In your words, could you please describe the ‘No Cops at SpringOUT’ cause for readers?
No Cops at SpringOUT is really similar to a lot of community-based organisations or movements across Australia and the world around police involvement in pride festivals. I guess the most well known one would be Pride in Protest in Sydney. We are absolutely single-issue, although all of these kinds of issues intersect with so many others. Our main focus is not having police involvement in our pride festivals and specifically this year, at least, not having police attending our big all-in community event (Fair Day).
So it’s really just about Fair Day?
Yes, because of the proposal for the SpringOUT committee to have the liaison officer launched at Fair Day. It just became focused on not having them at our community event with the understanding that there might be a separate event that they held as part of the SpringOUT program (to introduce them). I think the SO members would prefer that not to be the case but yeah, it’s very much about it not being at Fair Day.
Do we have a current policing problem towards some queers in the ACT? You cited some historical examples in your recent media appearances but what about recent examples?
The most recent example is someone who was visiting Canberra and their partner was attacked in one of the Grindr attacks. They were really resistant to go to the police about it and ultimately did so because of wanting to potentially protect further people from being attacked. But the process for them to interact, to actually go and do that was fairly traumatising for them because of historic fears. We did a bit of a survey and we had a lot of people responding with specific examples of police interaction over the last few months and years, being hassled at bus interchanges etc., visibly queer people, because of the assumption that they’re there because they’re visibly queer in some way. Not every single one is necessarily being actively hassled about that, but targeted and singled out for it, yeah for sure.
There has recently been a series of savage assaults on gay men, instigated through the Grindr app. Do you seek to represent the concerns of gay males and if so, what are the alternatives for catching the perpetrators if not through police work?
I certainly only seek to represent the views of gay men who also don’t feel safe and comfortable with the police, of which there are some as well. Certainly the majority of people who were often quite inappropriately fighting back against us (No Cops at SpringOUT) tended to be all white cis gay men really but there are also people in that demographic that have come out in support. I think the thing that people get confused about when it comes to this kind of thing is like, ‘Well, who are you going to go to?’ And yeah, at the moment, unfortunately, we have to go to the police. But the understanding of groups like ours and Pride in Protest etc. is that all the good things that the police do, all of the working with community stuff that actually does go well, could be done by well-resourced community groups, and then, yeah, we’d need the police to do the criminal activity stuff, for sure. But the rest of their purview wouldn’t include all of those extra community things that often people in more marginalised communities are really resistant to the police being involved with. So in this instance, yeah of course we’re going to need the police because that’s the only option we have but just because that’s the only option, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good one or one that encompasses everything it needs to be doing. I think the Grindr attacks are kind of interesting, in particular. I often think of Grindr as like a virtual beat and the history of violence at beats is pretty long and complex and it includes the police. I think often there’s this feeling that we’re attacking individual members of a group when this is the structure itself being questioned and pushed on.
One of the most controversial things that you’ve posted is that you see queer cops as ‘traitors’. Could you please explain why you said that?
I always bring up the article, Irony of a Faggot Policeman by Hiero Badge, because it’s such a well set out, very long view of this. I think queerness has an inherent politicalness to it. I think, at least, it’s the terminology that gets used generally that’s sort of what it’s referring to, that it’s not just a sexual identity but also a way of being in the world and a way that we interact with the world. And the police is a, not just historically but currently, a violent, oppressive organisation that is very much built to be as broken as it is. People being like, ‘We need to fix the system from the inside’. Well, it’s working perfectly! I think it’s essentially the military wing of the government and I think that lots of people who get into policing have the best of intentions but ultimately they’re working within a system that is going to strip them of those intentions and they’re going to be enforcing pretty horrific things and participating in really awful cultures. And yeah, technically of course, there are gay and lesbian police. But I think that queerness is inherently political in a very specific way and I think if you’re willing to participate in that system, then you’re betraying other queer people.
STUN recently published an opinion piece from a Fair Day organiser that named you. Do you think there has been a misunderstanding?
