Setting the scene: Being queer in Australia and New Zealand

Rally for marriage equality - May 2012

Dudes, dudettes, dudes-in-between*; greetings! My name is Liv and I will be your host this evening. Orange juice, anyone? It's on the house.

You've probably all noticed I'm new here, and that's cool. Before I get started, I'll rattle off a few facts about myself.

1. I'm seventeen years old and in grade eleven of high school- I should be grade twelve, but that's another story. 
2. I'm a Kiwi living in Australia. (No, I did not have a pet sheep. No, I do not ride kangaroos to school.) 
3. I have a fascination with psychology and want to study it at uni as soon as I get out of school (and back to New Zealand), but journalism's my back up option. 
4. I love Glee, My Chemical Romance, Flight of the Conchords, Harry Potter, Gin Wigmore, Alice in Wonderland, Homestuck, and Daria. 
5. I'm a cis-gendered polysexual** in a long distance relationship with a genderfluid omnisexual. Basically we're both really gay and don't leave our respective houses often. 

Right, that gets that bit out of the way. Who wants rainbow-cake?

I live in Brisbane, Australia, and I come from a small city in New Zealand called Dunedin. I've been out as bi/lesbian/pansexual/lesbian again/demisexual/polysexual for two or so years (it took me a while to work that one out), and this year I've become more active in the LGBTQ* community as I've become more comfortable in my sexuality.

So living down in Oceania, the LGBTQ* community comes together every few months for Marriage Equality rallies with Equal Love, and once a year for the Pride Festival. Pride in Queensland (the state I live in) is in September, because the weather's much nicer then in comparison to when it happens in the US. Which pretty much means we're in the middle of the festival right now! (For all you other people in Brisbane, the main parade is on the 16th and I really hope to see you all there.)

The last event was a rally, which was the biggest in Queensland history. On August 11th, the LGBT community came together, made lots of noise and waved signs around. (I could be heard shouting “not even my sign will stay straight!” every time there was a new gust of wind – another fun fact; I think I’m funny when really I’m not). We made it onto the national news, and that was pretty exciting. Unfortunately there have been no more changes since then, but we got our voice out there nonetheless. 

The people in government here in Queensland are those sorts of people who say they aren’t homophobic, but cut back on LGBTQ* rights pretty quickly anyway. Campbell Newman, the state’s Premier, was only sworn in on March 26th. But in the months following that, he downgraded civil unions to “registered relationships” (as if we are dogs! Honestly.); changed the surrogacy laws so that you have to be opposite-sex and married if you wanted to have kids that way (so single mothers can’t have kids now either); and cut funding to the one LGBTQ* health service in the state (before proceeding to donate $200000 to Big Brother because it “promotes tourism”). I don’t know about you, but it definitely looks like an attack on our community.

As well as having a not-homophobic-but-doing-homophobic-stuff kind of Premier, the ACL (Australian Christian Lobby) has a major influence on the country’s government. Statements like being gay is more dangerous than smoking are all too common, and it’s actually terrifying to consider that the LNP (Liberal National Party) made changes based on input from this group. Separation of church and state, anyone? (Thankfully Julia Gillard just cancelled her attendance at an ACL conference, perhaps soon she’ll attend her first LGBTQ* event?)

Laws like the “gay panic” law are still in place, despite overwhelming support to have them repealed. They promote homophobia and violence, and the defence has been used too many times with success. In cases of assault and murder, a defendant can still claim that they were defending themselves against A Terrifying Homosexual who was Coming On To Them. Apparently the sheer terror of someone considering you to be attractive is enough to warrant their death. But repealing it “isn’t a priority”, and no one’s really listening. 

Yet, while Queensland stays in the dark ages, the rest of Oceania is moving forward.

Colin Mathura-Jeffree (S)

The Marriage Amendment Bill in New Zealand has passed it’s first reading, with pretty major news coverage. World-famous-in-New-Zealand celebrities have spoken up with their stories, endorsing the bill as much as they can. The WTF campaign (very similar to FCKH8) went viral a few months ago, with more New Zealand celebrities backing it. For the country that was first to allow women to vote, the first in the Southern Hemisphere to open a secondary school for girls (which might I add, I attended for four years), and has numerous other equality firsts, New Zealand’s following tradition in the crusade towards total equality.

Back over the ditch, Tasmania’s marriage equality bill has reached the upper house, leading the country in it’s battle for equality. A new ad on tv is telling society that homophobia isn’t okay, and the senate is looking into what the people think about marriage equality.

Parts of Australia and New Zealand might be lagging behind the rest of the world, but we’re still moving forward. I’ll be talking about all these issues in depth in the near future, as well as any new pieces of news that pop up between now and then. I’ll also be bringing you all photos from different Queensland events and (possibly!) trying to interview people in the LGBTQ* community around here.

(S)

Thanks for paying attention, everyone. Have a cookie!

* I maintain the idea that dude is a gender-neutral term regardless of how it’s used. It’s too awesome a phrase to ignore. Same goes for most adjectives/”bro”/etc.

** polysexual: it is not polyamory, it is not pansexual, and it is not bisexual. Basically, it’s attraction to multiple genders as opposed to all or only binary ones. For example; I’m not really into guys, but I am into most other genders. Also, omnisexual is pretty much synonymous with pansexual.