TransMen and Fags

Nice article interviewing Amos Mac, founder of Original Plumbing magazine. Clicky here for a gander.

Scavenger Articles

Here's a couple of bits and bobs of mine that have been published online by The Scavenger lately:

Mattilda Sycamore Bernstein interview

and Furballs or Plucked Privates?

And there is TONNES of other amazing stuff in The Scavenger too!

Catholic Fry-Up

If you needed any further proof that Stephen Fry is GOD, have a looksy at his work in this debate about the Catholic Church.

Hallelujah!

Zoo Thousand and Ten

So, its the end of the noughties and into the... umm.. tweens? Much has been posted about making the next decade better that the last, but for me, the last was pretty grand on the whole (not in chronological order):

* Met the Monster. Several times, before we finally got ourselves sorted into the MonsterUnit.
* Came out. Repeatedly. As queer, kinky, etc etc.
* Reconfigured my gender. Bye bye 'girl/woman', hello 'monster'. Works for me.
* Got my arse to Uni, got my BA (Hons) and am currently a proto-Dr. Still have days of feeling like a pretendy academic, and paranoia from the fact that I was a high-school drop out. Silly, I know.
* Started performing. Still scary. Still do it. Still not sure why, but I need to.
* Embraced my creative side again. Participated in tons of photo shoots, films, wrote for magazines etc.
* Began to read fiction again.
* Learned to dance in public without a) freaking out that I was unco or b) need to be really drunk to avoid a).
* Got a lot of ink and metal. Shaved my head a lot. Didn't shave anything else much.
* Travelled a lot, mostly on my own. Lived in Sweden, visited NZ a few times, wandered around Europe and San Fran and NYC. Lived in Perth for a bit too, which is kind of like another country.
* Lived in zillions of sharehouses. Mostly with amazing, if mad, people.
* Had many relationships of various durations and configurations. Most of them lovely at some point, lots of them quite hideous in parts. Learned a lot from all of it-- I hope.
* Was quite a trashy tart when not having relationships. Or sometimes whilst having them.
* Became part of a fabulous community of performers, artists, writers, perverts, bears, divas and other gorgeous, generous, and joyous eccentrics.
* Stopped taking many chemicals, or thinking that I had to.
* Learned to appreciate my body in entirely different ways.
* Saw stupid amounts of fantastic art around the world, and lots of great theatre.

And ever so much more. Looking forward to the next decade of consolidating and building on all of this. Bottoms up!

On Sluts, and Ethics

Rules of the sandpit: Don't steal other people's toys or playlunch. Don't dump your mates for the new kid with the shiny Tonka truck. Say please and thankyou. Don't pee in your own patch. Be loyal to your mates.

Sure, certain 'non-conventional' relationship structures can require some extra thinking time to do well, but really, the basics are that simple.

And so it surprises me that some people seem to spend so much time sitting around bollocking on about complicated ethical and moral structures, trying to outdo each other on theoretical points of non-monog/poly/kinky/queer relationships, and continue to ignore the fact that if you just PLAY NICE and TREAT OTHERS HOW YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE TREATED then much pain and nonsense would be avoided.

Bah! Thank heavens for the Monster is all I can say!

Art, And Lies

The other week Necortitties and I gave a lecture on queer art at the National Art School (for a predominately non-queer audience). It was a JOY to research and write up and discuss, and made me realise that maybe, just maybe, I can enjoy teaching somehow. And made me wonder (again) if perhaps I have been barking up the wrong tree, looking in the wrong places, in respects to my own academic work-- its the ART stuff that really grabs me, that makes me wet, that hardens me nipples and gets me wanting to read theory and to create beautiful objects. Writing as an artform, practice-led research, the materiality of words, art and alchemy, art and life, the texture of text...

But I digress. What I wanted to discuss here was some of the comments we got after the paper. We had given examples of some of our own performance pieces, mostly blood work, and naturally people were curious and so question time largely focussed on our process, the meaning of the pieces, the effect that making this work had on us and such. We answered as honestly as we could, and people seemed quite blown away at our frankness. I was surprised that they were surprised.

And this got me thinking about how being openly and brazenly queer contributed to my own answers. About how commonplace it has become for me to be fielding questions about how I live my life, my relationships, my kinks and such, about how the support of my community has given my the space and the strength in which to act upon and articulate my desires. About how I wasn't ashamed of anything I get up to, or who I get up to it with, and about how damned lucky I am to be where I am in the world. Blessed.

