Last week, Scott Morrison commented that he intimately understands the persecution of LGBTIQA Australians because he, too, has been persecuted – for homophobia.

It’s easy to laugh at Nazis (and fun, too). But the debate in the UPF’s ranks highlights a real issue: the extent to which the right (and even the far right) now feels confident to denounce the left in the name of the oppressed.

Activists since the late 90s have shifted their focus. They now call for more acceptable demands; demands that attempt to assimilate queerness, rather than challenge heterosexual norms, for example advocating for queer people to serve in the military and, of course, gay marriage. The push to absorb gay lives into the neoliberal capitalist norms of monogamy, consumption and colonialism, is what we call ‘homonormativity’.

Dewey numbers for LGBTI topics have been and at times continue to be homophobic, reflecting the society and times in which the numbers are developed, from the nineteenth century to present. Melvil Dewey, a man so obsessed with efficiency he shortened the spelling of his first name and considered spelling his surname as ‘Dui’, invented Dewey decimal classification in 1876. Given the nineteenth century origins of DDC, many have noted the inherent cultural bias including a Christian concentration, racism, sexism and homophobia.

Whether it’s Tomb Raider or Game of Thrones, male geek culture has a lot of trouble incorporating feminist and queer narratives. Women in games are often magical helpers for men or pieces of sexualised meat – and they are always hot. Very often in male geek narratives, the woman becomes the McGuffin.

We had demonstrations against the series of gay murders in and around Oxford Street, Bondi, Tamarama and other areas around Sydney, and the brutal attitude of the police relating to assaults and murders and their unwillingness to fully investigate and prosecute those guilty of the crimes.

Alyena Mohummadally is the latest essayist to have her work developed as part of the Overland Cal Connections project – an effort that focuses on publishing work from authors of underrepresented backgrounds and communities. Alyena is founder of the Yahoo! Group Queer Muslims in Australia and is chair of the Australian GLBTIQ Multicultural Council Inc.

Hopefully, many people will have already seen information relating to Overland’s Connections initiative, an attempt to foster greater cultural diversity in the journal through a series of essays by emerging writers from marginalised backgrounds. With support from CAL’s Cultural fund, each of the journal’s next seven editions will feature a major political essay developed in […]

I am not politically correct. I make the funny with friends about their sexualities, their lifestyles, their cultural stereotypes. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with calling my gay friends ‘poofs’ or ‘faggots’ (this may of course be easier for me to do considering I am one of those pesky gays), making my Indian friends […]