I can't hear any more about the rise of One Nation

 This piece of writing will be, undoubtedly, considered "rich" of me, considering I am at a point of my life where I have had to downsize my activism, and focus inward. I am battling (which is the only way to put what has been the past six months of my life) what should be a normal transition for women, but have been left debilitated and needing to focus entirely on what I can physically and mentally do at this point. So yes, I am not on the streets, I am not at the rallies, I am rarely at the panels, and I am not writing much. My energy is limited, and what I have has had to be saved for keeping a roof over my head and keeping on going.

But I am also pretty annoyed right now. A month ago, I left Facebook (whether for a time, or forever - I have not decided), and partly this was because I got sick of judgement and microaggressions from those who I kept that space open for. Partly though, it was because in amongst all the push-advertising was this constant stream of news regarding the rise of One Nation, and a performative moral panic attached to that. 

In my life, I have seen a lot of pointing at the "real racists". Possibly the most disgraceful version of this in the recent times had to do with the referendum. At a time when non-Indigenous people should have been sitting the hell back, listening to the very robust debate coming from Indigenous people (no, I do not include the Indigenous conservative "no" case who showed, incontrovertibly that they were more than happy to reinforce the white status quo for their own benefit), and making informed decisions, I saw a good portion of the Australian left pointing at Indigenous sovereignty activists and accusing them of "siding with the racists" because their point was that no - what was on the table was not good enough.

Indeed, I experienced this very thing personally at a union conference. A white elected official from a different union to me took it upon herself to bail me up, accuse me of siding with the "racists" because the union I work for (NTEU) advocated a conscience vote rather than straight out yes (she actually claimed we had advocated a vote No position, and would not listen otherwise), and then claim that we had not bothered surveying our membership (we had). She would not listen otherwise, and was so incredibly aggressive. That she could not see her behaviour towards me - an actual Aboriginal person with a clue - as deeply problematic was extraordinary. 

Then there was the fellow commentator, who I had busted when I stood as a political candidate contributing to the online bullying I received, also having the hide to make that "siding with the racists" claim because in the public sphere, I maintained an Indigenous undecided standpoint. It was extraordinary. This person got to perform their alleged anti-racism through donning a Yes t-shirt and handing out some flyers, but damned if they were going to peacefully allow an Indigenous woman to put her hand up in a democratic race. 

What was on the table for the referendum was nowhere near good enough. A small group of Indigenous people had devised the least threatening way forward in the hope that it may gain some mainstream support. It gave Indigenous people no rights, and no real voice. That it was voted down so easily says an awful lot about the ignorance the Australian voting public actually contains. But it also states quite clearly that the misinformation being peddled by massive sections of the Left did not help one iota.

Which, in a way, brings me to this point about One Nation and its rise. What if I told you that the rise of ONP is a symptom, but not a cause? Because truly, that's what I believe it to be. Yes, people can gather on the streets and oppose the "real racists", but exactly how has Australia remotely become a place that is not inherently racist? What has the Left been doing to dismantle the very real racism that allows the space for working class folks to think they have been hard done by, and seek these feckless alternatives?

Many years ago, around the time when a bunch of white politicians started becoming victims of s44 of the Australian constitution because they were dual citizens, I wrote what was one of Eureka Street's most read articles that year on how this was not a "win", but actually an indictment on this country. s44's split loyalties provision was, after all, written in a White Australian Policy attempt to stop Chinese and Indian immigrants from ever holding a federal seat. It actually stuns me that we could have gone through then entire referendum campaign, hearing how anti-racist this Yes vote was, without there being any real talk about the racism contained in the consitution more broadly. Certainly, if we were talking about the constitution becoming inclusive, I categorically believe we should also have been voting for the removal of this provision, s25 (which allows for races of people to be banned from voting) and also the race power itself (or at least the amendment of it, so it is not weilded against us). 

Instead though, many of these same unions I have seen performing their anti-racism during the referendum campaign have now brought back into promoting their historical support of the White Australia Policy. Certainly, this is the case when it comes to the handful of them I notice now sharing "Happy Australia Day" posts on their social media rather than promoting solidarity with the Invasion Day rallies. And definitely, it is the case when I see the AWU proudly posting about certain founding figures (eg: William Guthrie Spence and Chris Watson) and their legacies, yet deleting any comment I will make about both these blokes being rabid supporters of the White Aust Policy, with Watson being particularly opposed to racial intermixing despite he himself being of German-Chilean background. Don't believe me? Google either of these blokes' names and see them celebrated on neo-Nazi websites.