TransLondon Boycott Pride 2009

With good cause it seems. Check out the full report at their website:

'Last year, a successful Pride march was marred at the rally in Trafalgar Square when a number of trans women were denied access to the women's toilets by Pride security stewards. One woman was subsequently sexually assaulted after being told to use the male toilets. Roz Kaveney, one of the women targeted in the 2008 "ToiletGate" incident, explained how she felt Pride London had only ever provided a grudging apology under threat of legal action, and that she felt they had never taken the discrimination against trans women in the 2008 rally seriously.

During the meeting on May 19th 2009, members heard how the democratic and transparent structure used in 2008 to co-ordinate participation of trans groups and the funds made available for transgender attendees, through the elected Trans@Pride committee, has been abolished by Pride London for 2009. Instead, Pride London have imposed their own unelected "representative" for the trans strand. Furthermore, requests for information about funding, how decisions were made and who participated in the decision-making process, have been rebuffed.

Last year, the elected Trans@Pride Committee consulted repeatedly with over a dozen groups and hundreds of individuals over before arranging travel bursaries for trans people to attend from around the country, hosting a breakfast for marchers on the day, commissioning artwork from a local queer artist as a rallying point for trans marchers, producing banners and bunting, arranging trans performers for all of the Pride stages including the main stage in Trafalgar Square and publicising the arrangements widely. In stark contrast, the meeting heard of how Pride London's appointed trans "representative" for 2009 has simply imposed Pride’s vision for trans participation in the march and rally.

The 2009 pride participation is, so we are told, to consist of a float at the very back of the parade which would pander to the most tired and inaccurate media stereotypes of trans people. Trans women would, in Pride's vision, be dressed in sequins, high heels and fairy wings and, apparently as an afterthought, a few trans men would be invited to pose in football strips. The Pride representative explained that the trans float would complement a float at the front of the march with members of the cast of the West End musical, "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert". In her vision, onlookers would be delighted to see "Priscilla at the front and Priscilla at the back". As a coup de grace, a visible cordon of security stewards would surround the trans float, ostensibly "for our own protection". '

Note The Pronouns *SIGH*

Have been trying to formulate some sort of response to this, but have a monster headache so for now here it is as reported by The Age (on SMH website):

'Court lets girl, 17, remove breasts

* Karen Kissane
* May 4, 2009

THE Family Court has allowed a 17-year-old girl to have her breasts removed so she can be more like a boy.

The teenager, code-named "Alex", was on court-ordered hormone medication from the age of 13 to prevent menstruation and breast development. She returned to the court in December 2007 asking for a double mastectomy to make it easier for her to pass as a boy.

The Chief Justice of the Family Court, Diana Bryant, decided it was in the teenager's best interests to have the surgery immediately rather than wait until turning 18. The teenager had been diagnosed with "gender identity dysphoria", a psychological condition in which a person has the normal physical characteristics of one sex but longs to be the opposite sex. Justice Bryant said: "In the end, it wasn't a particularly difficult issue because the only real issue was, 'Would he (Alex) have it at 17 or once he's 18?' Then, he doesn't need permission.

"So the issue was, 'Was there any likelihood he would change his mind in the meantime, and was it in his best interests to have it at that time?'

"Overwhelmingly, the evidence was that it was in his interests. And I made that order. I wanted to make it quickly so that he could have the operation straightaway."

But ethicist Nick Tonti-Filippini said mainstream medicine did not recognise hormone treatments and surgery as treatment for gender dysphoria. He said it was a psychiatric disorder qualifying under American guidelines as a psychosis because "it's a belief out of accordance with reality". "What you are trying to do is make a biological reality correspond to that false belief."

The Chief Justice said Alex had not had any urgent plans to proceed with further surgery when he turned 18. She did not make Alex wait for the mastectomies until of age because the teenager had been living as a boy since the age of 13. "Everyone was absolutely adamant that he wasn't going to change his mind. He was very comfortable . . . that he was going to continue on this path."

The written judgement is due to be published soon. Justice Bryant said it was better for the teenager to have the surgery at 17 because this was an age where she would qualify for support from state social services. This was also a crucial time in her development: "It's a year when he's really cementing his friendships with peers that will stand him in good stead for moving into university and the wider world, and it was very important to him that he be able to do that confidently as a boy."

