Author: Shining Star

The Precipice

When I was in high school, the Catholic school in the area, I heard a rumour that a gay student was receiving “counselling”. I never found out who they were. But that mere thought was just one of the many overwhelming things that successfully pushed a naive, scared trans child further into the closet, not to emerge for almost a decade.

So, you could imagine that I have strong feelings about efforts to create safer environments for queer children and teens to be themselves. I wonder how radically different, and how much happier, my youth would have been had I been free to be me, instead of being forced to present a masculine facade. I remember how conflicted and wrong and ashamed I felt, and I want no one to ever have to suffer that. No one should lose their childhood years like that.

This caretaker government has made clear just how hostile the powerful religious forces in this country are to the very existence of queer people. Skin-curling bisexuals. Gender-whispering educators. Promulgating the right to jeopardise the education of vulnerable children. They barely conceal their hatred with weasel words, squeezing harder and harder as their grip on power slips away.

To call these people Christians is a sick joke. There is no love in what they preach.

But despite the overwhelming public defence from the majority of our society, the fact that our livelihoods and happiness remain the punching bag of desperate reactionaries makes me ill. It’s just a battle in the war. Well funded Christian zealotry is mobilising all around the western world.

It’s a fact that transgender people are their targets, now that their attempt to vilify gay people has completely failed. The United Kingdom is infamous for the moral panic in the media. In the United States, dozens of states are aggressively legislating to constrain trans people. And what happens there is inevitably imported here…

At times like these, like during the toxic survey last year, I despair, I feel overwhelmed, turning numb. But I’m thankful for my newfound security, and the friends I can rely on. I worry about those who aren’t so lucky.

I want to fight this nightmare forming around us. Where bigoted division sets us apart and into hierarchies of dominance. Where the marginalised suffer at the hands of the selfish. Where those who dream of a better world are powerless, condemned to the nightmare of the past.

The precipice we approach becomes starker by the day. We need radical change now. Let’s wake up the world.

Beyond The Horizon

Around this time every year I feel drawn to write about my experience of existing in a deeply gendered and sexist society. The first year I experienced liberation from a cage. The second year accompanied a boiling rage. I think I am finally ready to share some clarity around my journey.

My mid teen years was when I began developing senses of consciousness and courage enough to begin experimenting with my gender expression. Before then, all I felt was a deep fear of rejection, and the internal retreat to safety. I lost my self in online worlds.

I remember this one moment clearly in high school, a random, fleeting moment where I, walking behind some two people, heard them loudly deride me as “girly” and how uncomfortable it made them.

Visible. Recognized. That euphoric delight. I carry that warm feeling in my heart to this day. It’s a little weird, but that was one of the first times I felt illuminated.

When I first moved to the city, my dream was to disappear to a new life, a life re-gendered. How naive I was to not account for life getting in the way.

There was no momentum. My golden years were lost. Lost to weakness and fear. Lost in distractions of my own making. Lost to virtual worlds. Lost to the lower rungs of the capitalist mind grinder. An opportunity made and lost.

I can never get this time back. I can never undo the effects those years had on my body. All anyone can do is move forward.

Despite all that, my life today is luxurious compared to that of some of my brothers and sisters.

I’m white, with a voice and appearance that conforms to expectations. I’ve never been verbally or physically harassed by strangers on the street.

I’m never mis-gendered, never suffering psychic assault from a society hostile to life outside its parameters.

I earn a top-quintile salary as a professional, and my documents are in order. If I so choose, I could continue a life of success and gendered stealth.

But those oppressed brothers and sisters have more courage in one strand of hair than I do in my entire body.

The isolation of a life in comfortable stealth is not something I can bear for much longer. A tragic irony, to turn the mask of your early life inside out. It’s impossible to connect to the world authentically while wearing a mask.

Now, I have successfully transitioned between genders. Within my deepest self, and with a select few, I feel I have transcended gender. Despite that, living a more visibly queer life in a society that does not recognize that as possibility is something I approach with caution. The potential consequences for my career and social status are dire.

And yet, it’s my responsibility to use this privilege granted to me by accident of life to fight for a future where no innocent child, no questioning teenager, no jaded adult is immobilized by fear and unable to live their authentic self.

My only challenge is breaking down my own barriers, again and again. To resist my own fear and trepidation is to resist and redraw the boundaries of society. I hope to meet that challenge and succeed.

FOMO

It’s scary when you notice propaganda affecting the way you think. Buy property, buy property, don’t miss out, buy property, now’s your chance, buy property. Soon enough, you catch yourself thinking about affordable property, leveraged investments, maximizing returns.

It pays to note that the two of the largest media companies own the two biggest digital property platforms in the country. Exploiting their trust and distribution channels to prop up an asset bubble from which their existence is justified.

But it’s unavoidable wherever you go. Millennial colleagues are joint buying with the Bank of Mum and Dad. Middle-aged people servicing loans, considering upsizing to keep up with the Jone’s. Some of us in a better position trying to decide whether to start the trek.

It’s bound to crash, some say. It’s not a megacity yet, say others. Corporate economists and media analysts try to soften their messages. But interest rates are still at record low, and private debt is skyrocketing.

It’s a bubble. And just like the crypto bubble, you really don’t want to be holding the bag when the music stops.

It’s also worth reflecting on why we are here. If there’s anyone’s name to curse, it’s John Howard. The conditions he engineered resulted in an absolutely phenomenal wealth transfer. It’s classic Liberal philosophy. Steal from the many and give to the few. How the reality distortion field around him is sustained is beyond me.

Twenty two years of Howard is enough. We can’t let this fraud continue.

Lest We Forget

Lest we forget that the cost of peace and tranquility in our society has been war and terror abroad.

Lest we forget how the ruling classes and their sycophants beat the war drums and bind us with the chains of patriotic fervour, then and now.

Lest we forget that our country was not founded in the year 1788, or in the trenches of Gallipoli, but has existed for time immemorial.

Lest we forget our responsibility as winners of the lottery of birth to fight for peace and justice for all people of the Earth.

Lest we forget.

Not A Healthy Country

Just in case you didn’t notice the accelerating rate of which Australia is galloping towards full blown fascism, today’s outrageous statement from a government minister should be ringing alarm bells. There is no chance that this tone of debate is anything but coldly calculated.

If you ever want to confirm the current bovine nature of debate in this country, look no further than television news Facebook pages. Mind boggling comments like “Good. They need help. “Murder ” is too kind a word. These people are being brutalized by animals” are dime a dozen. There is a large class of people who have either been conditioned, or willingly, eat this shit up without a moment’s thought.

Years of propaganda about immigration, years of propaganda about asylum seekers. Years of propaganda about the ABC, and years of propaganda on welfare seekers. All these years of propaganda normalizing the insane levels of racism. At this point, I can hardly tell whether the media flame fanning is just to provide a smorgasbord of options for the casual racist to pick from. Today, it’s Sudanese, tomorrow it’s Black Africans, and of course Muslims, no matter what time of day. White supremacy fueled by market forces!

Of course, we all know this country has been racist since its theft.

When people of influence speak like Peter Dutton did today, the end result is invariably murder. Some mentally ill Nazi thug will be radicalized by these ideas and will murder someone while screaming “Reclaim Australia!”. When it happens, the nation will lament the tragedy without any introspection into what motivated the perpetrator. Like we always do when it comes to right-wing terrorism.

This is not a healthy country, this is not a healthy debate. And I fear it’s too late to do anything about it. The art of propaganda really has been mastered.