Get your priorities right
I knew I was a boy from a ridiculously early age. I tried doing ‘girl drag’ here and there. I even grew my hair long a few times, which was more like a bogan mullet. Eventually I reached my limit and over a school holiday period in Year 8, I transformed into the classic tomboy. I returned to school with short hair and pants, which successfully sent all the other kids into shock.
My new look was like a red hot target for everyone’s inner bully. The rest of high school felt like some kind of sick and torturous survival camp. I became hyper vigilant about looking out for potential danger. I was teased and harassed on a daily basis from all angles. Verbal taunts, hate mail in my locker, pushed and punched in the school corridors, excluded from social groups and even manipulated by people posing as friends.
By age eighteen, I was diving over fences to escape being run over by bigger bullies in their cars, who would drive up on the footpath in attempt to hit me. Needless to say, with all of this stress, my mental health suffered and I never felt safe.
The violence didn’t end when school did and I felt like I would die if I remained in Frankston. I had to move to the city, start a new life from scratch. I didn’t mind doing this, because I was drawn to the excitement and the personal revolution that I felt only the city could offer. I haven’t looked back. But I do object to people, especially young people who are vulnerable, being forced to uproot their lives to avoid being bashed or killed. This is still happening right now for many young people and it breaks my heart.
We pump our resources and support into gay marriage and coordinate large scale rallies, all for the aim of replicating a heterosexual normative institution which these days doesn’t really hold the same value anyway. Marriage has become a commercial venture. There is no guarantee that the discrimination and violence will end when gay marriage is inevitably legalised. We will have to wait for the relevant research and analysis to know the actual outcome. Meanwhile, I feel confident in stating that marriage, gay or straight, doesn’t prevent violence.
Homophobic and transphobic fuelled violence is connected to some very complex social issues and our efforts to overcome these issues need to diversify equitably with effective long term strategies involving wider education and support.
Right now in Ballarat there is a young trans person who fears for their safety. They were hospitalised with serious injuries from a deliberate hit and run and they constantly face verbal and physical abuse from people who are threatening to kill them. Our regional and rural kids need our attention and support. They do not have the same level of resources and skills to advocate for themselves. We need to unify and prevent further attacks.
I would love to see prominent and visible queer and trans anti-violence rallies in Ballarat and other regional towns in 2013. Let’s turn our focus to the under represented and under resourced communities who have the highest rate of suicide and a high prevalence of homophobic and transphobic based violence.
Let’s restore community action and rallies to their original purpose and not use them as a vehicle to promote commercialism or social institutions. I don’t know about you, but personally, I’d be saddened for the future of our communities to become ‘four gay cashed up weddings and a funeral’.
Comments (5)
I never view it as 'gay marriage' I always just view it as my right to get married just like everyone else.
Being 1/2 Canadian, I've spent some time there and there is a feeling of relief and relaxation knowing that this huge piece of bizarre discrimination concerning an individual's right to marry is simply irrelevant. No one cares. You feel like you can be more at ease in a society that doesn't differentiate (at least in a legal sense) between gay people or non-gay people.
It makes certain people ask themselves 'Why do I dislike gay people (if the government has decided that they are actually equal to me)?'. If they can't cite the government's discrimination as a reason for them to discriminate, that's one less thing they can use to justify their irrational fear. And in a secular country (as is Australia?) the 'God says so' argument is as irrelevant too. So all we're left with is the pure and simple bigotry without any delusional rationale to back it up, and bigotry is easy to quash or at least counter.
So I do think normalising the whole "heterosexual normative institution", or marriage, is a huge huge step in getting everyone to see that there's no big deal with the LGBT community and there is evidence of this by looking at Canada's success with the legislation.
There still is a vast tapestry of other issues, like Jez has stated, but removing the insanely irrelevant discrimination of the marriage act is a big, fat chunky thread that'll make the other threads that much easier to loosen and remove.
You're a great guy, Jez, but this is a ridiculous argument. In no way is the equal marriage campaign counter-opposed to a campaign targeting bullying of queers. In fact the rallies for equal marriage are dominated by angry teenagers from the suburbs, many of whom are in local community groups that also try to address bullying such as the Peninsula Gay-Straight Alliance.
Equal marriage is in no way inevitable, as you suggest, the only reason this appears so is because of a large vocal campaign that's been pushing this for 8 years. A campaign that has opened up a space for queer issues such as bullying to be discussed in the mainstream.
So let’s try to find the link between causes. To try to pass the energy on, rather than arguing for the end of one campaign as if it would result in another taking off.
I should have clarified my last comment to state that it isn't gay marriage that some people aren't into, it is more marriage itself in its entirety.
Hi Nick, thanks for your comment. However, I think you have misunderstood me. I am not advocating to abandon the gay marriage campaign, I am raising issue with the disproportionate level of resources and energy into a campaign which reinforces one type of relationship and mimics heterosexual normative values. I am also raising issue with the lack of attention to other issues experienced by marginalised queer youth, such as violence, homelessness, drug and alcohol issues, safer sex campaigns etc. I don't think we can funnel all our hope and effort into gay marriage. I agree that looking at the links is where we need to go and hopefully partner with other campaigns, so that our fight is all inclusive of many relationship types and other oppressions.
Also, I think it is completely valid for gays and queers to not be so adamantly pro gay marriage. We don't have to be. It's ok to hold a different view.
Yay!