On the 1st of August 2009, I was amongst thousands of supporters at the National Day of Action for Same Sex Marriage rally in Fed Square, Melbourne.

This day of action is part of a nationwide campaign, Equal Love, which is in its fifth year of pressuring the government into legalising same sex marriages. In 2008, the federal government amended over 100 laws to allow same sex couples (domestic partners) the same financial and work-related entitlements as heterosexual couples.

Marriage, however, is still illegal for same sex couples. Many participants of the rally were dressed in wedding outfits, and later on, a total of 65 couples were (illegally) married, exchanging vows on the steps of the city’s registry office.

Besides wedding outfits, rainbow colours were of course also a popular feature:

And political t-shirts, button badges, face paint, and eye-grabbing outfits:

(how gorgeous is that guy on the right, seriously)

The rally started with a gathering and some speeches at Fed Square, before taking to the streets. If you’re so inclined, here’s a video of the walk (“hey hey, ho ho, homophobia’s got to go!”)

Here are some photos from the walk:

For the rest of my pictures, take a look around this Flickr set: Equal Love.

Also, watch some videos from the same campaign, of “Mr Government” trying unsuccessfully to schmoooze “Ms Equality”

It was a very positive experience for me, to be around all these people. The parade had thousands of participants, many people in love, with their partners — all they want is to be able to marry each other. Straight people fighting for equal rights. Queer people fighting for their rights. In the end, it’s all just an effort to get love and equality recognised: why should anyone be allowed to police relationships between consenting adults?

As for police at the rally — sure there were police around…they were making sure everyone was safe, and that traffic was still going smoothly, letting the parade through first.

Of course, I came home that day to news that my friends were being tear-gassed, water cannoned, and abused by our FRU and police force in Malaysia, for taking a stand against the ISA. What can I say? The difference was stark.

I love Malaysia, but it breaks my heart when I read about the horrible things our government is capable of.

As for those in KL, Seksualiti Merdeka is now into its second year, and happening soon: 12th-16th August, at The Annexe, Central Market. I hope you attend, and find the event as edifying and rejuvenating as I found this rally.

Flickr: Equal Love (by Tilted World)

The Age: Big crowds turn out in support of gay marriage

Official website: Equal love

A short documentary offering a glimpse into the lives of four transgenders in the United States, and their stories.

Alishia is a firefighter. Enoch is a university professor. Dana is a software engineer. Jesse is an HIV prevention educator. Each makes invaluable contributions in the work place and in the community. And each faces the threat of losing a job, being denied housing or health care, and suffering violence and harassment simply for being transgender.

In Everyone Matters: Dignity and Safety for Transgender People – a new video produced by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders(GLAD) Transgender Rights Proejct, Massachusetts Transgender Political Coaltion (MTPC), and MassEquality – Alishia, Enoch, Dana, and Jesse talk about their jobs, their family, their hopes, and their worries. Framed by hope and optimism, their stories nevertheless show how vulnerable transgender people still are, and highlight the need for comprehensive laws to ensure that people can obtain and retain employment, remain safe on the streets, and have access to health care and housing.

Everyone Matters allows the viewer to hear from transgender people first-hand about their lives, and makes a powerful case for the passage of transgender-inclusive anti-discrimination and hate crimes laws in Massachusetts and beyond.

Please support the passage of transgender-inclusive non-discrimination and hate crimes legislation. For more information visit http://www.glaad.org

Hat-tip: Helen G (Bird Of Paradox)

Image from www.glad.org

I reckon we’ve all had that moment while filling out forms, where we’ve paused, and noted that the only options available to tick and describe ourselves are limited, and don’t seem to accurately reflect who we are.

Well, in this case, imagine if you could have gay marriages in Malaysia. Joyous celebrations aside, some poor sod will be stuck fixing the flawed system we have in place for dealing with such things in registration forms.

Check out one person’s complicated process of making forms gay marriage-friendly:

To be blunt, the systems aren’t set up to handle it. The paper forms have a space for the husband’s name and a space for the wife’s name. Married people carefully enter their details in block capitals and post the forms off to depressed paper-pushers who then type that information into software front-ends whose forms are laid out and named in precisely the same fashion. And then they hit “submit” and the information is filed away electronically in databases which simply keel over or belch integrity errors when presented with something so profound as a man and another man who love each other enough to want to file joint tax returns.

From: Gay marriage: the database engineering perspective.

This is the part that really got my attention, right at the end (and, I generally love the geekiness of it all):

Come to think about it, all three of the gender in your head and the sex of your body and the clothes you wear are independent from one another! Why don’t we just add another column for telling whether someone’s a transvestite or not…

[ Insert obligatory flippant remark about certain advisory council out there ]

Nothing like a person who works with binaries to tell you they don’t work.

I look forward to the day some programmer’s work be made difficult because he has to make registration forms in Malaysia egalitarian — and that includes recognising all forms of gender and sexuality. Or at least, leaving it out of the form?

(image by Steve Knight / sxc.hu)

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Along with over 300 people, I attended the Kansas City’s own Fight the H8 rally. I chatted with many people and asking them why was it important that they are out there in the cold to be in this rally.

This will be one of the top issues of my life to fight for the right that was taken away from me simply because I’m gay. Yes, this is personal. You won’t stop hearing from me.

Listen to the audio podcast by clicking “play” on the audio player above.