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, …

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 …

I used to have a job teaching kids not to be themselves. I was a Catholic youth leader, running activities and leading prayer circles every Friday night, organising events and outings, and acting as an extremely unqualified counsellor for a collection of 13-18 year olds. I held a seat on my parish council, and I …

Writer, speaker, executive editor of Out Magazine and former organiser for the Transgender Law Center, there’s no denying that Raquel Willis is an impressive force for good. Based in the U.S, Raquel is a Black queer transgender trailblazer backed by a formidable CV, with her work in community organising to lift up the voices of …

Australia’s biggest line-up of trans and gender-diverse performers is coming together to flip gender dysphoria on its head and explore the distinctive joys that can come with being trans: this is GENDER EUPHORIA! We recorded a conversation between two cast members, Harvey Zielinski and Mx Munro, discussing performance, celebration and empowerment of Trans communities and …

Western constructions of gender and sexuality can be restrictive for individuals who are Fa’afafine, whose identity goes beyond the binary. Amao Leota Lu, as told to Bobuq Sayed, former Archer Magazine co-editor and deputy online editor.   Anxiety levels for trans and gender-diverse people are high. It used to be about sexuality stuff, but people still don’t …

Across the globe, queer tattoo artists have been making noise and making space: carving inclusive spaces and working hard to change the industry’s culture.

When I lost my job, I hadn’t left the office before I thought struck me: what name do I put on my job applications? I’d been working at the same office for a bit over a year when I came out (read: said something vague on Facebook) and changed my name. I knew before I …

At the start of 2013, I went to Open Doors Youth Service and completed my intake. It included a homelessness waiver form as it’s quite common for young people to get kicked out of home for accessing an LGBTI support service, or they’re accessing it because they need crisis accommodation and/or general community support. Later …

My dear trans siblings, my gender diverse family,   Are you hurting right now, or sad, or lost, or confused, or tired? I know I am. Every day in our political and media spheres we see more and more attacks on us, and those like us, just for daring to live and exist as ourselves. …

When I started working in the youth homelessness sector five years ago, I was not prepared for all the ways that the homelessness system was, and still is, not built for folks like me. I’m a non-binary trans person, and for five years I have worked alongside young people without housing. I was definitely not …

Names. Labels. Decisions… We, as human beings, do love to put neat little labels on nearly anything. We have a deep-seated need to create well-balanced order out of the endless amounts of chaos that this universe tends to fling our way. Your name is there, sometimes even before you’re born, just waiting to slap a …

The election of Jair Bolsonaro as president of Brazil isn’t an isolated phenomenon. As a politically compromised transgender man, I can’t help but interpret it as part of a worrying reactionary backlash. I live in Argentina, the first country in the region to recognise trans people’s right to change our names legally and access gender …

When it comes to transitioning, the most well known approach is down the medical path. Hormones and surgery seem to be the “go to” options. But there are other paths as well. I came out as non-binary when I was 32, but my physical transition started when I was 28. At the time, I lived …

Carving out my non-binary identity felt like going through a second adolescence. I found myself experimenting with various styles, spaces, activities and relationships – I was trying everything on for size to see if it fit. Much like my first adolescence, sexual exploration was a formative rite of passage, full of nervousness and a bit …

On December 17, the popular blogging platform Tumblr enacted a ban on “adult content” uploaded to its site. What it means by adult content is images and videos of “real-life human genitals”, content that depicts sex acts, and nipples – but only, of course, ones that are “female-presenting.” Many have pointed out that the blanket …

How do you make a picture of something you can’t see? I’ve been commissioned to create an artwork about hidden queer histories, using the collections of local archives. At the State Library of Victoria, the search term transgender brings up zero results in the multimedia, images and scripts collections. The article and book results are …

As a non-binary person, I am constantly seeking films, television shows, music and online spaces where gender diversity is the norm, not the exception. They are still far too rare, and much needed in our current context. Misconceptions about transgender and gender diverse people continue to abound. In the United States, President Trump’s administration is considering defining …

Wading into the deep end of the pool as a trans woman athlete has been fraught with problems. I was only three years into my transition when I made the decision to return to sport in 2004. Prior to this, I had been a competitive athlete since my 5th grade of school. All I had …

Mama Alto is a gender transcendent diva, cabaret artiste, and community activist. She is a non-binary trans femme person of colour who works with the radical potential of storytelling, strength in softness & power in vulnerability. Bobuq Sayed sat down with them at Hares and Hyenas to talk queerness in the arts and the challenges …

Smug. That is how I felt in my marriage. I was almost 36 when Paul and I met randomly at a bar in Brisbane. I figured that I must have applied the right amount of patience and discernment, because the alchemy of my relationship with Paul had resulted in a near perfect mix of respect, …

It started early, and had little to do with sexuality. Maybe it was the fact that I hung around with more boys than girls, or that frocks never caught my fancy. But I fought to choose my own clothes, and my family eventually got tired of resisting resistance. My earliest memory was after a bath …