lesbian intimacy in any other way; try as they might, they cannot see from eyes that are not their own, to envision a world not designed to appeal to their gaze.

I ASKED MY FATHER ONCE AIDAN MAXIMO

“What do you do when you walk in the men’s toilets?” I asked my father once, outside the cinemas. He gave me a puzzled look and took a sip from his large Fanta. “Why, I’d imagine the same as you do in the women’s toilets. Pee.” The scariest aspect of transitioning for me was not the physical changes - the hormones, the surgery - nor the legal changes (though the fee for changing your name in documents is hair-raising). It was the societal stepping into the boots of manhood. “Yeah but how do you wait in line? What if the stalls are all used? I can’t use the urinals. Obviously.” I said. “What do you do in the women’s bathroom when you’re waiting?” Dad asked. “Just wait by the closest stall.” “Then do the same thing in the men’s toilets.” Society somehow dictated that genitals were correlated with colours, jobs, and everything else. Common sense tells us there really isn’t that much difference between each gender. That’s what Dad was trying to tell me, but I didn’t know how to explain to him how alien I’d feel when walking into the men’s toilets for the first, second, third, and even the next ten times. Manhood was an exclusive fraternity that I did not have the invitation to. When walking out in the streets of Northbridge at night we went past a large group of men clearly inebriated – Dad grabbed my arm. He whispered: “If you’re out with your mates and you walk past men like those, you don’t look at them in the eye. You so much as stare at them for a second they’ll see a threat. They’ll want to fight. That’s how men get violent. Seeing other men.” 16

It’s kinda messed up that I felt validated from passing enough to actually elicit violence from other men. I found myself asking if this really was the club I wanted to be part of. Visions of shirtless men, fists wrapped in cloth, boxing in dimly lit basements filled my mind. Dad was being honest. He had lived in this ‘man world’ for his entire life and he’d been around all kinds of men: his troubled brother, his silent father, his emotionally abusive uncles, his loyal friends, predatory men from the streets, and finally, his own son. My father was like Moses returning from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, and I eagerly awaited at the base of the mountain, ready to hear about the laws of manhood. What else was there to learn? I’m a gym rat. I play American Football. My dress style alternates between being a Culture Kings eshay and a rich prep who goes golfing using daddy’s money. My music taste is borderline douchebaggery (Soundcloud rap) and my humour sometimes consists of poop jokes. Am I doing this ‘man’ thing correctly? I was fishing with my dad. Yes. So macho. Just two manly men pursuing the ancient art and leisure of fishing. But you won’t catch me holding a Swordfish on Tinder. Sorry folks, that is straight male culture that I refuse to partake in. I asked my father - “Do I have to have a beard to be a man?” “No.” A salute to Filipino genetics where most Filipino men cannot grow anything more than a moustache and possibly a goatee. My uncle has no leg hair. My dad

reminds me that every time I raise the hair issue. I asked - “Do I have to be tall?” Thanks to Western standards of beauty apparently you must be legally classified as the Chrysler Building in order to be considered a man. He was puzzled again. “No.” The average height for a Filipino man is five foot four. “Men are not defined like that,” he said. Often, we see each other on a scale. We can’t help it. The media, pop culture, society - they give us a ‘guideline’. And subconsciously we size each other up on these guidelines and tip the scales accordingly. Lesser man. More of a man. The average man. Not born a man. Not man enough, too manly. Too strong, not strong enough. Cries too much, doesn’t cry at all. Too tall, or more often, not tall enough. (I’m sorry, did you want a boyfriend, or a sequoia tree?) When trans men like me wonder about our masculinity and our manhood it is because we compare ourselves to the ‘guideline’ - a comparison we have in common with cis men. But the added pressures of being trans is what sets our identity crisis apart. The cis men who feel like they don’t fit in are at least eating crackers in the hallway. We aren’t even past the doorway. We are looking inside this elusive boys club, where at the very least and bare minimum we want to be perceived as how we see ourselves – as men. I asked my father once – “What makes a man?” But I stopped there. I realised, as he stared at me with eyebrows furrowed, that all my life he had already told me so many times. The way in which he loved my mother, his mother, his sister, his brother, his father. The way he loved me. The way he gave his friends money when they struggled to

pay for bills. The way he made jokes with everyone he met. The way he was gentle with the people who were kind to him, and the way he was tempestuous with people who had wronged him. The endless hugging on nights I cried, the counsel he gave on nights I died inside over and over and over again. The kisses on the cheek, the notes saying “I love you”, and the surprise gifts of pastries and the unlimited supply of free Uber rides on late nights. How he taught me to be good, how he taught me to understand that I was tall inside my heart, and all that room taught me the love I had to give to myself and to everyone around me. It’s slow, and I struggle. Sometimes the dysphoria anchors me, and I sink. But most of the time, I swim. I’m starting to understand that maybe being a man is not about being let into a club, or a fraternity, but that it is about being taller inside. Taller than society’s expectations, taller than the shadows of toxic masculinity, taller than the physical aspects of manhood. So for today, and tomorrow, and for the rest of my days, I will gaze into the mirror and hopefully see the eyes of my father staring back at me. The lessons continue, for I think there is no set way to be a man – but to be good, to be fair, and to love, better than you did yesterday and the day before that. Into the mirror, I hope to never ask him again, because for once, I do look taller.

Image credit: Kei-Kei Koh

Like all households in a small country town, traditional gender roles trump everything. My twin sister and I were wards of the state and were fostered into a violent and abusive family with those exact values. Women and girls were to please men and should never be smart or educated as men would not like this. I was a complete square in my high school years and did not enter into sexual relationships until the age of 19. During my teens, my fantasies were mostly about women and female relationships and I started to question my sexuality. I considered that I was a lesbian but did not act on it, probably due to the stigma, being in a small country town. It was during these years that I started to question gender roles and how they fit into my life, however I found it impossible to reconcile these roles with how I saw life. The term ‘non-binary’ was unknown to me, I had no understanding of any gender spectrum other than male or female as determined by our bodies, which is why I only mentioned how I felt to a few people as my feelings about this were wrong.

