#growing up queer in australia
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Growing Up Queer in Australia - edited Benjamin Law
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘No amount of YouTube videos and queer think pieces prepared me for this moment.’ ‘The mantle of “queer migrant” compelled me to keep going – to go further.’ ‘I never “came out” to my parents. I felt I owed them no explanation.’ ‘All I heard from the pulpit were grim hints.’ ‘I became acutely aware of the parts of myself that were unpalatable to queers who grew up in the city.’ ‘My queerness was born in a hot dry land that was never ceded.’ ‘Even now, I sometimes think that I don’t know my own desire.’ Compiled by celebrated author and journalist Benjamin Law, Growing Up Queer in Australia assembles voices from across the spectrum of LGBTIQA+ identity. Spanning diverse places, eras, ethnicities and experiences, these are the stories of growing up queer in Australia.
‘For better or worse, sooner or later, life conspires to reveal you to yourself, and this is growing up.’
With contributions from David Marr, Fiona Wright, Nayuka Gorrie, Steve Dow, Holly Throsby, Sally Rugg, Tony Ayres, Nic Holas, Rebecca Shaw and many more.
I am privileged enough to have grown up with the internet, with information about queer people and queer identities so difficult to hide, such that even at a christian school, I was able to find the words to describe myself almost as soon as I recognised those parts of myself.
Even so, hearing first-person accounts of Australian queer people, like me, dealing with Australia's culture and biases, made me felt seen in a way I don't think any other medium could have.
Growing Up Queer in Australia portrayed all different aspects of queerness, from celebration and pride to rejection and heartbreak. It was a wonderful reflection of thoughts and feelings I've had, as well as those I would never have considered to be part of the queer experience.
I really appreciated the range of queer identities represented in the book; from lesbian and gay to queer, every letter of LGBTQ+ was represented. I do wish we got more stories from the '+' part of the queer community, but I am glad that Growing Up Queer does make an effort to include more than just gay and lesbian authors. I especially appreciated the range in gender identities and presentation of the authors, including both masc- and femme-presenting lesbians and their struggles, trans people who realised both early and late in life, people who had strong gendered feelings that didn't neatly fit into these boxes.
I also welcome the intersectionality present in Growing Up. As someone who is white and able-bodied, it was eye-opening to read how deep the authors' queerness was related to other marginalised parts of their identity such as disability and race. I appreciated the variety in Australian class and location represented in the book, including rural, small towns, suburban and city perspectives. It made me really happy in one story to notice where they were from and say "Hey, that's near me! That's my community!"
As Benjamin Law addresses in the wonderfully written foreword, I am very glad that the title chosen is 'Growing Up Queer in Australia.' The use of 'queer' feels very inclusive and tells me Law is not shying away from the tougher parts of queer identities in an effort to make the book more marketable.
For me personally though, trying to digest the a-spec parts of my identity has been a big part of my personal discovery, and for this reason I would loved to have seen asexual and aromantic representation. It seems from personal anecdote to make up a surprisingly large section of the lgbtq+ community, so it was a bit disappointing that with dozens of authors involved, there was not a single a-spec author.
In general, I was a little disappointed there weren't many authors from the '+' part of lgbtq+, such as a-spec, non-binary and genderfluid. There are some identities that feel marginalised even within the queer community and this book could have been a good opportunity to bring light to them. I would have especially loved to see 'contradictory' identities such as he/him lesbians.
I am still giving 5 stars because I understand when compiling and publishing a book like this, there will always be people who felt left out by it, and I can see and appreciate the effort that has gone into diversity and intersectionality in Growing Up Queer.
Growing Up Queer, through its diverse collection of stories, reaches out and says, You are not alone. There are others who have been in the same situation.
#book review#growing up queer in australia#benjamin law#non-fiction#nonfiction#short stories#essays#memoir#lgbtq books#lgbtqia#australian books#anthology#5 stars#endymion#book reviews#book recommendation#book recommendations#book reccs#book blog#books#bookblr#booklr#reading#book reading
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the concept of an ‘unauthorised protest’ is so fucked. we have to ask permission to disagree?? to have input in how our lives are run??
the right to protest MUST BE PROTECTED.
#i’m ranting again#nsw cops claiming the snap rallies against police participation at mardi gras were ‘unauthorised’#what you think the queer people rallying AGAINST YOU are gonna ask for YOUR PERMISSION#grow the fuck up and get the fuck out#anyway the lack of cheering as the cops marched past at sydney mardi gras was music to my ears#cope and seethe piggies#cops out of pride#pride in protest#this is australia specific but also all people should protect the right to protest
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Happy International Lesbian Day! Here's some super brief book recs to celebrate
Books dealing with love, loss, longing and abandonment
This is How You Lose The Time War is a short but beautifully written epistolary novel between two agents on opposite sides of a time war as they slowly fall in love.
