Unfortunately, there are few intersectional disability narratives in the mainstream, and likely even fewer that feature disabled actors.

I’ve always loved to read. So after making the long laboured over decision to medically transition, I began to seek out the stories of other people like me, those assigned female at birth who had decided to live in a more masculine form. I was hungry to know if they initially felt ambivalence like I …

Support inclusive media. Support Archer Magazine. We missed out on arts funding for this six-month period, and we need financial help to keep going.  Archer Magazine is a print and digital publication curating lesser-heard voices on topics around sex, gender and identity. Since launching back in 2013, we’ve printed 13 magazines, published more than 500 artists, and won …

When Hannah Gatsby asked ‘Where do the quiet gays go?’,  I thought, ‘Finally, someone else feels my pain!’ I had never felt more heard. Between being bisexual, being more disabled by my environment than by the disabilities themselves, and in my existence as a person of colour, my queerness has never been seen as fluorescently bright, …

While I’ve outgrown the items in the musty dress-up box, I never outgrew my desire to dress up. My collection no longer comprises ’70s velour nor does it have that insipid mothball stench I remember from my childhood.

This article contains spoilers for The L Word: Generation Q. It is recommended that you watch before reading. Okay, I have so much to say about the reboot. But, to be honest, I had to look up what everyone’s names were for this review. I was just so bored. Here goes: That. Opening. Scene. I don’t …

  I want to show her one poem which is the poem of my life. But I hesitate, and wake. —Adrienne Rich, from the second of Twenty-One Love Poems   Of all my loves, my love for women is my most complicated. You could describe this love using phrases from psychiatry text books—hypervigilance; belief that …

This is the fourth part of “It’s All About Aly”, a series about friendship between a trans man and a cis man living together in New York City. Read parts one, two and three. This article contains graphic sexual content and discussion of body dysphoria. Please use reader discretion.   Two weeks later, Aly, Emily and I …

I am a graduate teacher just about to enter the workforce. I have my values and pedagogy set, I want to prioritise a creative English classroom with a focus on student agency and encouraging a safe environment. Many experienced teachers may groan at how idealistic I sound, but I feel as though it’s good to …

Midsumma Festival is Australia’s premier queer arts and cultural festival, bringing together a diverse mix of LGBTQIA+ artists, performers, communities and audiences from 19 Jan to 9 Feb 2020. Midsumma Festival is a proud supporter of Archer Magazine.  FAMILI is a collaborative electronic music project highlighting contemporary artists from Pasifika and First Nation communities.  Arising from …

When Uncle Jack Charles appeared on a 2015 ­episode of Q&A, he took the opportunity to point out to Australian viewers the ways in which the country is uniquely and peculiarly racist towards its First Nations peoples. It’s something he has experienced and seen, a lot, firsthand. His words resonated strongly. The beloved actor, trailblazer, Indigenous-theatre pioneer, …

Content Warning: Incarceration ALGA has a range of content relating to struggles for prison reform and prison abolition. This edition of Out Of The Archives will uncover some of this history.   In the last instalment of Out of the Archives, we brought you the story of Sandra Willson, a lesbian subjected to wrongful imprisonment …

 Content warning: Incarceration, LGBTQIA phobia, Indigenous incarceration, violence, suicidal ideation, aversion therapy ALGA has a range of content relating to struggles for prison reform and prison abolition. This edition of Out Of The Archives will uncover some of this history.   Historically, queers have been targeted by state violence, and still are today. It is …

This is the third part of “It’s All About Aly”, a series about friendship between a trans man and a cis man living together in New York City. Read parts one and two. This article contains graphic sexual content and discussion of body dysphoria. Please use reader discretion. For the next few weeks, every time …

We’ve made it to the end of 2019 already. How did that happen?! We’ve published some really great pieces this year, and we’ve seen some of our old favourites maintain their popularity. To celebrate the end of 2019, we’re sharing with you some of our editors’ picks: a combination of our most-read pieces of 2019, …

A friend confessed to me recently that she felt our friendship group rather conservative in their assumptions about gender and sexuality. You know the deal: everyone is supportive… up to a point. Until you begin to question romantic ideals, or social roles and expectations. At that point, dominant ideas leak through our progressive stances, since …

I don’t want to have an abortion, I don’t want the experience, but I don’t want to raise a child now. I don’t want to choose.

Something shifted two years ago, when the first #MeToo found itself pinned to an alluding tweet. Unwittingly, we had stumbled into a new uprising: one laced with belated anger and hot breath. One that was necessary and tingling. One itching to be found in the pages of future history books. Art, business, hospitality, sport: every …

The paradoxical logic of ‘Pure O’ OCD also applies to its manifestation within the body. It turns out the bodily nightmare that I had experienced has a name — ‘The Groinal Syndrome.’

I’m standing in the middle of my aunt’s living room in my underwear. My belly, breasts and limbs are covered in course black hair, echoing the dark stubble along my jaw. My secret revealed. I’m 13 years old. My mother is holding my arm with one hand and pointing at me with the other. “Do …

It was only when I stopped calling myself a woman that I started bleeding like one. Ever since I’d first started menstruating, aged 13, I’d gone years at a time without regular periods. First there was the anorexia-induced amenorrhea that lingered for much of my teens. In my 20s, when I swapped food restriction for …

This article was first performed under the title ‘Unity’ at Queerstories for Newcastle Writer’s Festival.   That space between leaving high school and starting the next thing is bizarre. Whether that be uni, work or just, you know, taking up residency on a couch with a bong in one hand and a pipe dream in …