In December, the Ethics Centre, the organisation in charge of the Intelligence Squared (IQ2) debates, released details of its first 2016 debate.
Then titled A Trans Wo/Man Can Never Be Fe/Male, the event caused an uproar, and within days, comments on the Facebook event were disabled, the name of the event was changed to Gender Identity Debate (Title TBC),and the Ethics Centre released a statement saying essentially that it was consulting people, and hadn’t finalised details yet.
The premise of the debate served to argue the legitimacy of transgender identities. Understandably, the community of trans people was outraged, having had their identities legitimated by themselves, as well as in many cases the state, and by medical professionals for some time now. To have to then defend themselves once again, in a debate, seemed rather archaic (as well as incredibly offensive).
The event then sort of disappeared from our collective minds, and Facebook feeds, until it quietly resurfaced last week, in the most surprising of places.
Scrolling through the Mardi Gras’ official program, I came across the reincarnation of this debate. Now titled Society Must Recognise Trans People’s Gender Identities, the change in tune was obvious. And yet, being a debate, one must assume there is a negative side to this proposition, arguing against it – that society doesn’t need to recognise trans people’s gender identities – as though this is something still up for debate, as though Australia doesn’t already legally recognise transgender people. And Mardi Gras supports this event. As though transgender people aren’t already vilified enough in Australia, hey, why don’t we get one of the biggest gay and lesbian organisations to vilify them too?
Mardi Gras has often been criticised for its exclusion of transgender people. Usually it’s implicit, by supporting organisations (like Facebook) who regularly discriminate against trans people, or by having events, and films, that overwhelmingly favour cis* gay male narratives, closely followed by cis lesbian narratives. However, now the exclusion of transgender people is so overt that Mardi Gras is publicly supporting an event that is putting people’s lives up for debate.
The Ethics Centre has a history of trying to be provocative, and mostly just wildly missing the mark. Do you remember the honour killings talk at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas a few years ago? The talk was cancelled, the title probably misrepresented the speaker Uthman Badar’s actual views, and it mostly just generated a lot of awkward publicity for the event, and its co-curator, the Ethics Centre.
The Festival of Dangerous Ideas last year was similarly controversial, with speaker Naomi Klein denouncing the Ethics Centre for having Jim Molan on its board. Molan was instrumental in Tony Abbott’s Operation Sovereign Borders policy, the program that relies so heavily on offshore detention (and we all know how well that’s going). The board stood by Molan then, but the question is, why should Mardi Gras? With an event like this IQ2 debate?
Mardi Gras is about celebrating diversity and difference. It seems so thoroughly out of step with the festival’s ethos that it would throw its support behind an event that is so obviously designed to be provocative, and as a result, belittles an entire group of people. Even though a Mardi Gras event the following night, Gender Trailblazers, claims to argue against issues raised in the debate, why are we arguing these at all?
Freedom of speech is important, but the freedom to exist is fundamental. Debating the legitimacy of trans lives isn’t freedom of speech, it’s bigotry. Mardi Gras can do better.
*Cis refers to cisgender, a term for those born into the gender they identify with.
This Week…
Thankfully, there are a few good Mardi Gras events that are supportive of trans people. Make sure you see Kaleidoscope at the Kings Cross Theatre, running now until Friday March 4. The play explores a normal day in the life of Gabriel, a trans guy who’s just trying to leave his house. Also worth seeing is Looking 4 Dick, a stand-up comedy show about BenT’s search for dick, on at El Rocco on Thursday February 25 – Friday February 26 and Thursday March 3 – Friday March 4.
This Friday February 26, in true Mardi Gras fashion, is a busy night. Homosocial is happening back at its old haunt of Secret Garden Bar, L’Oasis #6is on at Slyfox, and Hellfire, the fetish club, is back at The Shift. Start your night at Homosocial with cheap cocktails, before deciding where to kick on.
Gay gamers rejoice! GX Australia is happening this weekend (Saturday February 27 – Sunday February 28) at the Australian Technology Park. The convention celebrates diversity in games, pop culture and life generally.
Also this weekend is Queer Provocations at the Red Rattler. With workshops, discussions, film screenings, performances and installations, this festival is designed to be an alternative to Queer Thinking’s Mardi Gras program, and is set to be provocative, without taking cheap shots at marginalised groups like IQ2’s event.
[Main image:courtesy Mike Mozart /flickr.com/photos/jeepersmedia]
