As a child, I gravitated towards whatever connected with me on an emotional level. The first film I remember loving was High School Musical at around age nine. I only discovered the reputation the film had when I entered secondary school a few years later. At best, it was considered an embarrassing thing to like, …

Like many gay men, Christian and I became friends in a colourful way. I doubt we would have connected had we not been on the same flight travelling from Sydney to Los Angeles to attend the Cleveland, Ohio 2014 Gay Games, both of us part of the Sydney Silverback Wrestling Club. That trip established the …

I am non-binary but at my girls’ school I am a “she/her”. School makes me feel like I am trapped inside a caricature that only flaunts its femininity, forcing other parts of my identity to emerge in unhealthy ways. That is why I find relief in suburbs such as Fitzroy, where I get lost amongst …

Bisexual Visibility Day, held annually on 23 September, is nominally about bi+ people being able to be seen. Bi+ advocates often note that the “B” in LGBTQIA+ is “silent” – listed within the acronym, but rarely attended to. Even though many surveys show that we are the largest slice of the LGBTQIA+ pie, there is …

Misty is a non-binary first-generation Australian of Anglo-Indian ethnicity. Duc is a Vietnamese-Australian who, as a toddler, arrived in Australia with her family under a refugee program. Both of us have lived experience of mental health problems. Therefore, as activists with multiple intersecting identities, we aim to interrogate white privilege, class discrimination, ableism and male …

In those heady days, when I first shaved all my hair off, I remember feeling a jolt every time I caught the edge of my reflection. I looked so different that my brain would alert me that there was an imposter standing far too close. I also remember vacillating wildly between ebullient feelings of freedom …

As a raging homosexual who is also Hard of Hearing, I’m sorry to tell you that disabled people and queer people have once again been failed by our society.

In the past, transgender dancers couldn’t compete in Irish dancing competitions in Australia. I changed that in 2018. In December of 2017, after years of hiding my true self and feeling an overwhelming sense of disconnection from my outward presentation, I decided to undergo a gender transition. I formally began my gender transition in February …

Awards that continue to indicate safety where there is none will continue to harm the most vulnerable members of our community.

At a party earlier this year, an acquaintance asked me if I was queer. “I don’t know,” I said. This person had been telling me about the Queer Beers event she was holding, and I was fascinated by her openness. Most openly queer people I had met looked bold. They didn’t look like Jo, with …

At Archer, we pride ourselves on having such diverse readers. We’re so grateful to you for your dedication and love. We want you to know that you are a huge part of our survival. Another part of our survival involves partnering with like-minded brands and organisations that cater for diverse identities. To ensure that our …

Growing up in an Islamic household, I had no clue what sexuality entailed.  Love wasn’t really about love – it was about making your parents happy. My grandmother’s desire was for my mother to have an arranged marriage, and so my mother dutifully complied. All I knew about love was that it occurred within a …

The portrayal of trans and gender diverse people in mainstream media can be described as woeful at best. The lack of positive representation can lead to feelings of inadequacy, shame and isolation for many. Conscious of the need for people to stand up and make a difference, proud transgender woman and advocate Cassy Judy decided …

As the world paused, trapped in our homes, I experienced a secondary level of feeling trapped in my body, with no timeline for release.

Stone Motherless Cold is a combination of blak excellence and club kid aesthetics, here to celebrate and highlight WOC and blak queerness.

Blends of blues and greens shimmered back up at me from the palm of my hand. Lightly brushing sand off little pearlescent jewels, I looked into what was very recently a home for a little saltwater friend, but was now lying in the company of many other colours and shapes. Every trip to the beach …

I most frequently find kinship with bodies unlike mine. In this space between my body and theirs are shared ways of moving, shared language that describes us in archetypes, not individuals. It is from this space that I have picked up the language I use to describe myself, from this space that I can draw …

I roll over and get out of my single bed. It’s the only piece of furniture in a large white room, with old wooden floorboards, a high ceiling and a bay window. I go outside to catch some sun and stretch my body. I am surrounded by valleys of pasture and cattle. Not a house …

I began to think about how my experiences have been shaped by the spatial absence of queer Aboriginal peoples in regional Aboriginal communities.

“I’m Pretty and I’m Handsome” – Jesswar, Savage (2017) I had used tape to strap down my chest for the first time earlier that day. It was my first live drag performance at Hamer Hall for disrupt, a show for the Yirramboi Festival. When I was 11 I would use bandages from the first-aid box …

I first saw The Miseducation of Cameron Post – a film about a same-sex-attracted (SSA) teenager sent to a Christian facility to ‘reorient’ her sexuality – in August 2018, though I didn’t think much of it at the time. It was technically part of a job, just necessary research so I could edit the reviews …

Ronnie Scott and I sit in our respective homes, connected over Skype. He’s clean-shaven, his hair thrown back. Outside it’s overcast with a faint bloom of sunlight and the suggestion of rain later. When our video stream loads, he launches into a thought about the impacts of the pandemic. “It just hits you, how the …