While on leave from this column I enjoyed taking part in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade, a World Pride reception thrown by the NSW state governor, and the Wagga Wagga Mardi Gras parade organised by trans woman Holly Conroy.
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Recent events have thrown my positive mood about the status of LGBTIQ people into disarray. I'm referring particularly to two violent anti-trans demonstration, one in Sydney and one in Melbourne; and a disgusting homophobic tweet from Mark Latham, a former would-be Labor Prime Minister and currently a NSW Upper House One Nation MP, and party leader in NSW.
Perhaps I should explain the widely used LGBTIQ acronym I'm using in this column. L represents Lesbians, G gays, B bisexual, T transgender, I intersex (that is, born with mixed male and female genitalia), and the Q for Queer, an all-encompassing term including all the above and anyone outside the heterosexual binary.
Latham tweeted a highly graphic and offensive comment aimed at Sydney independent MP Alex Greenwich, who is gay. Australian media outlets have chosen not to publish the words contained in the tweet.
Greenwich responded by calling Latham a "disgusting human being". He said he did not "intend to engage with the matter further" but Latham's comments further motivated him to fight for LGBTQ equality.
Greens Newtown MP Jenny Leong said: "The Greens reject homophobia in all its forms and are committed to working with all elected members of parliament across the political spectrum who show respect for equality and recognise that we all collectively play a role in stamping out discrimination in our communities."
President of Anti-Discrimination NSW Helen McKenzie said: "Homosexual vilification is against the law in NSW and is defined as a public act that could incite hatred, serious contempt or severe ridicule towards people who are homosexual."
Latham was also involved in the attack on LGBTIQ supporters by a pro-Latham mob outside a church where Latham was speaking in Sydney's south-west.
The event had been promoted by the church as a community forum on religious freedom and parental rights, with Latham as the keynote speaker. The protesters said they were opposing the One Nation leader's policies on the trans community.
One man said they had informed police they were planning a peaceful protest outside the church before the pro-Latham counter-protesters arrived.
"It just kept growing and growing and growing," said one of the LGBTI protesters. "At first I was like 'woah that's pretty big, there's like 50 of them there' and then as we got closer they all ran out towards us - we realised it was a lot more than that," he said.
"It was really shocking, I've been involved in a bunch of protests for LGTBI rights over the years ... but never something like this.
The third incident I'm covering today took place in Melbourne, where British-based far right activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull was speaking at one of the stops of her Australia-wide "Let Women Speak" tour, supported by the Conservative Political Action Conference network. Peppered among them were scores of neo-Nazis, faces wrapped in shirts and balaclavas, marching and performing the Sieg Heil salute.
On the other side were the trans and gender-diverse community and their supporters, holding pink and blue trans flags and homemade signs painted with rainbow slogans.
As The Saturday Paper reported, at no point did Keen-Minshull or anyone from her contingent denounce the actions of the neo-Nazis in attendance or even ask them to leave.
Keen-Minshull is well known in Britain. While quite open to posting deeply Islamophobic, anti-immigrant tweets on occasion, her focus is on the trans community, who she has called for to be sterilised and accused of stealing "women's spaces" and mutilating children.
Many people, including the openly gay Queensland Greens MP Stephen Bates, had campaigned for the federal government to deny Keen-Minshull a visa to Australia on the grounds that her public tour would create a significant risk to transgender and gender diverse people.
As to why these anti-LGBTIQ attacks are taking place it seems that, as society slowly changes, a privileged heteronormative section of society fears its dominance is at risk. The solution would be to educate these people so they have nothing to fear from those of us who are LGBTIQ.
