Joanne Leah is a German-born artist based in Brooklyn NYC. Her photographic works combine sexually charged images of colourful surrealism rife with Jungian symbology. She draws inspiration from her childhood memories and how they have affected her adulthood to depict humankind’s repetitious relationship with our bodies, and our continual want to escape. For Archer Magazine …

The first time I met someone – other than a relative – that I knew was also intersex, it was over twenty years ago. We met quietly at a crusty pub near Roma Street station in Brisbane. We spent the afternoon sharing our experiences; revealing to one another our chromosomal patterns, family histories and hormone replacement regimes. …

I was deep into Melbourne’s second lockdown, writing an article on COVID’s impact on queer nightlife, when my editor showed me queeringthemap. The interactive tool allows users to geographically map queer memories and landmarks, recording “the cartography of queer life”. Sifting through notes pinned against Melbourne’s most recognisable fixtures was beautiful and haunting; a showcase …

Gender non-conformity is messy. If it’s neither male nor female, then what is it, everything? Nothing? A liminal space in-between? Somewhere on the spectrum, perhaps? The boundaries of a gender that does not conform are porous and exaltant. They adapt and emerge. We are not one; we contain multitudes. And, as paradoxical as this multiplicity …

Instead of being asked what my favourite colour is or what kind of music I like, the most common question I’m asked on dating apps is, “Can you have sex?” The world of dating is difficult to navigate with a disability. I became a wheelchair user at nineteen. This was also the age at which …

Hedon House is a proud supporter of Archer Magazine. The black blindfold slips, and I catch a tantalising glimpse of my stockinged legs strapped to leather stirrups suspended from the ceiling. Between them, my red skirt is stretched and riding high up one tattooed thigh. My body and I haven’t been on the best of …

Katy O’Brian (Z Nation, Black Lightning) represents a kind of queer-coded strength we rarely see in our on-screen heroines.

I gave up on shaving two years ago. Clumsy by nature, I had so often slipped while hurriedly reaping the dark hairs on my legs that I no longer trusted myself not to end up with a few cuts and scrapes. Not to mention the existential climate guilt I felt as I consigned another infantile-pink …

Content warning: This article discusses eating disorders. This time last year I was struggling to stand. If you asked what I was having for dinner, it would be something the size of a canapé, except devoid of any excitement (or seasoning even). Forming simple sentences required every ounce of effort imaginable, and still my words …

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

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, …

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, …

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.

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.’

In the morning I study piano and in the afternoon I lift weights. The piano part is unremarkable for me. My childhood home had a piano, and I studied music through high school. Playing music isn’t just a thing I do: it’s part of how I see myself. It’s part of how I want to …

‘Together’ is an image essay from photographer Luke Austin, which originally appeared in Archer Magazine #11, the GAZE issue. Luke spoke to Hailey Moroney about the series.  Your imagery and body of work as a whole is inherently inclusive – not only of the gay community but of the LGBTQIA+ community at large. Is this …

I contracted HIV from the partner I shared a terrace with in Sydney almost twenty years ago. I realised the virus had entered my blood while I lay in his arms watching ads on the television for the upcoming Sydney 2000 Olympics. My partner cradled me while I complained of fevers and chills. That night …

HIV for me has always felt simultaneously impossible and inevitable. Impossible, because like so many of us who are young and privileged with good health, we feel invincible. Although we know something could happen, we doubt that it will happen. This is where impossibility sat, in the arrogance of youth and the privilege of good …

Growing up in Australia in a time when fad diets and homophobia were all the rage, for me, the 90’s and early 00’s meant crash diets and sneaking off to Sydney to make out with girls on the weekend. I hid my sexuality and forced myself to have relationships with men to appease society, I …

This series by 20-year-old HIV-positive American photographer Sam Stoich confronts a subject that has long been misunderstood, and remains burdened with ­stigma even today. Q&A with Jess Desaulniers-Lea   Shot in the Dark has a sense of continuum; is this series on­­going? If so, how has it evolved so far and in what direction do you see it …

‘Nothing to Lose’ is a cinematic celebration of the possibilities and capabilities of fat and queer bodies.

The word fat is one steeped in stigma, but many fat people are reclaiming the word. Fat people are multivalent, sexy and fashionable, too.