UNTITLED JAZZAR O’DEA

Throughout the years I tried desperately to fit into the gender that I was born with and tried to ignore and fight my bisexuality due to my so-called ‘Christian values’. In 2012 I met a man whom I would marry in 2013 and we were together for 7 years and married for 6 years. According to him, my bisexuality was against the bible and thus he was against this, as we made a vow in front of God, but he was keen to have a threesome with another female because the bible also said that I should please my husband. In 2014 I gave birth to a boy who is now 6 and in 2018, I gave birth to another boy who is now 2. During my relationship with my ex-husband, I was subjected to domestic violence and I also knew that he was a homophobe, unless this involves a threesome with another female of course. I did come out to him towards the end of our marriage and he was excited as he was still keen to have that threesome with another female. We split up after someone close showed me a way out of this living hell. When I met my current partner, I came out very pretty much straight away, as I was determined that my bisexuality was not going to be a limiting factor, he was supportive and encouraged me to be true to myself and to meet other people who will encourage me, and no we have had not a threesome or raunchy orgies with other people, as this is not what it is about. I have recently come out to other people as being pansexual and non-binary and I have met really encouraging people. I also believe coming out has helped me to be a better parent as I am happier and accepting of myself. I can no longer call myself a Christian as I cannot be part of something that does not treat myself, my rainbow family, and humanity as a whole with the dignity we all deserve. 19

FIVE LYRICS ON TAYLOR SWIFT’S FOLKLORE THAT MAKE YOU GO “HMMMMM” ISABELLE BIZJAK

Taylor Swift’s latest album, the surprise drop folklore has left many people going “hmmmmm” after the singersongwriter seemingly sprinkled pieces of gay subtext all throughout the album. Gaylor Swift conspiracist or not, here are five lyrics that are… interesting, to say the least.

1. “WE WERE SOMETHING, DON’T YOU THINK SO? / ROSÉ FLOWING WITH YOUR CHOSEN FAMILY” (THE 1) + “FAMILY THAT I CHOSE” (PEACE) There is not one but TWO references to a ‘chosen family’ on folklore. A sentiment many gay people can attest to being a part of. (see also: Rina Sawayama’s 2020 track Chosen Family) 2. “YOUR BRAIDS LIKE A PATTERN / LOVE YOU TO THE MOON AND TO SATURN / PASSED DOWN LIKE FOLK SONGS / THE LOVE LASTS SO LONG” (SEVEN) Seven tells the story of a long-lost childhood friend, Taylor appears to be singing to a girl she loved long ago, a “first-crush” story for the ages. 3. “LEAVE THE PERFUME ON THE SHELF / THAT YOU PICKED OUT JUST FOR HIM” (ILLICIT AFFAIRS) Illicit affairs tells the story of a love that has to be kept hidden, and for the third time on this album, Taylor appears to be singing about a woman or at least singing from a “man’s point of view”. Hmmmmmm. 4. “THEN YOU WON’T HAVE TO CRY / OR HIDE IN THE CLOSET” (SEVEN) I mean, this one feels pretty self-explanatory. 5. THE ENTIRETY OF THE SONG BETTY One quick google search of Swift’s Betty and you will be led to think pieces calling it a “lesbian anthem” or “queer masterpiece”. And although there will be naysayers claiming the song is from the point of view of a 17-yearold boy, there are only so many times you can claim that you are singing “from a man’s point of view” before it starts to look suspicious, Taylor.

Collage by: S. Kennedy-Perkins

Attendees at Camp Camp 2020 were asked to write something that they wished they could tell their younger selves; these messages then became the leaves of the paper tree.

The Cast and Crew of Camp Camp 2020 23

AIDAN MAXIMO “My shirt resembles the trans flag and I’m trans so I think it’s a perfect fit. I think it’s important for me to express my masculinity as a man but at the same time dress colourfully to look like a beautiful bi icon.”

EVA O This look is like my gender experience: partly male and partly female, also matching my sexual preferences. However people don’t necessarily get it, and assume a cis + straight combo... The rainbow t-shirt is here to give more visibility to this important part of my identity.

JAMES H Earrings: because they make me feel more myself. Crop: because it’s bold and I like my body... If he’s not a bi-boy: bye boy.

Photos and edits by Al Ghanim

REECE G If I’m being honest, this outfit is a mismatch of things I had in my wardrobe that I wore to a Halloween party where I dressed up as a slutty Vibe Check meme. It’s stupid, it’s fun, and it’s immodest - which is exactly why I love it. I feel like people look at me and immediately assume I’m gay, so why not give them a show? So here I am, out here checking vibes and taking lives!

KEI-KEI K What you wear is what you express. My go-to are always these fake doc martens. It’s gay, but like - ghetto gay. I attached these rainbow patches my girlfriend gave me on Valentine’s Day to my denim jacket. Turtleneck under button up shirt are a classic for a real Girl in Red kinda look.

SASKIA M this outfit gives off Powerful Lesbian Energy to me and that’s why i chose it. i love this suit jacket because it has ridiculous eighties-style shoulderpads- wearing it means you take up space physically, you can’t shrink away, and that feeling gives me a lot of confidence.

Photos and edits by Al Ghanim

Collage From Camp Camp by Anna Kimpton 26

LOVE BEING LESBIAN The UWA Lesbian Collective share their favourite things about life as a lesbian

One of the things I love most about being a lesbian is the inherent sameness shared between lesbians. I feel like me and every other lesbian I know are just a tiny part of a rich cultural heritage that came before us, and it is both comforting and powerful.

AMELIA BIRCH I love being a lesbian because there is no other way for me. I only care for and gain romantic fulfilment with women. I only develop real and intense feelings for other women with no exceptions for anyone else. I know it’s true to me and that my feelings are authentic. Naturally, I am proud and confident to identify as a lesbian because there is no better term to describe me.

