Why I didn't feel safe at QC 2001 : QC SHAME Section (Laura Seabrook's Queer Stuff)

By Laura Seabrook

The following is an account of the events that lead up to and occurred at, and after QC 2001, from my own perspective. Unlike the previous two documents, this is fairly personal (and subjective) in nature. That's why I need to give you a little background first.

Pre QC

The Easter before QC 2001 was a difficult one for me. The boarder that I'd had for the last year was in the process of moving out. Only they weren't going about it the right way. They removed portions their stuff when I wasn't home, and then paid a midnight visit (with their girlfriend) on me. I've been rather upset after the midnight visit, where I could have been murdered in my sleep or anything. The bottom line was that I felt extremely insecure. I decided on the Friday to visit a friend I'd made via ICQ(1). I took my dog Pegasus, a sampling of the zines I produce (Hypergraphia) and some hot cross buns. They weren't home, so I left the zines and the buns, and took Pegasus out for a walk instead. On the way back from the walk another dog for no reason attacked him. It was a precursor of things to come.

I didn't have the friend's phone number, so I tried visiting again on the Sunday. She was home this time. She was transgendered and studyingThe Classics via correspondence. They happened to query my e-mail address and the use of Gallae. I said that I was a modern Gallae, a transgendered daughter of Cybele, ancient mother goddess of Rome (see my comix for details). Then all hell seemed to break loose. She claimed that the historical gallae were a party to various atrocities in the ancient world, and asked why on earth should I want to describe myself as a “eunuch” and so on. To prove the point she showed a passage from Herodotus, which told the story of several youths that had been forcibly castrated and sold into slavery. It was her further allegation that there was a “trans-national slave organization”, and that the Cult of Cybele (as well as others) were ready clients for such trade. Never mind the fact that the passage made no mention of the cult or any such organization.

Now of course this is at extreme odds with what I know about the ancient gallae -- rather than being composed of enforced eunuchs, it was a voluntary association -- you didn't have castration done on you, but did it to yourself. The picture of enslavement and enforced castration does not tally at all with reported rituals of "The Day of Blood"(a joyous occasion), nor had I found any reference to such in the research I'd done. But at the time I was just not up to arguing the point. I was worried about my house and my security, and what would happen next. She put it to me that using "gallae" as my e-mail identifier was on a par as to putting "nazi"(2) and that there was equivalence in culpability between the two. Then she announced that she “should know” because she was a communist!(3) She then went on to explain that Lenin had been a “true” communist, whereas Stalin had “subverted the system”.(4)

I was in tears at the end of the discussion. I had visited this person in good faith after meeting them on the net and had expected a friendly chat, not an unsupported and vicious attack. I left and when I returned home, discovered that the ex-boarder had come again and cleaned out my garden shed. Not a good weekend. The next few months I did some thorough research on the historical Gallae, slavery in the ancient world, Marx and Lenin, and socialism in general. What I came up with was this: there isno connection between the cult of Cybele and slavery as practiced in ancient times, except that neither Gallae or slaves were considered citizens. There was no “trans-national slave organisation”. It was all bullshit, with no basis in fact.

So why had she reacted so strongly and so harshly? I can only surmise that it was because she saw myself as a threat, on two levels. Firstly I part of a “rival religion” (which I now believe Marxism and derived philosophies to be) and therefore fair game. Secondly, because I had some knowledge of the ancient world, but different interpretations of it(5), I was “poaching” on her “territory” (the Classics). There were other things as well. She seemed to have a certain degree of internalised transphobia and lack of confidence in certain areas. No wonder she was doing the course via correspondence. I let the association with her lapse, and later, when I heard that her wife had left her, I was not surprised. In any case, these were the events the preceded my involvement with QC 2001, and probably influenced my reactions at the event.

As it happened, I was not well when QC finally arrived. I was recovering from a series of urinary tract infections. The infections were bad enough, but I'd also had an allergic reaction to the penicillin I'd been given for it. I was run down and lacking energy.

I knew too that most of the organising committee of QC were also tired and run down. A number of them were still recovering from flus and other illnesses; one was in hospital and several had friends and relatives who'd died within the month.

Queer Collaborations

When thinking about the events that happened at QC, it is worth remembering that there was a main venue at the McMullen Theatre, and individual rooms in the General Purpose (GP) building, which is two buildings away from the McMullin Building. The “Chill Out” room was also in the GP building (though I never found out where) and the Counselling Service was also available, though it was also on the other side of the campus.