Our Wives Under the Sea is one of the most beautifully written debuts I've ever read about a woman whose wife comes home wrong after they thought she'd died at sea and how it feels to grieve the loss of someone who's still in your home.
Lucky Red is a western novel about a young girl working in a brothel who meets her first female gunslinger and falls head over heels for her, and the consequences that come with loving dangerous people.
Body horror galore
Camp Damascus is about a young woman living in a super conservative christian town built around the worlds most successful conversion camp and the horrors that are uncovered there when praying the gay away fails.
To Be Devoured is about a woman whose fascination with the local vultures turns into obsession and the urge to know what carrion tastes like overtakes her life and leads her down stranger and stranger paths.
Chlorine is about a girl whose entire life revolves around being a competitive swimmer, and how abuse, neglect, and obsession with being the best takes its toll on the young women caught up in these destructive cycles.
Flawed character studies
Big Swiss is about a woman who has a kitchen floor reset in her 40s, moves away and starts a new life as a transcriber for a sex therapist and becomes obsessed with one of his clients before inserting herself into this poor woman's life.
The Seep is a speculative sci-fi set in a future where there's been a quiet alien invasion that has given people the ability to make almost any changes to their own bodies and what that world feels like to someone who doesn't want to partake.
Milk Fed is about a woman in therapy who feels cut off from almost everything until she meets another woman who triggers in her a melding of sex, hunger, and religion and where that takes her. Huge trigger warnings for ED content. It gets tough, y'all.
Fantastical wlw books
Bitterthorn is an amalgamation of fairytales retold as a slow burn sapphic love story between a sad young girl from a cursed land and the evil witch who takes her as a companion in the latest of the generational sacrifices made to appease her.
All the Bad Apples may be set in contemporary Ireland but it is a fairytale following a young girl as she travels across the country looking for a sister she refuses to believe is dead and the people she meets along the way.
Gideon the Ninth needs no introduction on this site but for the sake of formatting - lesbian necromancers in space who find themselves in an isolated murder mystery plot. It's not a romance but it is a love story and this series will change your life if you let it.
Translated novels
Boulder is a short character study following a free spirited woman when she accidentally settles down with the woman she loves and how love and resentment can take up the same space in your chest when life doesn't turn out the way you hoped it would.
Notes of a Crocodile is a cult classic coming of age story about queer teens in Taipei in the 1980s. It was written in the 90s so please keep that in mind if you choose to read it.
Paradise Rot is about an international student studying in Australia and her growing obsession with her housemate as they share a space that allows no privacy. I've never read anything that feels stickier.
#international lesbian day#book recs#long post#maybe a too long post#but i had the recs so here we are lol#this is how you lose the time war#our wives under the sea#lucky red#camp damascus#to be devoured#chlorine#big swiss#the seep#milk fed#bitterthorn#all the bad apples#gideon the ninth#boulder by eve baltasar#notes of a crocodile#paradise rot#i ran out of tags 😭😭😭#booklr
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INTERVIEW WITH A WRITEBLR — @albatris
Who You Are:
Logan || It/its
Hello! I'm a queer horror novelist and friend to cats from South Australia! I spend my time making art of all sorts, especially relating to my experiences of queerness and psychosis.
What You Write:
What genres do you write in? What age ranges do you write for?
Comedy, fantasy, horror, and sci-fi. Young adult and adult.
What genre would you write in for the rest of your life, if you could? What about that genre appeals to you?
Horror! There's such rich ground to explore in stories of horror and psychosis when you're not an ableist prick about it! There are unique and valuable stories to be told in the overlap here and I'm having a wonderful time weaving my own experiences of schizotypal personality disorder into my horror writing. It's the closest I've come to being able to share my inner world with others :)
What genre/s will you not write unless you HAVE to? What about that genre turns you off?
Historial fiction! I don't have anything against the genre, but it's just not my cup of tea. I'd never feel like I'm nailing the time period due to the sheer amount of nuance and detail that I'd need to have on hand… major props to historical fiction writers, you are stronger and more organised writers than I
Who is your target audience? Do you think anyone outside of that would get anything out of your works?
My target audience ranged from YA to adult, depending on the work in question. I want to speak to primarily people who are feeling disconnected and alone… I guess you could say my target audience is just myself of the past? I'm writing the stuff I needed to read, the stuff that would have made me feel seen and loved and understood. Anyone else is welcome along for the ride though ^.^ I hope others who don't see themselves in my work would catch a glimpse of a different way of understanding the world and be able to empathise and understand, and maybe have a lot of fun with it, too!
What kind of themes do you tend to focus on? What kinds of tropes? What about them appeals to you?
