I write about university metrics — how we measure the worth of scholars and their work —not so much in my professional role as a senior lecturer nor as a representative of La Trobe University or any of its departments: I write primarily as a citizen using my public reason to speak to anyone who can read this.

I confess via text to a friend that I am going to the rally. I tell her it’s mostly for ethnographic purposes. She could not bring herself to attend. I understand. Equal love has suppressed the counter-cultural spirit of sexual liberation in its quest for inclusion. I quote Marx to her: ‘men (ha ha) make their own history, but not in circumstances of their own choosing.’ The campaign leading to the postal survey is the circumstance. We are yet to see what kind of history we can make of this.

Even in mainstream predominantly Anglo LGBTIQ communities, sexualised racism works to situate Asian queers as both hypervisible and invisible at the same time: hypervisible through the exoticisation, fetishisation and sometimes stigmatisation of skin colour, (ask any Asian male who uses Grindr); invisible, because cultural identities and heritage are often relegated or not recognised as part of queer social life.