T.M. Shannon

Hi everyone,

Well, things still aren’t going well. Anxiety’s being a beast, motivation is currently down the toilet, and while my thoughts aren’t bleak, I feel bleak.

Yes, I’m still counting down the days to my psych appointment. And having done a budget, I’m seeing money traipse merrily forth from the bank account.

Not a good place to be, but still, there’s hope on the horizon, though my June ’25 release of Three Ways is on very shaky ground.

But I promised an On Matters Queer post, so here goes.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

The majority of the world is cishet. There’s nothing wrong with this, and “cis” is not a slur anywhere along the lines of f****t, t****y, p**f, or any other derogatory term thrown at the queer community by straight people offended by the word cis.

For the record, “cis” is a Latin word meaning “on the side of,” and “cisgender” basically means “the same gender as presenting at birth,” or simply, “not transgender.” Still, many melt at the very mention of the world, and sadly they have megaphones and congregate.

But getting back on track, being the same gender you present as at birth, being a woman attracted to men and vice versa, is nothing to be condemned, and isn’t under threat from people who aren’t cishet no matter what the detractors say.

It’s the same as white people not being under threat of Black, Asian, Hispanic, Indigenous, and non-white people.

Statistically (courtesy of Rainbow Health Victoria), 3 to 4% Australians identify as Gay, Lesbian, or Bisexual; experiences and/or attraction, however, were higher: 8.9% for men, 19.2% for women.

In numbers, based on 2023 Australian population figures of 26.64 million, that’s about 799 thousand to 1 million people identified (or 8.9 to 11.1 Wembley Stadiums), and 2.37 million men and 5.11 million women with experiences and/or attraction (a lot more Wembley Stadiums).

Yes, it’s a minority. No, this won’t be the full numbers with people afraid/ashamed to come forward for surveys, people not knowing about the surveys, people closeted and those possibly repressed into denial (be it religious or otherwise). But that’s still a lot of people.

And this is just three attractions/experiences – though bisexual is a broad category with its siblings, pansexuality and omnisexuality.

We haven’t even gotten to transgender men and women, non-binary they/thems, fluidic categories, interracial and indigenous identities, aro/ace identities, basically everything that doesn’t fit into the neat, cishet square hole – no offence intended.

Which is why we’ve adopted the rainbow (with the newer inclusion flags an increase on community identities). We haven’t stolen the Judaic rainbow from after the Flood, the sign of God’s covenant, but rather identified with the post-rain spectral phenomenon.

We are a spectrum of people, ideally unified in our queerness. This isn’t to say the community is without racism, homophobia, biphobia (I’ve copped this from two queer people), transphobia and other dismay, and get-out attitudes especially to “newer” queer identities.

Those speech marks are deliberate, because to me, these identities existed before we had the language or courage to express them, just like my own.

But all in all, and with progress and Pride, we’re a vibrant community, product of protests – which are still ongoing, and shifting against the recent trans hatred seen across the world.

Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Glitter

The Stonewall Riots weren’t the beginning of the movement, as I just found out over at The Arcus Foundation on the www.

The protests in America began in the 1950s and 60s, the same time as the Civil Rights Movement. And its these old pioneers joining with the younger, radicalised queers who, after Stonewall, shaped the rest of the movement for the future.

Thanks, everyone.

Consider these earlier protests all the powder in the keg, and Stonewall the spark – the turning point of the queer rights movement, from which the first protests in solidarity with and memory of the Riots spread across the world – including Sydney in 1978.

Across decades, queer people have fought with their lives and reputations – the 78ers were assaulted, jailed, and doxxed by the Sydney Morning Herald.

And the protests returned year after year as things shifted, continued now as our Pride marches, the Mardi Gras in Sydney, though the focus is ongoing.

“Abberent sexualities” would be taken out of the DSM and instead studied with respect and for understanding. Homosexuality would be decriminalised in Australia and many countries. Anti-discrimination laws came to try and protect us.

