Editorial

by Katherine Cummings

(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.)

Elizabeth tells me she received a telephoned complaint from a reader who considered the cover images for Polare 57 and Polare 59 to be "trashy". I will respond first with regard to the cover of 59.

It showed an image of your editor, in the costume which won Best Costume in the World Science Fiction Convention Masquerade in Melbourne in 1975. It was an image for its time and place and was used for the cover of Polare by request of the Social and Support staff to reinforce the theme of this year's Gender Centre Frolic (shades of "Galaxy Quest", and timely since the image was clearly taken from Spaceship Cassini, currently zooming through the vicinity of Saturn). Trashy? Only if you are a narrow minded wowser devoid of humour.

I take more exception to being criticised for the cover of Polare 57. The image, "Twilight Lovers" was taken by Tina Fiveash, a talented and internationally recognised photographer who has placed that image, and many others, in public exhibitions, commercial publications, posters, postcards and web pages and who has won numerous awards for her professional skill.

I first encountered the image in a serious book entitled Lesbian Art and was so impressed that I wrote to Tina Fiveash and ordered a large print of the work to hang on my wall. Trashy it is not.

I assume the objection was not raised on the grounds that it showed two women kissing? This is hardly the publication, nor the organisation, to take kindly to homophobia.

We are told by Tina Fiveash, in a letter reprinted with the article on her work in issue 57, that the models for the photo were lovers in real life, which is more than is true of the models for Rodin's "Kiss", one of the most beautiful and erotic sculptures of the 20th Century.

Back when the world was young and I first came upon Rodin's "Kiss" (about 1950, I think), I wrote a little poem.

On First Seeing Rodin's Kiss
This is the love that knows its name,
The crocus moment of first kisses
On virgin snow an April flame.
This is the tender instant and
She lies, as calm as any duchess
Surrendered within the strong right hand
Which barely touches.

There is nothing trashy about gentle, nor passionate, reciprocated love, nor kisses, nor admiration for a phenomenal work of creative art. Only the trashy will see trash, only the prurient will call it pornography.

In the letter columns pf this issue there is a letter from Karen Gurney of W-O-M-A-N, pointing out, quite rightly, that re Kevin concerned itself, in the final analysis, with a heterosexual union, having defined the union in question as heterosexual on its way through, and should, therefore, not be used by supporters of same-sex marriage to support their viewpoint . The point is valid, but personally I see no reason why advocates for same-sex marriage should not use re Kevin to demonstrate that the old forms are passing and that now there are men who were once legally women and women who were once legally men and may have been legally married in their former legal gender; there are women reassigned at birth who, like men, have XY chromosomes and there are people born intersexed who can nominate their preferred gender. Why then, should two people who wish to make a formal and public statement of their intention to remain together for life be denied use of the term "marriage"? Nobody owns a word.

And while we are on the topic of Trans language, I keep running into people who object to being called a "transgender" or "transsexual", because "we don't call a person with cancer a cancer and we don't call a person with measles a measle. We should not call a person by the name of the disease they suffer from".

Well, English doesn't work like that. It is full of exceptions and broken rules and in some cases we do indeed refer to a sufferer by the name of his or her disease. We have diabetics, manic-depressives, schizophrenics and lepers, to name only a few. English is flexible and malleable, and even ductile in the hands of those who like to draw their arguments out at great length [guilty as charged, m'lud]. But if you bend it too much to suit your own beliefs, it may be distorted or even break and communication becomes the victim. Language is a code and the more "noise" you insert, the less meaning will be transmitted.

Surely communication and education are what we are striving for, both within and outside our community.

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.