ANNA KIMPTON

What I love about being a Lesbian is the sameness of shared womynhood (in all its struggle.)

ANONYMOUS To me, there is something incredibly freeing about being a lesbian – to define myself independently of men, in alignment with other lesbians, to whom I feel an inextricable tie. I feel proud be able to call myself a lesbian, openly and proudly, to be able to share a sense of community with other women – those I have the privilege of knowing and those I don’t, generations of lesbians who existed before me and will continue to exist.

SASKIA MASON I love being a lesbian because women? Pretty great.

ANONYMOUS

MASCULINE BISEXUALITY BISEXUAL MEN REFLECT ON THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO MASCULINITY CW: biphobia, toxic masculinity. For those who are not aware bisexuality is a complicated sexuality; just as many, if not more, bisexuals find out that they find more people of one gender attractive than the other gender. As a bisexual man with a leaning towards women, this has affected how others have viewed my sexuality. When I first came out, I was met with questions of preference, and upon hearing my choice received responses of “you’re basically straight then” along with “but have you ever slept with a man?” At the time, never having had sex with anybody, my coming out was met with a dismissal and the assumption that my sexuality wasn’t important or doesn’t exist. Bierasure is real and I hate it. My views on masculinity have been shaped through my sexuality but I think more importantly in the culture I was raised. In an all-boys school gay jokes were the norm, with few (if any) coming out during school and far more coming out in university; we felt uncomfortable with close contact such as hugs, and there was the constant belief that any contact – unless in sport – was something sexual to be joked about. For me, masculinity has become toxic not just because of some of the ways it tells people to act is harmful, but because the same society that taught me that anything intimate between friends was instantly ‘gay’ and to be avoided also taught me to question anything and from that I reasoned to not follow something that constrains what I do, say and act when I could buck the trends and no longer be constrained by social rules and norms. So next time you see your mates, hug them and tell them you’re glad to have them in your life, for something that is left unsaid will never mean as much as something that is. And how manly is it to let the fear of what others think of you control you? ALEX 28

So I didn’t come out as bisexual until I returned home from England when I was 20. I had known I felt that way before that age but going to an all-boys private school, I was forced to keep that hidden out of fear of being ostracised by my peers. Both my parents were very supportive in the end, but growing up to be 6’5”, play rugby and represent your school as a prefect, I was masquerading around as this hyper-masculine person. This was only perpetuating the ‘lad’ culture that is apparent in younger generations. This masculinity that I was emitting was indeed toxic, not only to myself but to those around me, which led to my first ever break up. Although, I’m glad it happened and in the way it did because it shook me to my core and made me re-evaluate what it means to be a man. After some soul searching and a couple ego-deaths later, I felt comfortable with myself in being able to express not only my emotions but also my sexuality and to not fear being bullied for it. With guidance from some beautiful people, I have really come into my own and has given me the confidence to really explore my sexuality and finding out so much more about myself. This journey that I have had so far has shaped my definition of masculinity and even my own identity and I am proud to call myself pansexual and non-binary. CALLUM

Growing up in an orthodox Christian household I adopted the views of my parents, which were conservative and largely homophobic. I remember being 7 and asking my best friend at school: “If I came to school tomorrow and I was magically changed into a girl, would you still be my friend?” to which he replied: “Ew! Yuck! No way.” Being a man is something I decided. A few years ago, I literally wrote out a list of Pros and Cons of being a man, versus being non-binary. One of the biggest drawbacks I could see with identifying non-binary, versus publicly identifying as a man, was the backlash I’d face from my family, professionally in science, and the fact that men need to step the fuck up – and so if I was to be a man, the onus to change would remain on me. Being bisexual was not something I decided. It was something that I grew into. It was something I felt when I watched Tom Welling and Kristin Kreuk in Smallville – things which as a 12- or 13-year old Christian I didn’t know how to process. It was something I felt when I watched Zuko and Katara in Avatar (I know they’re animated, sue me). It was something I felt when I saw music videos of the Black Eyed Peas. I came out to my mum last year and despite being a stalwart Christian woman, she supports me and who I am. So does my Nanna. That’s all the approval I’ll ever need from anyone. The intersection of those parts of me – my maleness, my conservative upbringing and my bisexuality – has presented me with this strange question: “Does being bi make me less of a man?” I come from a world where if you’re a man you are expected to be married to a woman and have as many kids as possible before 30. This was the lifestyle I saw in the Church; it was what I wanted for myself in my own future. But recently that has changed. I see myself as an old, bisexual man, surrounded by plants, an adopted child or two – but if there’s a person there beside me, a partner, a spouse, they’re foggy… Out of focus. Dying alone isn’t something I’m scared of – but dying as someone I don’t like, is. JAMES

When I started high school, I kind of assumed I was straight. Sexuality was something I hadn’t thought about, but I knew I liked girls and had just stuck to that. I was never particularly masculine; I had no love for sports and had fairly long hair. Pretty soon into year 8 I started to wear this purple hair extension. Most of the people around me showed no real reaction to it, except for one night, when I was being driven home and my dad began talking about it. The gist of it was, “I’d get it if you were that way, but you’re not”. I was pretty upset obviously, but I think what most stands out about that experience was that it was what made me start questioning things about myself, for better and worse. On one hand, it led me to realise I also liked guys, but on the other, as my appearance become more ‘traditionally masculine’, it led me to constantly question that epiphany. At the

time I had nothing else beyond internal thoughts and feelings to show it, so there was always this doubt that lingered in the back of my mind. I dealt with this for most of high school, and it was only recently that I properly overcame the doubt and accepted myself. I suppose when you have a revelation about yourself because of a specific behaviour, and then that behaviour changes as you grow, it starts to throw everything into question. JOHN

