Summit heralds the start of conversation
The first one-day GLBT 2020 Summit was hailed as historic and optimistic by attendees from more than a dozen community groups.
Seven key priorities were decided beginning with the push for legislative equality and anti-discrimination laws, anti-homophobia resources for schools, and more engagement with the media.
More dialogue within the community was needed, the attendees also decided, as well as a culture of care, greater opportunities for emerging leadership talent, and resource sharing between its organisations.
A steering committee will organise a series of forums around NSW so more organisations and people in the community can participate.
It is essential now we have started the discussion that we keep the momentum going, ACON president Mark Orr said.
Although we came up with a list of things we think need to be pursued, the group was committed to engaging a greater range of people from across the community in the conversation and determining where to from here.
Orr added that the first gathering of 17 organisations was a great start to the broader conversation about the future the community wants for itself.
It was fantastic to hear so many perspectives, as well as a common commitment from everyone to working together.
Young people from the Twenty10 Q&A leadership program were also participants during the summit.
Another large-scale gathering will be held in another six months to reconvene groups on the progress of the agreed goals.
Initial projects given the nod included a leadership forum run by Twenty10 and an awards scheme for community groups that bridge the gap with other organisations from unrelated fields.
Positive Life CEO Rob Lake said he found the day useful as he was able to meet groups that would not normally cross paths with HIV.
Often we’re mainly meeting around health issues, so the broader life issues don’t happen so much, he said.
They did a really good job getting all these people together. I felt it was optimistic -” thinking about what sort of community we want to have is a great thing. We’re all trying to think how we can participate in an ongoing way.
Sporting teams should also be involved in future gatherings, Lake added, as recreation and social groups can play a big part in people’s lives.
I want to see more cohesion in our community; people sometimes talk about a divide between positive and gay men. If we’re doing as well as we are now, it’s an unknown how visible HIV will be in 2020, he said.
Exclusion protested
Several members of Community Action Against Homophobia held a picket line outside the venue of the GLBT 2020 Summit on Saturday to protest not being invited.
Twenty minutes into the all-day historic gathering, representatives of Sex and Gender Education Australia (SAGE), also walked out to join CAAH in an alternative summit.
CAAH and SAGE came up with a list of priorities which included a NSW anti-bigotry campaign in NSW schools, state relationship schemes, as well as transgender passport reform and Medicare-funded hormones and surgery for trans-folk.
The road to get there was more street heat and protests, CAAH spokeswoman Rachel Evans said.
ACON president Mark Orr did not elaborate on the criteria used for the original invite list. Evans said Orr had extended the offer of more dialogue between ACON and CAAH at a later meeting.
More trumpeting of bullsh*t about CAAH’s supposed achievements are making me sick. This is the group that were booed off stage by a meeting of OUR community at a recent anti-homophobia rally in Harmony Park. If they want respect from the community they should earn it…
“Not everyone believes that the in your face aggression of groups like CAAH is productive or adds to the advancement of equal rights or social justice.”?
Unlike you and your involvement with to acon, Henry, I have had no history, affiliation or involvement with CAAH. However, as you point out, our histories are important. CAAH has campaigned for not only same-sex relationship recognition and against state laws designed to silence glbqti protest, but also campaigned on issues of glbqti refugees in detention, homophobic policies of blood donation agencies, queer spaces in our universities, anti-homophobia education programmes in our schools and day centres, and our rights in the Australian Defense Forces. They successfully campaigned to have two gay men arrested in Fiji on charges of ‘homosexual acts’ released. They campaign on IVF rights and workplace rights and advocate in dozens of other areas.
CAAH provides experience and assistance in the broader community and queer communities which results in the empowering of local communities while the dominance of the acon oligarchy and it’s associates only serves to disempower.
CAAH is probably the antithesis of the creaking, top-heavy acon org., with it’s $10 million a year income and it’s tiresome need to dominate and control our community, of which this latest banning of CAAH is a good example.
For those who were equally uninformed, qangos = acronym for Quasi-autonomous Non-government Agencies …
SAGE made it’s presentation on behalf of CAAH and the assembled groups voted (I believe unanimously) to proceed without CAAH at this meeting. SAGE chose to leave the meeting as well. I did not see norrie mAy at all during the day long sessions.
What does it take to be a ‘grass roots activist group’? What qualifies as ‘grass roots’ and who decides which groups are ‘grass roots’?
I’d suggest that GLITF, The Gender Center, 2010, HALC, New Mardi-Gras, GLRL, and GLCS are groups that are controlled by their members and volunteers. The SSO, SX and LOTL were all there and represented by their editors. I suspect that you will see fair and unbiased reporting from all the ‘gay press’ on the Forum.
Not everyone believes that the in your face aggression of groups like CAAH is productive or adds to the advancement of equal rights or social justice. Nevertheless, it is just as clear to me that groups like CAAH have the right to exist and to protest and to act in their own best interests. CAAH did accomplish something in their legal actions on WYD. However for CAAH to claim full responsibility is a bit much. Just as these more radical groups do not have to listen to me, I do not have to pay attention to or support their agendas either.
