Labels May Not Apply

by norrie mAy welby

(The Gender Centre advise that this article may not be current and as such certain content, including but not limited to persons, contact details and dates may not apply. Where legal authority or medical related matters are cited, responsibility lies with the reader to obtain the most current relevant legal authority and/or medical publication.)

On Tuesday August, the Gender Centre hosted it's first ever "Labels May Not Apply" workshop, for people for whom labels like "male" or "female" or "gay" or "straight" or even "bi" don't always quite fit.

I think the organiser, Sean Taylor, the Social and Support Worker, was a bit worried no one would enroll or turn up to this brave venture. But about ten of us did indeed turn up, establish our ground rules of mutual respect, and began sharing and exploring our own personal experience of what gender and sexuality meant for us.

The workshop was very well structured. We took till lunchtime to begin really getting to our nitties and gritties (so to speak), but it took the morning sessions to warm us up to this, to make us feel safe and comfortable with each other, enough to turn over our personal rocks and let everyone else see while we had a look at what grew, writhed or rotted there.

Everyone was entitled to withhold personal stuff, but most bared their vulnerabilities, and gained strength from doing so in a safe and supportive space of peers. We shared our adversities, and more im­portantly, how we dealt with and even overcame our adversities, turning weakness into strength, and pain into joy, or just get­ting by and not letting the bastards grind us down.

The most fun part was the final session, where we wrote our own personal commitments by turning around our weaknesses and fears into positive affirmations. Then some of us stood and made our commitments in front of the group, holding Sean's hand, under a spotlight. Oh, it might be too much for cynical new-age-nay­sayers, but it felt great!

Thanks Sean, for putting together this day, and especially to all the participants who shared and bore witness and accepted each other without judgment for which labels we may or may not have. I'm very proud and happy to have been part of this experience, and to have been changed by it.

Polare is published in Australia by The Gender Centre Inc. which is funded by the Department of Community Services under the S.A.A.P. Program and supported by the N.S.W. Health Department through the AIDS and Infectious Diseases Branch. Polare provides a forum for discussion and debate on gender issues. Advertisers are advised that all advertising is their responsibility under the Trade Practices Act. Unsolicited contributions are welcome, though no guarantee is made by the Editor that they will be published, nor any discussion entered into. The editor reserves the right to edit such contributions without notification. Any submission which appears in Polare may be published on our internet site. Opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor, The Gender Centre Inc.I, the Department of Community Services or the N.S.W. Department of Health.