social justice

Working to eradicate inequalities by highlighting institutional, cultural and insidiously socialised biases and bigotries.

Being an Asexual Ally

Being an ally means talking to people about asexuality and accepting their identity as they describe it. It means asking questions only when you’re genuinely interested in hearing the answer. If your mindset is already fixed at “I don’t quite understand x, therefore asexuality cannot be valid,” then do everyone a favour and just walk away.

Outland Open Thread: Episodes 1 and 2

Last week saw the premiere of a new Australian comedy, Outland, penned by John Richards and Adam Richard, which focuses on the lives of a club for gay sci-fi geeks (or “science fiction enthusiast homosexualists” as club member Rae would prefer).

The Return of the Femmostroppo Reader

If you follow me (@vivsmythe) on Twitter, you may have already seen these: items of interest come across recently in my feed-reader (mostly). What did I miss? Leave your own interesting links in comments. Shameless self-promotion entirely welcome!

Hating Australia Day from afar

Today is the second Australia Day since I moved to the United States. One of the most surprising things for me to experience out of Australia was people saying–even in the American South!–Australia’s really racist, isn’t it? And personally, I hate that. I hate that there is such a strong implicit idea of who an Australian “is,” and how racist and dependent on assimilation that is. I hate the way that is enforced with violence and ugly rhetoric, and I hate the policies that our country mobilises against Aboriginal communities and refugees.

And yet. For all that I hate what Australia Day represents, I am more homesick than usual today.