It's 34 years since the Mabo ruling, yet we're still in a society where people can be performatively outraged when a Welcome to Country is booed. How exactly has that society changed since "terra nullius" was determined to be a legal fiction in the highest court of this land? Do Aboriginal people have land rights? The ability to practice culture and language freely and supported without justification? Does mainstream Australia actually embrace this long proud pre-settlement history, or is it still very much stuck in a terra nullius mindset? Small gains may have been made, but not an awful lot has actually changed, in my opinion, and this shows itself in the devastating statistics. In 2026, a Koori man should not have to walk all the way from Melbourne to Canberra to attempt to highlight the need for truth-telling in this country. This should have been a given decades ago. 

And, related to this, how has the White Australia Policy mindset shifted? After all, it's now been roughly five decades since that was finally politically dismantled, and yet white people are still feeling very threatened by people of colour. So much so, that several Labor governments have passed legislation trying to limit protest as they really don't want the marginalised to freely gather and mark their dissent. Nobody in the Left should be OK with this, and yet the challenge to the right to protest has been mainly limp. I admit, I do not know what goes on in those Labor Party conferences and party rooms, but exactly how much are these attacks being challenged internally? How heavily are the various ALP-affiliated union leaderships going "nah, this is bullshit" considering we are a movement which, without protest, is effectively nothing? Never mind that such limits on protest have been greatly impacted by a want to stop pro-Palestine protesters gathering to oppose another nationalist movement with a strong lobby behind them.

Brown and black people are still spoken of as if they are a new thing to this country. As the descendant of a brown migrant who came to Melbourne in the 1860s, I find this puzzling. Muslims are still spoken as if they are a new presence, despite the fact that the first mosque was built in 1861 by cameleers. Howard's reinforcement of Australian Pride has really stuck, a generation on, and at what cost? Certainly, not many seem to have much of an idea of why they're fronting an ANZAC Day dawn service on the 25/4. If they did, would they then be OK with still booing the Welcome?

To be honest, I strongly believe that fascism rises, and the ONP rises, purely because a massive proportion of this country is content to give them space to rise. If a vast majority of so-called Australians felt secure in their jobs, their housing, and their futures, would there be enough people left over to blame the immigrants or mob and vote for these feckless turds? And the Labor Party, instead of increasing this feeling of security and cohesion, chases after the top end of town, or appeals to Australian racists, in a bid to hold these votes at the ballot box. Certainly, they are not dismantling the racist structures, and building a safer and more secure future for all. 

Yes, I think that when it comes to establishment politics, some smaller parties on the left need to do more to differentiate themselves, because truly, the ALP is providing them the space to do so with their incompetence. But I have to say, as a now 48 year old, that if I am honest about it, I don't feel much has changed in my lifetime. Some things went forward, some things went backward, some goalposts were shifted, but overall, the racist status quo has remained the same.

For me then, opposing One Nation has very little worth when I spend so much time still having to fight within the broad left. We need to be building the collective, taking the lead from communities who actually know, and counteracting some deeply-embedded structural issues instead. If we are actually successful in doing this, there will be no room for ONP to exist and gain traction. We will have built the society we truly want and need. Absolutely, fascists need to be punched, but perhaps if the bones of this country wasn't so fascist to begin with, they wouldn't have much to go on it the first place when it comes to their sooks?

Frank Moyes - the update to "The Marigold"

 Many months ago, I wrote up "The Marigold" - a blogpost where I solved the mystery of why my great-great-grandmother Eliza Louisa Hibbert had no birth certificate. I posed an unanswered question at the end of it: as well as my wondering if she ever knew her parents were actually her grandparents, I also wondered what became of her half-brother, Francis.

It seems I have now solved that mystery. Francis Louis Townsend Moyes was the sole beneficiary in his father's will when Robert Gibson Moyes passed away in 1911. Given his (and Eliza's) mother Sarah Avis had passed away in 1890, this technically made him an orphan at the age of 26. 

Frank, like Eliza, was born under rather "interesting" circumstances. For starters, though he was the son of Robert, he was born in 1885 when his mother Sarah was still technically married to her second husband, William Townsend, which is how he initially had Townsend in his name. Sarah married Robert when William died in 1890, yet sadly, only lived for another couple of months. Robert, who had the exceptionally cool occupation of being a "billiard maker", outlived her by two decades, never remarried, nor had any other children, and they are interred together in Melbourne General Cemetery. Sarah appears to have led a short, and rather rough, life, but it's clear that at the end, she found herself a devoted companion. 

Try as I might though, apart from finding Robert's will and therefore knowing that he outlived his father, my trail for Francis ran cold. No marriage or death certificates could be found on the system, regardless of whether I searched under Moyes or Townsend. It wasn't until Ancestry notified me that they had a new "hint" available for Francis that I solved it all.

My family has a tendency to use nicknames or familiar names, or even alias, rather than a person's actual name. Therefore obviously Francis became "Frank", and that was what he was known as. It was also what he officially seemed to use, because the hint ancestry sent me were his World War I service papers. 