Masculinity is a very interesting concept to me. I’ve had both positive and negative role models during childhood, but I mostly ended up rejecting toxic forms of masculinity in my later years of high school. Recognising how I expressed myself as an individual, in regards to femininity or masculinity, was important to accepting my sexuality. I’ve been labelled as ‘emotional’ or ‘soft’ as a child and a young adult, and those words would connote femininity. So when I was having that internal battle of, “oh do I like boys, or girls?” It was difficult. Society has this preconceived idea that feminine men or men in touch with their emotions are gay or weird, which is definitely a toxic stereotype. So after many years of ignoring that inner debate, I came to mostly accept being attracted to men and women, and being masculine in my own way! being bi was something I owned and embraced, as was not accepting the rigid rules society had placed on me. For me, being a ‘bisexual’ isn’t really my identity. I actually don’t like the word. I don’t think labels can truly encapsulate how I love or feel. Although I do openly tell people and I’m always happy to discuss my sexuality, I personally don’t see being bi as a big deal at all. However, I’m not trying to minimise my sexuality as an element of my identity, because being vocal about that helps others come to terms with their own inner conflicts. In terms of Bisexuals being represented in the media, and bi men in particular, I think it’s terrible. Mainstream media has only JUST come to terms with having gay men portrayed that aren’t the gay best friend or the problematic teenager. I haven’t conducted a full study, but I tend to see bi women more, who are often fetishised for hetero male audiences. Which is definitely not a positive image for bi women or the broader bi community. I’d like to see all LGBT identities better represented in media and in society in general, but especially bisexuals. Not only do bi people have a hard time with straight individuals, but the broader queer community has, at times, marginalised bi peeps – which is sad, for what’s supposed to be an inclusive section of society. I hope that in places like UWA we can see a more accepting environment for bi people; and one day a better global acceptance of letting people just like who they want to like. HAEDEN

THE HALF OF IT: ANOTHER LGBT MOVIE THAT MISSES THE MARK GABBY HARDWICK AND DANA LONDON

With a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 97%, Alice Wu’s The Half of It should have been the queer rom-com that we’ve all been waiting for. Wu, the creator of the widely acclaimed Saving Face, returned from a 15-year hiatus to bring us a queer Cyrano de Bergerac style Netflix film. The Half of It centres on Ellie Chu, a shy, introverted student who helps the school jock woo a girl whom they both secretly want. Paul enlists Ellie’s help in writing love letters to a girl named Aster. While it was interesting to see the development of Aster and Ellie’s connection through the exchange of these letters, ultimately, their connection was formed while Aster was in a relationship with her boyfriend, who is barely featured in the movie. The harmful and played out trope of a queer character cheating is something we weren’t expecting or looking for in a film that was released in 2020. The movie feels incomplete and seems to appeal more to heterosexual audiences rather than LGBT audiences. It is another queer film that presents queer stories in a palatable way, much like Love, Simon did. Seeing another movie released about gay women yearning for each other, amounting in no successful or real relationship, makes it hard to see a future that includes queer people in feel-good romantic comedies and cheesy holiday movies. The disappointing thing is that there was a chance to create a Netflix movie that centred around women falling in love, and what was produced was a narrative we’ve seen before and certainly don’t need to see again, of a queer romance ending in bleak ambiguity. Some have argued that the ending is ambiguous for the sake of realism and that it would have been unrealistic to see Aster and Ellie end up together. As audiences, we should consider that young queer people need to see themselves represented on screen in happy and successful relationships, not over and over again as secret lovers who aren’t allowed to be themselves. If we can’t name any movies or television shows in which POC queer people live successful and happy lives, it’s just not good enough. 30

Was it really necessary to have a scene where Paul is extremely homophobic to Ellie, telling her she’s going to hell for her gay sins? What was the purpose of this? Can’t we have a happy movie where we’re not reminded constantly of our own oppression? Overall, The Half of It had so much potential but didn’t live up to the expectations of LGBT people and the fans of Wu’s Saving Face. The film industry needs to do better to include and celebrate LGBT people and their stories. If there are enough LGBT stories represented on television and in movies, we could end up with several depictions that we can connect and relate to, rather than being forced to accept mere crumbs of representation.

THE THINGS YOU FIND ON YOUR

GOOD DAYS REECE GHERARDI

CW: mental illness, self-harm, suicide, sexual assault. “I don’t know what to do with it. With all the love I have. I don’t know where to put it now.” – Fleabag, 2019 This is a love story, just not in the way that you would think. I’m in my best friend’s car on a rainy May afternoon, driving back to his parents’ farm in Margaret River after spending the day hiking trails, climbing up some rocks, eating baked goods, and driving around everywhere we could. My eyes are closed – we’re both exhausted – and it’s quiet, other than the Boyce Avenue cover of Someone Like You playing over the radio. And I don’t know why, but the rich tones of Alejandro Manzano’s voice, paired with such a poignant and soulful Adele song, stirs something inside me, and suddenly I’m crying softly in the passenger seat. Thankfully, Harry doesn’t notice, too busy paying attention to the country roads – I think he thought I was asleep. It was like a chord had been struck within my heart, and the sound it made resonated throughout my entire being. When I told Harry about it – months later, drinking a diet coke in the drive thru of a Hungry Jacks, of all places – I realised what that feeling was. I was struck with a sense of just how happy I am to exist. I’m going to be honest, it was probably one of the weirdest things I’ve ever experienced. It’s a far cry from the person I used to be. I still remember that depressed and anxious boy from 2012, 2015, 2017 and 2018, and I hated him. I hated how depressed he was, and I hated how he used to think. I hated the fact that he couldn’t walk over a certain bridge, because he just knew that that was the bridge he was going to jump off if one day he ever did decide that he didn’t want to keep living him. I hated what he used to do to himself. And I hated how much of a hypocrite he was, talking about how it’s okay to talk about mental illness and how it’s important that we do, and yet hiding his behind a mask. I hated how I had so much love for others, but couldn’t spare any for myself. I do love how I used to write, though. There was something about the way I used to be able to write, the way I captured the emotions of my characters and

