Source: The Exploding Frangipani ; Lesbian Writing From Australia and New Zealand -edited by Cathie Dunsford and Susan Hawthorne

I wrote this because I am a queer woman who craves queer history, and researching the past helps me navigate my identity in the present. ... This is a love letter to the queer women who paint the history books lavender.

-Danielle Scrimshaw, She and her Pretty Friend: The Hidden History of Australian Women who Love Women (2023)

I'd highly recommended everyone (especially queer Australians) check out She and Her Pretty Friend by Danielle Scrimshaw! It's the first book of its kind in Australia, exploring the history of queer women in Australia through a series on individual's stories. We were also lucky enough to interview Danielle earlier this month!

Anyone who’s interested in ‘Australia’s Stonewall Moment’ will be interested in reading about the ‘78ers: the first marchers in what they coined the ‘Mardi Gras’ which turned violent after police blocked them off and began to violently arrest people. 

Tonight, 45 years later, Sydney hosts World Pride 2023 and the 45th Mardi Gras parade and it’s a huge celebrated event. 

We’ve got a long way to go - but we also need to celebrate our tenacity, our survival and how far we’ve come. 

Tonight marks the 45th annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade, one of the seminal moments in Australian queer history. Unfortunately— and in part because of the dominance of (US) American pride discourses, in part because of the transition of the parade from protest to celebration— there’s a general tendency to merely view Mardi Gras as ‘our Stonewall’ without understanding the broader context of Australian histories of sexuality and gender, or recognising the significant differences between Stonewall and Mardi Gras.

This year, I’m marking Mardi Gras by posting three excellent, accessible, and historically informed pieces on what happened on 24 June, 1978 & a piece about life for lgbtq+ elders, some of whom discuss the climate of the 70s and 80s:

ABC’s investigative, multimedia report on the 1st Mardi Gras— featuring interviews with the 78ers.

Sydney’s Mardi Gras: 40 Years of Pride and Protest— in pictures— Text by Nick Henderson, of the Australian Queer Archives.

The joy is waking up and liking who you are— Interviews with 6 lgbt+ elders, on their experiences growing up and growing to love who they are now.

It’s also worth noting that the ABC is airing a series on Australian queer history— Queerstralia— from Tuesday next week. Again, the Australian Queer Archives were one of the groups deeply involved in this, and I’m confident that it will be a genuine contribution to the public history of queer Australia.

Happy World Pride, and Happy Mardi Gras!

QUEERSTRALIA (2022) Episode 3 dir. Stamatia Maroupas

Ethel Richardson (Henry Handel Richardson) (deceased)

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Lesbian

DOB: 3 January 1870  

RIP: 20 March 1946

Ethnicity: White - Australian

Occupation: Writer

"every day should be lesbian visibility day" AMEN you funky little radio presenter

Three postcards produced by the Australian Queer Archives (formerly Australian Gay and Lesbian Archives, though always fully inclusive in practice), where I volunteer. My write-up below is paraphrased from the text on the reverse.

The first shows Aboriginal South Sea Islander man Malcolm Cole dressed as Captain Cook for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade of 1988. Text on back notes that this was a camp response to Bicentennial celebrations, in which Cole and friends created the first official First Nations float. It was a ‘ship’, pulled the length of the parade by white ‘convict’ men. Malcolm was a dancer, founding member of the Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre and a HIV/AIDS activist. More about Cole, including footage of him at Mardi Gras, can be found at the Blak History Month website (which is also a great repository of Aboriginal history in general).

The second postcard shows Lyn Cooper, wearing her ‘I Am a Lesbian’ shirt at the International Women’s Day celebrations in Adelaide, 1974. Cooper was a photographer and member of both the Women’s and Gay Liberation movements in Australia, specifically Adelaide. Her image remains popular and commonly posted in pride images and celebrations of lesbian visibility.

The third postcard shows the bushrangers Andrew Scott (Captain Moonlite- spelling intentional) and James Nesbitt, who met in Pentridge Prison (where, as an aside, Nesbitt repeatedly got in trouble for caring for Scott by bringing him things). They lived together after their release, before commencing their bushranging career across the colonial border in New South Wales. Famously, Nesbitt was killed in a police shoot-out, where the depth of Scott’s emotional response- he was reported to have kissed him as he lay dying in his arms- was remarked on even in the newspapers, without mockery. Scott wore a lock of Nesbitt’s hair as a ring, which he passed on to Nesbitt’s mother prior to his own hanging, writing to her as her ‘other son’. While the courts refused Scott’s request to be buried with Nesbitt, admirers later disinterred Scott and moved his remains to the same location as Nesbitt’s, finally fulfilling the request.

