Farrago [Melbourne University students paper] Terror in Small Town Melbourne by Aizura Hankin, Melbourne University Matthew Shepard was a university student in Laramie, Wyoming. On October 12th 1998 he was picked up by two young men then taken to the outskirts of town, tortured, murdered and then impaled on a barbed wire fence. Photos of a smiling Shepard, blurry and ill-reproduced, were reprinted in newspapers next to startlingly clear images of the two men charged with his murder. While one bows his head, the other stares resentfully at the camera. They both look scared out of their wits, and so they should. Shepard's funeral was picketed by a group of homophobic protesters called 'God Hates Fags'. They held signs saying 'No fags in heaven and 'AIDS = GAY CURE'. This kind of stunt happens all the time in 'small town America'. This killing is the latest reminder of a culture of homophobia that the popular imagination almost always forgets. 'Small town America' is the catch-cry you hear most under these kinds of circumstances. In that distant, imaginary world of guns, fundamentalist Christian cults and entrenched, traditional hatred, the newest folk hero is Eric Rudolph, wanted for the bombings of several abortion clinics and at least one gay bar. Incidentally, he is also wanted for the Atlanta Olympics bombing, for which he has finally gotten put on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list. Watching the news about Shepard's death explode into a furore over how 'out of hand homophobic violence has gotten' (as if it was never this bad in the first place) you might thank your lucky stars how far removed we are from that culture. Melbourne is a big city. It has a huge, loud queer community. Melbourne Uni has a Queer Lounge, Queer Officers and at least some curriculum which deals with sexuality, even if it's only in Arts or Law. Compared to 'small town America', a phrase I have read a hundred times in connection with the Shepard killing, around here is practically Rainbow Land. Right? Wrong........ During the annual Student Union Elections six weeks ago some things happened that, while they seem small in comparison to the murder of Matthew Shepard, are nonetheless related. A campaigner for the Bloody Feminists and Left Focus was told she'd never get any votes 'because she looked like a lesbian'. One of the campaigners for Tropic, next year's Farrago editors, told voters that the opposing team were unsuitable 'because they are all gays and lesbians' (a statement which is incidentally untrue). He elaborated that he thought this would introduce 'bias' such as 'too much lesbian poetry'. This was on Monday of Election Week. On Tuesday a Liberal campaigner did a lecture bash in Engineering. He asked students to 'raise their hands if they used the Queer Department'. Students were being routinely asked by Liberals if they used the Women's Room, the Environment Department, and anything else which that party thought was the turf of 'minorities': this was pretty much the only Liberal Club campaign strategy. The expected response for an Eng. lecture, stereotypically dominated by straight macho sporty males, would have been shrugs and murmurs. But when two women actually raised their hands, they were verbally abused by other students. By Wednesday lunchtime, a group of men from a Melbourne University college had marched onto campus to vote as part of their annual college name day festivities, armed with a megaphone, shouting 'Left Focus takes it up the Arse' and 'Vote Tropic Farrago'. A witness says she also heard them shouting 'Get the queers out of Farrago' and 'In-flight Farrago takes it up the arse'. They were greeted at Union House by Tropic Farrago candidates, who hugged them and thanked them for coming to vote. It is significant that most of the comments made about particular candidates' sexualities were accompanied by the statement, 'I'm not homophobic, but....' You could see these events in any number of ways. The sexuality of a candidate might be like any other 'attribute' of a candidate. For example 'lesbian poetry bias' might be likened to including too much postmodernist poetry, taking the Tropic Farrago campaigner's argument into the realm of the intellectual/aesthetic. Asking students whether they use Student Union services could be seen as valid. After all, the Student Union is meant to represent 'all students'. But sexuality is bound up in an individual's private sense of identity. It is not aesthetic or intellectual. It could be argued that by the blokey, traditional laws of 'fair play' which abound on this campus, even running for office is putting yourself in danger of having smear campaigns run against you. Hell, for some political hacks, dirt is what elections are all about. But discrimination on the basis of sexuality, like discrimination on the basis of gender or race, is illegal in this country. Thankfully, after some years of Labor Governments we have Anti-Discrimination legislation. An Equal Opportunity Act. University and Student Union Sexual Harassment Policy, because most people, including numerous advisers I've talked to, regard the incidents during Election Week as sexual harassment. Fundamentally, however, the incidents I outlined above were acts of homophobic violence. Using a person's sexuality or alleged sexual activity as a weapon against them is a time-honoured method of taking away that person's power and their sense of safety in the world. A complaint was presented at the Electoral Tribunal. But there are no rules in the Electoral Regulations which forbid homophobic (or sexist or racist) campaigning. Instead, campaigning is