In direct contradiction to norrie mAy’s accusation “for a few good people to do nothing” as a referral to the 2020 Forum, my suggestion would be that there were quite a few good people actually doing something other than trying to push their own agendas on to everyone. There was a genuine spirit of cooperation and listening at the first session of the forum.
Some will undoubtedly compare the Forum with the old Inter-agency attempts of years ago. Maybe we’ll do better this time. For the most part, the players have changed and we’ve come a long ways since then.
It is always convenient to bash ACON. I believe that it is completely and totally counterproductive to bash either the organisation or the people who are the heart and soul of ACON. Their mission has changed considerably over the years, and ACON has adapted quite well to the changes in the world. Sure, they’re big and with the size and the money and the influence comes some control and maybe more of a bureaucratic approach than some would like. Before anyone decides to ‘throw the ACON baby out with the bathwater’ I’d ask you to consider whether the communities are better off with or without ACON. To me that answer is obvious, we’re much better off with ACON and I support them by being a member and critically commenting on the things that they do and do not do.
The ‘peak’ organisations did not become ‘peak’ by sitting back chirping and pissing and moaning about how some seek power and prestige. They became ‘peak’ because the did and continue doing things that others believe are useful and productive in gaining equal rights and social justice for our communities.
One very encouraging thing was the involvement of the young leaders from 2010. If we have had a ‘failure’ in our communities and in our organisations, it is the failure to ‘train’ or ‘educate’ for our future. Because most of our organisations are staffed with volunteers and/or relatively low paid (yet highly qualified) executives we get so involved in the tasks of the day that we fail to train our replacements.
We need (IMO) to preserve our history and to be able to transmit that history to create our future. The cliche is ‘those who do not know the history are bound to repeat it’.
Sorry you’ll have to excuse my following allergic reaction to caah being orphaned from the 2020 summit with a little dejavoo i wouldve liked to have come to, but i did this. After sheer persistance & got through in the weeks leading up to the summit and i found out the only reason they didn’t want caah is because they wanted a lobby group and thought that CAAH wouldn’t be able to focus, even though cAAH has been the backbone of the queer community for 10years and helped to win more equal rights that you can poke a stick at that has been pivotal. The reason they gave is because they stated we applied to late beside all trhe other reasons. Yet ultimately they had based it on their own personal opinion of what they thought the majority would want in order to protect their own interests, that caah would have a personal agenda, that caah wouldn’t be there for the same reason as everyone else, but would be in touch. Hence i ask when you exclude one voice based on ignorance and fear you orphan the very heart of what were fighting for. Again please excuse my allergic reaction to grass roots activist groups being orphaned from uniting that couldve helped.
As Chris says, -œAll it takes for evil to prevail, is for a few good people to do nothing. and that is why SAGE initiated the picket to protest the exclusion of CAAH. It is not acceptable for the qangos to set our community agenda while grass roots activists are excluded. There is no point in us blindly supporting ACON if it is acting only in its own self-interest rather than follow the lead of the community it is supposed to serve. Please note, I am not suggesting that ACON’s work is self interested, only that it is more likely to become that if the agenda is instituted only by those employed by qangos, to the exclusion of grass roots activist groups.
Sorry Shayne, my apologies – “hundreds” is obviously an underestimation. If you type “gay, lesbian, nsw, australia” into Google, there are actually about 299,000 results!
I beg everyone to never accept a situation that goes against our J.E.F.S – Justice, Equality, Freedom and Safety.
“All it takes for evil to prevail, is for a few good people to do nothing”.
Keep up the good work.
Chris
LOL, Christopher….”the *hundreds* of organisations that weren’t invited”? What city do you live in? We have two choices in life – we can accept a situation that we know is wrong or we can stand up and say something.
We have two choices in life – to give energy or to take energy.
So, we can either focus on bagging ACON for the hundreds of organisations that weren’t invited or celebrate the outcomes that were achieved from this day and start taking action to move forward.
I know where I’ll be focusing my energy.
Christopher Brooks
President
Sydney Gay & Lesbian Business Association
So we are starting our own APEC style nuisance conferences. Oh please…..
CAAH was the group that took the NSW govt. to court over their draconian World Youth Day laws – and won. They are the ones who organised the street protests against the homophobic pope and the street rallies for same sex relationship equality. And so on. Of course they have no place at a glbqti summit run by acon.
Of course not everyone can be included at first…
So those most marginalised and most discriminated against and with the most urgent needs clearly must be put at the top of the list surely?
So that’d be the folk not covered by the antidiscrimination legislation like the Intersex community and significant parts of the Transgender community.
And the folk with the ignored medical issues like protecting Intersex children from unethical surgery before they are old enough to consent or ensuring access to hormone blockers to Transgender teens or ensuring costs of hormones and surgery are covered by medicare etc.
And the folk on the frontlines of combating the high suicide rates caused by bullying and discrimination.
So did the right people end up at the head of the que or were they the ones outside in the cold?
This is a great starting point … it is good all these community organisations have been talking
I am sure others will be included down the track – you can’t include everyone everytime or it would be impossible to care for.