I love all that cheesy goodness about the power of friendship and the human capacity for kindness and connection! My stories, however otherwise horrifying or heavy, tend to come back to these at their core. My works all focus heavily on mental illness, neurodivergence and disability. I also have a soft spot for bendy realities, body horror, paranoia and hiveminds.
What themes or tropes can you not stand? What about them turn you off?
I cannot stand "the whole thing was just a delusion all along! none of it was ever real!" or "ooh they thought it was psychosis but it turns out it was ~magic~! see, our protagonist isn't CRAZY like those actually crazy people!" style plot twists. They're lazy and ableist! In general, I have zero tolerance for anything that demonises psychosis or uses psychosis only as an edgy plot twist.
What are you currently working on? How long have you been working on it?
I have two main projects, "All the Doors are Open", a YA fantasy/horror about the collapse of reality, and "A Rental Car Takes a Left Down Rake Street and Disappears" a paranormal horror about a vampire hivemind. I've been working on some variation of ATDAO for eight years, and Rental Car is a baby by comparison, and was only created last year.
Why do you write? What keeps you writing?
I write for fun! As much as I love to connect with others and allow them a glimpse into my understanding of the world, I primarily write because I just like to have a good time hahaha. It's something I love to dabble in and explore, something I love to wander through, something I keep coming back to over and over. I just feel a pull to it :D
How long have you been writing? What do you think first drew you to it?
I've been writing since I was around six years old! Growing up as a kid with undiagnosed psychosis and delusions, I had a lot of funky weird ideas about reality. I quickly found my reality didn't match with those around me and often turned to fiction writing as a means to express myself in a way others found more "palatable". It's a way for me to open the door to communication!
Where do you get your inspiration from? Is that how you got your inspiration for your current project? If not, where did the inspiration come from?
All kinds of places! Songs, dreams, daydreams, personal experience, conversations… I have a very chaotic brain, I take in a lot of odd information and it all lays the foundation for odd ideas to grow!
What work of yours are you most proud of? Why?
I'm most proud of Rental Car at the moment! It was my first foray into proper full-on horror and my first time writing a specifically schizotypal protagonist like myself, and people have responded with enthusiasm to both! It's become a passion project I really adore and I'm proud of myself for taking the plunge and starting it :D
Have you published anything? Do you want to?
I'd love to publish in the future!
What part of the publishing process most appeals to you? What part least appeals to you?
I'm not sure what appeals to me the most, but marketing appeald to me least hahaha. I'm not really a big presence on social media and I hate promoting myself. I just want to be a hermit. I'm not cut out for marketing myself :P
What part of the writing process most appeals to you? What part is least appealing?
I love editing! I love revision! I love wandering through this little garden I've written and pruning and polishing it. It's my favourite part of the process :D I don't have a least favourite part, at least not off the top of my head.
Do you have a writing process? Do you have an ideal setup? Do you write in pure chaos? Talk about your process a bit.
I have no setup! No schedule! I write when I feel like it and stop the moment I'm not having fun anymore. This has increased my productivity and enjoyment tenfold, as well as improve the quality of my work!
Your Thoughts on Writeblr:
How long have you been a writeblr? What inspired you to join the community?
Around 8 years! I don't remember what initially inspired me to join.
Shout out some of your favorite writeblrs. How did you find them and what made you want to follow them?
@tracle0, a friend and pal, who has some of my favourite worldbuilding of all time and such incredible characters! I've been following them for a long time now and love hearing their thoughts :D
What is your favorite part about writeblr?
I love the creativity and enthusiasm! People have such wonderful brains and I love being able to hear people talk about their work with such passion and adoration!
What do you think writeblr could improve on? How do you think we can go about doing so?
I think… remembering that writeblr itself is not a hivemind! I see a lot of folks lamenting that they feel ignored by "the community" or that the community is dying, and I think a lot of people see writeblr as a huge monolith. It's not! People gotta focus more on finding a few good friends and a handful of works to be genuinely invested in, rather than trying to interact with the whole of the (ginormous!) community, and expecting the whole community to interact with them. Writeblr is a description of a type of blog, and it's incredibly diverse and complicated and broad! You won't vibe with everyone and it's not so much like an official club you join but a shared experience.
How do you contribute to the writeblr community? Do you think you could be doing more?
Man, I'm just vibing. I'm invested in a collection of works I try to keep up with, and I try to keep up with the little circle of writeblrs I'm involved with! Reblogging and getting excited. I'm also often that person who gets bored and goes "heyyyy I'm bored, does anyone have an oc I can draw"… I love doing art for people! Could I be doing more? Probably! But also, I'm not meant to be everything to everyone.
What kinds of posts do you most like to interact with?
I don't have a preference!
What kind of posts do you most like to make?
Rambles, excerpts and art!
Finally, anywhere else online we may be able to find you?
