Latest from my blog
‘The more legal recognition we get, the safer we are’: proposed changes welcomed by gender diverse community
‘The more legal recognition we get, the safer we are’: proposed changes welcomed by gender diverse community Gender diverse, trans and intersex Victorians who wish to alter the sex listed on their birth certificates will soon be able to do so without surgery, if the state government votes in favour of amending an out-of-date legal…
New resource pages
My favourite resources and links on a various topics, from independent scholarship to focus and productivity for the ADHD mind.
Support my work on Patreon
If you appreciated the Ballarat queer history display and tour, you’ll be pleased to know I’m doing more work on this subject! I’ve got a few things in the works, ranging from a blog post about how to do colonial-era queer history research in Trove, to digging deeper into Chinese-Australian queer history during the Gold…
Ballarat’s queer history: two recent projects
Two queer history projects presented as part of Ballarat Heritage weekend: a visual display on the theme of “We Have Always Been Here”, and a walking tour around central Ballarat covering the town’s queer past during the gold rush era.
Autodidacts Anonymous
My name is Alex, and I’m an autodidact. (“Hi, Alex!”) I spent the summer break setting goals for my side-project(s), as I think of this work I’m doing: the writing, the educating, the community building, and whatever comes along with it. It turns out that if you want to write the sort of things I…
Here I am.
The only thing more boring than blogging about how you haven’t blogged lately is blogging about how boring it is. And yet here I am. I’ve had a rough few years. Very rough. Finally, in the back half of 2018, it started to turn around. Without the oppressive weight of anxiety and depression I managed…
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Support my work
Hi, I'm Alex. I'm an independent researcher, writer, educator and activist based in Ballarat, Australia. This work is not funded by any institution, nor do I have access to the other resources – like academic journals – that would provide.
I rely on patrons to support my work and the expenses associated with it, including web hosting, books and journals, and travel to events. If you appreciate what you've read here, please consider becoming a patron on Patreon. Even $1 a month helps!
Not only will you help me do more work like this, but you'll also get regular updates and sneak peeks at my work in progress.
Recommended Reading
The Art of the Hook-Up: Your Ethical Guide to a Successful Sex Life
When I heard about Georgie Wolf’s “The Art of the Hook-up: Your Ethical Guide to a Successful Sex Life” and requested a review copy, I was thinking, “Yes! Maybe my confused trans ass can finally get up the nerve to try Grindr!” This is not that book, or not for me, anyway. This book is…
I Told My Mentor I Was a Dominatrix, She Rescinded Her Letters of Recommendation
The academic sex worker illuminates the insidious class tension of academia. Look at me, whip in one hand, Foucault in the other.
Google, democracy and the truth about internet search
I’m pretty sure I read this article in 2016 when it first came out, but I’m reading it again now with the eyes of someone thinking hard about why and how progressives should extract themselves from social media. I’m realising that search engine optimisation – fighting back against the forces that seed Google with horrifying…
An Open Letter to the Person Who Gave Me HIV
If I didn’t get HIV, if I hadn’t taken the step to ask you to get tested, that this could have been a very different story. A story of hospitals and death. This is how the silence brings harm.
Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language
I don’t know what I expected from “Because Internet,” but the thing that delighted and surprised me most was the language used in the book itself. It’s written in Internet language, in a way that feels comforting and familiar to me, like a knowledgeable Tumblr post that makes you mash the repost button two nanoseconds after reading it.
101 Notes on the LA Tenants' Union
1. First of all, there is no housing crisis. 2. Housing is not in crisis. 3. Housing needs no trauma counselors. 4. Housing needs no lawyers. Housing needs no comrades or friends. Housing needs no representatives. Housing needs no organizers. 5. When we call this crisis a housing crisis, it benefits the people who design…
A Highly Opinionated Taxonomy of Librarianship
To think radically is to get to the root (radix) of something. Six years ago Erin Jonaitis made a proposal on Twitter that I still think about regularly: “If knowledge is power, then a key part of professional ethics for info professionals should be: Who are you empowering?” In some ways, it’s the only question in librarianship…
Against Realism
Dystopia does not require much imagination; as I have said elsewhere, it already has a postcode. It is Nauru, Manus Island and Don Dale. It is deaths in custody. It is the NT Intervention. It is family violence, defunded shelters, no escape. It is punitive welfare systems and robo-debt (all debt). It is feudalism in…
Barbara Smith: Why I Left the Mainstream Queer Rights Movement
If June is Pride Month, July is Wrath Month. Here’s what I’ve been reading. Three decades later, despite some genuine efforts to increase diversity, especially in progressive movement circles, exclusivity and elitism still divide us. We have won rights and achieved recognition that would have been unimaginable 50 years ago, but many of us continue…
The Land Dykes of Southern Oregon Saved My Life
I was wrong about what it meant to build queer community when I was younger. I was so obsessed with the idea of unconditional love as a moral litmus test, I forgot about the practice of actually building community, of showing up every day even when it doesn’t come from the heart. It’s a less…
Blogroll
I reckon these blogs are great. You should subscribe to them using Feedly or some other RSS reader.
This is a work in progress. If you think you know a blog I'd like, based on what's below, please introduce me to it!
Australian Writing & Ideas
Food and drink
History
- Australian Women's History Network
- Contingent Magazine
- Notches Blog