Queer Honi is produced, published, and distributed on stolen Gadigal land. We pay our respects to Elders past and present. We extend this respect to First Nations peoples who have contributed and helped shape our worldview, as well as this paper.
For over 237 years, First Nations peoples in so-called ‘Australia’ have continued to live with pride in spite of invasion, genocide, and ongoing settler-colonial occupation. This process involves the violent enforcement of colonial norms, including those surrounding gender and sexuality.
In attempts to manufacture consent for genocide, the ruling class has constructed narratives that Indigenous people as particularly queerphobic. We’ve seen this both on this continent and in the ongoing genocide in Palestine. We know this to be untrue. In fact, there is no queer justice without Indigenous liberation, and no one is free until all of us are free.
From Gadigal to Gaza, sovereignty never ceded. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.
Earlier this year, USyd management threatened a transgender, asylum-seeking international student with deportation for allegedly writing pro-Palestine messages on a whiteboard. This has been part of a broader crackdown on free speech on campus.
In so-called ‘Queensland’, the LNP state government has banned access to safe and reversible puberty blockers for trans adolescents and rolled back anti-discrimination protections for queer people in the workplace. Abroad, governments are attacking queer and trans people, most notably exemplified by the Trump administration’s reversal of self-identification laws, border guards confiscating trans people’s IDs, and the withholding of funds to schools and universities that acknowledge or affirm trans people.
In this past federal election, the (former!) LNP opposition leader, Peter Dutton, promised to condition state and territory school funding on teachers not following a “woke” curriculum. Labor party Prime Minister Anthony Albanese sought to exclude queer people from the census while refusing to support any reform for LGBTQIA+ rights.
The corporations have ripped down their performative rainbow flags and ended their pride parade sponsorships, cozying up to rising fascism. Gen Z queers are partying less than ever amid the cost-of-living crisis, and queer venues are being bought out and shut down.
Indeed, it seems the party is over for performative liberal queer allyship. How did we get here? What do we do now? This is the basis for Queer Honi 2025’s theme, “After the party’s over”.
Things may seem grim, but this context should be taken as an opportunity: a beginning, not just an end. The queer community has faced hostility and oppression before, and we have overcome it through committed activism and solidarity with other grassroots movements. This is what we must do to overcome persecution today.
Projecting from my personal hopes, this artwork tries to explore the organicity and temporal continuum of Queer existence.
Coelacanths are famously recognised as a ‘“Lazarus taxon’”, or in simpler terms, a living
fossil. Therein lies a contradiction: simultaneously pronounced a relic of eons past, and yet still treading the earth today. It is a flow of lineage and vitality across these 66 million years that have gone by. I think there is an innate will to exist that underlies the resilience of LGBTQ+ communities and individuals. The recent surges of hate-fueled legislations across the world has led me to reflect upon what lies at the core of Queer resistance. Resistance is positive; it creates, transforms, extends itself in the same way as Coelacanths escaping from fossil records. It is a life-force. I wish to reach into the future, to grow old. When following generations look at me, may they see the living proof that Queer people have existed and will always exist.
Hyacint @clozaphim on Twitter