I'm just here, babey! And albatris on NaNoWriMo, too. And I guess if you like you can hit me up for my discord, I help run a small writing server!
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what i read in apr. 2023:
(previous editions) bold = favourite
class, race, & labour
the deputy and the disappeared (usa)
the dystopian underworld of south africa’s illegal gold mines
inside australia’s university wage theft machine
lydia maria child and the vexed role of the woman abolitionist (usa)
gender, sexuality, & intersectionality
the narcissist’s playbook
blurred lines, harbinger of doom
how revenge porn is used to silence dissidents in azerbaijan
queer villains are vital to understanding queer history
politics & current affairs
adrift
the rose-coloured tint on shou zi chew overlooks tiktok’s red flags
“we shouldn’t grow up dreaming that our friends don’t get killed”
how to wash your hands in a war zone (colombia)
why south koreans want the bomb
history, culture, & media
former south korea president’s grandson apologises to victims of gwangju massacre
singapore’s prison without walls made the world sit up in 1960s. how did it fall apart?
honey, i sold the kids
dril is everyone. more specifically, he’s a guy named paul
sudan
keep eyes on sudan (guide/resources)
sudan’s outsider
a plague o’ both your houses: the false dilemma of sudan’s elites
sudan’s coup has shattered the hopes of its 2019 revolution (2021 coup)
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Another zine I want to work on is for Billy Elliot's 25th anniversary next year. I wouldn't say this was my gay awakening, but it's certainly remained a great love given my teen obsession with Jamie Bell and how often it appeared on free-to-air television. It sits alongside But I'm a Cheerleader (1999) and Beautiful Thing (1996) as films that made me feel privileged to have grown up gay when I did.
If you've got something nerdy to say about this film, DM me with it (or add comments to a reblog) the second you finish reading.
The zine would talk about Billy Elliot's 'controversy': the debates about whether it counted as queer, and grooming allegations against Daldry for his sheer proximity to a young actor. It would also include how my crush on Jamie Bell developed over the last twenty-five years. But tbh that's all just filler. What I really want to talk about is how its big, nerdy intertextual references make it media created for us rather than a cishet audience.
First reference is from history, because why choose the 1984 miner's strike as your setting if your film had nothing to say about their contributions to Gay Liberation? Perhaps a little headcanon, but no less important to highlight this largely forgotten change in Labour's policy-making both in the UK and here in Australia.
And because we don't have a world of time, and because it was a helpful reminder when it came out, we lean on the 2014 docudrama PRIDE. This one follows Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), who crossed prejudices to show their solidarity during the 1984 strike — going as far as holding a club fundraiser featuring Bronski Beats as their headliner.
LGSM's contributions were ultimately refused by the Miner's Union, and yet they left a lasting impression on mining communities and labour unions. LGSM were subsequently joined by hundreds of miners during Gay Pride 1985 who had by then voted to include gay and lesbian rights in their party portfolio. It was the first time a major political party in the West had committed to supporting queer rights.
Next we slide hard into Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, which premiered in 1995. This modern re-queerification of the classic ballet by gay composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky has the prince assume part of the princess's role as he pursues a mysterious Stranger (the swan). Here Bourne goes as far as to replace the entire cast of traditionally female swans with sweaty, bare-chested lads.
The 2012 capture watchable [ here ] stars homosexual hearthrob Dominic North as the forlorn prince.
Now, in Billy Elliot, Mrs Wilkinson recounts the classic tale to Billy as they listen to Swan Lake on the ferry. It's a wonderful scene where Wilkinson begins with reverence and dramatics, but ends with her usual boredom, leaving young Billy both confused and unsatisfied with the plot. To me this echoes the desire among 90s content producers to change how we told queer stories.
In Billy Elliot's closing scene, however, we see a 25yo Billy leap onto the stage as Bourne's Stranger rather than the classic princess (even nerdier than that, we see Bourne's original Stranger, Adam Cooper, playing a 25yo Billy Elliot). You realise in future screenings that the opening scene is also an homage to Bourne's Swan Lake: much as the young prince begins his story in bed, dreaming a swan hottie will save him from becoming a man; Billy begins jumping on his bed, flapping his arms, dreaming of something beyond the life he's expected to grow into.
Quick tangent via The Eagle (2011), starring Channing Tatum as Roman legionnaire Marcus and Jamie Bell as his British slave Esca. Now, do we condone slavery? Absolutely not. But we do enjoy watching Tatum and Bell get super clingy as they traip across the countryside in what has to be the most romantic bro film of all time.
Relevance to Billy Elliot? Vague. But hear me out.
The film's based on Rosemary Sutcliff's The Eagle of the Ninth (1954), which ends with Marcus settling down as a farmer with Esca and a Briton wife named Cottia who doesn't appear in the film. Subsequent novels follow the father's ring as it's passed down Marcus's bloodline, meaning they shagged down to produce an heir but implying literally nothing else.