Monday

Things seemed to start out OK. The scheduled events of the morning (in the McMullin Theatre) were the general introductory speeches and three panels: History for the fight for Sexual Liberation; Origins of Queer Oppression; and Feminism/Development of Queer. The idea was that each of these would have a 30-minute timeslot, and people who wanted to discuss the issues further would go to the workshops, which would then be held in individual rooms in the GP building.

In fact, that was supposed to be the pattern for the whole of QC - panels in the morning followed by individual workshops. The idea was not to hog the main venue, but allow people the choice to participate where they wanted to.

But that never happened. Some of the Monday morning plenaries were heard, but not others. Towards the end of the first set of plenaries, there was a burst of shouts of “Democracy” by a number of attendees demanding their “right to be heard” there and then(6). I felt like shouting out “mob rule” as a counter point, maybe I should have. The issue was over CHOGM(7) and planned acts of demonstration and resistance over CHOGM. The forced "debate" that took place on Monday in the McMullin Theatre was about the action to be taken on Wednesday. It was never clear why this discussion had to take place there and then, and not on Tuesday as scheduled (see Tuesday for details). I did hear one person say that they had to have something for a press release that day, but surely this was just bad planning on their part.

Now the forcing of the impromptu discussion at the main speaking venue (the McMullin Theatre) had several effects. It dragged on and on, and attendees had to make a decision on whether to stay for the discussion or not. Either they'd stay (and maybe participate) or go (and maybe catch the panels/workshops they'd intended to, or go elsewhere). The result of this was twofold -- there were less people in the main venue to facilitate discussion, and those who did remain were more likely to be "political" and be polarised into two camps. That means that a minority of folk forcing the discussion was likely to become a majority.

The ongoing discussion displaced and disrupted the events scheduled for Monday afternoon. I managed to catch the Queers in Star Trek(8) and later the Zines and Self Publication(9) workshops. I also went to a workshop run by Sarah Rutherford on Gender Discrimination and the Illusion of legal protection. So far as I know though, the discussions on Sexual Prejudice and Queer Theory and Politics never happened.

In the meantime I'd got to the NUSA printery and had hoped to photocopy issue #3 of my own zine, Hypergraphia. There was only one trouble, a distinct lack of toner for the copiers. Others were copying as much as they wanted, but the issue was to be reduced from A4 to A5 size, and I wanted the best quality possible. I decided to wait until the toner came in. I also bumped into Chris Lego while I was there, and helped him produce an issue of Legomen.

I had to go back to my home at Barnsley (about 15km away) at the end of each day, as I had pets to feed and guests to ferry about. This was the pattern for the rest of QC. No matter what I attended, I still needed to be home by about 5pm. Once the chores were done, I was free to go out again.

That night I attended the Queer Skate the Lambton rink. It was good fun to get back into skating again. I still had my boots from the early 1980s. I wore the T-Shirt I'd made for Mardi Gras that year. The back said BI : GOTHIC : TRANNY : PAGAN : ARTIST and the front said LABELS ARE FOR TIN CANS. I fell over only twice.

Tuesday

I got to the main venue a little late on Tuesday morning. I might have well as turned up at 4pm, for all that was happening there. What was happening was an “outrage” over a pamphlet that'd been distributed at QC. Apparently the objection was over a paragraph that appeared on the last page, which read:

This pamphlet was produced in a Third World Country by 8-year-old children who work in factories for 16 hours a day for less than two cents a week, and are keeling over from some festering disease. At least they've stopped making Nike shoes for a while.

It was unclear (to me) at the time just what the pamphlet was about or who had produced it. One person stood up and said that they'd been leading a campaign against sweatshops and child labour in their own State and that the above sentiments were a disgrace. There were many shouts of “SHAME, SHAME”. But just what was this pamphlet?

It was the “UniSA Freaks” membership form. That paragraph appeared second last on the last page of the pamphlet, below ones that read “Unspeakable arrogance” and “Jesus Fucking Christ” and above one that said “No Green Broad Left members were hurt during the production of this pamphlet... well, maybe only a little bit...” In other words, it was meant to be humorous, even if it was in “poor” humour.

Was such a reaction to the pamphlet justified in taking up so much of the morning session? Judge for yourself, as the whole thing is reprinted as Appendix 1 at the back of this booklet.

In any case, the whole discussion was interrupted by a young attendee (of, to me, indeterminate Asian heritage) who burst in to the theatre shouting “He just said that he can be a Bitchy Queen if he wants to!!!” He was referring to another attendee who was just outside the theatre having a smoke. Somehow this had been construed to be a racist slur. How was never explained.

