The Queer Agenda The Rainbow Club offers their voice to the Queer Agenda post-marriage equality Words by the University of South Australia Rainbow Club
So, we've finally achieved marriage equality in Australia. The sky didn't fall in, and everything is all good. Or is it? Given that marriage equality became a high-profile issue for more than 13 years, one could be forgiven for thinking that the queer community now has everything it wanted. But the reality is that marriage equality isn't quite the pinnacle of civil rights it’s been made out to be. There's still a few things left on the ‘queer agenda’ to achieve. Being queer isn't always glitter and rainbows (FYI: most glitter is non-biodegradable and terrible for the environment; rainbows though are completely eco-friendly!). It's okay though, there's always a bunch of people around to make sure we stay focused on achieving those #equality goals for the queer fam. For many, being at uni brings the freedom of self-expression that a school environment denied. The freedom to have multi-coloured hair, unusual piercings, make questionable fashion choices, be covered in tatts, and perhaps most importantly, freely express or explore gender identity and sexuality. For most, that's what uni is like. However, like other minority groups, queer students in particular face difficulties that the average student doesn't. For some, it’s issues like what to do about the divisive topic of terminology. Is it okay to use the reclaimed term ‘queer’ knowing that it was still used as a slur a few decades ago, even though it is all-encompassing
and inclusive? And then there's the issue of what do about the ever-growing acronym that is now ‘LGBTTIQQAAP+’, often mocked for somehow being too inclusive by being too specific, and whether ‘A’ for allies should be included. The preferred term used in international human rights discourses is ‘sexual orientation and gender identity’, but a myriad of terms are in use by others. There’s no consensus within the community about which term is best, so it's better to ask people what their own preferred terms are, especially when it comes to gender identity pronouns. Fun fact: despite the insistence of many secondary school English teachers, the third-person singular epicene pronoun ‘they’ is indeed grammatically correct, and has been since the 14th century. For others, it's a less understood issue. Life is filled with awkward moments and tricky situations, but those moments can be especially tough for those who are a minority within a minority. In May 2017, South Australia added the option for birth certificates to list a person's sex as either intersex, intermediate, non-binary, or unspecified. Sure, we've had an X option for Aussie passports since 2003, and Medicare since 2013, but Centrelink is yet to do the same. This means potentially missing out on often crucial payments like Youth Allowance or Austudy because this one detail doesn't identically match Centrelink’s files. When it comes to enrolling at most Australian universities, currently such