AK Souffle: Happy New Queer

vintage-bodybuilding-ad-advert-charle-atlas-3

Historically in magazines this is the column where we profess to be able to help you become a new you, yes it’s “New Year, New You!” time. Of course the whole idea is based on that simple lie that by exercising more and eating less you can re-invent yourself. Of course you cannot re-invent yourself. Okay you can make yourself thinner and fitter, that is true, but a new you? A totally new you? Well no of course not, and it is a lie that is at heart almost as evil as those who propose that they can cure people of being gay.

2017 saw some great news in the LGBT+ world, the right to marry for gay men and women in Australia for one, a fact that for many came as a shock. Who amongst us had not realised that the great liberal sun sea and surf capital of the world was so far behind?

It also saw horrors too, and none more so than the evil being perpetrated in Chechnya. There men were, and probably still are, being hunted down and put into internment camps and punished for their sexuality and their families being made to make the most hideous judgements of their children and even forced to execute them. The mind boggles at such depths of evil.

Evil and vile as that is, I still think that to promise a cure for homosexuality is up there as one of the great global crimes. Aversion therapies, chemical castration, psychological conditioning are not cures, they are cruel punishments and lies, lies that may well change the way people live their lives, but they are certainly not cured. They are instilled with fears, stripped of their natural emotions either by the use of medication or by mental manipulation.

To promise a cure for homosexuality is up there as one of the great global crimes

So it’s 2018 and we already see that the battle may in places have been won but the war is not over, the war against homophobia and prejudice is still on and we cannot rest or be complacent. Yes, we can rejoice in our own freedoms and do so with pride and joy, but to really feel a sense of pride we need to fight for those who do not enjoy our freedoms.