My first gig of the year is this, I’ll be reading a couple of silly sexy poems (including a Banjo Patterson parody).
Wicked Words x Archer Magazine Thursday 23 January 2025 7:00 pm to 10:00pm Northcote Town Hall Arts Centre 189 High Street, Northcote VIC 3070 Tickets $25-$40 | Booking and access info here
I’m so excited for this one! A multigenerational line-up of storytellers surrounded by projected images of unapologetic dykes from the archives of Wicked Women (1988–96), an erotic zine published by Lisa Salmon and Jasper Laybutt. I’ll be reading my dirty Lex posts/poems, drinking up the queer gaze. Horny on main, we love it.
Wicked Words is a storytelling event that celebrates dyke and queer and trans sexuality. Gird your loins and prepare yourself to be swept off your feet. The lineup of storytellers includes Maude Davey, Jinghua Qian, Annaki Kisses, Tomoko Yamasaki, Gavril Aleksandrs, Bumpy Favell, and Lisa Salmon with videopoems by ReVerse Butcher.
Wicked Words Saturday 29 June 2024 7 pm to 10 pm Victorian Pride Centre 79-81 Fitzroy Street St Kilda VIC 3182 Tickets here
For The Saturday Paper, I reviewed She and Her Pretty Friend, an appealing and accessible history of queer women’s lives in Australia from roughly 1830 to 1980. There’s a lot I liked about it and a few things that bugged me too. As always, I can send a read link if you can’t access it through the paywall, just leave a comment.
Scrimshaw code-switches easily between the cautious register of the historian and the more colourful lexicon of chronically online queers, reading real events in relation to memes and fandom tropes such as “oh my god, they were roommates” and “be gay, do crime”. The effect is chatty and conspiratorial, like catching up with a friend who can’t wait to tell you about what she just read, and it’s endearing to witness her transparent disappointment when women treat each other badly or don’t get the life we feel they deserve.
‘I don’t think we should take the gender out of fashion’, says Rae Hill, designer at Origami Customs. ‘Instead of “genderless”, there needs to be more of a fluidity of gender. The gender of a piece of clothing is whatever gender you feel when you wear it, and not that you have to fit into the gender of that piece.’
A little while ago I spoke to New York Times contributor Brian Ng about airlines failing nonbinary passengers in their booking systems while pursuing the pink dollar. Read or listen to the story below.
Brian Ng investigates the sluggishness of airlines in adopting options for nonbinary travellers in the gender and title fields of their booking engines, despite legal recognition in many countries. New York Times, 22 June 2022.
Big thanks to Brian for pursuing this story, and shoutout also to photographer Asanka Brendon Ratnayake – I am so awkward in front of a camera but he really put me at ease and we had a nice chat about NYT Australia and journalism in Asia, Australia and the US.
Yuki Kihara, Fonofono o le nuanua: Patches of the rainbow (After Gauguin), 2020.
For The Guardian, I spoke to Venice Biennale artist Yuki Kihara about fa’afafine community, climate change, and resisting the image of the lone genius in her show Paradise Camp.
Solicited advice for trans & gender diverse folks starting out in the creative industries.
Poster art: Dawn Iris Dangkomen.
All through May 2022, I’m running five online workshops for trans/nonbinary/gender diverse folks on starting out in the creative industries, featuring an all-star line up:
Sun 8 May – dance – Raina Peterson (they/them) – book
Tue 10 May – writing/editing – Maddee Clark (he/him) – book
Tue 31 May – comedy – Cassie Workman (she/her) – book
They’re all free, you can join from anywhere in the world, and you can come to as few or as many as you like. More info at the booking links above. Can’t wait!
The Canadian series Sort Of is a wry, thoughtful take on family and gendered labour with one of the best nonbinary characters I’ve seen on TV. My review here.
The article is a follow-up to my TV story for China Tonight (video below). You can also watch the full 30-min episode on iview, which includes my chat with Stan Grant about the issue, as well as other stories from the China Tonight team.
Jinghua Qian 