DEMO TODAY TUES LUNCHTIME PARLT AGAINST ANTI-SEX WORK LAW

This law, passed by the lower house in NSW last Friday, makes it legal for a man to dob in his partner as a "whore", and she, single mother of four, could have her power and phone cut off on this one accusation, as she is guilty until proven innocent! Media release from Scarlet Alliance follows:

SARTOR BRINGS BACK THE PAPERBAG-MEN

WHAT: Sex workers protest against the "Brothels Legislation Amendment Bill 2007"

WHEN: Tuesday 26th June, 2007, 12.30pm

WHERE: Parliament House, Macquarie Street

WEARING: Red

CARRYING: Paper bags of $$$ to influence the Parliament

WHY: The new laws will be a return to the old "Paper Bag" days

Iemma and Sartor are reversing the decriminalisation of the sex industry in NSW by introducing harsh and discriminatory laws that will oversee eviction of private workers from their homes, power and electricity cut off from non-Council approved brothels, and the Land and Environment Court hearing applications aiming to render entire sections of neighbourhoods 'sex industry free.'

The Bill was introduced to parliament late on Wednesday night, was rammed through the Legislative Assembly on Friday and is expected to be rushed through the Legislative Council tomorrow.

Saunas, performance venues, burlesque... any venue that allows nudity could be subject to the new laws.

For Media Comment call:
Janelle Fawkes 0411 985 135
Manager
Scarlet Alliance
The Australian Sex Workers Association
http://www.scarletalliance.org.au

The proposed Bill includes –

- Removal of natural justice

- Council will have the power to have amenities like phone and power turned off and a fining regime implemented.

- A Court may determine a place was a brothel without any direct evidence and may accept circumstantial evidence, and without the sex worker in question being able defend themselves against the allegations.

- A new definition of "sex related uses" in the "Environmental Planning and Assessment Act" includes all premises where nudity and money are involved: clubs, performance venues, and art spaces will be effected.

- Instead of councils needed to receive "sufficient complaints about the brothel" prior to taking action, Councils can now take closure action after only one complaint.

- An owner of an apartment building where a private sex worker is working can be subject to these new laws. A defense for the owner is to evict the sex worker. This is without to the sex worker having a chance to challenge the order.

- As the definition of brothel still includes one person working as a sex worker in their own home, the increased Council power including acting on only 1 complaint and without the need to prove prostitution takes place.

Straight Traps, Gay Ghettos, Identity and Happiness

Thinking about the Hijra and why they live a separate ghettoised life, I realised that I choose a broader community, rather than accept society's labelling of me as an outcast (by virtue of transgressing or transcending gender).

I don't want to hang around people with the same gender/sexuality label, as this cuts me off from a potential sexual partner if my desires are for someone more complimentary than mirroring. It also cuts me off from the human race, or internalises the judgement that I can't mix freely with the gregariously hard-wired species I am part of. And it puts up the destructive notion that the "normative" humans have some rarified perfection because of their gender normativity, when conforming to any unnatural standard causes stress and anxiety, and at the end of the day, if the categories of "man" and "woman" were natural, they would not need so much artificial reinforcement (in hair styles, for example, or body statements where one sex is hidden and powerful and the other revealed and pretty, or (for men) the denial of any childlike implulses, and (for women) the painting of the face to stimulate constant sexual arousal)... And so I see the common human condition of people having to choose how they react to the imposition of external or authoritarian ideas about how they should act.

Transgender and cisgender people are both trapped in suffering as long as they base their happiness on other people's judgments, or even on conforming to being exclusively transgender or cisgender. Long term happiness is only possible when we move beyond our ideas of what separates us from others, and identify our wellbeing with the collective wellbeing, that is, humans cannot be happy as long as they have to identify as individual separate beings not connected to others, and their happiness increases with the increase in sense of connection. Seeing beyond arbitrary divisions (like me, not like me, of my tribe, not of my class, of the gender exactly opposite me, not of appropriate gender behaviour, and so on) is essential to long term mental health and happiness.

Personally, I socialise with others who have freed themselves from authoritarianism, who allow themselves and others to express themselves freely without fear of being policed on what others deem appropriate for whatever they've judged my race/gender/class/age to be. I am no more comfortable with transgender people policing my gender, deeming me acceptable only if I do their idea of gender and deeming me not good enough if I am happy to be seen as gender ambiguous or incongruent, than I am with cis-gendered "heterosexuals" dismissing me as less than a woman and less than a man.

Arbitrary classifications of humans is an adaption to conditions that no longer exist, and now a maladaption that humanity is easing itself out of (ending slavery, recognising indigenous people as people, giving women the vote, ending discrimination based on marital status, race, age, religion, political affiliation, and even transgender status..), and I understand that MPs in the UK are drafting legislation to include recognition of people who don't want to list either (only) of "male" or "female: as part of their legal identity.

I am not free if only people in boxes A and B are OK, nor if only people in boxes A to Z are OK, for not all people belong in boxes, but all people belong to me, and me to all people, and if anyone is left out of fair and equal opportunity to participate in human community, then I am left out.

