Across history, there has been a long record of the state shifting issues of sexual health into the carceral sphere for the purpose of building the idea of the nuclear family, and encouraging support of the national project. Nowhere has that become more pointed than in the police response to the Australian covid-19 lockdowns, and the kind of strategies taken to prevent movement and intimacy.

We must reject outright the framework of the Right, and make the case on our own terms for a Human Rights Act that is based on equality rather than scapegoating. This fight will be long and hard, and will require ongoing grassroots organising and protest if we are to challenge the idea that homophobia and transphobia are acceptable.