It’s also disrespectful and privileged
The comments section is a place where many fools are forged in irony. The irony, in this case, is men accidentally reinforcing the arguments womxn-written articles are making, rather than taking them apart (as hoped).
These comments tend to echo each other. They use similar starting points that aren’t well thought out and rely on a perceived sense of logic, rather than a functional structure. One dysfunctional argument I have seen appearing again and again in article comments is the Substitute Argument. And I’m tired of it.
The Substitute Argument involves taking a segment of the article and changing the…
The Fixed Foundational, the Token Shelf, the Halfway There, and more!
Bookstores are important resources for all communities. In particular, the LGBTQ+ community benefits from the safe and welcoming environment bookstores offer. Because of this relationship, bookstores have historically been instrumental in local activism and the organisation of rights movements.
Stores such as Gay’s The Word, in London, and the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, in New York were a few of the first Queer bookstores that emerged in the 60s and 70s . In progressive fashion, hundreds of Queer bookstores have followed suit in the last 50 years by opening their doors across the world. …
We cannot let our Queer be a doorway into racist engagements
It goes like this. The bigot will pick something about you they are willing to compromise on to seem like a decent person. It could be that you are female presenting, or you are possibly a migrant, or a tourist, or you are a member of the LGBTQ+ community. The bigot will then use one of these ‘traits’ as bait for a conversational doorway:
“You know, I’m all for gender quotas”, “So how long have you been here?”, “I’ve always wanted to visit where you’re from”, “Gosh it’s a real shame there won’t be Pride this year.”
Only for there…
A Queer story
My dad sends a picture to both of us, in a group message: a swan he saw on the way to work, at the inner-city park with a church on the corner. The swan is sitting with its three grey cygnets. Despite it being the start of winter, the swan and its little ones are fine; kept warm by mum’s black feathers.
“Black feathers,” you say, and lean across the coffee table to show me your copy of the picture. You take the phone back and look again, narrowing your eyes, “I keep forgetting they’re black.”
“They’re literally on the…
COVID-19 is highlighting problematic church-state relationships
Last week the Twitter account, HillsongAU, that calls itself a “parody” Hillsong Church account (though the account links to genuine Hillsong ticket sales, church donations, and petitions), posted a tweet that read:
Hey guys, Hillsong Church here. Did you really think (@)ScottMorrisonMP would let #HillsongConference be cancelled? Come on! Scomo & Hillsong, together have worked hard to ensure that #BreatheAgain 2020 WILL move forward. #PoliticallyBlessed
The tweet is referring to a recent controversy surrounding Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison. …
Clothes are genderless
It starts when we are young. From toys to clothes, the false split of gender is pushed upon us by retail and media. This product binary exists because capitalism (and conservatism) believes a “divided” market is a more profitable market. Only in the last decade has this practice been increasingly criticised.
During high school and university, I worked a casual job at a chain department store. While working there, I ended up coming out to myself, and to my family and friends. I decided to express myself more androgynously. …
For the betterment of your readers and your work
Inclusive Language has been a filter in professional editing check-lists for decades. It’s a staple of effective communication and is an important part of many countries’ anti-discrimination laws. In addition to fighting linguistic discrimination, Inclusive Language directly strengthens the author-reader relationship, and is an important tool for all writing.
Inclusive Language might be a concept you know well, or have never heard of before. It might be something you already practice in your writing without knowing, or something you might need to work on. …
I’m glad there will be no parades this year
Cities all over the world are cancelling their planned Pride parades for 2020. In America, June celebrations are off. In Belgium, the May plans are scrapped. In Canada, the June/July marches are quashed. In a fluke, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand managed to sneak in Sydney Mardi Gras and Auckland Pride respectively, back in February 2020 before all of this — but they seem to be the exception. Even in my own state of Western Australia, it’s unknown if we’ll get to hold our usual Pride events in November this year.
Of course, many people are going to miss these…
A queer movie review of Alice Wu’s new film
(Warning: This review contains minor spoilers of the film.)
For a movie whose Netflix premise vaguely reads like another take on Twelfth Night, Alice Wu’s second major film, The Half of It, steers clear of visual paraphrasing and instead takes a clear snapshot of what it looks like to grow up as a queer immigrant in small-town, regional America.
The film stars Leah Lewis as Ellie Chu, an intelligent-but-friendless high schooler, who is strapped for cash while supporting her grieving father, Edwin (Collin Chou), in their small town of Squahamish. The story follows Ellie through a circumstantial journey as she’s…
Choice vs realisation: what we don’t often talk about
While brains are very clever, sometimes they can function too well and end up manufacturing a problem for us where there shouldn’t have been one. A problem created by mixing the brain’s determination to survive with the odd societal biases of the communities we grow up in. Biases like homophobia. The problem manifests as a repository of mental incidents, hidden like a wall safe by the brain in queer children, in queer adults. A vault many of us discover inside ourselves, on route in life, which we must then decide what to do with.
The queer vault contains many incidental…
Zoey Milford
Queer writer. Avid chaser of representation.