spilled them out into winding, run-on paragraphs that I do miss. I miss how easy it used to be to write poems, and how I could channel my sadness into my writing. And at some point, I started writing about love, too. Writing was, at it’s heart, a way to cope – and maybe that’s why Outspoken is so dear to me now, as I sit here writing this. Once I started getting better, I stopped writing. Well, at least stopped writing as much, I still do from time to time. The emptiness that writing filled for me just isn’t there anymore. There’s no void, nothing to fill – more importantly, nothing that needs filling. For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m actually whole. I’ve been looking back on my writing from those years – digging through my files and my notes and my piles of paper tucked into boxes, long since forgotten. All the poems and stories I’ve ever written about love centre on this one boy. This one boy, who has always been the object of my affection. This one boy, who’s never had a face, or a name – who’s always been a blur. I realise, not, something interesting. This boy, the one that I write about, the one that I love… is me. And it feels so nice to write that. I still have bad days. But on the days where my depression flares up, when the world gets too much to handle, when the only thing I want to do is crawl under my blankets and hide from life – I smile. I remember the feeling that I had in that car, driving back to Margaret River, and I remember all the other things that I’ve felt and found on my good days, too. I make myself a cup of coffee, and tell myself that I’ll get through it. And that’s really the point, isn’t it? To keep going. To love yourself, too. So what do you do with all the love you have, when you don’t know where to put it? Well, you give it to yourself. Because your very ability to love means that you are deserving of it in return, especially from yourself. I’m not ashamed of how long it took me to figure that out, because I told you this was a love story, just not in the way you – or I, it seems – would expect! “This is a love story.” – Fleabag, 2019.

PINK CITY IN LOCKDOWN:

AN EXERCISE IN SEPARATISM AMELIA BIRCH

Paris, 1920. It-girl American heiress Natalie Barney sought to carve out her own section of the city for a modern Lesbos, and expatriate lesbians from all over the flocked to Paris to talk, write, paint, dance, and live their lives free from men. This insular community of women thrived during the interwar period, the likes of which had never been seen before. 100 years later and I am sat in my study in my sharehouse in the midst of a global pandemic, eavesdropping on my housemate taking a conference call in the room next to me, and trying to decipher interwar Parisian census records. Our share-house is affectionately known as Pink City. It’s a hideous 1968 salmon coloured twostorey monolith that sits on the intersection of two hellishly busy roads. Across the road is a dog park, and while pedestrians wait with their dogs to cross at the lights, we often catch them peering in through our living room window to see what goes on inside the biggest eyesore in Wembley. I had been living in share-houses for seven years when lockdown happened. Our current household consists of four women (two lesbians, two hets), two dogs, and one cat. The two who live upstairs (which we refer to as the ‘straight floor’) are essential healthcare workers, so they continued going to work every day, while me and my fellow lesbian housemate on the ground floor rapidly moved our daily lives online. I lost my job, I stopped seeing my family, and my entire world shrank to the garish walls of Pink City. I was lucky. My girlfriend lives by herself just down the road and so she became something on an honorary housemate during lockdown. Around the same time that restrictions started being enforced we were both 32

getting into the swing of our Honours years. For my thesis I am researching the work of Agnes Goodsir, an early twentieth century Australian lesbian portrait artist who lived the last 40 years of her life in Paris with her lover, known as Cherry. There is very little academic work done on Goodsir, and having zero distractions while in seemingly endless lockdown, I became obsessed with my research. The majority of Goodsirâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s portraits are intimate interiors with Cherry staring assertively out of the canvas, and I lost entire days trying to unpick how these depictions of domestic seclusion and lesbian subjectivity made me feel. Over the summer I watched Portrait of a Lady on Fire at the Somerville. The majority of the film focuses solely on building a tiny, separate world that exists only between women, to the point where in the final ten minutes of the film a male servant appearing in the kitchen feels like an intrusion, abrupt and unwanted. I joked with my friends that this was how I felt whenever I saw a man at the supermarket during lockdown, but it was partly true. Lockdown was difficult for a lot of gay people who were forced back into the closet when having to isolate with homophobic family members and removed from their communities. But for me it was the opposite. Though I credited Natalie Barney earlier for creating the Parisian Lesbos, as an art historian I fucking hate the reduction of historic movements and the mobilisation of people to single person narratives. Barney possessed the wealth and influence to host parties and supplement the finances of working class lesbians, but this was a community comprised of many singular strong female voices united. Romaine Brooks, Djuna Barnes, Gertrude Stein, Bryher, Sylvia Beach and Alice B. Toklas are some of the better-known women. I spent my days in lockdown

writing about these women fashioning their own versions of metropolitan separatism, staring at portraits Goodsir had lovingly painted of Cherry in their tiny apartment. My evenings were filled with my girlfriend and housemates, crowded into our living room with the dogs trying to push their noses into our hands and dinners. I had been concerned about what lockdown would do to our household dynamic, but thrown from our routines and any sense of normalcy, we grew closer, sought each other out to talk more, laugh louder. It was still an incredibly difficult time. Many people I care about live overseas in areas which were hit far heavier. My best friend in London tested positive for the virus, as did my ex-girlfriend in Stockholm. I felt helpless, and a looming sense of guilt knowing that so many people I cared about were suffering, and that I could do very little about it. Being surrounded by a close network of women day in, day out, alleviated this to a certain extent. I thought more and more about the women I was studying who lived a century before me, building complex and loving lives with each other in bedrooms and parlours and back gardens, primarily restricted to their homes which afforded them the privacy they needed to go about their unconventional existences. There is a dreamy, romanticised portrait that Romaine Brooks painted of her girlfriend Ida Rubinstein in 1912, depicting Rubinstein as a kind of pagan Madonna. The portrait serves as a vision of an idealised feminised world, untouched by male hands. This is what I think of, when I reflect on Pink Cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time during lockdown. Being a lesbian manifests in my attraction to women, but also in my constant prioritisation of womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lives and experiences. If nothing else, lockdown reinforced this for me. 33