But imagine removing Marcus's wife from the equation altogether (all women, actually), adding 'submission' to the male bonding elements of your film, reprimanding disaster bisexual Channing Tatum for suggesting it's a romance, and then expecting a professional homosexual like me to believe this doesn't count as another gay Jamie Bell movie. That's all I'm saying.
Lastly, I want to talk about Elton John co-writing the musical, and Tom Holland as the most famous Billy. I want to talk about Spanish Billies Pau Gimeno and Cristian López acting together in Paraiso (2021-22). I want to talk about Kate Mara (married to Bell) as Patty Bowes in the first season of POSE (2018-21), and her sister Rooney as Therese Belivet in Carol (2015). I want to talk about so many things.
What would YOU want to write about this film?
#billy elliot#billy elliot (2000)#jamie bell#queer#lgbtiq#gay#film#movie#films#movies#pride (2014)#LGSM#lesbians and gays support the miners#matthew bourne#tchaikovsky#swan lake#matthew bourne's swan lake#dominic north#adam cooper#the eagle (2011)#channing tatum#roman#history#elton john#tom holland#paraiso#pau gimeno#Cristian López#pose#kate mara
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Ya girl talked about their own journey growing up queer in regional Australia and the importance of supporting Queer Youth on my local radio today!
#lgbtq community#lgbtqiia+#lgbtqia#lgbt#lgbt pride#wear it purple day#queer advocacy#lgbt youth#lgbt advocacy#gay#lesbian#pansexual#bisexual#transgender#trans youth#me
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hi I’m from Australia and I’m just wondering if you can explain the phenomenon of people from “blue states” seemingly wishing death on people from “red states/southern states” cause alot of people I follow are queer/bipoc communist folk from the south and I keep seeing “do not dehumanise us just because we are a red state” and “do not celebrate the hurricane just because it’s happening in the south” and like… do people do this??? I’m almost scared to ask. Cause here in australia even when it takes place in the most conservative part of idk, deep north queensland, something like a bushfire is nationally mourned as a tragedy and people rally to fund rebuilding and rescue efforts. I don’t think ive ever seen someone say “those damn liberal-national voters had it comin” so im so lost at the concept that this is something that apparently happens in USAmerica. Can you possibly explain this? What makes supposedly “progressive” folks so cruel? All the love to you by the way I hope your friends and any family in hurricane affected areas are safe, totally understand if you don’t want to answer the question at this time ❤️
yeah, ill try to explain. thank you for the well wishes, though i am currently fine. im in texas (and not on the coast), so i barely get any hurricane brunt at any time, but i have close friends in the current affected states who i am sending all the love & support i can to. ill put this under a read more because there's a lot to cover.
all americans im sure are the exact same to non americans, but basically due to the civil war about a century and a half ago, there is a big cultural rift between the north and south states - mostly in the east, but western blue (liberal) states definitely fit the northern mindset, and some more northern states along the appalachian mountains are considered southern. because of the grip of slavery on the south before that war, we in the south have never really escaped that history (many songs cite the south as being full of ghosts of history, and god, it is). we are also stereotyped presently as racist dumb redneck hicks. combine those two and you do not garner sympathy.
the thing is that the south is the most diverse area in the entire usa, and there there are a multitude of factors that lead us to being "less advanced" than the north, many of which hinge on that fact. the south has always had a more conservative grip due to the slaveowning elite just evolving to be right wingers nowadays. because we had worse building blocks to start with than the north with its better weather and an economy not built on slaves, we had work to do anyway, but conservatives in office refuse to fix or change any infrastructure. because they want to stay in power, our politicians purposely cut any and all educational funds and preach evangelical teachings so many of us grow up deeply propoganized - though some of us dont or work to break free of that thought process. we are not a monolith. you will find some of the most stalwart leftists here as well as the most violent ring wingers, almost like, we're a massive & diverse group of people. what we believe barely matters though when our politicians gerrymander and ensure county/town lines are drawn in such a way that priveleged votes always matter statistically more than oppressed ones do.
that's where the whole cruel progressives thing comes in. folks in blue areas, the north & canada especially, are blue, yes, but generally neoliberal when it comes to others beyond their purview. there is a smugness that they were born somewhere not haunted by a history of enslavement (ignoring the norths own racism - everyone i know who's moved north says their bigotry is highly noticeable, and slavery is legal everywhere in the country due to an exploited loophole in the 13th ammendment), and born in an area not as "punished by god" (a phrase used by southern pastors often) by natural disaster. every time there is even a modicum of news about a tragic event in a red state - a tornado, a hurricane, a shooting, things that can all happen in their lives too if less often - you will not be able to go near any comment section online or some northerners in reality who will not mock it. we deserve it for choosing to live here (as if we are not the poorest area of the country or as if the south is not also beautiful) and for choosing to vote red. there are occasional times this reverses - southerners love to jump on california's hypocrisy about this when they have earthquakes and fires - but it's not an equal balance. especially not when northern blue folk, who claim to be leftist & therefore compassionate, actively cheer on the deaths of those who could not evacuate because they were poor or desperate, and who make up our largest bipoc & queer populations in the country.