It was kind of hard to tell from that. I mean, there were some things in that article that were a bit confusing, like talking about misinformation spread by No Cops but no examples of it to actually respond to. I don’t think we’ve been necessarily misunderstood in the sense of, like clearly we’re a community group that’s calling for a specific thing. I think that this framing of it as like, ‘Get out from behind your computers and get involved’ is a bit confusing because people who are participating in this conversation with us are being involved. I also think that this sort of call to action of like, ‘If you don’t like something, change it’, that’s something that we’ve seen a lot. I mean, in old articles of Panda, in old articles of Quirk, old queer publications in Canberra, there would often be calls to action of like, ‘Hey, this publication’s failing. We need the community to rally around us or you need to get involved if you want it to be something’, which is true, but we’re a community that really struggles, like parts or subsections of our community really struggles to be involved and it’s not really good enough to say, ‘If you don’t like something, come and change it’ because you’re not perhaps thinking through the various barriers that someone has to actually come and get involved.
What might those barriers be?
Classic ones are just going to be sort of financial stuff. Like, as a group, queer people tend to earn less than the average, even in Canberra where we have such a large public service population, it’s true. Those of us that have multiple marginalisations tend to experience things like homelessness, lower wages, chronic illnesses, other forms of workplace and general discrimination that make it more exhausting to be and exist. I spoke about this to the SpringOUT committee when I spoke with them. When they were like, ‘Well, you know, people come to us, and we can only program what people come to and so there are gaps’. To me, it means that that model’s not working, because if the only people that can be getting involved are those that are already upwardly mobile… it’s a fringe festival model and I understand why it’s a fringe festival model, because that’s one that over the past years, if you were getting minimal funding from other places, was the way to do it. You pay to play. But if you’re saying that something is meant to be, all in, all inclusive, or at least trying to be, then, yeah, it’s not really good enough to be like, ‘Well they need to come to us.’ And I get it, it’s not like SpringOUT has the money or the resources to go out into the community and do that. I know that but that’s a problem as well, right? Like, if something like that can’t do those things and is therefore leaving those gaps open, then it should be allowed to be quite strongly critiqued because it’s not serving the community in the ways that it’s purporting to.
Do you think you’ve been misrepresented?
I mean, yeah? (laughs). Both yes and no. I think that there were other things that were interesting in that article, saying that they really support activists and protests and activism and I think that a lot of people think they do until it’s uncomfortable and until it makes them uncomfortable. I also think that a lot of people involved with this maybe haven’t had a huge amount of practice in identifying the difference in their own bodies of being upset and being unsafe and those things are quite different. I think there’s a misrepresentation that maybe people think that I want to tear down SpringOUT but what I want, and what the people I represent want, is a safe and inclusive, radical Pride festival and one that we can participate in. I also think there’s just a general misunderstanding of this idea of exclusion. This was a word that was used in the other article as well that was about the attacks on Grindr and the No Cops thing, like excluding the police. I think that’s often misunderstood and misrepresented because I think we’ve spent a really long time trying to be like, ‘Things need to be inclusive!’ and that’s really important, but…
The term risks become generic?
Yeah, exactly, and also sometimes to be inclusive, you have to exclude people. I know that’s confusing, but it’s like, say I want to put on a really inclusive event for lesbian and bisexual women, that some people have to be excluded from that for that to be an inclusive event for all of those people. I think the point that we were trying to make was, if you include the cops, you will be excluding vulnerable members of the community that you are at least saying you represent and want. And I’ve been contacted by members of the SpringOUT committee a bunch over that as well. One of them even said to me, ‘We need more of your people at SpringOUT’. I think what they were referring to was maybe a specific subset of queers. I don’t know but certainly having cops at SpringOUT is not gonna do that…
Does it mean that there will be no interest in participating?
Yeah and that’s sad. Like, I intend to go to Fair Day. I’m gonna go to SpringOUT events. I’m gonna post things that my friends are involved with. At no point have I called for people not to go to SpringOUT. We were gonna do an action but we weren’t going to boycott. I don’t mind being misrepresented too much but I do think that the tools that people are using to understand and interpret what we’re doing are potentially not always being maintained or fit for purpose.