People drift to whatever situation is most familiar for them, and sometimes that is the most comfortable situation for a time, and so hiding with "kin" can be a way to survive and later progress, but it's a short term tactic, and if being judged by others is your pattern, this will happen for Hijra from other Hijra (who can be as judgmental or compassionate as any other human!) as it did from the families that rejected them.

Admittedly, mainstream society is often intolerant of the differently gendered, but I think it's a rod for their own back, and they are not better off that those they exlcude or who choose exclusion. Likewise, the gay/trans ghetto may give safe haven for a time, but ultimately is another prison if it does not allow growth and free movement and interaction. I have left my family of origin on the other side of the continent, not because of being differently gendered, as they are now quite accepting of this, but because they have narrow minds and believe the rubbish sold to them by their corporate masters and actually think it matters how much money I have in the bank, not how much enjoyment I have in life. Likewise I avoid the commercial gay and transgender scenes, for they are full of people who judge me by how well I fit their fantasy, and who can't even see the human connections and realities I value far more than their superficial judgments.

Having had a "sex change" where I sit, but eschewing hormone consumption and normative gender, I find community with accepting human beings, not circles where heterosexuality and gender normativity are privileged, nor circles where homosexuality or gender passing are privileged. One is not accepted if it is conditional, and this is all that "normative" society offers too.

As we continue to evolve from our brutal apish orgins into something worthy of the species name "humans who think", we will do better, and grow beyond jugmentalism and closer to divine acceptance.

Hey, our journey is very influenced by our choice of destination...

Cheers, bliss, peace and joy

norrie mAy-welby

The hazards of ads!

Sheesh! I allowed AdSense on my site, and I get Anti-sense! The click on ad for http://www.godsolovestheworld.com/ ... "Oh we're so bad that God had to make Jesus to die for us..." These fools are trying to share thier delusion that the most important thing about Jesus was his death, not what people remembered of his LIFE! Don't buy the bullshit! Checkout Spong (Bishop John Shelby Spong, google him) if you'r not up on this debate (Yes! You can believe in your connection to Universal Love, and even like the stories and ethics of Jesus, without having to believe in pixies and zombies and an angry/shizo parent god who punishes and demands torture!

A middle age birthday

My first birthday since being hit by a bus… The theme was Undead, celebrating life and unstoppableness in the face of the clumsy machinery of the state and corporations… Hosted at my Best Friend’s big suburban house and backyard, it was the mid-week party success story of the year! Sure, I was at least twenty years older than almost everyone there, but it’s not my fault most of my generation are conformists who are not only gender but age normative, giving up on dancing and all-night partying before they’re “old” and thirty. And fuck it, if you voted for Murder (ie the half-million people murdered by Australia’s illegal, immoral, deceitful and profit-driven invasion of Iraq), and most of you my age DID, I don’t want you at my party. And I and others have been trying to raise your environmental awareness for the last thirty years, but you think hoarding your precious dollars is more important than your great grandchildren having something to breath next century. “You are the generation that bought more shoes and you get what you deserve.”

Anyway, back to the middle-aged hippy queen and her Undead celebration: There were a few different groups of friends of mine that had not met each other previously, and it was nice to see this cross-fertilisation, aided by the Tequilla Dawns of the Undead I was serving (Tequilla Sunrise with messier Grenadine) from a bucket, and the fire in the brazier lent by my favourite Newtown household.

I thought it was winding up after midnight (this being a Wednesday), but I slowly realized that everyone was just enjoying each other’s company too much to leave, and we sat around the fire until 4AM, when some went home, and others crashed in the lounge, apart from the boy that Best Friend was taking to bed, God bless him!

And we then roused ariubd midday for pancakes! The mid-week party that would not stop!

The party was so good that I was invited by a guest to THEIR birthday party on Friday, so my birthday celebration extended a few days, and OOPS fell over dancing drunk on wet floor with smooth rubber soles, and copped a deep blow on the other side of my chest to where the bus had bit me. So, I’ve been feeling my heart beating for the last few weeks, but it’s just a rib injury, and like everything else, I’ll heal from it, and I’m still dancing uncontrollably!

Hey, if you don’t want to grow old, don’t act old.

On the radio today, a man talked about using his child’s microscope to investigate some photolithography, and I realized, people without children don’t have learning tools anymore. Stop learning like a child, and your brain will soon conform to the low expectations of senility.

I’m still in a society largely controlled by my complacently ignorant generation and their ancestors, but they have less and less power, cos they can’t move much (cos they haven’t moved much, not since they got the landrover), and the future belongs to the young and active and challenging and those committed to life and joy and creativity, not to those just committed to their own personal comfort or desire for approval.

A woman working in a bank tried to make me feel bad for having no financial assets when I was 27. Almost twenty years later, I still got no financial assets, but I have a body made for dancing and boomsen, and friends I can really count on, and a whole crowd of autonomous anarchists to enjoy great company and iconoclastic shennanigins with.

Life LIVES!