Frank Moyes joined the allied forces in 1915, when he was a 30 year old man. From there, he served in the 9th, and then the 59th Battalion. Frank was critically injured in the Battle of Amiens in 1918 and sadly succumbed to his injuries a couple of days later. I therefore could not find a death certificate in Victoria because Frank is buried over in the Vignacourt cemetery, his service number and rank of Private listed on his headstone.

Frank never married, nor had any children. His military service papers, however, also answered another couple of questions for me.

Sadly, when Frank died, I do not believe that he knew he had a living older half-sister. He had no next-of-kin listed on his records, both parents were dead, and correspondence from a Mrs Annie Pearce to the Australian Army indicates that he was a friend of hers who had been lodging at her place when he enlisted. Annie was an older woman - I believe a widow - and it took her several letters to the military in order to gain his personal effects so he was remembered. To do this, Annie Pearce also had to state that Frank had no next-of-kin, and the military then had to establish this as fact. It appears they did establish it because the final piece of correspondence to Annie Pearce from the Army indicates that she received his effects, and that she had to ensure they had not been tampered with in their journey to her.

Annie Pearce herself died only a couple of years later, and sadly, this most likely means that Frank's treasures, memories, and medals are lost to time. It means something else too though: had it been known Frank had a living older half-sister, then these goods would have instead gone to Eliza Louisa Hibbert McVeigh, as Frank had no living parents, and his other two half-siblings had passed away in infancy. It is therefore my belief that he never knew the truth.

This doesn't cancel out the fact that maybe Eliza did know the truth. But she never herself entered into correspondence with the army for his effects. This story of a WW1 family member soldier dying on the field has also not been passed down the generations. The expert in my family on military service is my uncle - a Vietnam Veteran who has been active in the RSL for decades - and this story was news to him. I think, therefore, the most logical conclusion becomes that Eliza did believe she was his aunty rather than his sister - her upbringing ensured that. Had her busy-body great-great-granddaughter not started turning over some rocks over a hundred years later, all this probably would have remained unknown.

My uncle is looking into pursuing this with the RSL, so perhaps one day Frank's medals will return to his living next-of-kin. Perhaps they won't though, and therefore, if I ever go to France, I will make sure I take the time to sit by his graveside, and let him know that his great-great-grandniece has finally found him. Until then, rest peacefully, Private Moyes.

Retiring from rallies (for now)

 This year's Invasion Day rally in Naarm has made me have to stop, and take stock. And I am not talking on a broader scale, where the prospect of gathering is terrifying because some alleged terrorist bombed the Boorloo rally. This is more personal.

Following the Naarm rally, I went down with heat sickness for the first time in my entire life. For those who don't know me well, this was a real turn-up for the books because I, notoriously, have always coped well with hot weather. Indeed, I relish it, and when others are dropping around me, I am still going strong. What's more, it wasn't actually a "hot" day on the 26/1 - for the majority of the rally, the temperature stayed below 30 degrees. But one of my fellow organisers noticed me struggling at Flinders Street, and checked in with me later because they were worried. When I was incredibly ill the following day, I marvelled at their observation skills - they foresaw my situation well before I recognised it.

It was when, however, the symptoms of heat sickness dragged on for a week, and indeed, two, that I realised something else was going on. I dealing with continual waves of heat hitting my body, and knocking me around. I had never had a hot flush, so hence, didn't know that's what was hitting me. But there have been additional problems too. I've been struggling with anxiety and depression, getting tremors and pulpitations, and the neuropathy in my left foot/leg has simply exploded. No existing medications have been helping me.

To a degree, I could explain the anxiety and depression. After all, an old friend died prior to the rally, and I was trying to process this sad event while navigating racist Australia. But a certain amount of my symptoms were not remotely explainable.

There is footage of me reading out the statement from Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance that was taken from Pedestrian TV. If you watch it closely, focussing on my hands, you can see that though my voice is mainly strong and full of conviction, my hands are shaking uncontrollably. Indeed, at one point, my shaking was so bad that I was actually unable to turn the pages and had to keep trying. 

I am an accomplished public speaker. Yes, I get nervous before I address a crowd, but I have never before experienced tremors like this. Ever. It took me nearly 30 minutes to get rid of them, so it wasn't as simple as nervousness - something else had tripped my system and physically, I was not coping.

These same tremors have occurred twice since then. The first time was when I was calmly sitting outside, waiting to go into my friend's funeral. The second was when I rode my bike home from Aldi with some groceries in the basket. In the case of the latter, I couldn't unpack my basket for a number of minutes, so lucky there wasn't icecream or similar amongst my haul. In all these instances, I felt like a beta-blocker wouldn't have gone astray because I had no control. When the tremors were also coupled with palpitations (outside the funeral), I actually got very scared for my health. 