Justice Bryant said having breasts constrained Alex socially. She had to avoid being hugged by friends, could not go to the beach and had to wear binding. "So it was quite an impediment to his social development, which everyone thought was very important." The decision was not irrevocable: "You can have prostheses and things. So if he changed his mind later on, it's reversible."

Justice Bryant said she heard evidence from medical experts and from Alex, her counsellor and an independent children's lawyer, and she called in the Office of the Public Advocate "because I wanted a contradictor". The vidence was overwhelmingly in favour of the surgery, she said.

Mr Tonti-Filippini said he was also concerned that in previous Family Court cases involving gender dysphoria, the medical experts had been confined to a small group of Melbourne doctors who work with sex changes. Mr Tonti-Filippini said a Melbourne man who had had sex-change surgery at 22 was now suing his doctors because he regretted the decision and felt they had not explored his doubts at the time.


The Family Court's 2004 ruling allowing Alex to take hormones provoked a debate about when children are old enough to make serious medical decisions. There was another furore about a Family Court ruling in 2007 allowing a 12-year-old girl code-named "Brodie", who also wanted to be a boy, to begin a course of puberty-suppressing hormones. The court was told that Brodie had threatened self-harm at the prospect of her periods starting. It was later claimed by a relative that Brodie's mother had had postnatal depression and had "brainwashed" the child by buying her boy's clothing from the time she was a baby and fostering boyish behaviour. Brodie's father had opposed the hormone move.'

Some Days My Brain Hurts

From NineMSN today:

'Educating children as young as two about how gay parents have children should be a low priority for the NSW government, the opposition says. Responding to a book titled Where Did I Really Come From, which also includes in-depth descriptions of sex, opposition community services spokeswoman Pru Goward said the subject matter was not of interest to young children.The book is advertised as being part of the NSW Attorney General's Office Learn to Include program.

"There is nothing wrong with encouraging tolerance and diversity but why you would do that by talking about same-sex relationships? I find it a mystery," Ms Goward told AAP.

She said the book was more about social relationships than sex education - and that was the responsibility of parents to explain to their children. "Most toddlers won't take much interest, they are more interested in toilet training," Ms Goward said.
"I think there should be other government priorities well ahead of this."

The book's author, Narelle Wickham, says the book is suitable to be read to two-year-olds and has defended it as a mainstream publication. "It is just trying to normalise to children that there are many ways to conceive a child," she told the Daily Telegraph newspaper.'


Umm... did I miss something here? "There is nothing wrong with encouraging tolerance and diversity but why you would do that by talking about same-sex relationships? I find it a mystery" .Mysterious indeed. Perhaps someone should call Poirot?

Of Dykes And Men

Here is a email I sent to a women's kink list, as a response to the persistent harrassment one of my friends gets whenever she goes out in certain 'pervy dyke' crowds. It's not just her either, its happened to almost anyone with tits and a skirt in the scene, and its bloody tedious. Some days I forget that queer does not exist for everyone, and that for some the pinnacle of lesbian/gay/bdsm enlightenment is apparently the right to behave just as badly as the worst examples of heterosexual mandom (aka the Lord Daddy Master Of The Universe Sirs). Stomp! Now, the email:

'This may seem like a bit of a Miss Manners 101, but needs to be said. Apologies for stating the obvious, but it seems its not obvious to all, still:

As women, whatever incarnation that may take for each of us on this list, we have no doubt all experienced the unwanted attention of sleazy men at some point. The persistent, lecherous, hands in all the wrong places, non-consensual insinuation and groping. None of us would agree that this is the price we should have to pay for going out dressed as we want, where we want, with whom we want. Nobody would accept that short skirt= wants to be molested by creepy dudes. Nobody would accept that being out in public with a partner= invitation for obnoxious men to be aggressive and insulting towards our partner. None of us would suggest that when a slimy guy in a pub cops an unsolicited feel we should just giggle and shrug 'oh those boys! they are soooo cheeky!'.

Now, let's extend this a little. Try to substitute 'butch' or 'top' for 'sleazy man' in these equations. Swap 'corset' for 'short skirt'. And think about it next time you are at Manacle, or a SLPA event, or crawling about the Sly Fox. Maybe the 'femme' in the cincher is not actually 'asking for it' and doesn't want your hands all over her. Maybe the woman out with her girlfriend doesn't actually think you are funny or tough for cutting in and being a smartarse. Maybe when the girl you are hitting on says 'no' she actually means it. Maybe the fact that you are a 'woman who plays with women' doesn't give you an excuse to behave like a horrible ill-mannered straight man.