Now there was quite a specific grievance procedure for the conference that should have covered this, it appears on the page before page one in the programme booklet. What “should have happened” was this: the young man should have tried to resolve the issue with the person he had it with; failing that a “grievance contact person” would have come to attempt to resolve the situation; failing that and if the grievance was of a general nature the conference sessions would then be addressed about the issue. Security might be called if needed.

But what happened was that the young man in question went straight to the people in the main venue, seemingly demanding a resolution there and then. At the time, I couldn't understand how a comment that someone else had made about themselves could be construed as a racist comment.

At the Post Mortem Meeting (see later) I heard the rumour that the “national broad left” (as the vocal group was becoming known to the other attendees) had at their caucus the night before, decided to “force the issue” about racism on Tuesday. This was never confirmed however.

It seemed like grandstanding to me. And the trouble was that both the above issues just took up time allocated for the morning sessions. These related to the CHOGM issue in one way or another: CHOGM; Why we wont win queer liberation without straights; Queers United against Capitalism; Queers and Education; Q.U.E.E.R., with related workshops afterwards. But to the best of my knowledge, these plenaries never happened.

I don't know about the workshops that were supposed to follow them. I was giving my own presentation entitled “How I spent my Spring Vacation” which was about the reassignment surgery I'd had in Phuket the previous year. But even if they did happen, there'd been no discussion beforehand to set the issues involved. I also went to a talk given by Sarah J. Rutherford entitled “What are the rights of the individual?”

I would have attended more that afternoon, but most of it was spent at the view factory arranging my entries for the Art Exhibition, which was due to be launched that night. I had three entries: two collages and a constructed book. All the entries were about labels, gender and identity. I didn't get back to the view factory until much later for the launch. This was also the launch for Querelle, which had only just been printed. Overall I think the event was a big success.

Wednesday

Wednesday was a mess. I really hadn't intended on going to any of the events that day, except to give some of the students staying with me a lift in. As it happened only one had got back from the festivities last night. I'd also promised to tape “Buffy” for one of my guests, and I watched it while she was still asleep. Then I watched it again when she woke up. I'd never been a Buffy fan much before, but this was the start of my getting interested in the characters and storyline.

In any case, I gave her a lift in to the Town Hall, where allegedly either an action, or planning for that action, was taking place. I'd heard from Stephen the night before that there was going to be a meeting at the View Factory (a local eatery and bar) as well, by attendees who were concerned about what was happening at the conference. I drove over there and stayed for about 20-30 minutes. Then I drove over to the town hall to see what was happening there, and only stayed for about an equal amount of time.

I did so not because I was bored with either, but because the disability I have comes from being epileptic and is a stress disorder. Put me in an overstressed situation for too long, and I just might go into a panic attack or worse. And the people at both meetings were stressed to the limit. I stopped at ACON first for a chat. I went back to the View factory, picked up my guest and went home.

I found out about some of the following details later (mostly at a “QC post-mortem” meeting).

A so-called "split" occurred on Wednesday whereby at least 1/3 if not more of what remained of the conference were persuaded or induced not to attend the Action Preparation that afternoon. This is not just the other meeting that happened at the View Factory, which was composed of variety of folk but others who did not attend either meeting. The “outrage” at the start of the day was the “cancelling” of the talks that were supposed to take place at the Town Hall by the organising committee.

What happened was this. No one from the organising committee was able to make the venue - they were just too stuffed to do so. Now they could let the room out, which in any case was booked and rented from Newcastle Council. They could use the QC name, but if “anything happened”(10), they would be individually liable. No one had any money to pay damages. They decided just to leave the booking as was, but without the QC name. Someone contacted the Council and the council put the “EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED” sign up at the Town Hall, not the Committee.

From what I saw of the meetings, they were vastly different in focus and intent.

The meeting at the Town Hall was focussed on two things: expressions of upset, outrage and betrayal over the “cancelling” of the venue, and attempts at devising an action to take place either later that day or that night. It was disorganised to say the least. There were accusations that the people at the View Factory meeting were all “right wing” and reactionary. There were plans for a march on either the local labor/liberal MP or to Centrelink. There was talk about a graffiti that'd been made at the back of the local ACON branch. Some people were accused of being “right wing scum”.

So far as I know, no action ever happened. There was no march, no demonstration, no action. And in retrospect I'm not surprised. The most likely candidate for an issue, CHOGM, had not been discussed properly. It must have been assumed by those who considered it the only issue, that everyone else also understood why. I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but I'm not convinced. No one explained it to me, or gave me an opportunity to consider the issue properly and either agree or disagree.