These three tremor events have utterly nothing in common. Sure, each of them happened at a time of stress, but the types of stress tripping this reaction are starkly different (eg: grief versus physical exertion). I have had to take stock. In my reckoning, this reaction means that I am dealing with some deeply embedded physiological or psychological condition that gets triggered by the addition of some form of stress, and I am therefore needing to be more careful.

Then I looked at a calendar. Judging by what my "normal" has been since I was 13, around the date of Invasion Day, I was due to menstruate. Over two weeks later, I still haven't. It's not the first time I have ever skipped, but it's certainly been a unique experience this time around. I have actually had an increase in symptoms consistent with the onset of menopause. Doctor google confirmed for me that tremors, anxiety and neuropathy can all form part of this journey, and given I am also getting multiple hot flushes per day, I am recently certain my body is adjusting to the "end game" of this process. Also, I am 48 in two months, and I have had perimenopause symptoms for a few years now, so I think this is a reasonable conclusion for me to make.

It's not as simple as me just "pushing on". No medication I currently have is alleviating my symptoms. At best, painkillers and nerve blockers have merely taken the edge off. And my quality of life is suffering. If it's not a physical ailment, I am finding it harder to leave the house right now mentally. I therefore need to give myself the space to find support and remedies, so I can get some vitality and normal function back.

I have a doctor's appointment this week. I am hoping that, from there, we are able to build a plan going forward to make things better. For now though, I need the time and space to do as stated.

As such, I ask that people give me that time. Please don't ask me to speak at rallies, or even to attend them, until I can give notification that I can again. My body is in no state right now for me to be putting it on the line. Know that I stand strongly, and/or in solidarity, with mob, with Palestine, with renters, with immigrants, with the working class, and etc. Also know that I am doing everything I can to get myself back on deck, activism-wise. I will always be working behind the scenes regardless. It's just who I am.

Cheers!

So why rhythmic gymnastics?

 I am writing this purely for the fun of it. I have forgotten the joy of writing, and while my family history findings gave me some of it back for a little bit, I am finding that on-the-whole, I am struggling with writing. I seem to be dodging the very same opportunities to hash an opinion out that I used to love, and so oerhaps this is a passion-bridging exercise by talking about a passion?

But yes, for those who follow me on my now private socials, many have noticed I have a seemingly inexplicable fondness for rhythmic gymnastics. I don't like sport in general, and my version of hell is being stuck in a sports bar that does not have live music playing in the next room that I can escape to. I missed the Australian "sporting gene". I am also clumsy as, and perhaps some of my disdain for sports overall comes from my complete inability in all of them despite the fact that I actually have an ideal build for a lot of sports (between my height, my shoulders, and my natural muscle tone). But when it comes to rhythmic gymnastics, I seem to be all in, and folks go "but why?"

Rhythmic gymnastics is such a fringe sport in Australia. Hell, all gymnastics is, and professional Artistic Gymnasts have a hard time gaining a living wage out of it and finding sponsorship to cover their competition schedules. And despite having world champion tumblers and trampolinists, they barely get a look in either. But rhythmic is different - in many of the Slavic countries for example, and Western Asian countries, it is actually the dominant form of gymnastics with their stars celebrated. Here, no. 

I remember a blip in time - 1994 to be precise - where that wasn't the case. Australian rhythmic gymnast Kasumi Takahashi caused a national fever when she managed a clean sweep of gold medals at the Commonwealth Games. Takahashi was brilliant - for her time, she was an incredibly skilled athlete, and so compelling that many Australian eyes were drawn to it for the first time. It didn't last though. Not long after, Takahashi started being the victim of good old-fashioned Australian racism due to her name and Japanese birthplace, and Takahashi herself was forced into retirement a few years later due to stress fractures in her spine. Injuries which, given what the sport was then with its focus on extreme flexibility, not uncommon sadly, and cost many a young career. Indeed, these requirements only became a former part of the sport in 2010.

But yeah, anyway, fun fact: I did rhythmic gymnastics for 6 months when I was 11 years old. I had quit ballet, which I had been doing since I was 4, and cut all my hair off in one of my many early shows of feminist rebellion, and had expressed to mum that I wanted to do gymnastics. I meant Artistic Gymnastics, but my primary school was offering some after school rhythmic classes, and mum pushed me towards them as she loved the sport and considered it more feminine. Unfortunately though, when that six months was up, there was not an awful lot on offer in Canberra when it came to rhythmic gymnastics clubs, and so I got my wish to do Artistic Gymnastics and enrolled at a club in Belconnen.

