Cumberland Council, which spans from Lidcombe westwards through Merrylands until Pemulwuy, passed a motion in February to ban drag storytime events. A subsequent motion was passed in early May banning books about LGBTQ+ parents from all council libraries. At the following council meeting, hundreds of protestors gathered outside the Cumberland Council chambers, one half opposing the ban and the other supporting it. Wrath surged through the pro-ban protestors, who made evident their vehement disgust at our presence through their chants that declared us satanic paedophiles, proclaimed that we were going to hell, and most alienatingly of all, that told us to “Go back to Newtown”.
I was eleven when I first experienced homophobia. On the school playground at my local school in Cumberland, my best friend and I would walk around together, her arm wrapped around my shoulder. Our classmates would remark, “lesbehonest”. The two of us also shared an Instagram account where we posted vlogs of our weekend outings. One day, a boy in our grade commented on one of these posts, calling us “f*ggots”. At the time, I hadn’t even considered the possibility of me being queer. Nonetheless, my expressions of joy and affection toward my friend were unacceptably queer.
Following the threat of economic sanctions by the state government, worldwide publicity, and community outrage, the book ban was reversed within two weeks. But where did that leave the queer community of Cumberland? Were we to carry on, as if the majority of our councillors had not just voted to deny our representation in public libraries? As if latent queerphobia within our community had not suddenly been emboldened?
Inner city queer activism functions by fighting homophobia head on. “Pride was a riot, we won’t be quiet!” so screams queer activists into megaphones. Except I have always been quiet. Many queer westies cannot afford to be explicitly and unabashedly queer as is emphasised in inner city queer activism. Such an approach will not save those of us out west. We cannot simply protest our way out of the homophobia that is deeply embedded in our community precisely because of the unique way it has been produced and disseminated. Any sense of relief for the queer people of Western Sydney necessitates our own leadership; a leadership that is informed by cultural, religious, and economic intersectionality.
Audre Lorde stresses the necessity of community for liberation. Two of my best friends are also queer people of colour who live in Western Sydney. We blast Chappell Roan on the drive home from uni (and Mitski on the melancholic days). We go out late to get sugarcane juice whilst lamenting over past loves, how maybe we should’ve just gone to Western Sydney Uni, and the horrors of living at home with your parents in your late teens. There is a uniquely tender joy in our friendship produced from our shared experience of racialised queerness in Western Sydney. We find comfort in the unrelenting community of one another.
This isn’t exactly a manifesto for liberation. But it seems sufficient for now…I think.