DATING SCRIPTS FOR LESBIANS ANNA KIMPTON

I would firstly like to draw upon an excerpt from Sarah Water’s The Paying Guests, which I think perfectly summarises the uncertainties and anxieties regarding courtship scripts in lesbian dating: “And after all, she thought as they headed towards the High Street, what could happen, here? There has been no declaration- only a glance, a pressing of fingers. If they were a man and a girl, it would be different. There would be less confusion and blur. She would seize Lilian’s hand and Lilian would know what it meant. She herself would know what it meant! Lilian would or would not allow herself to be led to a patch of shadow’ she might or might not put up her mouth for a kiss. But they were not a man and a girl, they were two women, with clipping heels, and one of them was in a white dress which the moon set glowing like a beacon” A script refers to ‘a set of stereotypical actions defined by cultural norms that serve as a guide for what feelings and behaviours should occur in a specific situation’. This essentially means how we interact with each other and, in my particular focus, how we are socialised to date. Scripts regarding the dating or courtship process over centuries have focused on hegemonic notions of compulsory heterosexual love and prescribed gender roles. But for lesbians? What script is there to follow? How do we even date? Growing up, most lesbians do not have the luxury of seeing positive adult lesbian role models or examples of healthy lesbian relationships in our early stages of development. This is often due to our families of origin being primarily heterosexual as well as the lack of positive media attention given to lesbians. This ultimately contributes to how we can socialise as adults in a romantic context. 34

The sexual orientations of many gay adult role models are also often not revealed, leaving positive examples of homosexuals and healthy same sex relationships for LGBT youth, as limited. Alonzo (2005) stated the following about this issue: “[…] although increasing numbers of LGBT people are featured in television and films, very few stable, well-adjusted same-sex couples receive any kind of accurate media portrayal […] Samesex couples have trouble locating the relational role models that can demonstrate resilience, longevity, and humour in the face of oppression.” It would be pivotal to note, also, the shortage of information taught to us through our education system regarding healthy homosexual relationships has a detrimental effect on our development. Lesbianism is viewed to by many, even subconsciously, as innately promiscuous or indecent in comparison to heterosexuality. It is therefore shunned as too sexual for kids to be able to understand and never relevant enough to be mentioned in any kind of sexual education or relationship-focused classes. This led to a lot of confusion and complications when discovering my identity, as no one ever thought to mention to me that there was any other path in life aside from following the dominant heterosexual script. The uncertainty of lesbian relationships can also be enhanced by considering the insecurity and emotional aspects that women face being in a samesex relationship. This is particularly due to stigma and discrimination. As a result of all the examples given, from a young age, many homosexual women – including myself – find themselves in unknown, unscripted territory, which is magnified by there being no cultural example to lead us into securing a fulfilling and healthy lesbian relationship.

So if we are not conditioned as children to understand what ‘script’ to follow regarding same-sex dating, what do we end up with? Three courtship scripts that have been used by Rose, Zand, and Cini (1993) to describe lesbian couple formation include the romance, the friendship, and the sexually explicit script. The friendship script is the most prominent of all courting processes for lesbians because romantic cultural scripts for two women are not readily available. The friendship script emphasises emotional intimacy through friendship development, essentially just awkward gay panic in the form of a ‘common friendship’. As we are women, we have also been socialised through popular media and heterosexist cultural scripts to not initiate dating or courtship, particularly with another woman. It is therefore often easier to assume the friendship script, particularly for younger lesbians as the need for one woman to assume the ‘traditional male role of the initiator’ is also overcome. If we contrast this friendship script to heterosexual relationships, gender roles are majorly predetermined and assumed. Not only this, but the romantic or sexual intention of the parties is vivid and precedented. Men assume an active role in the courting process whilst women assume a more reactive role. The relationship is also legitimised by the public and endorsed via popular culture since time.

None of these scripts are necessarily bad to be in, well maybe the friendship script actually… but the problem with these scripts lies in the fact they aren’t so distinct in reality an in theory. Motives between women differ, scripts can be blended and the friendship script can be especially hard to distinguish from romance. Hegemonic culture has made heterosexual relations paramount and widely endorsed, indirectly and sometimes even directly casting lesbian relationships as an ephemeral or illegitimate concept. So when the world doesn’t believe your relationship to be romantic or sexual do you just remain following the friendship script? I think the answer here lies in undoing the compulsory heterosexuality we have had forced into us and working towards developing our strong rich lesbian culture so we may write our own cultural dating scripts.

Alonzo, D. J. (2005). Working with same-sex couples. In M. Harway (Ed.), Handbook of couples therapy (pp. 370-385). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc. Rose, S., Zand, D., & Cini, M. (1993). Lesbian courtship scripts. In E. D. Rothblum & K. A. Brehony (Eds.), Boston marriages: Romantic but asexual relationships among contemporary lesbians (pp. 70-85). Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

Other less prevalent scripts in lesbian dating include the sexually explicit script where two women purposefully initiate sexual contact with no implied goal of future commitment. Then there is the romance script where romantic intentions are vividly portrayed and reciprocated.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN:

TRAMPS LIKE US ISABELLE BIZJAK

The legacy of Bruce Springsteen is one that is shrouded in assumptions, Springsteen, the all-American icon; Springsteen, the working class hero; Springsteen, that guy your dad listens to. Within Springsteen’s music, however, lies a written narrative of desperation, selfdiscovery, and an ongoing fight for freedom. A narrative that gay people might find all too familiar. Springsteen’s lyrics reflect a constant battle between choosing to hide and choosing to express exactly who you are, no matter the consequences. In Born to Run, he announces “tramps like us, baby we were born to run” (which carries the tradition of queer people wearing derogatory terms like armour). While in Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) he exclaims “closets are for hangers / winners use the door” (which I mean… come ON). Bruce sings with male pronouns on the bonus track My Lover Man and croons “everybody’s got a secret, son / something that they just can’t face” on Darkness on the Edge of Town. And then there’s Backstreets, an epic love story that Rolling Stone Magazine described as “beginning with music so stately, so heartbreaking, that it might be the prelude to a rock and roll version of The Iliad” (hello!!). Backstreets tells the story of an unnamed narrator and the ambiguously named ‘Terry’. The song blurs masculine past times, drag races and drunken tirades with romantic sentiments such as “Laying here in the dark / You’re like an angel on my chest”. The song is an exploration of love and loss between two young men, finishing in a grand admission that the two boys were “forced to confess” to “hiding on the backstreets”. 36