Do you think it is possible to have a consensus on the matter of there being a police presence at Fair Day when, on the one hand, this generation of young people have championed trans identity and fought for queers of colour more than any previous generations did; basically created ‘non-binary’ and as a whole put the concerns and sensitivities of these groups first…… Whilst the older generation, who have often lived through years of direct abuse from police and from the wider community at large, who often had to present as ‘straight’ to avoid discrimination and therefore could only dream of coming out as ‘non-binary’, see developments like a GLLO officer in the ACT and the police’s correct description of the Grindr bashings as ‘homophobic hate crimes’ as a net result of many years of building bridges. Is anyone even right or wrong here?
I mean, like, we haven’t had a term for non-binary, but lots of cultures have, for a really, really long time. In ancient Jewish, like really ancient Jewish culture, there were, like, six recognised sexes, less genders. We’d be more talking about in sex variations, probably, but there was a recognition of difference, and there has been across other cultures. But yes, this generation, who I would argue are all about 10 years younger than me, certainly has brought to the forefront and made it, named it, labelled it, given it something that we can understand in our own kind of cultural context. And yeah, they really are putting certain members of the community at the front and it’s a bunch of really old ideas, like ‘None of us are free until all of us are free’ kind of things, some ideals that have always been part of the gay liberation movement. They’re putting those people first because they have been taught more about intersectional politics, intersectional feminism. They are probably the most well-versed on general queer theory stuff, not from learning in universities or poring over essays, just through interactions with one another and information out in the community. And yes, you speak of the older generation who I have such deep respect for, especially someone who has a really good understanding of Canberra’s LGBTQA+ history, not just because I run the (She Shapes History) tour but I spent the last six months writing a 45,000 word podcast (out in November) about Canberra’s LGBTQIA+ history. Fair Day actually started in May 1996 in May. I know all this shit. The first one was opened by Kate Carnell and at the first Fair Day, the two people who were running AAC (AIDS Action Council, now Meridian) at the time, they were co-directors, actually talked about Gay and Lesbian Liaison Officers at that first Fair Day. It was just as the program was getting started and then they were also criticised by members of the community for only really having the interest of one subset of the community at heart. So the old generation that really feel like those things (and the police describing the Grindr bashings as ‘homophobic hate crimes’), you know, that’s really important, that is a win for them. That is genuine evidence of progress and also it’s not good enough. It’s less than the bare minimum and it feels like we’re being told, ‘Well, we have these things. You should all be grateful and stop pushing us’. It’s like, well how did you get those things? Probably through pushing and probably through activism. And also, gay and lesbian and bisexual men and women, like specifically white cis ones, haven’t exactly had the best time of it in history. Just because you’ve been the most visible members of the community for longer, that has not necessarily meant good things, right? We know that but also it does mean that those people’s issues have been at the forefront of the community’s fight for a long time. What it feels like is being said by articles like that, or at least by comments and that kind of thing is, ‘Things are better in these ways’, like ‘Shut up’ basically. Like, ‘Don’t you realise we fought for this stuff?’ And what we’re saying is, there’s still a fight, actually, and it has gotten better for you. But I think when we’re talking about progress and being like, ‘Things are so much better,’ you have to always ask ‘Where?’ and ‘For who?’ Because yes, things are generally better for a subset of the gay and lesbian community but problems in the trans community, in black and brown queer communities, disabled communities, our interactions with the police, but not just the police, haven’t changed a lot and continue to be really difficult and violent and scary, even in Canberra. So yeah, it honestly feels quite patronising and also, like, painful and upsetting to have these people who we know have had a bunch of trauma in these areas, tell us to stop fighting for the people who are still having that. We do have a history of lateral support in our community, but we have a long history of lateral violence as well. We’re not a homogenous group. We don’t all know each other very well. I think that sort of generalisation that happens about our group has come from the outside and now there’s people (inside) also saying it. I think that I actually have quite a lot of love and respect for my queer elders and unlike other cultural traditions, I don’t think we should stop questioning our elders and just accept everything as ‘older wisdom’. Like, why would we in the queer community fall into the trap of being like, ‘Well, this is traditional, and therefore we must keep doing it’? That’s boring.