This is a community that I would expect to be well-versed in the concepts of respect and consent. Sure, you can be flirty, you can be witty, you can make bawdy innuendo and double entendre. You can hunt, you can chase, you can play the game. But the game does have some rules, no matter how long you have been around or how much of a super-top-butch-Daddy you consider yourself to be. Hands off when the 'lady' says 'hands off'. Simple.

If any of you are still struggling with this concept, maybe we could run a workshop? I'll be wearing the fishnets and tutu, and carrying the cattle prod.

Thankyou for your attention.'

Pink Elephant

More from ABC.net.au:

'A Polish politician has criticised his local zoo for acquiring a "gay" elephant.

Local media reports the elephant, named Ninio, prefers male companions and will probably not procreate.

"We didn't pay 37 million zlotys ($15.5 million) for the largest elephant house in Europe to have a gay elephant live there," Michal Grzes, a conservative councillor in the city of Poznan in western Poland, was quoted as saying.

"We were supposed to have a herd, but as Ninio prefers male friends over females how will he produce offspring?"

The head of the Poznan zoo said 10-year-old Ninio may be too young to decide whether he prefers males or females as elephants only reach sexual maturity at 14.'

PERV FILM FEST

I be doing something with Necrotitties on the Friday at Box Brownie, and lurking around most of it I should imagine...

PERV
Thursday 23 April - Sunday 26 April 2009
film sessions and opening night $5 each
or
Festival Pass $25, includes opening night PERV Peep Show. The Box Brownie Flash tickets sold separately.


PERV is a new international film, video and performance festival dedicated to QUEEROTICA. Encompassing a four-day program of screenings, installations, panels, parties and play that promise to stimulate, titillate and engage. Highlights include:

The Perv Peepshow Launch party
7pm-10pm Thurs 23 April $5
DJ Tokyolovekitten
Host Mr Big Pants
video sculptures, projections, peek a booth, slides
a celebration of installation, from the radical to the retro.
Drink up the sounds of DJ Tokyolovekitten as you mingle with the works of Lady Penelope, Marion Conrow, the peeping tomboy, Adonis, Kino 55, Samuel Hodge, Regret and more.. Join our special review tour of installation destinations with the honourable member Mr Big Pants.


The Box Brownie Flash 9pm-1am
Friday 24 April $20/$15
A very special night where all experimental media play goes, queer performers bend your lens with KK No Pants, Catheterine and Necrotitties, Adonis, Crash, Sarah Greenwood, Regret, Mighty Hermaphrodity, Stranger Danger, Tara Cook, and more with DJ Gemma and VJ Mim Visuals

Katrina Del Mar PERV’S Festival guest - meet the film maker
6-8pm Saturday 25 April $5
Katrina Del Mar’s infamous gang girls have been tearing up our screens since 2000. As a guest of the festival, this renowned New York filmmaker dishes the dirt on her formidable cast of truck driving sluts, roughnecks, petrol heads, surfer girls and candy lickin’ bikers. Del Mar will also introduce new works A Beautiful Death and Punchin & Crussin. Be one of the first to check out her lecherous lesbian vampires as they sink their fangs into each other at this premiere event.

Archiving tales with Tom Fairweather
1-3pm Sunday 26 April $5
Photographer Tom Fairweather has had his lens trained on the Sydney queer scene for many many years. Join him and Domino (Slit Magazine ed) in conversation over lunch and a cup of tea as they chat about some of his
favourite shots in his newest slideshow.
Food by the amazing Jaffle Café.

Perv International Short Film competition
7-10pm Sunday 26 April
Celebrate the best global purveyors of queerotica with mistress of ceremonies Kellie Jean Drinkwater. Cast your vote for the film that rocks your jocks to decide who takes out the seriously cheeky prize for the Audience Award. An illustrious panel of experts will also be on hand to present the Grand Jury Prize.

Check out PERV for the full film festival program

Am I Not Tranny Enough?

Today I went to pick up the leather jockstrap I had ordered a wee while ago. Custom. Black. Leather. Jockstrap. (Yes, like a BOYS jockstrap. LIKE YOU MAKE FOR THE BOYS, the gayboys, the leather gay boys-- just to fit my figure.) Seemingly simple. There was even a picture on the website I was shown. Same thing, with a few minor adjustments.