De-facto relationships would be recognised, and eventually we’d have legal marriages – though why it had to be a plebiscite, and why some had to protect some Christians “living the Christian ethos” that neglects love thy neighbour as yourself, is beyond me.

Thanks Liberals.

But political persuasions are an argument for another time/space. The blood, sweat, and tears is now mostly glitter and gladness, supported by acceptance and alliance, though as I said, the fight still isn’t over – and in many countries, being queer is a crime punishable by death.

Living Human Beings Worth Love, Respect, Acceptance

We can owe a lot of queerphobia and outright hatred to the Abrahamic faiths which all include a certain book with a certain rule against men lying with men and women lying with women.

We can also see laws written in the same set of books about how the disabled and disfigured can’t come into the Tabernacle, how menstruating women have to live in a separate tent and are unclean for 14 days after, and declaring the back half of a cow is haram.

Arguments for another time, of course, but there’s a saying amongst those wounded and spoken against by probably the biggest Abrahamic following, “There’s no hate like Christian love.”

As with all things xenophobia, it comes with dehumanisation, getting whacked over the head by the Bible, “You know the rules say…” (like I haven’t heard it a thousand times before), minimisation and even demonisation, that queer people are less than cishets, even human.

Punch us, we bruise. Cut us, we bleed. Poison us, we die.

I personally don’t get hatred, especially being on the receiving end of it. It makes no logical sense, it spits in the face of our shared ancestry -we all have DNA from the hominids that left the Great Lift Valley and migrated across the face of the earth.

We all breathe air, we all need food to live and function, and we can have our blood transfused to others to save their very lives. We all make up a community, we all have a role to play in society, and we have an innate nature to help out those in need, especially when in crisis.

Well, mostly. This is steadily going by the wayside with society twisted towards, “Me, me, me.”

So, why the queer hate?

We’re different from what society has been conditioned to see as “normal.”

Granted, being bipolar with an addiction, I wouldn’t mind being normal and not psychiatrically a crackpot.

But this “normal,” much like the toxic masculinity “normal” of a muscle-bound hate machine, the TERF “normal” of what it means to be a woman (if it’s word rhyming with witch and starting with B, they’re right), the Catholic or Islamic “normal,” cuts the humanity away.

Queer people have fought and continue to fight for equality and equity, to be loved as neighbours, to be accepted as a part of the human condition, and not seen as a danger or the third Babylon, or demeaned, dismissed, or destroyed for whatever reason.

We have those allied with us, supporters, accepters. But we also have mere tolerators so long as it’s not, “Shoved down our throats,” when queer people have to have heterosexuality shoved down their throats their whole lives and have to grow from the cradle into a hostile world.

Maybe it’s the old tribal thing, my tribe good, your tribe bad, when the general call of humanity is to be one people on one planet regardless our languages, attractions, and the colour of our skin.

And boy are some cishets grossly intolerant and fragile, their “identities” being stripped away from them by people just living, breathing, and eating, all because they’re different.

Perhaps a day will come when the haters give up their hate. It’d have to be hitting a rock bottom like all addicts and taking up the epiphany to change or wander closer to oblivion.

Hopefully one day, the queer community can have our humanity recognised and celebrated as endlessly as everybody else who doesn’t have to fight to be seen as worth it, and a part of the human story.

That, enbies and gentlethems, is the queer agenda. Acceptance, understanding, nurturing those who will become part of the community one day, and helping those outside understand we’re just people and not out to cause physical, mental, and societal anguish.

Scary? Only to the fragile panic-merchants.

And I Think I’m Done

Actually, no, I know I’m done and have said what I wanted to say.

So, I’ll leave it there for the week, may or may not do a Wednesday prompt, I’m a little ambivalent about that. Here’s to some site traffic, if you’ve made it this far, check out my other content accessible via the side bar, and I’ll catch you later.

Stay human and loving everyone,
T. M.