A discussion on the changing identity of the gay Australian male and what factors have impacted this identity. In particular, the impact of drug and party culture on the community, including the increased presence of police at dance parties, as well as the impact of AIDS. Is there even an “identity” or sense of community anymore and do the struggles for liberation even matter to the gay male today?
Panellists:
Dr. Kane Race – Dr. Race is a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney’s Department of Gender and Cultural studies. Kane has participated extensively in the social response to HIV/AIDS in Australia and has published widely on questions of risk, government and ethics in the context of HIV prevention, sexual practice and drug use. He maintains an interest in the principles and politics of harm reduction and, more generally, critical encounters between gender, sexuality and medicine. His book, Pleasure Consuming Medicine (Duke University Press) approaches drugs as part of popular culture and considers social and political responses to this situation.
Prof. Dennis Altman – Dennis Altman is a writer and academic who first came to attention with the publication of his first book Homosexual: Oppression & Liberation in 1972. This book, which has often been compared to Greer’s Female Eunuch and Singer’s Animal Liberation, was the first serious analysis to emerge from the gay liberation movement, and was published in seven countries, with a readership which continues today. Altman teaches politics at LaTrobe University in Melbourne, and is well known as a commentator and reviewer on the ABC and Australian newspapers. He was President of the AIDS Society of Asia and the Pacific (2001-5), and has been invited to lecture on AIDS and sexuality in countries across the world, and is a member of the Governing Council of the International AIDS Society.
Associate Professor Robert Reynolds – Robert is the author of What Happened to Gay Life? and From Camp to Queer: Remaking the Australian Homosexual and is a lecturer for Macquarie University’s Department of Modern History, Politics, International Relations. His current research projects include The Plague Years: A History of the Emotional Impact of HIV/AIDS on Sydney Gay Life and Identity Formation of Young Gays and Lesbians. This study aims to examine the identity formation, leisure, and drug and alcohol use among young gays and lesbians in Sydney.
(Image: Pong)