Both you and Pride in Protest reference the ‘78ers and the protest-spirit of the first Mardi Gras in some of your posts. Do you think there’s some nostalgia going on there? Like, maybe the gays have gotten too comfortable nowadays?
I mean, yes to that. I think there is a big subset of the community, especially in a place like Canberra where we tend to be a bit more comfortable anyway, where there has been this, ‘We fought for this, and we’ve got this. Be grateful’. It’s like, well, you fought for that for you and you got it and that’s great and what about the rest of us? So I don’t know if it’s nostalgia. Actually, I think it’s like a desperate attempt at reminding. Also, I’ve been accused of not knowing my history in certain ways. I’m like, actually, like, I’m steeped in the history! Like, SpringOUT didn’t start as a protest. There was a march and a rally, but it wasn’t a riot. There was that first one, it was a march and rally and placards but it was more started as a community group. More widely, our Prides have always started as resistance and so I don’t know if it’s nostalgia or just like a desperate plea for remembrance.
What do you think has changed or not changed enough since the first Mardi Gras? What do you think will be the signs of having reached quality and acceptance?
I think very obviously, since the first one in 1978, being homosexual was still illegal in Tasmania, for example, it didn’t decriminalise till 1997. In the ACT, like, we’d only just got it, you know, laws were changing but minds were not necessarily. And so I think, yeah, like, now we can hold events, now we can hold events sponsored by governments. We’re not just getting actively harassed.
Also the police want to attend.
Yes, they do want to attend. That is a big one.
Do you see that just as virtue signalling in reverse kind of thing?
I think I see it as an indictment of how far Mardi Gras, in particular, has strayed from its roots. Because I think the police involvement in Mardi Gras is along the same line as every single bank’s involvement in Mardi Gras. Like I get it, Mardi Gras was gonna fail, they were bankrupt and then they were saved by corporate sponsorship. And I guess in my community, that’s not saving.
Do you see police involvement in Pride as a sort of Stockholm Syndrome?
I think that it’s led by, once again, a group in the community that has been fighting for a long time to be seen as normal and be accepted by everybody else. And I get why that was the call, because we were just trying to convince people to treat us like other human beings. But I strongly and deeply believe that queer people are different and our lives are different, our love lives are different. Our history is different. We’re divergent and I think that whole, ‘Love is love’, ‘We’re normal like everyone else’ is kind of a lie that we’ve had to sell people to get them to treat us with equality and I think that too many of us have drunk our own Kool Aid. I think there’s a lot of people that believe that a win in this stuff, a win in equality, is being treated like everybody else and I think that that erases all of the differences in humanity. I think we should be treated like people…
So it’s not about necessarily trying to reach equality or acceptance?
No, I actually think equity is more important to begin with, because I think if the thing we’re reaching for is equality with everyone else and everyone else is also still having a terrible time under things like capitalism and the rest of it, what are we actually aspiring to? That being said, if people want a white picket fence, marriage/kid stuff, more power to them. The whole point is allowing for lots of difference, right? I think acceptance is also not a great thing. It’s sort of a similar thing to me as being tolerated. No, I don’t want to be tolerated. I think we should be aiming for everyone to be celebrated. Acceptance is good but I just want there to be room for a wide range of experience and expression and for you not to need to fill a certain box in order to have that acceptance. I think of course we’ve needed to kind of homogenise in the eyes of other people to fight for rights, to be treated well, but actually the needs of our community are varied and wide. I don’t know if you can ever do something that’s like, fully inclusive of every single one but I think that you can make spaces for the majority of people.
I take issue with this idea of moving towards this idea of equality because I think that often, in people’s mind, what that looks like is assimilation and I don’t think that that brings safety and equality to everybody. I mean, look at indigenous populations like that are actively erasing. What I want to work towards and what I’m trying to build are new models of being with one another and being in the world. If what we’re trying to do is just be accepted into the current structures and the current structures are often set up to be violent or oppressive, then that’s not a win.
– Danny Corvini