Bruce’s status as a gay icon goes beyond his lyrics too, as his stage presence showcases a very particular type of masculinity. His iconic Born in the USA stage uniform of tight jeans, white t-shirt and bandana has unexpected roots in the gay community, with Bruce admitting in his autobiography “I looked simply…. gay. I probably would have fit right in down on Christopher Street in any one of the leather bars”. Alongside the fashion, there is also the ‘Soul Kiss’ – a staple of many of Bruce’s stage shows, a kiss shared between Bruce and the E-street band’s late saxophonist Clarence Clemons. The iconic kiss was not followed by any school-boy mockery or feigned disgust, it was an honest confirmation of passion and friendship, a way to solidify the message carried in Bruce’s music. On top of his music and stage shows, Bruce’s position as a gay ally has been consistent throughout his career, openly supporting marriage equality since the 90s, writing the lead song for the 1993 film Philadelphia and more recently pulling out of a North Carolina concert after the state passed discriminatory anti-trans bathroom laws. Bruce Springsteen may have been claimed as the poster boy for hyper-patriotic conservatives, but his legacy couldn’t be further from it. Bruce’s narrative has always been for the underdog, those that spend their whole life just covering up, those forced to hide on the backstreets, those that have a secret they just can’t face. When Bruce sings about “tramps like us” who else could possibly understand that sentiment more than the gay community? Next time someone dismisses Bruce as just a dad-rock icon, kindly remind them that he is so much more than that – oh, and tell them to stream Backstreets. 37

MORE THAN TRAUMA: REFRAMING TRANSGENDER NARRATIVES KAT WILLIAMS*, EDITED BY PARIS JAVID

Dysphoria. It’s become so synonymous with the trans experience, that the existence of one is always thought to imply the other. But dysphoria doesn’t always handin-hand transness, and even when it does, it’s not always constant. Dysphoria is as fluid and malleable as the traditional western gender binary isn’t — and it’s important we recognise that. ‘Nonbinary’ has become the catch-all term for those of us outside of the gender binary. I like it ; it’s a word associated with the cool and the hip, like Noelle Stevenson, Sam Smith, and Jonathan Van Ness. It’s free from the politics of labels like ‘genderqueer’ and ‘genderfluid’. But as much as the term in and of itself should be a declaration of freedom, it can so often also feel like a prison. Ask most people what they expect nonbinary to look like and it’ll be some vision of Tilda Swinton — thin and pale, with masculinity splayed across feminine features. But that belies so much of the nonbinary experience; we are not all androgynous waifs, nor are we always fighting against any and all gendered features. In Trans Like Me, CN Lester describes ‘proprioception’ —how our brain perceives our body’s position and movement in space. For Lester, dysphoric experiences of proprioception included aspects of their body, both binary and nonbinary; but at for as long as they can remember, they’ve always expected to find stubble under their chin. Stubble. Such a long-entrenched symbol of masculinity. But inherently, evolving away from the gender binary is necessarily about having the freedom to choose which aspects of gender expression best suit our purposes. It’s not just picking individual aspects of gender; we need to acknowledge the fact that the way we respond to our own bodies can vary wildly depending on the day. In a BBC interview, Caitlyn Benedict describes the way in which their feelings towards their breasts changes on a nearly daily basis — not just as a function of size-changes, 38

but also as context changes. A common narrative in the experiences of all trans people is that as they make changes in their presentation, previously monumental contributors to dysphoria subside, and may even become a source of pride. So with expressions of gender presentation being so unique and time-dependent in everyone from cisgender people to the most fluctuating genderfluid people, having vastly different experiences of one’s body and presentation on different days is normal. The concept of dysphoria, as we know it today, is defined by a common societal narrative; in the words of ‘Museum of Transology’ curator EJ Scott, it is that ‘all trans people go through the same thing, all trans people transition, all trans people have a before and after, all trans people are binary’. But in the lives of those of us who live outside the confines of a binary, this narrative is not the communal framework we need to understand ourselves, but a dangerous, all-pervasive myth that can do serious damage. This expression of fluidity and abnormal gender presentation is certainly not new. As long as there has been a binary, there have been those of us it excludes. We are threads running through the rich tapestry of human experiences and we are eternal, far older than the framework of the binary. It is so unfair to conform our experiences to the narrative of a society that has been around for far shorter than we have. As trans historian Morgan M Page notes, ‘When we try to place trans people and non-binary people as something that’s new, we are actively erasing pretty much every culture in human history.’ The existence of trans and nonbinary people throughout history has many important lessons to teach us — not just that we have always existed, but that other societies, past and present, have far outpaced us in so many areas; acceptance of trans and nonbinary experiences is perhaps the epitome of this. In case any of you were wondering: yes, dysphoria can be crippling, and euphoria is more powerful than any drug I’ve taken in my (admittedly, very sheltered)

existence. Being ‘in’ your body for the first time is all at once breath-taking, terrifying, and eye-opening. No longer living your life through the haze of a veil akin to an out-of-body experience is a hard-fought victory that is continuously fought for, and won, by difficult and oftentimes expensive transitions. When we think of transitions, the cisnormative narrative is a poor imitation of the Galli Priestesses of Cybele, who would castrate themselves on the temple steps once a year in a ritual known as Dies Sagnuinus (‘the day of blood’), before serving in the temple as priestesses. These brave women who took on the image of their goddess remind us that we have always been here, and we are not forgotten. But the story of their transition is not universal — it is a lifetime collapsed to a singularity. For many of us, our lives contain multitudes of experiences, each as important as the last. It should also be emphasised that surviving is one thing, thriving is another. Whilst the Priestesses of Cybele were generally accepted in their temple, they were merely that — accepted. But so much more is possible. Take, for example, eighteenth century Italy; it would be easy to expect a strongly Western-Catholic society to be discriminatory and unaccepting of transgender and nonbinary peoples, but trans poet Travis Alabanza notes that the people of eighteenth century Italy were ‘jealous of these people. They harness the ability to be fluctuating. They harness the ability to adapt’. Alabanza is referring to the Femmenielli, a group of people who, by today’s terminology, would not be considered cishet, and who made leaps and bounds in pushing the boundaries of gender and exploring presentation. But unlike their contemporaries, the Femmenielli of Italy were believed to be good luck — not a curse on society. It’s interesting to see that people were jealous of them, rather than appalled, and to see that we have so much to learn from the people of 300 years ago. Indeed, it begs the question: what was the turning point in western society that taught us intolerance? In the