I have never been interested in soccer, however

GO THE TILLYS

If you missed the Lesbian Heritages show, you can still see it stream on demand til April 15. Just register and Max Dashu will send you the link.

Regular $20: https://py.pl/1zNJJD

Supporter $25: https://py.pl/1H2wsh

Low-Income: $15: https://py.pl/wkOhd

Lesbian Heritages

International view of woman-loving women, from archaeological finds of paired and embracing women, up to recent history. Khotylevo, Çatal Hüyük, Mycenae, Nayarit, Etruria, Nok, and the Begram ivories. Lesbian love in Hellenistic art, Thai murals, Indian temple carvings, and Japanese erotic books. Some called us mati, zami, hwame, sakhiyani, bofe or sapatão. Lesbians as female rebels: the Amazons, Izumo no Okuni, Juana Asbaje, Louise Michel, Stormé DeLarverie. Women who passed as men in order to practice medicine and roam the world. Punishing the lesbian: in the Bible, Zend Avesta, Laws of Manu; and demonological fantasies. Lesbian musicians (Sotiria Bellou, Chavela Vargas, Ethyl Waters), artists (Edmonia Lewis, Romaine Brooks, Yan María Castro), writers (Emily Dickinson), and actors (Garbo!) Lesbian clubs and scenes in Paris, Berlin, and New York. Lesbian feminists, and Arab, South African, Australian lesbians. And more…

"I am a lesbian, I am reality; I insist on living in freedom: --Rebeldí­as Lesbicas, Peru

On this day, 14 June 2014, LGBT+ activists visited Cato Island in the uninhabited Coral Sea Islands and declared an independent Gay Kingdom in protest at discrimination against same-sex couples by the Australian government, which governs the islands. The Australian government at that time was attempting to change the law to prevent same-sex couples married overseas having their relationships recognised in Australia. One Dale Parker Anderson (pictured) raised a rainbow flag on the island, declared himself Emperor, and claimed the Coral Sea Islands as a homeland for gay and lesbian people. The Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands, as it was formally named, dissolved itself after Australia legalised gay marriage in 2017. This Pride month, check out our timeline of LGBTQ history in our Stories app: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/tag/7789/lgbtq-history https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=644214321085120&set=a.602588028581083&type=3

Source: The Exploding Frangipani ; Lesbian Writing From Australia and New Zealand -edited by Cathie Dunsford and Susan Hawthorne

Interview with Danielle Scrimshaw

In today's episode, Irene and Alice interview historian and author Danielle Scrimshaw about her new book, She and Her Pretty Friend. She and Her Pretty Friend is the first book of its kind, exploring the history of Australia's queer women. We discuss the queer generation gap, how to navigate changes in queer language and identity as a historian, and the experience of doing research in the spaces between recorded histories. 

Listen now

Check out our website, where you can find out everything there is to know about Queer as Fact.

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[Image: The cover of Danielle's Book, She and Her Pretty Friend. It shows two women on a purple background surrounded by native Australian plants.]

Hi

1 love your blog and podcast

2 I’m really enjoying your weekly Palestinian film recs

3. Do you have more recommendations for Arab and Middle Eastern cinema ?

Thank you ☺️

helloooooo, thank you 🥰 I have a whole sideblog which I don't promote enough called @swanasource where I and my co-mod @thatidomagirl frequently post middle eastern/SWANA film and films made by swana filmmakers in the film tag here:

I myself am still on my journey of watching more swana films (and non-english and non-Western films) so I won't claim to be any sort of exhaustive expert. but here are some of my favourites!

Salt of this Sea (2008). Dir. Annemarie Jacir. Palestinian film about a Palestinian-American woman heisting an Israeli bank

The Persian Version (2023). Dir. Maryam Kershavez. Comedy about an Iranian-American lesbian who gets pregnant after a one night stand and so decides to learn more about her family history.

