Every so often, I hear a well-meaning straight person muse how one day, not too far from now, we’ll live in a utopian world where homosexuality is as irrelevant as hair colour or eye colour.
While it is very nice to hear your friends and family say they don’t care if you are gay, it always seems propounding naive to assume that we’ll ever reach a point where sexual identity won’t matter at all. For starters, it matters to us hopefully. That’s why there will always be a need for gay pride marches, queer film festivals, community groups, gay bars and queer nights so we can find each other somewhere other than on Grindr or Brenda and so we meet other people who share our experience (and that’s why we need to support them).
More important, every so often, we are reminded that if you live in inner city Melbourne that you actually live in a little bubble of tolerance, and that despite more than forty years of struggle for gay rights, you don’t have to go very far or dig very deep to find bigotry and homophobia remain.
If we needed a depressing reality check of this, beyondblue put out a study that revealed homophobic attitudes are still strongly prevalent among teenage boys. Thirty eight percent of 12 – 17-year-old boys surveyed did not say they were happy to be friends with a same-sex attracted person. More than 40 per cent said lesbian, gay and bisexual people make them “uncomfortable”. A quarter thought that using the term “gay” as a synonym for shit was acceptable. For those of us who remember when being called gay or lesbian was the ultimate insult in the school yard, these findings show that being a closeted or openly gay teenager still sucks and perhaps not much has changed. We can only hope that these attitudes are derived for immaturity, ignorance and a desire to fit in with their straight peers which they will grow out of.
Meanwhile, in the United States, Indiana gave us another depressing reminder that the struggle for equality isn’t over when their Governor Mike Pence signed its Religious Freedom Restoration Act which will allow businesses and individuals to discriminate against the LGBT community on religious grounds. In Indiana, under the new law, this could mean that gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people could be refused treatment by a doctor, housing, legal advice, accommodation in a hotel, service in a restaurant or employment on the basis that their sexuality.
Thankfully, there are others in our community leading by example even if our politicians won’t. Last week, some of the captains of industry of Australia’s corporate giants – including Qantas, Pricewaterhousecoopers, SBS, Football Federation Australia – have collecting signed an open letter calling for the federal government to introduce marriage equality. The letter writing campaign – organised by Australian Marriage Equality – argued that apart from being intrinsically the right thing to do, marriage equality would also be good for the economy by promoting fairness in the workplace and promoting stability. Meanwhile, our federal Parliament rose for a six week break prior to the budget without debating the “Freedom to Marry” bill.
After taking a few days to recover from four days of debauchery over the Easter weekend, on Saturday April 11 there is a feel-good fundraising party at The Toff In Town called For Fanny’s Sake. Obstensibly, For Fanny’s Sake is a party to raise money for Lennox Cakes Diamonds to have gender reassignment surgery in Thailand. After a similar Melbourne party raised over $7,500 (or as the organiser put it “one third of a vagina”), a similar event is being run in Melbourne. The shenanigans will feature a huge lineup of live bands and performances, as well as DJ sets, and will be hosted by king of alt drag Agent Cleave, fresh from his own acclaimed Mardi Gras show. There will also be an auction. Presales are $10 or $15 on the door.
The good old Greyhound Hotel has a killer new drag show on Saturday nights called the Glamazons to entertain the twinks, muscle marys and their fag hags. Free entry before 10pm. Curtain call at 10.30pm. For details, visit facebook.com/ghhotel.
This weekend from Friday to Sunday is also international DIYRainbow Day. If you’ve noticed little rainbows popping up all over the place (and eventually getting permanently etched like on the corner of Gertrude and Smith) this is how it began when a bunch of Sydneysiders painted their own rainbows all over the place two years ago in protest after the removal of the Mardi Gras Taylor Square rainbow crossing. All you need to join in is some spare time, a few extra pairs of hands, a blank wall/footpath/fence and a fuckload of chalk. You can even buy the chalk at diyrainbow.com.