The meeting at the View factory was rather different. Everyone seemed concerned about two or three things: that (by their presence) they were being labelled as “right”; that the conference had been disrupted and overwhelmed by one vocal minority, and had been abused and disrespected in the process. There were people like myself who attended both meetings. One person said that there were more people at the Town Hall than there were still at the conference, and said that they'd heard that non-attendees had been brought in bulk up the numbers.

I have no idea if that was true or not, but that is what I saw and heard. No wonder I went home. I hoped at the time that the day after would be better.

Thursday

I arrived at the main auditorium late in the morning. I was not feeling too well. Outside the McMullen Theatre I posted the following quote from The Horned God(11) by John Rowan (Routledge) outside the main auditorium:

The word `freedom', as used by men, needs some careful watching. It is often quite oppressive in a curious way...

...I'd like to give an example of this, from a workshop on sex roles which I co-led in the north of England. One man in the group, a young guy with long hair and a tie-dye T-shirt, had professed himself to be a lover of freedom and a supporter of the women's movement. Now one of the things my co-leader and I had noticed was that the men in this group were talking more than the women. So the next time that talking came around , we distributed ten slips of paper to each person, and said that each time someone spoke , they would put a slip in the middle. No one could speak any more once all their slips had gone. This was an idea taken from a feminist group, who... ...had found it a good way to deal with the voluble and the silent. And in this instance the intention was to give the women more chance to talk, instead of the men doing most of talking. But we didn't tell the group this, because we wanted people to experience the difference before talking about it.

What happened was instructive. The man already mentioned got very angry about being given a rule or structure so restrictive, and in the name of freedom threw away his slips, made a longish speech about the rules in the group being just like oppressive structures outside the group, and provoked a political discussion which was carried on almost entirely between the men in the group. After about an hour of this (this was a weekend group) with a lot of raised voices and red faces, one of the women asked my co-leader what the point of the slips was. When she explained the point a great silence fell.

This shows that how the idea of freedom can be just as conditioned by the distortions of patriarchy as any other idea. The man here though he was resisting the patriarchal authority when in fact he was actually being the patriarchal authority. People today are much more alert to this kind of thing than they were a few years ago, and much less inclined to take would-be rebels at their face value.

To put this another way, we might say that this man was consciously libertarian, but unconsciously authoritarian.

I wrote next to the quote “QUESTION: Are we guilty of the same mistake at this conference?”

The morning talk was all about the “outrage” of the previous day, with accusations being made. There were speaking lists that seemed to go endlessly in circles. I got involved in the discussion. I was supporting the move to break into smaller groups for further discussion. Of course the recriminations went on an on from “both sides”. At the view factory I'd heard more than one person express outrage that they had been labelled “right” when they believed themselves to be “left”. Some folks at the Town Hall Meeting seemed to believe that they were “the” conference, as if being in a majority somehow invalidated the dissenting opinions.

Of course none of the scheduled plenaries happened in the morning. There were none that I know of anyway.

Then, for me, the shit hit the fan. I could feel the level of tension rising in myself and asked if the question (which was about forming individual discussion groups) could be put. It wasn't. The talk went on and on and on about things. I could feel the warning sign of an “aura” and rushed outside, where I just collapsed in a heap, trying to breath and not go into shock. One of the committee members (I knew them all, since Newcastle was my “home” uni) came out to see how I was.

After the panic attack on Thursday I wrote (before removing myself to safer quarters) a short note saying that “I hoped people could resolve their differences.” Frankly I wish I'd written “you should all rot in hell”, or “a pox on both your houses”!

I was shaken. LeLith and her friend Aneeka took me down to the Shortland Building where I sat down to a milkshake and some food. I was scrambled, not thinking straight for quite a while. Aneeka drove me home where I had a change of clothes and was able to relax a bit. After a while she drove me back and I did managed to catch Lelith's workshop on mental health. By that stage I was still jittery, but more ok, and up to driving.

That was all I caught Friday afternoon. I went home, fed the pets and watched TV.

Friday

It was a slow run on the Friday. I hadn't intended on going into the main venue at all, but I wanted to have #3 ofHypergraphia printed. The toner had finally come in and I spent most of the morning printing copies of the zine. Then I went back to the McMullen Theatre and sat in on the resolutions, while handing out copies of the zine.

The resolutions of QC 2001 are found in Appendix D. Did these resolutions get carried out? I might never know, but I suggest that you (if you attended QC 2002) find out.

