h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The following is an article I wrote for my universities magazine the Craccum, and is entitled "Musings of a bisexual male in New Zealand"

In New Zealand at the moment there is still a lot of discrimination
based on sexual orientation. If you are in the GBLTI (an inclusive
term including but not limited to Gay, Bisexual, Lesbian, Trans, and
Intersex) category you can expect to be made into a monster by certain
groups. For example, it is not a commonly known fact that the Salvation
Army in the late 1980's raised 800,000 signatures against the
Homosexuality Reform Bill, which made it legal for men to sleep with
men, failing to stop it but causing a large number of people in the
GBLTI community to commit suicide when they were forced to sign the
petition. There is still discrimination by groups such as this,
causing distress to a large number of GBLTI.

There continues to be discriminatory laws on the books, such as the
Partial Defence of Provocation.Traditionally, this was used in the
cases of men killing their wives, but in recent times it has been used
as a defence against killing of GBLTI persons. As Conrad Reyners says
in his article No Straight Answers - The Partial Defence of
Provocation, "Provocation is inherently hetero-normative. Its very
existence reaffirms the status quo position of heterosexual males
occupying the top of the social pyramid. The act of homosexual
contact, at a subconscious level, threatens the prevailing dominance
of heterosexual sexuality. By its very nature, a homosexual advance is
accepted to be an attack upon the sanctified and impenetrable male
body. Therefore there is no such thing as a homosexual advance ... The
continued existence of provocation as a defence for gay panic prevents
the New Zealand judiciary from treating gay panic for what it really
is - an excuse for hate crime. In R v Ali & Nadan the Judge indicated
that: “Any potential homosexual assault might be sufficient and that
revulsion might lead to a loss of self control.”. There are many
examples of this, such as in 2004 when Robert Hunt was savagely
murdered. He was killed by 18 year old Dick Faisauvale, who held him
by the throat and stabbed him. Hunt collapsed after unsuccessfully
trying to phone 111 for an hour and died on his floor. At trial
Faisauvale, who had previously had a sexual relationship with Hunt,
claimed that he was provoked, arguing that he thought he was going to
be raped by Hunt and was lashing out in gay panic. Faisauvale was
running the defence of provocation.

Now I myself am Bisexual. This is seen by heterosexual society as a
whole to be more "acceptable" then being Homosexual. But if you must
know, there is as much stigma attached to it by a lot of
heterosexuals, and then you add the stigma from the Lesbian and
Homosexual society and you get stuck in a really uncomfortable
position. It always feels like you have to prove to straight people
that you aren't gay, and to the Lesbians and Homosexuals that you
aren't straight. A lot of Lesbians and Homosexuals feel that bi people
are either just hanging on to the image or are really gay but haven't
come all the way out. I recently went to the UniQ conference in
Wellington (was a lot of fun, I strongly recommend that if you're in
the GBLT community that you come next year), and in the van I went
down in was filled with bi's. Now this wasn't because we wanted to be
in a van filled with bi people, it was bigotry on the behalf of the
people who assigned the vans. I could go on a lot more about that but
I don't want to turn it into a personal attack. We talked a lot about
a number of matters, including acceptance of ourselves in the
different societies. The others in the van told me that it is easier
for them to just tell everyone that they are gay or lesbian as they
get less discrimination from both sides, leading us to the conclusion
that although being bisexual is seen to be the more acceptable option,
it is not.

I was the only bi favouring opposite sex in the van. I am definitely
not straight as anyone who knows me can tell, and I would not be so
presumptuous to call myself gay in order to be accepted by society
more. In fact by being open about my sexuality to anyone who asks, I
put myself in a very dangerous position socially. I have slept with
and been in relationships with people of both genders, and I just
prefer girls. They don't just want sex all the time and are quite a
lot softer and smell nice. I have a girlfriend whom I love with all my
heart; she knows that I am bi and she finds it cute. She is about the
only person not bisexual and outside of the group known as the Alcove
or some of the people in UniQ who accepts me for who I am. Even my
parents try telling me that I'm not "really bisexual", their
justification being that I have a girlfriend. I know who I am, I'm not
going to lie so that others feel better. There is a lot of talk in the
GBLTI community about getting equality with heterosexuals. I say that
we need equality inside our community first. A lot of people are going
to say that being bi is not socially unacceptable, but that tends only
to be true for the teenage girls who say they are bi so that guys find
them hotter. Never worked that one out, I dated someone like that once
because I thought she was actually bi and, well, she was damn fine,
but everyone knows that they are really straight so there is no
attached stigma.

Now, at the conference there was many talks of interest. That was how
I learnt about the salvation armies continuing bigotry towards us and
the Partial Defence of Provocation. One of the talks was about
Transgendered rights. There is a lot of confusion around this, and I
will tell you what I personally picked up from it.

1) If someone is crossdressing or is obviously transgender, refer to
them by the gender that they are portraying.
2) Do NOT ask if they have had "the operation". There is a lot of
operations that you need to have, and how would you like it if someone
came up to you and asked "is your penis/vagina big/tight?"
3)They prefer to be called by the gender they are portraying and not
as "trans-male" or "trans-female"
4) A large number of them consider themselves to be straight, so don't
call them gay unless you know for a fact that they consider themselves
to be so
5) Someone who is unhappy with the gender they were born with is
genderqueer, which is an awesome word.
6) Treat them as you want to be treated

I will sign off now, I don't want to go on for ages about this stuff.
If anyone has any questions regarding UniQ, your GBLTI group on
campus, email [email protected] or come along to Alleluya Cafe
at 5.30pm on thursdays, we have coffee and the general meeting there.
Its an open and supportive environment for GBLTI people on campus, and
will help you will any and all problems that you have. Even come along
if you are heterosexual and supportive, we would love to see you. And
if you have any questions regarding me, write in to your beloved
magazine and I will reply as best i can

Hold on to your socks for my next article, fetishes and you
~The Emperor Fabulous

What do you guys think?