In the middle of the commotion over the ‘spill’ in the Labor Party a couple of weeks ago, the Queensland government made the announcement that they were going to close the Biala Sexual Health Clinic in Brisbane (Brisbane’s only free sexual health clinic). Having just moved to Brisbane, and hearing about its services, this really shocked me.
The attack on Biala, as well as a number of other sexual health clinics around Queensland is simply ridiculous. These clinics serve an essential purpose: they provide testing, treatment and education about STIs and sex. Most importantly, these centres provide this treatment often to the most marginalised in our communities; the sorts of people who cannot afford, do not feel comfortable, or simply have no capacity to visit a GP. Centres like this also just make economic sense. There is a lot of research saying that preventative health measures save our community significant amounts of money.
But this issue goes well beyond the health and economic impacts because this isn’t just an attack on health care services, it is an attack on sex.
At the ‘Save Biala’ rally held in Brisbane, one of the speakers said that he thinks that the Queensland health minister, Lawrence Springborg, must think that Queenslanders have stopped having sex since the Liberal National Party (LNP) were elected. And the sentiment is true. These attacks are about a government determined to push sex aside, to imagine it isn’t happening and to hide all the ‘icky’ and ‘scary’ sex that may be talked about at Biala.
Because governments these days can’t actually legislate against sex, this is the best way to do it, attack the services that support it. It’s about imagining that sex only really happens in a married couple’s bedroom, and only to procreate.
And here is where I get my rant on, because whilst we’re all getting excited about the Supreme Court fight in the US, this is a real fight. This is something we should be putting lots of energy into. It’s not just about some workers losing their jobs but about our right to fuck, and to do it safely. And whilst we’re not going to stop fucking, it is clear the LNP want to put (or keep) it in the shadows – to ‘take the fuck out of our community’. And if we can’t fuck, if we can’t talk about fucking, if we can’t feel safe in our fucking, then we’re really struggling.
And that’s the point today, I’m not going to let these attacks go on. The unions and queer community in Brisbane aren’t going to let these attacks go on. The fight is on, and I hope you’ll join us.