that is where bitterness, anger, and begging others to see southerners as human stems from. there is a lot more history & nuance to it than i can comprehensively express early in the morning, but that is the beginner gist of it. feel free to ask more if something wasnt clear or similar. my home is a mess, and i love it all the same, and my heart aches for my neighbors, and burns at others dehumanization of them and us as a whole. i know it will only get worse as climate change does and i wish we could all stick together instead rather than still drawing these boundary lines like our leaders want us to.
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Tonight marks the 45th annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade, one of the seminal moments in Australian queer history. Unfortunately— and in part because of the dominance of (US) American pride discourses, in part because of the transition of the parade from protest to celebration— there’s a general tendency to merely view Mardi Gras as ‘our Stonewall’ without understanding the broader context of Australian histories of sexuality and gender, or recognising the significant differences between Stonewall and Mardi Gras.
This year, I’m marking Mardi Gras by posting three excellent, accessible, and historically informed pieces on what happened on 24 June, 1978 & a piece about life for lgbtq+ elders, some of whom discuss the climate of the 70s and 80s:
ABC’s investigative, multimedia report on the 1st Mardi Gras— featuring interviews with the 78ers.
Sydney’s Mardi Gras: 40 Years of Pride and Protest— in pictures— Text by Nick Henderson, of the Australian Queer Archives.
The joy is waking up and liking who you are— Interviews with 6 lgbt+ elders, on their experiences growing up and growing to love who they are now.
It’s also worth noting that the ABC is airing a series on Australian queer history— Queerstralia— from Tuesday next week. Again, the Australian Queer Archives were one of the groups deeply involved in this, and I’m confident that it will be a genuine contribution to the public history of queer Australia.
Happy World Pride, and Happy Mardi Gras!
#history#historyblr#queer history#lgbtq history#trans history#gay history#lesbian history#australia#australian history#mardi gras#world pride
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the love that australia has for the matildas is so special for someone who grew up playing all different types of sport with no visible female athletes to look up to. it’s so special because not only has the nation rallied behind a female team, but they’ve rallied behind one of the most openly queer teams in the sport. these women went into the world cup wanting to leave a legacy and did exactly that whilst also leaving a permanent mark on the australian sporting world and beyond.
i remember playing football in primary school and getting told that we couldn’t train the same way as the boys because of a lack of skill. it didn’t matter that we wanted to improve as individuals and a team, we were still told by grown adults that there wasn’t a point to it. we got a new coach, one that had immense faith in us, and took ourselves all the way to our school district’s grand final. despite the loss we all walked away proud that we had made it that far and put in the effort to get there.
when you show young people that you have faith in them and their abilities, they can do anything. the matildas are raising a generation of girls who will grow up to be determined, hard working and unapologetically themselves.
the future of women’s football is so bright in australia
#pegs talks#i genuinely tear up thinking about it#they are so so so important to me#healing my inner child#matildas#auswnt
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look this might sound odd considering I'm a bi guy in Australia, but growing up watching lots of movies I only ever really felt like I saw myself on screen and clung to it were queer coded girls in highschool comedies or thrillers because they were the only type of queer person imbued with any sort of hope to the point that as a grown ass 34 year old dad from another country I look at Max Caulfield and am like "she's just like me"
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YA Books from 🇦🇺 Australia (mostly indigenous)
Continuing the country lists for the YA World Challenge! Firstly, there is no way I can list all the YA books from Australia - there's too many! For that reason, I'm sticking to indigenous books only for the individual books list.
