In this September edition of the First Mardi Gras Inc. Newsletter, we have:
- Details of the First Mardi Gras Inc. AGM on 9 October 2021
- Virginia Mansel Lees with a Call for Interviewees for a video on Forty Years Since the Decriminalisation of Homosexuality in Victoria
- Karl Zlotkowski on Campaigning against Anti-LGBTIQ Bills
- Robyn Kennedy on New CAMP Badges Available!
- Rebbell Barnes on how to get your 78ers Badge and Raffle tickets
- Diane Minnis with a Tribute to Kaye Shumack on her passing
- Invitation you to an online discussion about God Save The Queen, the new book by Dennis Altman
- Calendar of Events.
Diane Minnis
|
|
|
 |
|
First Mardi Gras Inc. members at the 2020 AGM. Screenshot montage: Sallie Colechin.
|
|
The Annual General Meeting of First Mardi Gras Inc. will be held at 4pm on Saturday 9 October 2021 – by Zoom. All Members and Associate Members should have now received the meeting notice, associated documents and Zoom link.
At the AGM, you’ll hear reports about what FMG Inc. has been doing over the past year. Even more importantly, you’ll have the chance to ask questions and put forward your ideas about what our community association should focus on in the future. And it will be a great opportunity to catch up with other members!
If you are interested in working with us on our Committee or in a Working Group, please give one of us a call: Diane 0411 213 019, Ken 0417 398 167.
Diane Minnis and Ken Davis
78ers and First Mardi Gras Inc. Co-Chairs
|
|
Hume Phoenix Inc. is an LGBTIQ organisation that spans both sides of the border between Victoria and New South Wales. In the last round of Midsumma funding there was a call-out for activities that would celebrate the Forty years of Decriminalisation of Homosexuality in Victoria. We applied and were successful in this round of funding.
The main activity that we are undertaking will be the interviewing of gay men and Drag Queens who lived through both eras of the legislation. The interviews will be made into a video that will then be launched on the 26 November 2021 in Beechworth. There will be a ceremony locally where the hall will be decorated with memorabilia from our communities that highlight the struggle to achieve recognition.
Interviews will be undertaken by Virginia Mansel Lees, and the videographer will edit the interviews into a video. All materials will then be lodged with the Australian Queer Archives that are now located at the Victorian Pride Centre.
Because this is Victorian government grant money, you need to have lived at least part of your life during this time in Victoria in order to be part of the video project. If you are interested in being interviewed and/or would like more information, please make contact with Virginia:
I look forward to speaking with you and being able to share this project and the associated events that Hume Phoenix Inc. has been funded for.
Virginia Mansel Lees
First Mardi Gras Inc. Associate Member
|
|
78ers will by now have heard that Mark Latham’s Parental Rights Bill has moved one step closer to a vote in the NSW Parliament, possibly after sittings resume in October. But worse, the recommendations of the parliamentary committee (chaired by Latham himself) have gone even further than the original One Nation draft legislation.
Update from Equality Australia
One Nation’s proposed bill threatens to harm trans and gender diverse students by denying their existence and preventing teachers and counsellors from supporting them. It would allow parents to withdraw their child from a class or program which tells them LGBTIQ+ people are just like everyone else.
The committee’s report – supported by all the committee members except for Labor’s Anthony D’Adam and the Greens’ David Shoebridge – goes even further than One Nation’s harmful bill. It includes proposals that are likely unlawful, and a direct attack on the safety of trans and gender diverse young people, lesbian, gay, bisexual or queer students, and teachers who support them.
It recommends a number of regressive and discriminatory policy changes, including:
- Prohibiting students from confidentially coming out as transgender to their teachers or school counsellors
- Banning trans students from participating in high school sports teams that align with their gender
- Requiring trans children to undergo full medical transition to be able to use toilets, change rooms or accommodation where they feel safe
- requiring parental consent for any discussion of matters concerning gender or sexuality.
We already know that almost one in every two trans and gender diverse young people will attempt to take their own life, and many are subject to bullying and unfair treatment at school.
If these policies were implemented, they would make schools even less safe and place trans students’ lives at risk.
Every student in NSW should have the opportunity to reach their potential, to learn with their peers, and feel a sense of belonging in their school.
That’s why we must come together to call on the State Government to stand up to One Nation and disregard the recommendations of this report, and on our Parliament to join together to vote this harmful bill down.
Equality Australia is encouraging us to join a letter writing campaign to resist this legislation.
Click to write an email: equalityaustralia.org.au/ignoranceineducationbill/
Support from Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
78ers should be particularly pleased that our Mardi Gras organisation is actively supporting this campaign. SGLMG now have a Memorandum of Understanding with Equality Australia, and have confirmed their willingness to work closely with other community groups to support campaigns of this kind.
This time that support took the form of a formal email from the CEO of Mardi Gras, Albert Kruger, urging all members to sign up to the Equality Australia letter writing campaign.
Albert, and the Mardi Gras Board, should be commended for this unequivocal position. This is the Mardi Gras we want to see – taking a lead on issues impacting our community.
Community Action for Rainbow Rights online forum
Sydney’s Community Action for Rainbow Rights, together with Melbourne-based Rainbow Rebellion, are holding their next event in their campaign against the Federal so-called "Religious Discrimination" bill.
They assert that the Liberal government in Australia is back on the warpath against LGBTI rights. Our historic victory for marriage equality in 2017 showed we have the majority on our side. But since then, the conservative right has been determined to turn back the tide of progress. Here are the details of the online forum:
Karl Zlotkowski
78er and First Mardi Gras Inc. Committee Member
|
|
The Pride movement in Australia started well before 1978. In 1970 the national network known as CAMP (Campaign Against Moral Persecution) was founded in Sydney.