forbidden which 'disrupts the progress of the elections', eg blocking access to the ballot boxes. The only reprimand that was made was on the basis that saying 'In-flight are all gays or lesbians' was untrue. Tropic Farrago's response to voters who enquired was to say that Left Focus members were 'acting the victim' - even though a letter of apology had already been written by one of the Tropic candidates which described the behaviour of the college boys as 'appalling.... chanting and intimidation'. I am sure that this incident has caused them a lot of embarrassment. But embarrassment seems ridiculously minimal compared to the nightmarish experiences of shame and depression that queer people around the Union have experienced ever since it happened. It's not pleasant to know that you are hated. It enlarges upon an emotional state that queer people have too much of already: internalised homophobia - or self-hatred. As Election Week wound up there was this heavy feeling, as if suddenly the air weighed too much to breathe properly. Left Focus members and particularly the In-flight Farrago team were unable to campaign well, if at all. How is it possible to present yourself as the person most qualified for the job in an atmosphere of such vilification? When I heard about it, I felt literally like someone had just torn a big hole in my chest. I didn't sleep for nights and nights. For a while, every time someone talked to me about what happened, I either burst into tears or got a huge headache. More recently I've been experiencing anxiety attacks when I see particular players. The anger people feel (on both sides of the fence) has spread through Union House in such a pervasive way that it is now impossible not to talk about it, hear about it or think about it. Union House has become a hard place to work in. My stakes in what happened, and thus writing this article, are high. After all, I'm a Farrago editor. I am queer. I take allegations of bias seriously - not least because this year I've tried my best to create a space for queer writing in Farrago. I also have a certain stake in maintaining a strong Left Union and Farrago Office. One which will support feminist and queer politics/speech/writing/creativity. But although that fight has been lost, there is still something to be gained from writing this down. Firstly, if you know you shouldn't say stuff against queers but you don't know why, this is why: it hurts. There are plenty of statistics in easy reach to indicate that being queer (no matter whether you shout it to the rooftops, like me, or you're closeted) is life-threatening. People kill you. Parents disown you. You are beaten up by total strangers who know nothing more about you than that you may be a homosexual. Depending what country or state you're in, and how old you are, you might be classified as being mentally ill or institutionalised, forced to have 'therapy' to cure you, or given medication. And if you're queer, even if you've never experienced any of these things, you must still know what it's like to hate yourself. We are brought up to think of ourselves as untouchable, wrong in some crucial way. No wonder so many queer teenagers commit suicide. Secondly, it appears that this University is not nearly so progressive as we thought. There are hardly any helpful ways of dealing with what has happened. Sexual Harassment Policy (both at a Union and University level) is designed for incidents of one-on-one harassment between staff and students, or staff and staff. Harassment which has occurred to such a degree is difficult to prove and even more difficult to discipline. The names of the college boys are unknown. Besides, how can you even try to ascertain how much damage this has done? How many people heard the shouts of 'Get the Queers Out of Farrago?' In a social/working environment which involves so many people, and so much gossip, it's even hard to get a reliable account of what happened. I know that for me, the damage was done when I heard about it from someone who was there - not because I was present at the scene. Why does homosexuality scare people so much? Why do they engage in this hurtful behaviour? Is it because they don't know any better? Have they simply forgotten to think about how their actions might make other people feel? Perhaps. But aside from the personal grief involved, there is a hidden political agenda at work here. 'Those bloody queers', like the mythical 'Feminazis', are often used as an argument for a sexist, homophobic status quo to be reinstated. The scariest thing about Election Week was that Tropic Farrago won. They may be non-partisan. I am sure they all have journalistic skills and will run Farrago adequately. But I am sceptical about their ability to provide a newspaper in which voices disallowed by the mainstream media can flourish. Self-determined, indigenous perspective's on land rights, racism, dispossession and the state of 'Reconciliation'. Positive, queer voices saying 'We are proud that we exist . We are happy. Join us'. Feminist voices critiquing what is now assumed to be our 'progressive' society, where women still have to wear lipstick and a short skirt to be listened to or respected. An alternative. Aside from losing queer safe space, some sanity and a sense of community, that is what I will miss most next year. ______________________________________________________________ Aizura Hankin Farrago - Melbourne University's student newspaper [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1st floor Union House, Melbourne University Vic 3053 (03) 9344 6957 fax (03) 9347 9453 http://www.union.unimelb.edu.au/farrago
