Thank You Followers!

I’ve reached 60 WordPress followers! I consider that a bit of a milestone. So to all the followers, thank you for your support! And to all those who’ve visited and viewed my blog, thank you to ALL of you too. 🙂

Equality: What Does It Mean?

Trigger Warning: violence, gender and sexuality discrimination. Proceed with caution if this is triggering for you.

The last couple of days have been about the campaign for equality. Last night, Sydney, NSW, celebrated the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Like every year, the issues that come up surround the legalisation of gay marriage and other legal rights.

On Mamamia, Labor senator Penny Wong, herself a lesbian, wrote a post in the light of Mardi Gras about gay rights in Australia and how Australia falls short. She talked about, for example, the high instances of verbal and physical attacks gays and lesbians, specially young people, still face. I have written before that LGBT youth faced a much higher instance of bulling according to Youth Beyond Blue.

In late 2011, sister of conservative columnist, Andrew Bolt, Stephanie, wrote columns published in both Crikey and the Sydney Morning Herald about her wish for marriage equality to become legal in Australia. Her main reason? She argued that the marriage certificate made her feel more secure and validated (she’s married to her partner in Canada… at least she was at the time that the article was written). She too, faced violent attacks when she came out at 21.

To me, the issue goes beyond marriage, as I think these two examples point out (especially the Mamamia article). Whether we like to admit it or not, homophobia still exists. It’s still risky for gay people to reveal who thetpy are. Have we made progress? Yes, but we’ve. Still got a long way to go.

What about people who are bi? From what i’ve read, they seem to be attacked by both the gays and heterosexuals. I’ve been critical of how bisexual people are portrayed in the media, as do many people who identify as bi themselves. No, they don’t need to sleep with everyone they see! Stop fetishising them, (especially bi women), and turning who they are into nothing more than a porn movie! They just happen to be able to experience attraction to both men and women (well, usually). Deal with it! Same as pan sexuals and poly – sexuals are attracted to multiple genders (poly – sexuals aren’t attracted to all genders where as pan sexuals are just so we’re clear).

And finally, asexuals. I’ve said this again and again, first being believed would be nice (I’m talking for all asexuals here, not my experiences personally). I’d like there to come a point where discrimination and teasing of asexual people is frowned upon just as much as any other form of discriminatory behaviour. I’d love for all asexual women to be able to resist sexual advances without having their safety in jeopardy. I’d like for asexual men not to feel emasculated because of their asexuality. I’d like it for asexuals to not experience discrimination by health professionals (e.g. being treated like a ‘problem’ in relationship counselling.

So, yeah. We’ve come along way, for sure. Hopefully,we can go a little bit further so what I’ve written above can come true too.

What steps would you like to see takecplace as in LGBT+ rights?

My Own Experiences Writing About Asexuality

I’ve been writing this blog for a bit over a year and a half now. I don’t know what I intended to do when I started, create conversation, sort myself out… something like that. Now, my main aim for my blog (this one anyway), is to (hopefully) create more visibility on asexuality, how it relates to the society, discrimination against asexual and LGBT people and other topics.

As time goes on, I’m able to write, what I think about more controversial topics, for example like LGBT+ discrimination and the relationship between sexuality and Christianity. I’ve been able to do so without much problem… so far (my most controversial one to date was about a petition on change.org condemning a mental health organisation for “promoting and encouraging” homosexuality, which, I stated was, frankly ridiculous and I stated why).

Anyhow, I survived that. Lately, my big thing is to make sure that any links I try to post work. Also, I’m wary about making sure I’m careful when referring to other bloggers. One of my posts about asexuality and pop culture was a mess and I think I (unintentionally) caused offence. I try not to! Honest.

What about the future? I’ll keep blogging. I’ll put down anything that comes to my head. OK, that’s kind of a lie… I’ll post things that are in my head that I feel comfortable posting and something that will (hopefully) not cause World War 3!

LGBT Discrimination Happens In The West

I read a post from Andrew Bolt’s Herald Sun blog lamenting the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby’s (GLRL) silence on the persecution and murder of gays in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, in which many gays are executed under anti – gay laws, as well as the barbaric killings of gays by Islamic State. While I get what he’s saying, one commenter did tell an uncomfortable truth… LGBT people are still discriminated against in Australia.

Sure, homosexuality has been decriminalised here nationwide for nearly 20 years (Tasmania was the last state to do so in 1997 ), however, being of a sexual/ gender minority in Australia isn’t always easy.

Stats shows that:

• LGBT students are more than 60% more likely to be physically or verbally bullied at school! compared to 25%
• LGBT youth are still more likely to be kicked out of home if they come out to family
• they are still between six to eight times more likely to take, or attempt to take, their own lives.

Now, now, due to technical issues I was having before, I won’t post any links, however, if anyone is interested in gaining more information, Youth Beyond Blue has great information on these issues.

No, let me be clear here, I’m not saying we should turn a blind eye to what is going on overseas. Like hell! It’s absolutely horrendous what goes on in these countries. What I am saying is that being LGBT+ in Australia (zoo in the West in general), isn’t always a bed of roses. Progresses have been made for sure, but we haven’t made it. We won’t have made it until everyone can safely be themselves, when homophobes insults are no longer directed at people, until asexual people can be believed and respected and when people aren’t expected to  ‘come out’ and can just live their lives.