I didn't last for all of the resolutions. I think I got to # 16 before fatigue set in and I left. I had been hoping to get to # 39 (about drag queens). I knew this was on the agenda somewhere, but lacked the energy to sit it out. I bumped into Sarah Rutherford and we had lunch together. Apart from distributing a few zines I did nothing else that day. I was relieved that the thing was over.

That night I went to the “Bakaratti Party” at the G. there I met Micheal and a number of others. I didn't stay too long. I was exhausted.

Post QC

A few weeks after the event, a “QC Post Mortem” meeting was held at the local ACON office. There were about twenty people present (including most of the Organising Committee), and the meeting lasted about an hour and a half.

The meeting was desperately needed. Many people expressed a sense of angst over what had happened at the event and how it had become dominated by one particular group of people. It wasn't so much that the people at the post mortem were against either that group or their politics, but the way they'd done things.

People remembered quotes from QC, which, although they may seem out of context, obviously made an impact on them:

I can't work with anyone who doesn't have the same politics as I do.

I came here expecting unity...

Can we have a vote on whether those people can leave the room?

You right wing scum!

Most people at the post-mortem had felt unsafe and unrespected at the conference. Most as well, just wanted to let the thing go so that it was over and done with. I however, didn't. I felt that I'd been personally attacked, and I felt that I'd been robbed of my opportunity to contribute and benefit from QC. I decided then and there to produce QC Shame.

Mailing List

I later discovered the QC mailing list (check out queercollaborations@yahoogroups.com). I went on this mailing list for a month or so, listening to what was said and making my own feelings (and versions of events) known. There was a discussion about “oppression” where someone claimed that there wasn't time for a “consciousness raising” exercise before the conference to educate people about the nature of the action. It seemed to me that rather than consciousness raising, what was needed was consciousness “expansion” (more on this later).

Here is a quote from Trev on that list (reprinted by permission):

The way the conference was originally structured, that is a plenary to put a point of view across on a topic, and then a follow-up workshop for those interested to attend and discuss the topic more in-depth, was done so, not on whim, but to try something that was thought might be more effective in sharing information. However this structure was never given a chance.

[It was] pointed out [by someone else] that he felt there was a flaw in the conference structure, that it was too packed with too tight a schedule, so workshops and plenaries were cancelled or delayed. The reason this happened was there was no actual time set for discussion, this was the first thing added when it was 'democratically' voted that the floor be the highest authority. This effectively resulted in a conference re-structure on the first morning, consequently the conference was never going to run smoothly after that, adding an extra hour to each plenary session was always going to have an adverse effect. In a perfect world I would say discussion time is beneficial, when time is there to hear people's individual opinions/experiences, however this was not the case at QC this year as in discussion time we often heard the same 'collective' opinion time and time again (often trying to link any issue with a certain 5 letter acronym).

Now you might think I'm paranoid, or I'm just stereotyping, however when I think how many times I knew exactly what someone was going to say,exactly, every time they got up to speak, either because I had heard them speak before, or just from the people they were sitting with, and if I can do that, I think something is really wrong. I thought the original structure would have meant that delegates could get out of the conference what THEY wanted, not what dominating groups felt the rest of the conference needed to get out of it.

I think that vote on Monday morning took away some delegates choice, and in return, allowed other dominate groups to force and inflict their ideologies on to the whole conference ad-nauseam, just because they thought their issue is most important. It is fair to feel passionate about an issue, no doubt, however what is not fair to purposely plan and seek, through means of intimidation and domination, to stifle others opinions on real, immediate issues facing them, just because it is apparently "only treating the symptoms, not the cause" as one 'radical' delegate said to me.

So why go to QC if you aren't prepared to listen to certain topics I hear you ask? Why go at all then? I think people should go the Queer Collaborations CONFERENCE to learn about issues they feel are important to them and to gain experience, whether on a purely personal level or to learn issues to take back to their universities/schools.

If I was to go by the collective theory of a large group of delegates, and what dominated the first 3 days, then the next time someone at my uni comes up to me and says "People in my tutorial are homophobic towards me, what can I do?" I would have to say, "what you have to do is get on a bus, go up to Brisbane on October 6, and protest outside this thing called CHOGM, then down the track you will achieve liberation. Good luck"

Finances as they are, and my life situation, probably means I can't go to Brisbane in October. At QC this year It would have been nice to have some decent amount of time to learn skills and things I could do on campus, no matter how small or how 'symptom treating' they might be. Perhaps hearing about other people experiences, what they have done on campus in setting up Queer Space, or instigating a Queer Officer, changing policy, that sort of thing. If only there was a time, perhaps a conference where we can discuss these very issues.......

