“As a survivor of the gay conversion movement, it feels amazing to know that our experiences are being heard nationally and that there is finally research that confirms the prevalence and damage of the gay conversion movement in Australia… The messaging of the movement that told me that I was “broken” has caused long-term damage…Continue reading Welcoming but not Affirming: Getting to the Slippery Truth
Category: Sociology
Things I Choose to Leave Behind: Cement for the Sandcastles
I have always had an affinity with the ocean. It has a mysterious magnetic pull on my heart. Life, for that moment of time, makes a little more sense when I walk along the shores and listen to the rhythm of the waves. John Dyer remarked, “I love the sea’s sound and the way it…Continue reading Things I Choose to Leave Behind: Cement for the Sandcastles
Things I choose to leave behind: God in my Image
“I cannot say for sure when my reliable ideas about God began to slip away, but the big chest I used to keep them in is smaller than a shoebox now. Most of the time, I feel so ashamed about this that I do not own up to it unless someone else mentions it first.…Continue reading Things I choose to leave behind: God in my Image
Letting Go
“Everything I have ever let go of has my claw marks on it.” David Foster Wallace When I first posted this BLOG back in 2015, I was living in Upper Beaconsfield on the outskirts of Melbourne. The serene surrounding did not match my turbulent world at that time. It was a fairly stressful season as I…Continue reading Letting Go
Challenging the Formidable Twins: Laziness and Stereotyping
“Once you label me you negate me.” Soren Kiekegaard Sometimes they just creep up on you, don’t they? The associates of Prejudice never sleep. A few years ago, I was travelling home on the train after a very long day at work. I was forcing myself to stay awake even though I was exhausted,…Continue reading Challenging the Formidable Twins: Laziness and Stereotyping
A Tyrant called Should
“Stop Shoulding on yourself!” – Albert Ellis I don’t know how this tyrant found me. Somewhere in the more hazy, early years of my life, it arrived amidst whispers of fears of belonging and identity that are part of human existence. It settled like a squatter in the shaping of who I was becoming.…Continue reading A Tyrant called Should
Voices from the Grave: Frederick Douglass
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” Frederick Douglas We know little of the woman Harriet Bailey. We just know she was the…Continue reading Voices from the Grave: Frederick Douglass
Suffer the little Children
“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” Nelson Mandela With bated breath I watched the commencement of the rescue of the Thai soccer team stuck in a cave for over two weeks. It would be very hard not to feel any…Continue reading Suffer the little Children
In a World of Blind Privilege and Exclusion – Be a Mama Tammye
“I am on this planet, not for myself, but for the betterment of humanity” – Mamma Tammye (Queer Eye SO2, EO1) It started a few weeks ago. The texts, that is … “Have you started Queer Eye Season 2? OMG!!!” “Ok – STOP what you are doing and watch Queer Eye Season 2, Episode…Continue reading In a World of Blind Privilege and Exclusion – Be a Mama Tammye
The Relationship Glue: Kindness
“When I was young I admired clever people, now that I am old I admire kind people.” – Abraham Joshua Heschel- Psychologists John and Julie Gottman spent four decades studying relationships. They set up a research centre at the Washington University and together with a colleague, Robert Levenson, analysed hundreds of relationships (now referred…Continue reading The Relationship Glue: Kindness