For reasons unknown it appeared with a very shiny/patent red trim all around it, and nothing at all like the one on the website. Like a girly bikini, sort of, with a jock-strap back. AND RED SHININESS. I have no idea what I did to deserve this horror, apart from having the audacity to be born willy-less. He is changing the trim, thank the god-dess of gender-upending, and I have requested he 'butch it up a bit.' I live in hope.

Of course, the Monster's leather-goods are all black and buckly (if suffering other eccentricities-- what DO BOYS THINK WE 'GIRLS' DO???). Obviously she didn't get red trim or girliness, not when she goes about wearing them trousers all the time, not like me with my skirt-wearing and my curious lipstick. No. All of this from people I thought were 'family'.

Bloody hell. Some days I am tempted to just chuck it all in, start ticking the Miss box on forms and forget all about r/evolution. Its tedious, its really hard work and on certain nights when the lights are out I barely have the energy to even cry about it anymore. But then boys don't cry do they? I love my crew here and will be sad to leave, but I miss my queer family SO MUCH at times like this. Bah. Only four more sleeps.

Mixed Business at The Red Rattler

Sex Workers & Lesbians Come Together, Queers, Ho's and Supporters Welcome

'Come and experience the best the inner-west queer sex worker scene has to offer - merchandise, magazines, food, drinks and performance at the wonderful new venue Red Rattler. Dj's. Performers Juliet November, Vashti Hughes, Ginger Schnapps, Mighty Hermaphrodite and Stranger Danger, more to be announced.. $15 waged $10 unwaged entry fee, funds raised go to Scarlet Alliance.'

Host: Red Rattler, Scarlet Alliance, LOTL, and many many more
Type: Party - Benefit
Date: 07 May 2009
Time: 19:00 - 23:00
Location: Red Rattler, 6 Faversham St,Marrickville, Australia

GO TO THIS *SYDNEY*

Rumour has it I may be featured in this issue *blush*...

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ISSUE 14 Weird Science
yesss its finally hear ! and its an amazing...!!! profiles, fiction, photos, its an awsume issue! Come help us launch the newest member of the Slit Mag family!

A Weird Science Affair to celebrate.
Get your nerd/geek on and get down to see sexy scientists Anna Westbrook, Molly & the Pony, Roborotic, MoJo Ju Ju , with science nerds to predict your sexual future and MC Zoe and with Bocky from Press Eject's playlisting some tunes in between!!


ITS a HUGE Weird Science Affair
Sunday 15th March 4pm-8pm
Red Rattler Theatre
6 Faversham St
Marrickville
Slit Mags $10

with merch from other great indi publishers so if you don't have your trannie trucker cards yet or the new issue of spunk mag bring some extra dosh !!

Clicking My Heels

And so I have missed Mardi Gras for the first time in a long time. The photos are slowly creeping onto Facebook-- the Femme Guild, the leather crew, the dancing queens, the hoop stars, the glitter and sparkles and costumes and hugs. The ENERGY, the smiles, the sheer utter joy and celebration of it. Marshalling time, all camera flashes and 'I LOVE YOUR OUTFIT!' and catching up with folk you haven't seen since the last Queer Christmas. Swapping eyelash glue and stick on rhinestones, last minute cable ties and beers.

Tonight in Perth I was meant to be going to Zoo club, the one night of the week when the freaks (such as there are here) come out to play. Monster is unwell, and all of my friends have piked for one reason or another. In Sydney this wouldn't matter, I'd be on a bus doing my eyeliner on the back seat, walking up Oxford Street to Phoenix or some other scene of filth and wonder. Even on a Sunday, any Sunday, the laneways and gutters are alive. Here it is GLBT, no Q. Monster has a shirt someone printed years ago. It reads Queer As F&^K, some spiky haired androgyne next to the text, a pair of interlocked + rings alongside a pair of -> rings. Two boys OR two girls, sealed same sex couples, the ultimate in West Aus queer seems to be when the dykes mix with the queens. Nothing is fluid here, not gender or sexuality or politics or passions, and I am still surprised when I smell sweat on the dancefloor. If there are queers in this city beyond my immediate circle, I don't know where they hide.

My hair is spiked and my fishnets ready, all dressed up for another night on the couch. Mostly I am used to it now, I have my routine of lesbian drinks nights and women's reading groups and hanging with my new crew to get me through.

Tonight though, I'm conjuring the smell of amyl across the Nullabor as I settle down on the couch with DVDs and the Monster. Ah, the Monster. Somehow she makes even this okay.