Did I miss rhythmic then? I can't actually say. I can say that, generally speaking, I was terrible at artistic gymnastics. When I quit that at age 15, I had only reached level 5, and for the time, my height and build were totally inappropriate for the sport. It's a bit wonderful looking at the sport now because there are actually women who are built like me competing at the highest levels. Back then, the top gymnasts were all still just children, and usually children who had been abused by their regimes, and systemically underfed to keep them as lithe as possible. Despite being terrible at the sport though, I often used to ride my bike down to the AIS to watch the gymnasts train, and I loved doing this. On occasion, you would catch rhythmic gymnasts training too, and I thought they were wonderful and admirable. 

But the sport itself didn't capture my imagination. You look at the sport of the late-90s and early-2000s, and it appears to be just a series of dance movements and grotesque contortions performed while waving whatever apparatus they were working with at the time. That's actually exactly what I think, for example, when I watch the routines of Putin's mistress Alina Kabaeva. For her time, yes, she was excellent. But her routines are exactly as I mentioned above, and actually, compared to what we see now, almost look like an entirely different sport.

                                Kabaeva at Athens Olympics

How then did I get back into it? Well, it was the Tokyo Olympics that grabbed my attention. We were all locked up with nothing to do, and suddenly there I was, gripped by the rhythmic gymnastics qualifications, and then its incredibly controversial final. The sport I dismissed as "forced femininity" as a child, and then as a "bit bizarre" as a young adult, had completely transformed. In its place was this highly skilled, and incredibly difficult, display which also allowed for music with lyrics (something else it didn't have back then). Some even used metal music in their routines! Competitors were using their feet to throw hoops and ribbons, and you couldn't blink while watching it because if you did, you'd miss a difficulty element. It was incredible.

                Anastasiia Salos at Tokyo doing hoop - a favourite routine of mine

And yes, the fact that the final was controversial made it even more compelling to me. To give a brief overview, the Russians went in completely expecting to with the gold with their lead competitor, Dina Averina. They were pipped at the post though by Israeli gymnast Linoy Ashram who, via the aparatus difficulty she had packed in her routine, managed to outscore Averina despite an apparatus drop during Ashram's ribbon routine. Bedlam followed. Russia challenged the score of Averina's ribbon routine on the spot, and failed. They then issued a complaint about the judging process, and the findings were that no, there hadn't been bias, and the judging was both compliant and fair. 

Because the sport was "new" to me, and I was trying to figure out how everything panned out, I cannot tell you how many times I watched that final in a bid to grasp how it had all unfolded. At the end though, it was all quite simple. In the final, Averina had missed one valuable difficulty element - a catch in the ball routine with her knees while performing a roll under the flight path - which she had successfully performed in the qualification round, and which had cost her just enough decimal points to land in silver position. Ashram, meanwhile, had crammed her routines with difficulty elements and had successfully performed most of them, to the point of where one drop in the ribbon routine was inconsequential on her placing. This sport was so intricate and compelling that something as small as this could make all the difference, and I was captivated from that point onwards.

                                The controversial Tokyo final

But something else also captivated me. The sport had grown more diverse, and was less "girlie", for want of a better term. Remember, as I kid, I had been pushed towards it due to its perceived femininity in comparison to WAG, and therefore I had partly resisted this. What I was now seeing though was a women's sport that showed an abundance of creativity, difficulty and athleticism. It was an absolute smorgasbord for the eyes. And in this form, it appealed to me greatly. 

What's more, the more competitions I caught, the more diversity I saw. When it came to race, I was seeing South American and Middle Eastern gymnasts chomping at the heels of the dominant European competitors. When it came to body type, while some countries did seem to prefer sticking to the tall waif-types of yesterday, others had embraced body diversity. Bulgaria, for example, who is a dominant force in the sport had a team which consisted of great diversity in height and build, and every single one of them had been worked with to build routines that worked with, rather than against, this. 

As well as metal music in routines, and other such things, another aspect I noticed was the diverse ways gymnasts were working the apparati. Take, for example, the below ribbon routine by my very favourite (now retired) gymnast, Boryana Kaleyn. I loved this routine because ribbon has traditionally been very flowy and "pretty", and Kaleyn instead turned it into a display of strength by using it to tell the story of a folk warrior:

If that's not enough, perhaps check out this incredible clubs routine by Wang Zilu at the Paris Olympics. Through using cultural elements, she too managed to show clubs in a completely different way, that was equally strong. The video from the Olympics itself that I could find was crap, but I found one from a world cup, or alternately, watch the entire Paris finals on YouTube:

In short, the sport has changed so much. And those changes have been incredible. What I am seeing now is an intricate, and epic sport, where trained bodies are performing the impossible, and pushing new frontiers. And so I sit there, for hours, watching the European, the Asian, and the World Championships. I look at which other countries are challenging the old dynamics and where the next generation of top gymnast may come from. And as a sport loather, I am enthralled.