If you want to find more Aussie authors, look for the #LoveOZYA tag, google some lists, browse some goodreads lists, and follow @thereadingchallengechallenge. Also check out the following anthologies to find your new favorite Aussie author:
Kindred: 12 Queer #LoveOzYA Stories Hometown Haunts: #LoveOzYA Horror Tales Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology Underdog: #LoveOzYA Short Stories Meet Me at the Intersection
Indigenous YA The Things She's Seen, Amebelin & Ezekiel Kwaymullina (alt. Catching Teller Crow) 💚🦋 The Boy From the Mish, Gary Lonesborough (alt. Ready When You Are) 💚🌈 The Upwelling, Lystra Rose 💚🦋 Tracks of the Missing, Carl Merrison & Hakea Hustler 💚🦋 Swallow the Air, Tara June Winch 💚 Ghost Bird, Lisa Fuller 💚🦋 Songs That Sound Like Blood, Jared Thomas 💚🌈 Calypso Summer, Jared Thomas 💚 Sweet Guy, Jared Thomas 💚 My Spare Heart, Jared Thomas 💚 The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf, Amebelin Kwaymullina (series) 💚🦋 Secrets from the Dust, George Hamilton ⌛ My Father's Shadow, Jannali Jones 💚 Too Flash, Melissa Lucashenko 💚 Killing Darcy, Melissa Lucashenko 💚 Grace Beside Me, Sue McPherson 💚 Brontide, Sue McPherson 💚 Wraith, Shane Smithers & Alex Smithers 💚🦋 Fog a Dox, Bruce Pascoe 💚 Njunjul The Sun, Meme McDonald Shauna's Great Expectations, Kathleen Loughnan
Middle Grade Bindi, Kirli Saunders 💚 Sister Heart, Sally Morgan 💚 Black Cockatoo, Carl Merrison & Hakea Hustler 💚 Ubby's Underdogs, Brenton E. McKenna (GN) 💚 Wombat, mudlark and other stories, Helen Milroy 💚 Wylah the Koorie Warrior, Jordan Gould, Richard Pritchard
Memoir & Nonfiction Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia, Various Authors 💚 Remembered By Heart: An Anthology of Indigenous Writing, Various Authors 💚 Blakwork, Alison Whittaker 💚 Jandamarra & the Bunuba Resistance: A True Australian Hero, Howard Pedersen⌛
Coming of Age Becoming Kirrali Lewis, Jane Harrison 💚⌛
💚 First Nations Author (based on author's bios, may be missing data) 🛩️ Immigrant or diaspora 🏖️ non-native characters in or about the country (ex. vacation/adventure) ⌛ Historical 🦋 Fantasy or Paranormal 🌈 LGBT
If you know of more titles I could add, just leave a comment! (I hope my sources weren't too outdated)
#book list#australia#ya world challenge#reading books#ya books#booklr#bookblr#bookish#book recs#indigenous#loveozya
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BOOKS THAT GIVE ME HOARD VIBES
paradise rot by jenny hval (queer surreal coming-of-age horror, translated from swedish; follows a woman going off to college who enters into an intense relationship with her roommate. lots of talk about religion, rotting fruit, mold, and piss)
carrie by stephen king ("female rage" horror; sixteen-year-old outcast gets her period for the first time and is mocked and further ostracized for it. centers around blood, both menstrual and otherwise. also deals with religious zealotry and child abuse)
on sun swallowing by dakota warren (confessional poetry collection; snapshots of the author's life growing up in rural australia. feral youth and girlhood, turbulent adolescence, more religious trauma, and eating disorders are mentioned)
nightbitch by rachel yoder ("weird girl" lit fic; a new mother has reason to believe that motherhood is turning her into a dog. stream-of-consciousness writing, books within books, and isolation are big themes. mention of animal abuse/death)
my sweet audrina by vc andrews (gothic horror; a seven-year-old girl has the same name as her sister, who died before she was born. her father believes that if she sits in the first audrina's rocking chair, she can gain access to audrina's thoughts, memories, and unspecified abilities. unreliable narrator, fluid passage of time [or lack thereof], and a whole bunch of weird ass untrustworthy characters. more child abuse as well as some ableist language and ideas)
if anyone has any other suggestions, FEEL FREE to reblog or leave them in the replies!!
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Potato Tweet: Sooooo I’ve watched ESC yesterday and, as per usual, it was an evening full of surprises.
The very first surprise was that only a few performances (Poland, Cyprus and UK) we’re, in my opinion, just bad. Every other performance varied from “meh, not so bad” (Austria) through “I don’t like it but I can see other people liking it” (Croatia, Ukrain) to “that’s really good” (Portugal, Estonia) and “amazing, I wanna hear more” (Italy, Germany). (Just to name some examples.)
Another surprise came crushing in, as Israel started getting tons of jury points. The juries are always unpredictable to me. I do not understand how do they decide about their points. But Israel wasn’t the best vocal or musical performance, the directing and visuals were meh and the song in general was meh. So what did people like? The pretty girl? Probably… (I am consciously putting the political aspect of the whole Israel aside.)
The public votes were a bit less surprising except for… Germany. They were objectively not the worst performers. They did not deserve to rank last. UK and/or Poland should have taken the last place. Germany should have been, in my humble opinion, at least somewhere in the upper half of the ranking. Is it the politics barging into the heads of juries and the public? Is it “WW2. Germany bad” and “Germany in the UE too strong? Can’t let them win ESC, too”? Like, why? Lord of the Lost was far better than the worst.