The other thing that crossed my mind was in relation to the action. When Laura mentioned just because other QC's have had an action doesn't mean Newcastle had to, it was suggested that an action is a practical lesson rather than an action just for the sake of an action. I believe if the purpose of the action was to learn to protest then CHOGM was the wrong target. Just having a quick think about it, CHOGM is an easy target, easy to protest, not much thought or skill required really. If you can yell, chant, clap, transport yourself down a street, write placards, you're half way there already. Then add a group of already like minded people, and you're there, pretty easy. No one is really going to learn anything.

Where the skill is, and a skill I must believe was sadly lacking, the proof being what happened on the Wednesday, is communicating the reason for a protest, and why people should join in. The ability to communicate effectively in a way people will listen, a vital skill that so many delegates might actually find useful, that could be used on campus on even the simplest actions (like a BBQ??) wasn't something the 'democratically elected action' organisers could produce. If you can't communicate effectively and convince people of an issue that you say directly affects them (i.e. oppressed queers) what chance do you have in getting support of the groups it doesn't obviously oppress? (straights, men, rich?) (Note: Yelling at, interrupting and talking over fellow queer delegates are not good communication skills) Making noise, causing disruption and keeping up appearances are good tools, but only in conjunction with good communication, explaining why something is done.

At QC some dominant activists were good at making noise, causing disruption and keeping up appearances, but sadly lacked communication skills. The proof was that 3 days at a conference, they couldn't convince a large proportion of conference delegates to protest CHOGM in Newcastle, and in fact actually alienated people, the people they are supposedly fighting for, so there must be some communication breakdown there I would suggest. These people are supposed to be teaching us how to make life easier for queers on campus by communicating and rallying support from the wider community? Hmmm...
Trev <radon@hotkey.net.au>

Here's another quote, sent anonymously to the list (which I reprint not necessarily because I agree with the sentiment, but because such opinions were suppressed at the conference):

ADVICE FOR THE NATIONAL BROAD LEFT

A slogan is not a reasoned argument
Repetition of your opinion isn't going to convince anyone who didn't agree with you the first time.
Saying it again with even more passion isn't going to help either.
Punishing people who want to attend a conference similar to the one they signed up for is un-socialist.
If delegates wanted to be preached at and told what to think, they'd have gone to Sunday mass instead.
Repetition of your opinion isn't going to convince anyone who didn't agree with you the first time.
Having the loudest voice doesn't actually make you right; it just means you're ruder than anyone else.
Find a dictionary. Look up "satire", "tolerance", "respect", "acceptance", "democracy". Also, look up "conference". Take time to consider whether your actions correspond to the real meanings of these words.
Let the organising collective organise the conference.
Accept the fact that there are some people in this world who don't live on a diet of speed and CHOGM.
Repetition of your opinion isn't going to convince anyone who didn't agree with you the first time.
Some of us want fuck all to do with the struggle against global capitalism.
If being called a 'bitchy queen' is the worst thing that's ever happened to you, you've been a bloody lucky bitchy queen.
Not everybody shares your idea of a queer socialist utopia. Some people's idea of utopia involves:
Money
Fast food outlets
Deoderant
Lighten up. This is very important if you want to avoid one hell of a midlife crisis. Just because someone hasn't had their sense of humour surgically removed doesn't make them sexist, racist or homophobic. If you want to sit in a room chanting mantras all day, join a monastery. At least that way you'll learn to sound nice.
Some people don't see the obvious link between loving someone with the same-shaped genitals as you and blockading the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
Repetition of your opinion isn't going to convince anyone who didn't agree with you the first time. (Gets boring after a while, doesn't it?)
Some queer people just want to live their lives, love their partners, keep their jobs and kiss in public. They want to watch movies, eat at Macca's, go to dance parties (maybe even Mardi Gras dance parties), be romantic and be loved by their families. They don't see this aspiration as being subservient to a larger, greater cause. They regard the struggle to live their lives openly and without fear as the greatest, biggest struggle there is .

After a while I dropped off the list, because I had my final unit of directed studies to do, and that had to have priority.

I urge anyone with the time who's concerned about the direction that Queer Collaborations is moving in, to join this list, and let your opinions be known. If you don't speak up and get involved in the discussion, the assumption of those on the list will be either that a) no such opinion exists or b) you don't care either way.