What else has changed? Well, for starters, I know that men also do rhythmic gymnastics. Japan has an entire men's competition using different apparatuses, and incorporating acrobatic elements which are not a part of mainstream RG. Here's a men's clubs routine from Japan, and it is extraordinary:

In countries like Spain, men also do Rhythmic Gymnastics, though it is more inline with the main competition. To see these men though, really makes me hope that the men's competition does take off and get incorporated into the mainstream world comps, because can we talk about this man's butterfly leap sequence?!

So anyway, that's it. That is why you suddenly see rhythmic gymnastics content making its way into my feed. It is an extraordinary sport, full of art, athleticism, strength, and in my humble opinion, if you are not watching it, you are missing out. I am so glad that it has evolved over time, and is pushing new boundaries. I will say, the group competition still bamboozles me so it's the individual comps that I consume at ridiculous rates, but who knows - maybe one day, I will also understand group too? But yes, thank you, rhythmic gymnastics, for giving me a sport I can actually understand and be interested in. And to my favourite competitors, you are totally incredible.

PS Here's a weird historic twist, incidentally. It turns out that I have a distant cousin who is a rhythmic gymnast, and though living in Canada, she represented Sri Lanka on the world stage because that was where her parents were born. Had I not done family research, I would not have known this fact. So to Anna-Marie Quint Ondaatje, you are a legend!

Permimenopausal Blak woman with severe, life-long, body dysmorphia posts photos of her in bathers on the socials, gets back love.

 This blog post is going to do what it says on the tin, with added context. I am writing it because, via an overwhelming positive reaction to some photos I took of myself enjoying the R&R at Wai Ariki Thermal Baths in Rotorua, I have actually had to stop and reflect, not just on why I was able to post such photos in the first place, but what the positive reaction to these shots has meant to me, and why that needs unpacking.

I have suffered from crippling body dysmorphia my entire life. It started when I was very young. In fact, I think if I were to go back over the photo albums, I would struggle to find any photos of me in bathers, or anything which shows any skin at all, from about 7 years old onwards. I have written this before on here, but to re-contextualise, as a very young child, I was continually body-shamed. I cannot remember the first time someone pointed out to me that I was "fat" or "solid", but I know that it happened before I turned ten. I was growing into a tall and broad-shouldered build with natural tone, and would be often compared to my younger sister who was smaller and slighter in build. She would be called "skinny and miserable" whereas I always was told I needed to lose a few kilos.

This criticism continued into my teen years. I am rehashing here so for those who have already read this before, apologies and skip ahead beyond the next two paragraphs. In year 8, I was told by two boys in my class that a vote had been held, and I had been voted the "ugliest girl" in the class. I was called fat many times until I was 16 when, in a weird sort of turn of events, I got my first boyfriend and via him, I had heard that another girl in my year who was dating his friend had said that the thought I was "pretty", but that there was just "something about me" that she didn't like or get. I don't think she knows just how much that comment meant to me. Even though she had judged my personality without cause, she had also been the first person to comment positively and without equivocation on my appearance.

This continued. I had been told I needed to lose weight in order to do gymnastics, so I eventually dropped it. I described myself as having "battleship hips" when I was 17 when, looking at pictures of myself right now, I know I am quite slim-hipped. Family feedback on my appearance was always negative, and when I gained weight due to developing severe depression in my late 20s while being in a toxic and abusive relationship, their feedback was utterly brutal. I remember one sibling having the hide to tell me that their criticism of my weight gain had "inspired" me to do something about it, and I think they were a little shocked to be informed that it sent me further down the well to the point where I even pondered self-harm. Getting out of that relationship meant that my mental health improved, and so my weight dropped to what I would call my "normal" - I am 172cm tall, and between a size 10 and 12. 

I maintained that size throughout my 30s with little effort. However, in a real turn up for the books, myself and Ruby Hamad ended up enduring a pile-on by "body positivity activists" who claimed that a remark by me (which was actually just an honest comment on online hate, and unpacking how it operates intersectionally for women of colour) threw fat women under the bus and as we were both "skinny", it was particularly harmful. Of course, these activists didn't unpack the actual comment, nor did they engage with either of our cultural backgrounds and journeys through body dysmorphia (which we both had stuggled with). It was a surface level outrage fest and though I acknowledge the right to feel pain in this world that is so unkind to women based on our appearances, I don't think nearly cancelling two women of colour without exploring actual context, or knowing their own journeys through dysmorphia, is the way to go about it.