The last surprise was the winner. The massive amount of public votes awarded to Finnland and their whimsical performance have brought me joy. The final win of Sweden crushed my good mood. And it’s not because I think she was bad. She wasn’t. She was good. To me, she was ok. Not my taste. What was really good about her performance was the illusion of her lifting up the top part of the scenography during her performance. The part played over and over again during the throw backs. I though her singing was good, but not as good as Portugal or Estonia. Her consciously subsided stage presence was underwhelming, cuz I’ve seen it done oh so many times. Am I being extra critical towards her? Yes. But she has won and that is a reason to look closer at her performance.
Oh! And she only has glitter on her nails, which, in my humble opinion, should be a valid reason to not win. ESC is about glitter, pyrotechnics, disconcerting artsy sets (looking at you, Serbia) - everything that makes a show.
To finish this post/tweet of, here are some honorable mentions:
Portugal for the expression, the voice and the dress.
Italy for the PR smartness in catching the attention of straight women in their postcard and then emanating vulnerable queerness in the performance. Also for the singing.
Estonia for the amazing voice that really stood out among the mediocre set and directing.
Australia for the expression, working the camera and the guitar player who looked like a lesbian from the 80s who’s playing gigs to collect money for taking care of HIV-infected gay friends.
Norway for growing on me after every throw back. Totally not my music taste, but I’d watch it again.
Czechia for representing eastern feminism.
Spain, Moldova and Albania for connecting with their cultural heritage. I’d also love to go to a grill party with this Albanian family.
#personal blog#potatotweet#penny for my thoughts#potato tweet#esc 2023#esc#esc23#eurovison song contest#eurovision#loreen#lord of the lost#Germany#sweden#serbia#poland#uk#liverpool#Italy#Portugal#croatia#finnland
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Having amused myself writing a short fic, let me introduce a fandom of mine that's even more obscure than Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines (at least John Finnemore knows about that!)
It's a Wild West series by Australian author Leonard Frank Meares, writing under the pseudonym Marshall Grover. He wrote over 700 novels. Short ones, sure, but yeah. *
The protagonists of ”my” Marshall Grover series were, in Australia, called Larry & Stretch: Larry Valentine and Stretch Emerson, two Texan cowboys roaming around the West, riding into a town, getting into trouble though they didn't go looking for it, ensuring a kind of justice with hard fists and hard guns, and riding on. Always having each other's backs. (Almost) always politely/awkwardly/very quickly backing away when a lady shows an interest.
In America, they were renamed Larry & Streak. But the series also became very popular in Scandinavia, published in Sweden from 1962 and read by all kids who wanted to grow up to be cowboys. Here, they were renamed Bill & Ben. My dad and uncle read them when they were kids, and then I did, and that was the start of my collecting these cheap, simple, predictable guilty-pleasure paperbacks (which, not gonna lie, totally are products of their time).
My obvious headcanon is that of-fucking-course these two vagabonds are doggone married, so I simply had to put this down in a short fic, predictably titled Two Tall Texans. If by any chance you've read the Australian editions, Bill is Larry and Ben is Stretch. **
* Yes, I have a weakness for pre-grimdark Wild West, see: Blazing Saddles, Alias Smith & Jones, The Young Riders, Doris Day(!)'s Calamity Jane, etc. Two more encouragements for the fic, besides the obvious Brokeback Mountain: Days Without End by Sebastian Barry, following a queer couple up to and through the Civil War and beyond; and Alex Clairmont-Diaz of Red, White and Royal Blue being a proud Texan. Not to get your hopes up: it's a short fic, mostly to establish that Bill/Ben=Larry/Stretch now exists.)
** I have also learned that ”Larry” is the ship name for an RPF One Direction ship. The more you know.
PS I might be writing a Blazing Saddles crossover.
#wild west#pulp wild west#marshall grover#larry & stretch#larry & streak#bill & ben#larry valentine#stretch emerson#bill valentine#ben emerson#rarepair#larry/stretch#bill/ben#that might be an IT ship?#sorry bout that#gay cowboys#queer cowboys
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A panel featuring four of Nia King's favorite artists: Sawyer Lovett, Joe Hatton, Vo Vo, and Cristy C. Road. Zines played a crucial role in reducing social isolation for many of us, whether we were one of the only punks of color in our scene (Nia in Boston, Joe in the Dakotas, and Vo in Sydney, Australia), or the only gay in our rural Virginia town (Sawyer). Cristy C. Road discusses growing up in Miami's predominantly Black and brown punk scene and using zines to process heartbreak and trauma.
Listen here. Read here. Donate here.
More zinesters you should know below:
Mimi Thi Nguyen, Jackie Wang, Lauren Jade Martin, Suzy X, Osa Atoe, Adee Roberson, Lawrence Lindell, Breena Nuñez, Ajuan Mance, the Queer Zine Archive Project, Jenna Freedman/the Barnard Zine Library, and many, many more.
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