As an androgynous-looking person, I’m misgendered every single day of my life. Bathrooms, pubs, on the bus, at airport security — you name it, I’ve been misgendered there. Tall, masculine girl or well-dressed teenage boy? No one knows, but they sure want to find out. Perhaps I make things harder for myself by working as …
Recent reports label millennials the “gayest generation ever”. I didn’t doubt it for a second. We are producing some of the most diverse, well-rounded representations of queer folk, and these depictions are reaching the mainstream in some of the largest quantities in history. We are overwhelmingly out and, by and large, society in most of …
I was backstage at a show recently and a drag queen gushed that she’d been looking forward to meeting me. She said that I was super talented, and very ‘fishy’. My smiling face turned to confusion, and I realised she thought I was a cisgender man, and she was praising me for impersonating a woman …
It’s been eight years since I first kissed a boy, and two since gender loosened its grip on me, yet I never came out to my father. I’ve made my peace with never coming out to him, or the rest of my extended family, for that matter. For someone straddling two cultures, this is a …
On a cold Melbourne night, wrapped in my discounted woollen coat, I make pre-kiss conversation with a cute boy. We’re on a wooden bench on Gertrude Street, the commission flats rising behind us, trams ambling past and our eyes running away from one another as we play the first date version of cat-and-mouse. The eventual …
I had my first instance of gender confusion when I was around eight years old. I was skiing with my family in a little snow-capped town called Ohau in New Zealand. Having just got dressed, I passed the mirror on the way out and I was startled by my own reflection. I suddenly realised that …
Australian music journalist Jimi Kritzler once asked “homo American punk band” Hunx and his Punx’ singer Seth Bogart a question that would change my career for ever. Jimi asked “If Hunx and his Punx were an STD, what would it be?” Seth answers “HIV AIDS. I want to be the biggest sexually transmitted disease.” Rapidly, …
In June 2015, when same sex marriage was made legal in all US states, it was a turning point in the international fight for rights and recognition of queer relationships – indeed, my fiancee and I found our fervour for such structure doubled in the hope that it was closer than ever to being possible …
Pushing 65 years old, I seem to carry about with me that feeling you might have if you arrive at a party and discover that it’s over. Yet in the detritus left behind, you see the ghosts of all you have missed. Or, the party is still going on and you’re stuck outside, only able …
“Nightlife operates as a zone of playful exchange. It’s a space of exposure to difference that can change your take on things, or how you feel about the world. The best nights make new things possible.” – Kane Race, Archer Magazine #8 Welcome to Archer Magazine issue #8: the SPACES issue. “Space and safety are …