Kedi (2016). A calming and beautiful Turkish documentary about the cats of Istanbul

Ali's Wedding (2017). A rom-com about an Iraqi-Australian Muslim who falls in love with the Lebanese girl from his mosque who's helping him get into med school.

The Man Who Sold His Skin (2020). Tunisian thriller about a syrian refugee who agrees to let his back be tattooed and be part of a living exhibition by a notorious artist so he can get a visa.

Sirens (2020). A documentary about the queer Lebanese all-girl metal band, Slave To Sirens, set around the Beirut explosion.

In Vitro (2019). A short Palestinian sci-fi film about an elderly woman in an underground bunker trying to describe the world before to a young woman who's only ever known the bunker.

Cairo Time (2009). Dir. Ruba Nadda. Look, this film isn't perfect but It's about a white American woman who's husband is a UN worker in Egypt. She goes to visit him in Cairo, but her husband is waylaid so he sends his bestie played by the beautiful Alexander Siddig to take her around Cairo and oh my GOD the romantic tension of this movie keeps me up at night.

Butterflies (2018). One of my fave movies ever. A Turkish comedy about 3 estranged siblings who have to take a chaotic road trip to fulfil their father's last wishes.

do u have any bokuto timeskip headcanons friend? :>

yes! some of the ones i consider to be foundational to my timeskip bokuto lore since im sleepy:

to preface i am a bokuto lesbian moms believer and i think he is really close with them and continues to rely on them for help navigating his life forever. you will have to pry the way they baby him from me in a fight to the death

he and atsumu are like, the word isnt inverses but theres something about them to me that is the same but different idk, anyway i think theyre friendship is super important to both of them, like theres unspoken understanding between the two of them. soulmateism but for teammates turned friends. one of them has a problem or is experiancing overload the other one already knows and is on it kinda thing. is it realistic? no but i dont care. i think tho, from an outsiders perspective theyre just friendly, or just spend a lot of time together because theyre teammates almost the exact same age, but iykyk.

bokuto to me is someone who can be friends with anyone, but not anyone will be friends with him. i think if you can kick it with someone without prejudice you can kick it with him cause he has a very open heart but not everyone can handle its strength. he is however very genuine with his affection so most people at least get along with him over time if not at first

he is considered a bit of a risk when traveling because of his tendency to wander around paying attention to small details instead of important markers and gets lost

i also think bokuto and aran are best friends because bokuto is practical enough to ease aran's anxiety and aran doesn't hold strangeness against you

i think him and ushijima are work nemesis for a period. why? maybe bokuto retains some of his friendly competition for ushijima from high school and it rubs him the wrong way, maybe bokuto misinterperets ushijima's demeanor as dismissive of him in a way people who dont like him are, who knows, all i know is they one day both decide theyre over it and become ride or die acquaintences like they dont hang out but if you give one of them shit the other with triple homo spike pass you to an early grave

i think bokuto, if he gets upset on the court, is probably gonna get upset at himself, or the lights being a little brighter than he anticipated, or he didn't give the pose he wanted when people took pics on the way in or whatever- when his teammates start yelling at the other team/ref or kicking at the net, hes the one to calmly redirect them to focusing on the next play. all of this to say that if you see him pissed.... its a match for the history books.... im talking turkiye v brazil vnl 2023 vibes- fucking crazy

the little acrobatic tricks he does at the beginning of the jackadlers match is part of my personality. you (furudate) can force me to accept he graduated from university, but you (furudate) will never make me believe he didnt at least try to go to clown school.

he is one of those volleyball players that has your regularly scheduled match/ sponsorship/ travel/ occacional fancams posts but also whatever his current interest is is super obvious because his feed will be broken up by a million posts about cacti or a type of australian spider or a deep dive into every type of cloud or the color blue or something

hes the type of player who gets interviewed midmatch and after throroughly complimenting everyone on court he recounts every point like it has been the highlight of his life- the interviewer is always extremly confused and unsure of how to cut him off

hes also one of the life of the party players- gets a service ace and does a lil victory lap or does tiktok dances from the bench when the camera is on him

also this is slightly less related but bokuto's moms have taken akaashi as one of their own and bokuto gets really upset if they all hangout without him and dont send a selfie of their time together.

i think at somepoint aran explains to him kita's definition of confidence and after that he is better at not shutting down midmatch- he tries to anticipate things he cant anticipate and focus on the parts of the game that remain conistant- but it continues to be hard for him in day to day life- in fact id say that the older he gets the harder time he has

he and kuroo text everday- about everything and nothing- but they continue to be besties

i mean this seriously i think he can dabble in drag as a treat

i think he has to balance being himself and being loved for it and being aware of the ways people negatively perceive him...

everyone assumes he is a pr teams worst nightmare but actually that honor goes to sakusa, but bokuto will help him with it

im too sleepy now but thank you for asking!!

