More reasons to outlaw conversion therapy…

The Real Risks Involved With Gay Conversion Therapy For Teens | Neon Tommy.

That’s so gay

“That’s so Gay”.

Words like ‘fag’ and ‘queer’ and ‘pewf’ can and have been rightly been appropriated by us, to proudly assert not only who we are but also, what we are and how we choose to live our lives. However, when straight people try to deride us, even in seemingly light-hearted ways, we should take offence. Being gay means many things but certainly rarely  a powder puff skip through any field of daisies…

 

Don’t call me fag

I love the word ‘fag’…

It epitomises who I am, my freedom and my pride…

Read the post, below, and you will see that it took me years to be settled with my sexuality. That is one of the reasons why I am so vehemently opposed to that army of fuckwits who strive to construct us LGBTI types as being perpetually frail, vulnerable and in need of others’ protection. The best response to stigma, after all, is defiance. This new website, NoHomophobes.com (a joke, surely?) that counts the frequency that gorgeous words like ‘faggot’ and ‘dyke’ are used online and refers to each incidence as indicating ‘casual homophobia‘ (whatever the fuck that is!) serves no educative purpose, other than to remind us of the dangers of victimology.

Can words cause harm? Absolutely! In context, any string of any particular words can cause immense harm. However, to seek to outlaw words and terms that of themselves can only ever denote freedom, and pride, will result in more LGBTI people anticipating and experiencing unnecessary fear and hurt. It will also make more actual homophobes, tooled up and ready to attack with nothing more than a few letters. The discrimination, harassment, bullying and victimisation that unfortunately still characterise the daily lives of many LGBTI people will not be lessened by the NoHomophobes.com campaign…

 

All fags must die…

It’s no big secret that many Christian Churches hate us fags with a passion. This is not mere ‘uncomfortableness’ with the idea that two men might get it on differently to how your ma and da did it but utter disgust that such men not only make love, but can actually love each other. So when a friend sent me this link to a story about a Salvation Army officer telling it like it is, that is, burn baby burn (in hell), I was not surprised. Christians are as much appalled by the free expression of sexuality as they are by their abject failure to control this most intimate aspect of the human experience.

What never ceases to amaze me, however, is the sheer hypocrisy of the Australian Federal Government, whose suicide prevention policy is heavily influenced by the major Christian Churches. Our government also funds all the faith-based, telephone counselling services to which suicidal people might turn for support. Thus, at once we can have a gaggle of total fuckwits within the suicide prevention industry, scratching their heads as to why gay teens are more likely than straight ones to top themselves, and yet the message coming from the Churches is ‘sorry,’ die fags, and quickly…

The Salvation Army should be held accountable for enacting and inciting hatred against gay men, and for fostering self-loathing in those gay men vulnerable to such abuse. However, this is Australia, and in this country powerful vested interests stay safely beyond the reach of the law…

Gay men getting madder by the minute

The second ‘Private Lives‘ study here in Australia has confirmed that us pewfs are totally fucking mad and are getting madder, still, by the minute. This report conveniently apportions absolute blame for our burgeoning psychopathology to ‘heterosexism’…

‘There is now a well established body of research showing significant variations in the prevalence and patterns of mental ill-health between GLBT and mainstream communities (Corboz, Dowsett, et al. 2008; Herek and Garnets 2007; Meyer 2003; Smith et al. 2003). In particular, the research suggests that GLBT people are at increased risk of a range of mental health problems, including depression, anxiety disorders, self-harm and suicide, due to their experiences of heterosexist discrimination and abuse (Cochran and Mays 2000; Cochran, Sullivan and Mays 2003; Cox, Dawaele et al. 2009; Hillier, Jones et al. 2010; Pitts, Mitchell et al. 2006; Suicide Prevention Australia 2009)’.

While I can admire the ‘good politics’ of holding onto the now dated concept that heterosexism renders us fags crazy, that quaint finding is not reflected in how other researchers approach this problematic, which is mostly through the epigenetic lens, whereby gay men are born with a genetic predisposition to madness, but alternatively, for some researchers, in which homosexuality and mental illness are melded into one. Thus, cure one, cure the other.