The momentum of CAMP quickly spread to other States, fuelling the first LGBTQI rights marches and political campaigns for changes to oppressive laws and systems. Over fifty years later, 78ers and original members of CAMP NSW, Robyn Kennedy and Robyn Plaister, are compiling a book of newly commissioned professional portrait photographs of CAMP members across Australia, together with their personal stories of the impact CAMP had on their lives.
As part of fundraising and promotional efforts for the upcoming book, exact replicas of the original CAMP badge have been produced.
Badges are available for $3.50 each plus $3.00 packaging and postage. To order and obtain pricing for multiple badges, contact Robyn Kennedy at rk.am@bigpond.com. Please include your name, address and number of badges requested. Banking details for direct deposit will be provided.
Robyn Kennedy
78er and First Mardi Gras Inc. Committee Member
|
|
First Mardi Gras Inc. has produced a new batch of 78er badges. They cost $5 each and postage is $3.09 (total $8.09). If you want to order more than one badge, the postage is still $3.09 for up to five badges.
To order your badges email your name, postal address and the number of badges required to info@78ers.org.au. Then make your payment by funds transfer. Alternatively, you can post a cheque.
At left, Mannie De Saxe wearing our new 78ers badges that Michael Fenaughty sent him as a lockdown gift.
|
|
|
With lockdown, we have opened up raffle ticket sales so that you can order by email. First make your payment, using the bank details in the 78ers badge article above, and then email your name and number of tickets. We will then email you a photo of your ticket numbers and your name on the ticket stubs.
The raffle will be drawn just prior to the 2022 Mardi Gras Parade.
Rebbell Barnes
78er and First Mardi Gras Inc. Committee Member
|
|
|
78er Dr Kaye Shumack has recently passed away. Kaye was a visual artist, academic and an activist who was part of the original Elsie Women’s Refuge Collective.
In a Sydney Morning Herald tribute, Kaye was remembered as:
‘A much loved sister, cousin, aunt, partner-in-life, friend and colleague.
Artist, Scholar, Educator, Change Maker, who cherished our natural world.’
We remember Kaye as an activist for women’s and lesbian and gay causes and a fighter for social justice. She was quiet and serious and also funny and down to earth.
After working at Elsie Women’s Refuge, Kaye went on to a distinguished academic career. With a background in photography, visual communication design and media production; Kaye’s research explored relationships between people, space and place through uses of mapping methodologies and visualisations.
Kaye became a Professor and Director of Learning and Teaching, and the Director of International in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts, at Western Sydney University. In 2015, she received a University Award for Teaching Excellence.
Kaye regularly exhibited her artwork and was featured in the Queerography Group Show at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in February-March 1994 and many other shows over the years. Kaye’s drawing practice explored traces and motifs from the urban landscapes of Sydney’s public spaces.
Kaye came along to a couple of 78ers meetings in 2016 and 2017 and joined the exuberant 78er contingent in the 40th Anniversary Parade. Afterwards she sent a message: “Congrats on such a successful night for the organisers! Saw people there haven't seen for many years.” Kaye was not able to join the 2019 Parade but was happy to receive her 78ers t-shirt.
After her retirement from Western Sydney University, Kaye joined the National Art School MFA 1 drawing cohort in 2020. It was in mid-2020 Kaye found that she had advanced cancer and took time off to manage treatment and pain.
In a tribute to Kaye, the National Art School wrote: “We’re thankful for the opportunity to know Kaye and pleased that thanks to her generosity, she will be remembered through the Kaye Shumack Sunflower Drawing Prize, an annual award of $3,000 for an MFA Drawing graduate whose work contributes to broadening awareness of social issues.”
As 78ers, we remember Kaye as an activist committed to social justice, involved in the tumultuous events of 1978 and as someone who wanted to continue celebrate our communities’ achievements.
Diane Minnis
78er and First Mardi Gras Inc. Co-Chair
|
|
|
Scribe Publications and Readings invite you to a discussion about:
GOD SAVE THE QUEEN
the strange persistence of monarchies
by 78er Dennis Altman in conversation with Judith Brett
12.30pm Thursday 30 September, Online via Zoom
RSVP: joshua@scribepub.com.au/ 03 9388 8780
|
|
|
|
Calendar of Events
- First Mardi Gras Inc. Annual General Meeting – 4pm, Saturday 9 October 2021, by Zoom
- The global fight for LGBTI rights: No right-wing backlash! online forum – 1pm, Saturday 16 October 2021, Rainbow Rebellion and Community Action for Rainbow Rights (2) [FORUM] The global fight for LGBTI rights: No right-wing backlash! | Facebook
- OUT in the OPEN Festival, Shepparton – 28 October to 7 November 2021 http://outintheopen org.au/
- Fruitopia Fair Day, Lismore – Sunday 14 November 2021 https://tropicalfruits.org.au/events/fruitopia-fairday
- Broken Heel Festival, Broken Hill – 2-6 December 2021 https://www.bhfestival.com/festival-tickets
- Coastal Twist Arts and Cultural Festival – 19-25 January 2022 https://coastaltwist.org.au/whats-on/events/
- Queer Arts Festival: Queer & Visible, Wollongong – 2022 (dates to be confirmed),https://www.facebook.com/wollongongqueerartsfest/
- Rainbow on the Plains Festival, Hay – March 2022 (dates to be confirmed), http://www.haymardigras.com.au/
- Wagga Wagga Mardi Gras – March 2022 (date to be confirmed), https://waggamardigras.com/
- Newcastle and Hunter Pride Festival – has been rescheduled to October 2022, see website for details https://newcastlepride.com.au/
Please check links closer to the advertised dates for confirmation of events.
|
|
|
|
|
|
