Support growing for LGBTQI+ community against hate groups

A community gesture of solidarity for a Melbourne drag event is demonstrating the growing intolerance of Right-wing hate groups, writes Tom Tanuki.

FAR-RIGHT conspiracists are planning to protest and harass attendees at Drag Expo today in Melbourne. The expo is a family-friendly event for anyone interested in drag culture, drag fashion, pop culture and beauty.

Like many family-friendly events of its nature, however, it is being reframed as a danger to children by homophobes and transphobes, who do that to legitimise the ongoing hate campaign they’ve now been conducting for several years. In the context of this campaign, as it has been mounted against queer community and drag-related events by an alliance of neo-Nazis, cookers and religious fundamentalists, this would appear to spell more bad news — another sign that no event for queer or trans people is safe from these scumbags.

The good news, however, is that there’s a community gesture of solidarity that’s been called to defend it outside. I urge you to attend it, in fact. It’s at 9:30 AM today outside the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC). Event details are here.

There’s a mounting energy surrounding protecting events like this, but at the same time, this isn’t the first time these germs have targeted the Drag Expo. I am reminded of their ridiculous effort last year. Many of the same cookers who are organising this protest were behind that abortive attempt, too.

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Part of supporting LGBTQ+ people is arranging events that include them and finding ways to defend those events with the community in the face of hateful Far-Right hostility.

But in 2022 they messed up. They picked the wrong entrance to stand outside, so many people coming and going weren’t even affected. A couple of them managed to get in and wandered around accosting families, asking them stupid questions about grooming, but they didn’t even annoy anyone enough to rouse security’s interest. So really, they just stood at a set of closed doors with their stupid red flags, banging drums and waffling vaguely into a megaphone about grooming. Many of the seasoned cookers in attendance had no idea why they were there.

For all the ongoing effort these idiots have expended over the year since, I don’t expect a significant difference in their presentation today. Much of the reason for that is that they haven’t expended much energy on building up a physical movement for this kind of anti-LGBT+ action over the past year. They haven’t had to, because often, councils or organisations responsible for hosting queer and trans-friendly community events have panicked in the face of online threats and “Vicpol advice”, leaping to cancel events before cookers even got a chance to protest.

So, for the most part, all the bigots have really developed is the ability to send coordinated online threats to councillors and young drag performers. (It’s a blight on VicPol and local government that cookers have had so much success pursuing this weak strategy.)

But I’m far more comfortable about the safety of Drag Expo attendees knowing that a gesture of defensive community solidarity is now happening outside. A collective known as Trans Queer Solidarity Naarm has arranged a snap defensive action outside the event. It’s billed as an opportunity to celebrate drag, trans and queer lives.

I recall that at Drag Expo 2022 there was no community event to protect it. In part, this is because back then we usually used to try and cobble up defensive contingents of activists to attend in private. (This was particularly the case for smaller community events — we were scared of publicly announcing our intentions and potentially whipping up more enthusiasm among the far-Right.)

Sometimes we’d try and drum up numbers for defending events and would find no more than a handful of people available. It was an exhausting tightrope, regularly spent trying in vain to work with event hosts who often suspected that our idea of arranging a peaceful solidarity contingent to protect their event was a lie masking some nefarious far-Left plan to punch on with Nazis out the front of their event. I felt like we were constantly ceding ground to bigots. It felt frustrating and immobilising.

This year, I know the community will show up and I know they’re going to manage to strike that balance between not scaring off the community while defending the event from bigots. It’s a tricky balance that’s been unique to this particular campaign, but I’m confident enough people have gotten the message. And the fact that so many people have realised the danger of this mounting far-Right scare campaign, and collectively decided to respond to it by putting boots on ground, warrants celebration. We’ve come a long way.

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The Australian Far-Right recently targeted an LGBTQ-inclusive Rainbow Storytime event. However, this time, tactics of issuing threats until the event was cancelled didn’t work.

Many drag storytime events have seen celebratory defensive community events spring up out the front, far outnumbering any ragtag far-Right contingent loitering a block away. Rainbow Community Angels formed, providing a broader church for enthusiastic community defence of queer-friendly events than the usual Left activist scene was seen to accommodate. Now there’s no shadow of a doubt — if a queer, trans or drag-friendly event is under threat, we can call for a community response and it will occur.

But these things only succeed if we all lend our numbers to them, as a community. So, you should join Trans Queer Solidarity Naarm’s snap action. It’s happening from 9:30 AM outside the MCEC, at the Spencer/Clarendon St South Wharf Promenade.

Their call to action says:

‘We aim to be a welcoming presence for Expo attendees and to flaunt trans, queer pride and solidarity. Wear colour, bring signs, banners, flags, instruments, umbrellas. Wear a mask for COVID safety and to prevent doxing. Come with a buddy/group.’

If you believe in freedom of expression, go. Be part of a mounting community effort to protect and stand alongside our queer and trans comrades and friends.

Tom Tanuki is a writer, satirist and anti-fascist activist. Tom does weekly videos on YouTube commenting on the Australian political fringe. You can follow Tom on Twitter @tom_tanuki.