I can’t sleep. Let’s talk about the four sacred top fives of 2022 as in top 5 gay movies, top 5 gay tv ships (or shows as whole), top 5 short gay movies and for the next one, let’s change it up a little bit and I’ll provide you with top 5 upcoming gay movies (2023) I’m looking forward to and are currently in the process of pre-production, production or post-production.

Top 5 Gay Movies of 2022

5. La Santa Piccola - very different from your usual gay movies, but the scenery is gorgerous and the story made me feel things 4. Badhaai Do - amazing queer representation in Indian Cinema, "gay guy and a lesbian woman enter into holy matrimony to appease their families”... just pure comedy and romance and the friendship is beautiful 3. Fire Island - a classic rom-com, must-see 2. In from the Side - rugby gays, affair, romance... all of that 1. Sublime - since it’s finally available on VoD, I had a chance to watch it this weekend and the soundtrack and story got me... Mi mejor amigo vibes but actually gay

Top 5 Gay Ships/TV Shows of 2022

5. Heartstopper - a classic, it was honestly hard to rate the shows because they’re all equally brilliant in my eyes 4. Heartbreak High - australian Sex Education, obsessed 3. The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself - magic, witches, gays... c’mon 2. Prisma - very important show 1. Patrick/Iván in Élite - they’re literally everything to me, if you get it you get it, if you don’t you don’t, if you know you know and if you don’t know I honestly feel bad for you like I literally cannot explain it, I don’t have the vocabulary to sit here and explain like either you get the vibe or you don’t

Top 5 Gay Shorts of 2022

5. Catalina - a queer man and his two childhood best friends reunite for a weekend camping trip on Catalina Island... could there be sumn more? 4. Too Rough - Nick wakes up next to his boyfriend Charlie and must conceal him from his own homophobic and dysfunctional family... very sad 3. Jean est tombé amoureux - two football players of opposite teams falling in love... mm very good! 2. Swim - two swimmers develop a strong friendship during their weekly sessions, but their relationship is tested outside the pool, when true identities are revealed... this one fawked me up good 1. Hard - Mikey experiences awkwardness and struggles to navigate the uncertainties of his sexuality after his first time with a girl doesn't go as expected, forcing him to confront his feelings of desire for his best friend... this was so much fun to watch

Top 5 Upcoming Gay Movies in 2023

5. The History of Sound - Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor in a gay romance period drama? We’re looking forward to that actually! Anyways, they were supposed to film it this year, but they had busy schedules. Current plan is next year. Also Paul was hanging out with the director last month, so maybe something’s cooking. 4. Glitter & Doom - described as a summer romance musical feature told with the iconic tunes of folk duo Indigo Girls. Film follows a musician who wears charisma as camouflage and a carefree guy about to run away with the circus as they fall in love at first sight. Sounds fun. 3. Nuovo Olimpo - any Ferzan Özpetek fans? Any Manuel from Un professore fans? Well, looks like we won. Period drama set in Italy, following two men who have a chance encounter and then fall deeply in love, and then are torn apart. The film then follows them both over the next decades as they attempt to find each other again. 2. Strangers - yes, another one with Paul Mescal... yes, I’m crazy. And hi Andrew Scott. Directed by Andrew Haigh (Weekend, HBO’s Looking). Word on the street is that their characters will be romantically involved since Mescal's character corresponds to a woman who has a romance with the protagonist (Scott) in the original novel. We will be tuning in. 1. Bonus Track - film set in 2006, follows a small-town boy with dreams of being a gifted musician. When the son of an iconic musical duo enrols at his school, a powerful bond between the boys begins to grow. Based on an original story by Josh O'Connor (yes, him) and Michael Gilbert.

Anyways, that is it. There are a lot of movies that weren’t released THIS year yet, and I’m looking forward to them (Punch, Aristotle and Dante, Spoiler Alert,...). But I would be just repeating myself, so I’m not gonna talk about that.