The rush to get as many fags as possible into mainstream health services to have their madness treated will instantly leave at the door discussions about the impacts of ‘heterosexism’ or whatever upon our mental health to instead have us become the passive recipients of the pharmacological gear to which we will be plied, and our pathetic transition into the category of diseased subjects.

When, for example, serial homophobe Jeff Kennett claims that he wants to help out, we should all be extremely concerned…

Degrading College Drunks Go Gay

‘In one initiation ceremony, called ‘Two Men’, first year students are stripped to their underwear and forced into the middle of a circle where they must wrestle another student with the aim of removing their underwear‘

Over the past few days, the Fairfax press here in Sydney has run several exploratory stories related to the goings-on at St John’s Residential College, at the University of Sydney. That includes, as above, detailing alleged, truly bizarre and decidedly homosexuals rituals. Young men such as these, who can defiantly humiliate women and each other, will go on to become the captains of industry, politics and academia. The resilience of these archaic cultures to the march of progress lies in the fact that privileged young men know that they can do as they please, the closed nature of the institution and that few, if any, within that institution, dare to speak out.

The University of Sydney continues to assiduously resist implementing an anti-bullying policy for students…

Of course, you would expect that any university would, upon hearing allegations of a young female student seriously harmed during a college ritual, to ’huddle’, working overtime to keep the problem in-house and to shut it down as quickly as possible. What, perhaps, you would not expect, is that those supposedly ‘independent’ people on and off campus, whose duty it is to uphold the health, safety and well-being of students, would remain so extraordinarily mute about this most recent incident, and the conga line of others over the previous decades. I should not wonder then why so few cases of unlawful sexual discrimination and harassment have been brought by students against the University of Sydney.

Perhaps when Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick, launches the ‘See Hear Speak‘ campaign at the University of Sydney next Thursday, a campaign that aims to educate women (but not men?) about sexual harassment, she might refer specifically to the alleged goings-on at St John’s College?

And as for young men at St John’s College reportedly measuring each other’s penises in a group setting? Well, enough said…

Sick Catholic Sexuality

When I worked as the Specialist Men’s Counsellor at Centacare (now CatholicCare) Sydney earlier this century, I was asked to co-facilitate a support group for children dealing with the separation of their parents. One day, when my co-facilitator failed to show, a huge kerfuffle ensued in that the powers that be decided that it was unconscionable that I, a gay man, could be left alone with those children. Had, as would usually be the case, another (and straight) male colleague been present, then that would have been fine but me, alone, impossible. I was told by a senior member of staff to leave the door to the meeting room open and was constantly monitored by that female colleague during the groupwork session.

I retell that sordid tale now after reading a story in the New York Times, regarding a stoush between the Catholic Church and the State in Illinois over competing rights. That is, the right to freedom of religion versus the right of us gays and lesbians to freedom from discrimination. I share the view enunciated in this story, that when taking government funds to do government business, the Catholic Church cannot thereafter engage in discriminatory practices in the conduct of that business. In the United States, as here in Australia, we thankfully live in pluralist, secular societies, where the separation of Church and State exists for good reason, since the primary duty of such civilised societies is to uphold the right of every citizen, to be.

The Catholic Church has had a long, twisted history of persecuting, torturing and otherwise abusing individuals who it deems ‘unfit’ because of their homosexual or other transgressive sexualities. For bigots within that morally bankrupt organisation to then screech that they themselves are being discriminated against is to forget that freedom of religion has its limits. Quite obviously, no freedom can ever be utilised to purposefully cause harm to others, in this case to those gays and lesbians who put up their hands to be adoptive and foster parents. While doctrinally, adherents of the Catholic faith might be entitled to cling to the belief that homosexuality is a sin, no government funded service can make a determination that the capacity to care for children hinges on whether one is straight, or not…

Is My Son a Flake…?

