transgender & intersex rights

On July 9, 60 people took to the streets to condemn the death of Aboriginal trans woman Veronnica Baxter. She was found dead in the Silverwater Metropolitan Reception and Remand Centre — a prison for men — six days after her arrest by Redfern police on minor drugs charges.

The protesters were in Wollongong for Queer Collaborations, a yearly student activist conference supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex and gender diverse rights. The July 5-9 conference had 180 participants and the theme “Fighting Queers Need Fighting Unions”.

Community Action Against Homophobia (CAAH) activists are marching in Mardi Gras on March 2 under the banner “Generations of Protest”, and are inviting interested people to join their float.

Mardi Gras is going to be a lot of fun this year, and already has more floats and more people marching than ever.

The event stands in the tradition of the gay liberation protest in 1978 that immediately preceded the state-by-state decriminalisation of sodomy throughout the ‘80s and early ‘90s.

The latest episode of the Green left Report has a focus on Aboriginal rights, with a feature interview with Chris Graham, managing editor of Tracker. The show also includes activist news on Aboriginal boxer Damien Hooper; refugee deportations; equal marriage rallies; Miranda Gibson's tree sit; the super trawler; Quebec's student uprising and from the Resistance conference, plus the return of Carlo Sands and his take on the ALP-Coalition refugee deal.

The 2012 Resistance conference, in Adelaide July 20-22, will feature international guests including from CLASSE in Quebec (the largest and most radical student organisation leading massive student strikes); the Socialist Party of Malaysia (hugely involved in the Bersih democracy uprising); and from the brave Palestinian People's Party.

Churchgoers all over Sydney heard official statements from their denominations on June 17 with a firm and united message: “Marriage is only for heterosexual couples.”

I needed to see this for myself, so I and four gay Christian friends summoned our courage and attended the evening service at St Andrew's Cathedral.

News that a popular front-man is about to become a front-woman might not stir such intense buzz if we lived in a world that was truly sexually liberated.

Hell, it might not even be “news,” just another instance of an individual becoming more like the person they envision themselves to be; end of story.

We don’t live in that world, though. The furor over Tom Gabel amply reveals that.

Rolling Stone announced on May 8 that Gabel, singer and guitarist for Florida punks Against Me!, plans to begin living as a woman.