There's an additional thing - I think this is why I enjoyed loads of sex in my late-teens and also in my 30s. Partly, it was because the act is simply fun. Partly though, it was because it gave me freedom from my dysmophia. Experiencing this continuously criticised (by myself, and by others) body in a pleasurable way was incredibly liberating. So too was going to day spas in Europe where everyone is naked. You get the freedom to experience your body as simply functional in this circumstance, with everyone having a different one, and that being OK.

ANYWAY, I am repeating. My second big battle with depression and therefore weight gain came during the lockdowns. As well as the many problems with the VicGov approach (policing a health crisis), I have never really properly acknowledged how triggering being forced to stay at home was for me. It was like I was back in that abusive relationship of my late-20s, but this time, it was with the government. Photo evidence proves my gain then - the photos of when I was a Greens candidate were taken when I was carrying 25kgs more than I am now, by a photographer who tried to spin it positively by telling me the weight gain had "taken years off (my) face". Like before, when the lockdowns ended, my mental health improved, and because my brain wasn't having to work so hard to just cope, my metabolism kicked back in and here I am again, at my "normal" size.

Of course, that has never stopped the dysmorphia. I have improved, and am much closer to self-acceptance than I have even been, but perimenopause has added a variable. Now, I'm size 10 to 12, but I ache more often, I pluck stray hairs more often, I bleed more often or not at all, etc. People keep regurgitating that this change tends to lead to weight gain for women, and therefore there's this cloud of ridiculous paranoia hanging around my head, telling me I am going to have to shift 25kgs again soon, and for the third time in my life. It's messing with me. And simply accepting myself if I do get bigger is a huge ask for someone with three bulging discs - as well as being not happy in my body, I also risk putting further strain on injuries I live with every day. Anyway...

I don't know what prompted me to post my photos at Wai Ariki. I think I wanted to show myself having a bit of R&R in what is one of the most incredible landscapes I have ever been to. I think I was also trying to liberate myself from my own dysmorphia. I see people post photos of themselves swimming in their bathers all the time, and in a way, I have been envious that they are so present in their own bodies. I was not expecting the positive reaction I did get.

I mean, as well as over 100 likes on Facebook, people were stating that I looked "hot", and one person even cheekily referred to one photo as a "thirst trap" 😂. That was definitely not the intention of my posting it, but it was bloody nice to see that it could be read as such. In particular though, folks commented on my looking relaxed. That, in itself, was a massive achievement. I mean, not only am I a 47yo Blak woman with body dysmorphia, but I also went bathing not giving a shit about my leg and armpit hair. So there you have it. One simple act of posting pics got read in positive ways I had never intended, and also that I had never experienced, and thus, I am so grateful to all who interacted with these photos (reposted below) positively.

Body dysmorphia is a bitch, and my solidarity with all who, like me, battle it. May we get to a day where we can simply "be".

We lost in Melbourne

 I am trying to think how I can process my personal grief and anger at what transpired during yesterday's White Nationalist parade. And I do feel both because I am an old war horse around the traps, I have seen a number of successful anti-fascist actions in my time, and yesterday wasn't one of them. It was devastating.

However we, as the Left, and as those who stand against racism and fascism, and for multiculturalism, justice and equality, need to start with being honest with ourselves. Stating that we were vastly outnumbered is inaccurate. The numbers were roughly equal. Indeed, they were perhaps slightly in our favour. Yet the white nationalists still somehow got to goose-step themselves up Swanston and Bourke Streets to then have a rousing bunch of speeches with NSN leader Tom Sewell welcomed to the stage with open arms. That shouldn't have happened. It really, bloody, shouldn't have happened.

What did I observe then? Well, for starters, I got to the Library as the end of the crowd was joining the march down Swanston. I was late and missed all the speeches. I then sought to move through the crowd to the front like the seasoned protest navigator I am. The front was at Little Collins Street, so that's a good three city blocks (or six, depending on your counting and cartography preferences). That's roughly 5000+. At the Collins St intersection, those who had made their way from the Federation Square counter action to the Palestine rally were waiting. Some of these people had already been brutalised and were shaken, so were so thankful to see the crowd. A wall of police, including mounties and fully suited PORT officers blocked us off from the white nationalists.

Aerial photography shows that the number of nationalists was roughly similar in size to us. Certainly, they did not "vastly outnumber us", as I have seen some claim. Given the size of our crowd, and what forms "direct action" can take, what I believe should have happened next was that we held Swanston Street by locking in, sitting down, and refusing to give them passage. A blockade as a form of counteraction can be incredibly effective, particularly if you have a big group of people making this collective statement, AND the tactic is well-communicated so those in attendance know and are pulling together. If they want confrontation, we are waiting for them, and it's on our terms on our streets.