When I first spied the following, buck-spinning promo for some dude in France or wherever, I laughed heartily. To so many of the questions I could answer a fabulously stereotypical ‘yippee!’. However, even in the moment I conceded that soon enough an army of gay and gay friendly flakes would assemble to petition like mad to have this scandalous list ripped from the public consciousness. And sure enough, even before I had got to question #10 and tried to work out ‘how long is too long?’ the list was indeed gone. A victory against rampant homophobia? Hardly. More, yet another pathetic sign of fragile reactionaries who would stupidly rank a tongue in cheek media stunt alongside the type of kick in the head violence that for so many gay men in so many parts of the world, remains a real and present danger. This commodification and equalisation of social problems well suits fragile reactionaries, kiddyland radicals and other such rabble, since so broadly are the parameters of insult drawn that they too can feel rightly indignant. Equivocating fluff with substance,of course, diminishes addressing the latter but also, it demonstrates this creepy push toward banishing diversity and enforcing conformity among gay men. We can no longer, it would seem, celebrate our differences with pride but rather sheepishly, dress beige, drink beer, get married and raise two perfectly formed children…

Oh, by the way, I was close to my father (question #20, below)…

1. Does he like to dress up nicely? Does he pay close attention to his outfits and brand names?
2. Does he like football?
3. Before he was born did you wish he would be a girl?
4. Has he ever gotten into or participated in a fight?
5. Does he read sports magazines?
6. Does he have a best friend?
7. Does he like team sports?
8. Is he prudish/modest?
9. Does he like diva singers?
10. Does he spend a long time in the bathroom?
11. Does he have a tongue, nose or ear piercing?
12. Does he spend time getting ready before being seen in public?
13. Have you asked yourself questions about your son’s sexual orientation?
14. Are you divorced?
15. Does he like musical comedies?
16. Has he introduced you to a girlfriend ever?
17. Is the father (you) very strict or authoritarian with his son?
18. In your family is the father absent?
19. Was he shy as a child?
20. Is he close to his father?

Fuck Off Racist Homos!

Right here, in the middle of so-called pewf friendly Sydney City, and something to which I  have referred to elsewhere on this blog, is that astonishing sense of entitlement that so many fags can not only be racist but that they can be explicit and proud about it. I have people that I, for some peculiar reason, call ‘friends,’ who boast that they would never do blacks or Asians or Arabs and who then would attribute specious stereotypes like ‘too girly, too queeny, small cocks, body odour, etc’ to those race categories. Only when the gay community can fess up to the extraordinary racism within its own ranks might such heinous behaviours and attitudes be successfully challenged. A status quo maintained, to some extent, by the complicity of the gay elite (yes, that does include the NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby), who remain silent or muffled on this fundamental human rights issue.

Anyway, think about taking this survey to increase our understanding (at least) of why some fags think it is okay to be racist…

Suicide Rate 1400% Higher in LGBTI Population

When a public servant, Catherine Branson, at the head of an Australian Federal Government department, the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (AHRC), releases a public statement to mark International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO), why I am not surprised that she characterises us fags, dykes and trannies as being intrinsically defective? To hold up that black-boxed lie that we are ‘14 times‘ more likely to attempt suicide is not only a grandiose concoction made in the absence of empirical evidence, it also lends itself to that nasty vibe that we are fully sick fuckers in desperate need of ‘special’ protection. And so, voila! The very same people who misrepresent us as forever close to the edge of madness if not death itself will happily oversee a vulnerability legal regime to protect us from, well, ‘them’.

Yup, it truly is a queer world…

Update: If you can cook up the fattest suicide statistics that you could possibly think of, and beat to a pulp anyone who would even dare to suggest that three times the risk is not 14 times the attempt, then ramping up the crap catcher to max, to squeeze in the newly discovered ‘suicide gene,’ barely seems like even a walk in the park. And so, scientists do seem to be getting closer and closer to working out what defective drivel along the DNA duck trail to nowhere is arcing out. Herein, their search could lead to discovering the duality of brokenness, that is, the cohabitation of psycho-suicidal-pathology and overt pewf tendencies. Are we possibly on the verge of, at once, eliminating suicide and pewfery,with just a dab hand and a very sharp scalpel…?