Constant, Craving

Words for when one just wants to sit still and have some certainty of what will happen next. But knows it isn't possible, or even desirable really:

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~Anatole France

The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones which will give him no pain or trouble.
~Henry Miller

The only difference between a rut and a grave is their dimensions.
~Ellen Glasgow

Femmes Of Power *LAUNCH*

i will not cry i will not cry i will not cry... the march activities in sydney just keep coming! for example:

Slit Magazine with the Femme Guild and Feminist Bookshop
present the Femmes of Power: Exploding Queer Femininities Book launch
by Del LaGrace and Ulrika Dahl

Come and celebrate this exxcitng new book a stunning collaboration from gender variant photographer Del LaGrace Volcano and Swedish writer Ulrika Dahl. Stilettos, lipstick, beards: there’s more than one way to be a queer femme. Del and Ulrika travelled seven countries in their quest to explore the notion of queer femininity.

Come and Chat
with Ulrika Dahl (Sweden) with host Kitty Minge (UK)

Thursday 5th March
630-930pm $5
Shows By Vixen Noir (San Fran), Lillian Star, Molly,Dj Pony
Food and refreshments available
Red Rattler Theatre
6 Faversham St
Marrickville

actually, maybe i will cry. vixen is in town doing shows and workshops all over the place and i'm not going to make ONE of them. BIG POUT.

TAWDRY HEARTBURN'S MANIC CURES

The Manic Cures Project

Do Something for Someone in Exchange for an Anonymous Secret
“The man who can keep a secret may be wise, but he is not half as wise as the man with no secrets to keep”

Edgar Watson Howe

You may be wondering just what A World Of Secrets, and Tawdry Heartburn are all about. I have been thinking much the same thing, for quite a while! The name Tawdry Heartburn, a draggy word play on that movie star (and you'd be surprised how many don't get it) has been rattling around in my head for years. Depending which of my buddies you talk to, I've been blathering on about doing something with Audrey Hepburn/ Tawdry Heartburn for 5 or 6 years, but I didn't wanna do just another drag thing. Finally I realised early this year that Tawdry was a man! Funny how if you stick around for long enough, life conspires for a seemingly haphazard confluence of events to add up to something that is possibly well ordered and more significant. Know what I'm saying? Life falls into place and now all the pieces of the puzzle seem to make sense. However, trying to articulate that effectively and succinctly, well that's the trick, huh?

The project is basically a free interactive performance and webwork (web network of sites, blogs, social networking pages) performed by Tawdry Heartburn, who is a character created by performing artist, teacher and qualified nail technician, James Berlyn. I knew that course would come in handy one day. God knows I hated the six months I ran my own business in a hair dressing salon in Sydney in the mid 90s! But that entry, "The Evolution of Tawdry" is for another day.

So, TAWDRY HEARTBURN'S MANIC CURES, can be a street performance or festival gig with just Tawdry doing the nails of participants/audience members, passers by or depending on the budget of the sponsor, promoter, funding body, there can be multiple Tawdrys, but the key element is that the audience doesn't pay. Tawdry does their nails and in return they write down on the note paper a genuine personal secret, and then fold it up like a ballot paper and put it into the cookie jar on Tawdry's table. Of course, they use ASSUMED NAMES ONLY, but everyone is free to interact with Tawdry or the sites at no charge.

So that's the whole box and dice (as I understand it) as of this moment. I have performances coming up soon and more of that later, so let me know what you think : email Tawdry at tawdry@aworldofsecrets.com

On at the Blue Room in Perth for the next couple of Tuesdays. See the website.

Trans Debate *SYDNEY*

The Gender Centre Inc and friends are presenting a debate that takes a light-hearted approach but gives realistic consideration to the topic of ‘Where does the trans community fit into the gay, lesbian and bisexual community?’ Does the T still fit at the end of the GLB?

Arguing for the affirmative: Katrina Fox, Stevie Clayton, Katelund Povey
Arguing for the negative: Tracie O’Keefe, Roberta Perkins, Rachael Wallbank

Hosted by renowned journalist and broadcaster Julie McCrossin.Entertainment provided by Jade Starr, local trans woman musician. This is a Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival event. It is FREE! No booking required, just turn up.

Date: 18 February 2009.
Time: 19:10 - 21:30
Location:Sydney Mechanics School of Arts. 280 Pitt St Sydney, Australia