Rainbow Conversations

The most controversial part came from the questions raised by Prof. Gary Dowsett of Latrobe University in Melbourne. To sum up the presentations and discussions during the Rainbow Conversations, a human rights conference held from January 28-31, 2008 in conjunction with the first Asia-Pacific Outgames, Prof. Dowsett asked why words like activism and oppression were conspicuously absent in the language that we use. We resorted, instead, to words like advocacy, which implies working within the system to push for reforms, and homophobia, a psychosocial attitude, a type of fear.

And if we indeed learned anything from the Rainbow Conversations, a gathering of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) from Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, Singapore, India and the Philippines to talk about the situation of LGBTIQ individuals and communities in the region and the struggle for equality, it is this: we are not facing a mere phobia, we are facing oppression, a systematic exclusion of LGBTIQs and their persecution. And we can’t afford to be mere advocates working within the system, we have to be activists resisting the status quo and imagining a different world.