words of Morgan M Page, ‘there were very few of what we would call, like, strongly binary trans people before there were gender identity clinics telling us to identify as strongly binary.’ It’s certainly an unsettling proposition — that cisness has co-opted this trans narrative to such an extent, that even the prevailing narrative of transness is deeply awash with the cisnormative expectations of society enforcing a deeply discriminatory and cruel binary on a people searching for freedom. In the wake of so much lost progress and ‘reclaimed’ ground surrounding gender expression, dysphoria, and identity, it is difficult to know how we could possibly go on. But the future is bright and hopeful. Trans artist Shayshay describes this generation as the era of ‘the nonbinary rise’, a time when people of all gender experiences throw off the shackles of societal expectations and selfrealise. I certainly believe that this is possible, but we need to take a serious and realistic look at how we educate people on transgender experiences. We need to leave behind the narratives of ‘before and after’, of binarism, and of inflexible nonfluidity. ‘Gender is a spectrum’ has become a rallying cry for this generation of gender activists, but it needs to become more than that. It needs to become the mantra breathing through our lungs, our hope in the darkness, and our unapologetic truth. We can do so, not necessarily on the back of continual negative feedback loops such as trauma and horrifying statistics, but predicated on hope. Because whilst sharing our traumatic experiences is important, we must even more so inspire each other to live our lives free from the burden that is the framework of the western gender binary, and to live a joyful, fulfilling life. After all, in the words of legendary queer novelist, Alexander Chee, ‘The world needs to know that our lives are not just trauma, and then we die.’

OUTSPOKEN: 2016 The Pride Pages were a weekly newsletter, created by the 2016 Pride Officers, Fraser Windsor and Reece Gherardi. The goal was to create a forum for LGBT students to express their opinions, as well as providing entertainment and reviews. The newsletter is considered the official founding of Outspoken, and over time has evolved into the magazine we know today. Published here is the first, and only, edition of The Pride Pages.

JELLICLE CHOICES AN OBJECTIVE RANKING OF THE CATS (2019) CATS SASKIA MASON, S. KENNEDY-PERKINS, ISABELLE BIZJAK AND FRASER WINDSOR

9. BUSTOPHER JONES

4. RUM TUM TUGGER

IB: booooooooo! james cordon we hate your pussy.

KP: A curious cat. Deprived of his scenes with Mistoffelees he instead gets to experience the raw feral energy of being the assigned sexiest cat on set. I purrsonally believe that Cats (2019) could have been a revival of the forbidden Rum Tum Tugger Rap but instead they went with a classical indecisive king.

8. MACAVITY SM: Macavity has one personality trait and it’s that he just really loves crime. His biggest crime of all, however, is his unnervingly nude-looking cat body, which somehow appears far more unsettlingly naked than any of the other cats. He also wears a fedora for unexplained reasons. Idris Elba deserves better.

7. MUNKUSTRAP KP: I know you’re gay. He’s a very neutral, non-offensive cat in everything but visual appeal. Appears the most passionate about his role, and does his best despite every other aspect of the movie doing it’s best to unsettle.

6. MR. MISTOFFELEES SM: In the stage musical, Mr. Mistoffelees’ feature song is basically just him being serenaded by the Rum Tum Tugger and ends with him magically procuring a massive rainbow banner. The New Yorker describes him as ‘a gay icon, bedazzled like the night sky’. Truly, representation at its finest. Tragically, movie-Mistoffelees is totally straightwashed, with an added female love interest and far too many shots of the two nuzzling. Gay erasure strikes yet again. I do like that the movie gives him a snazzy little magician’s hat though, so points for style.

5. JENNYANYDOTS FW: I have a hot take in mind about the cat Jennyanydots. Perhaps one of the finest cats. Rebel Wilson’s entirely expected quips didn’t ruin the film and The Old Gumbie Cat is one of my favourites. It was upon hearing “she sits and sits and sits and sits” (my favourite line of the film) that the purpose of Cats was clear to me: celebrating cats, with no further insight. All became clear to me in that moment, contemplating how cats do sit and sit and sit and sit, and I could truly embrace the work. 9/10, the cockroaches fine, no further comments. SM: I disagree strongly. Jennyanydots removing a layer of fur and/or skin to inexplicably reveal a dress underneath (no, it does not make more sense in context) was the most haunting piece of cinema I’ve ever had to witness, and my life has not known peace since that moment.

3. BOMBALURINA IB: absolute bad bitch. looks like she would have bullied me in high school and I would still say thank you. the bad british accent was a planned creative choice that only added to this camp masterpiece of a movie. also it’s literally Taylor Swift.

2. SKIMBLESHANKS SM: Icon. Legend. Cat of the railway train. Skimbleshanks’ song is unironically a bop and I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve listened to it on loop on Spotify more than once. If they made a Cats 2 that was just 90 mins of Skimble singing about his train and tapping about in his little cat-sized tap shoes I would watch it in a heartbeat.

1. OLD DEUTERONOMY KP: Impeccable, showstopping, go on girl give us everything. She improves every scene and any cat in close radius of her seems better and more at ease. With her milf (grandmilf?) energy off the charts, Judy Dench looks more at home as a cat than a person, good for her.

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