q conversation: PAST PRESENT & FUTURE LGBT AUSTRALIA

The Wheeler Centre and Deakin Gender and Sexuality Studies Research Network present Past, Present and Future Queer Australia

Does Australia need its own Queer History Month? What is Queer History Month for? In other parts of the world, including the US and the UK, people celebrate LGBTI+ or Queer History Months to raise the profile of LGBTI+ history and celebrate the people – both ordinary and famous – who forged the futures we are now living.

Australia's own LGBTI+ History Month launched in Australia in October 2016. Two years later – and a year after the same- sex marriage survey campaign – the importance of remembering the past seems more urgent than ever. How does teaching queer history enhance our understanding of Australian history more broadly? And who, or what, is often missing or marginalised in histories of Australian LGBTI+ people?

In this panel discussion hosted by Daniel Marshall, Dennis Altman, Laniyuk Garcon and Sally Goldner will discuss some ideas for marking LGBTI+ History Month in Australia. We'll also discuss the work of Australians – including activists, archivists and academics – who have shaped our queer past and present.

Dennis Altman is a writer and academic who first came to attention with the publication of his book Homosexual: Oppression & Liberation in 1972. This book, which has often been compared to Germaine Greer's Female Eunuch and Singer's Animal Liberation, was the first serious analysis to emerge from the gay liberation movement. Altman is Emeritus Professor and Professorial Fellow in the Institute for Human Security at LaTrobe University in Melbourne. He was President of the AIDS Society of Asia and the Pacific (20015), and has been a member of the Governing Council of the International AIDS Society and a Board member of Oxfam Australia. In June 2008 Altman was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia. He is an Ambassador for the Human Rights Law Centre.

Laniyuk Garcon was born of a French mother and a Larrakia, Kungarrakan and Gurindji father. Her poetry and short memoir often reflects the intersectionality of her cross cultural and queer identity. She was fortunate enough to contribute to the book Colouring the Rainbow: Blak Queer and Trans Perspectives as well as winning the Indigenous residency for Canberra's Noted Writers Festival 2017. Laniyuk received Overland's Writers Residency for 2018 as well as being shortlisted for Overland's 2018 Nakata-Brophy poetry prize.

Sally Goldner is an educator, speaker, MC and occasional performer. Her involvement in Victoria's queer community has spanned more than twenty years. She has worked as executive director and treasurer of Transgender Victoria, presenter of 3CR's queer program “Out of the Pan”, co-facilitator of Transfamily, and treasurer of Bisexual Alliance Victoria. Sally is the focus of an autobiographical documentary, Sally's Story, and a life member of four LGBTIQ organisations. She was inducted into the Victorian Women's Honour Roll in 2016 (the first trans and first known bi woman inductee) and awarded LGBTI Victorian of the Year in 2015. She spent two weeks in St Petersburg, Russia as a juror for the Side-By-Side LGBT Film festival in November 2015.

Daniel Marshall is a Senior Lecturer in Literature in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. He is also the Convenor of Deakin's Gender and Sexuality Studies Major in the Bachelor of Arts programme, and of Deakin's Gender and Sexuality Studies Research Network.

Past, Present and Future Queer Australia Tuesday 9 October, 6.15pm – 7.15pm at the Wheeler Centre

FREE

This event will be Auslan interpreted. Presented in partnership with Deakin Gender and Sexuality Studies Research Network

Bookings for all events are essential and can be made at www.wheelercentre.com