‘I’d say that that LGBTIQ community is for all LGBTIQ people, regardless of how long they’ve been out or who they’ve been with or how they identify,’ I responded.
It seemed too obvious to even bother articulating.
I mused over this in the months that followed. I’d held leadership roles in the LGBTIQ community for more than a decade and had been proud of promoting inclusion across the spectrums, but the more I thought about it, looked around me and spoke to friends and colleagues, the more I realised how—unlike me—many people in Melbourne’s LGBTIQ community felt on the fringes. I started listing the people I knew who have said they didn’t feel like they belonged: there were people who identified more strongly with other parts of themselves, people who felt like they were ‘too young’ or ‘too old’ to fit in, people with a culture or religion other than Anglo-atheism, people who couldn’t afford to go out to queer events, people for whom it’s not safe to come out, neurodiverse people, pretty much anyone identifying with the letters beyond the ‘LG’ part of the alphabet-list, and many more.
That didn’t leave many people in the middle, who felt that they belonged within the LGBTIQ community. Perhaps this meant there were even more LGBTIQ people at the fringes than in the centre. What did that mean for our community? What did it mean for any community?
I am still contemplating those questions, but I guess it just means that we all continue to live loudly and proudly—or equally valid: quietly and contentedly—from the centre of some circles and the edges of others. Inclusion is a collective responsibility, while identity is an individual decision; both contribute to the creation of culture within communities.
According to the neurologist’s definition, I have ‘recovered’ from Guillain-Barré. I can now walk, run and work fulltime, but my legs start shaking and my brain stops working properly if I sit or stand for too long, and there’s no way my hands or abdominal muscles are strong enough to return to doubles-trapeze.
I now directly tell people that I have a disability, and the reaction is almost identical to when I tell people that I’m gay. Often they flinch or raise their eyebrows in surprise, so slightly that it’s almost hidden, but not quite. Then they try to say something supportive while rapidly scanning their memories for anything accidentally-offensive or exclusionary that they might have ever said to me. Usually it’s ok. The awkwardness is the price I pay to be myself, and to improve visibility for the sake of others living at the fringes.
Being confronted with the decision of whether to embrace or reject my new identity as a person with a disability has reminded me that it’s not a binary decision: the strength with which we hold each of our identities is different for each person, and maybe even each day. Currently I am very queer, slightly disabled, a proud mum, a somewhat successful local politician, and a totally useless trapeze artist.
I bet one of those labels made you flinch, just slightly.
Stephanie Amir is a public health researcher and elected local councillor. She has been actively involved in the LGBTIQ community for many years including as a radio presenter and on the Board of Directors at LGBTIQ radio station JOY 94.9, Program Manager for Safe Schools Coalition Australia, inaugural Co-Convenor of Queer Greens Victoria, and Chair of the Sex, Sexuality and Gender Diversity community advisory committee at the City of Darebin. She lives in Melbourne with her partner and daughter.
BROOKE LYNN HYTES. MEL SIMPSON
MEL SIMPSON
Mel Simpson’s images of popular culture icons appear through this issue of Bent Street. Mel works on both commercial and fine art projects. Her commercial work is predominantly focused on queer popular culture from Australia and abroad, with a particular drag queen and camp tv slant, while her fine art content is influenced by sexuality, gender identity and nature.
Born and raised in Queensland, Mel Simpson received a Bachelor of Fine Art from Griffith University in 2006, majoring in painting. She moved to Melbourne the following year and has been a Melbourne dweller ever since, with the exception of a year living in Vancouver, Canada. Mel has exhibited in solo and group shows in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, including shows for Midsumma at galleries such as Gasworks, 69 Smith Street and Red Gallery. More recently she has started her own independent illustration business, Kittenpants Studios.
GENTLEMAN JACK. MEL SIMPSON
SAD DRUMMERS CLUB. MEL SIMPSON
ALYSSA EDWARDS. MEL SIMPSON
KATE MCKINNON. MEL SIMPSON
INTERVIEW
ANDREW FARRELL
Indigenous Queer Studies academic, Andrew Farrell, talks with Bent Street editor Tiffany Jones about their development of world-first Aboriginal Queer University Units. Andrew Farrell is a Wodi Wodi person and Queer identified academic whose research is focused on LGBTIQA+ Aboriginal peoples and social media. Andrew has also developed projects such as the Archiving the Aboriginal Rainbow blog, an online portal that addresses the absence of a digital space that catalogues Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sexual and gender diversity by sharing links to contemporary and historical audio, images, articles, art, and various other items found across the web (Farrell, 2014). The blog prioritises the perspectives of Indigenous LGBTIQ+ peoples as decolonising agents within Nakata’s (2007, in Farrell, 2015) ‘Cultural Interface’—in which Indigenous LGBTIQ knowledge, experiences and challenges filter through complex terrains of knowing and unknowing—transforming how we may see and know this unique and diverse community. Bent Street caught up with Andrew Farrell to discuss their latest contribution in developing and co-ordinating world-first units in Aboriginal Queer Studies commencing in 2020 at Macquarie University.
Tiffany Jones: Tell us about your role at Macquarie?
Andrew Farrell: I am both a PhD student here at Macquarie as well as a lecturer/tutor. I am in a fellowship position which is made up of largely tutoring, lecturing, and research projects within my department. It has given me the opportunity to advance my academic qualifications and undertake new and exciting roles, such as designing courses, lectures, and conference speaking while at the same time building my own specialised area of research. It’s a fabulous fluid space!
As an undergraduate student, I had a lot of growing pains to work through in finding my academic career path. Moving into an honours and deciding to undertake a PhD housed within Indigenous Studies I have found a place to thrive, create, and find my place in academia. It works alongside my family obligations. I wear many hats! The Macquarie fellowship role fits into that lifestyle as its flexibility facilitates the shifting demands of learning, teaching, and cultural life.
Tiffany Jones: What new ground are you adding to Indigenous LGBTIQ+ academia in this role? Or, do you find, your work is in adding to the ground itself?
Andrew Farrell: I am adding to the developing stages of this field of inquiry. There is some academic work in the field but it is sparse. I see it as a space full of opportunity… the word ‘potential’ comes to mind! Between and across the humanities are these ‘potentially’ overlapping fields of knowledge to explore: LGBTIQ+ Studies, Indigenous Studies, Gender Studies and so on.