What our side did instead was this:

1. Split off to counteract some fascist breakaway groups in side streets - this caused confusion with many in the larger group unaware of what was going on;

2. Gave conflicting messages - at one point, half the megaphones were yelling to go to Parliament, while the other half were yelling to go to the Library. Attendees had NFI which way to go. With friends, I opted for towards Parliament, and literally all this achieved was us all getting trapped by more police on Russell, watching the nationalists walk up Bourke;

3. Fragment the group - as mentioned above, with bits of the anti-racism group getting broken off every which way, we ended up with smaller groups of some very vulnerable people. They will always "vastly outnumber us" if we are fragmented enough to be pockets of action, rather than a cohesive collective. In at least one instance I know of, a young woman was assaulted by NSN thugs while alone and trying to find her way to the crowd;

4. Clear the path - with these little groups breaking off, any chance of mass "you shall not pass" statements captured by aerial media photography were dashed. Because everyone was off in small pockets everywhere, Swanston Street again became fair game, and the white nationalists then marched up there, and then up Bourke, to land at parliament and cheer their Nazi speeches.

I have been to many anti-fascist rallies over the decades, but never have I felt as individually unsafe as I did yesterday. Indeed, myself, a trans woman, and two lesbians ended up dashing down two laneways, and across Bourke between clumps of "proud Aussies" from Russell Street in an attempt to find a larger, and safer, collective. As a fellow old war horse pointed out to me, at previous antifa and anti-racism actions, because the collective held the line, communicated the tactics, and didn't budge until the outnumbered Nazis were on their way home, "you'll always lose in Melbourne" became a popular victory chant. Well, the Nazis didn't lose in Melbourne yesterday. The streets were theirs, and due to our own disorganisation, miscommunication, and failure to protect the collective, it was partly our fault.

To hear this all culminated in a savage attack on Camp Sovereignty has further infuriated me. Nazis were so emboldened, they went to a sacred site, and bashed Blak women. This should NEVER have happened.

We simply cannot allow such an avoidable mess to happen on our streets again. If those sitting comfy on their couches at home, watching this unfold, really do care, I suggest you get off your arses, join the action, and make "never again" truly happen. To leftist organisers, I say know your tactics, assess your situation and numbers, make a collective decision, communicate it to all other organisers, and then stick to it. Don't lead vulnerable people off into potentially dangerous situations because you don't know what you're doing, and DO NOT CEDE GROUND. To those who were there - try not to be too disheartened. It was a fucken awful day, but we can turn this around.

Finally, I am putting my money where my big mouth is. If people want me, and reckon I can help, I am available to do so. As an Arrernte woman, I never want to see us lose in Melbourne again.

UPDATE: I have been sent video footage of the white nationalist gathering which presents a different view to the aerial I had previously seen. This footage indicates that their crowd numbers were bigger than I had seen. Regardless of size though, my points stand with regards to what unfolded on our side.

Lorna - Family history update

 It's a good year and a half into this family history research, yet there is something that is still bothering me somewhat - my grandmother Lorna remains a bit of a mystery to me. 

I mean, I now know why she had an olive complexion - it came from her Burgher heritage. But I don't know what she herself knew of this heritage, if she knew anything at all. I know why it was that she also seemed to have some sort of financial independence - she inherited this from her mother and her grandparents. But I also find it odd that she always told me she was an only child when she wasn't - she had a half-brother and I never met him. I also haven't met his family, and I have no idea why such an estrangement happened between these two siblings. Perhaps it was a jealousy on nanna's behalf that her father went on to make another family following her parents' divorce. Either way, if Ray's descendants ever read this, I would love to meet you. I just haven't known where to start.

I know nanna was brought up mainly by her nanna, and her nanna was, in turn, brought up by her grandmother. But I cannot find any stories about this, and while I remember my nanna having a particular fondness for me, I don't really recall her as a nurturer.

I've thought maybe nanna rebelled against her parents by having a steady husband who was also her co-conspirator, as well as having four children. But apart from endless proof that my grandparents did love each other very much, I cannot find any evidence nanna was happy as a housewife. The opposite seems true, actually. Nanna was deeply restless, she did not stay home during the day keeping house, and preferred instead to head to the pubs for a few drinks and some socialising. Indeed, I feel pretty cruel about this nowadays but as kids, I, and all her other grandkids, used to make fun of nanna's drinking problem because we didn't know better. Both nanna's parents liked their "good times", but nanna seemed to always have a drinking problem and this problem went into destructive depths when my grandfather died. It did not help her deterioration in later life.

There are other mysteries though. I have previously mentioned her cousin, Edna Ogden, before, and how my mother, uncles and aunty were unaware that this woman was actually nanna's cousin. It turns out this has been a running theme. I have unearthed a variety of nanna's cousins, mentioned them to my maternal generational elders, and they consistently remember these people while being unaware that they were actually relations. 

I wonder if this was due to estrangement. Certainly a trait I loathe in my family that I have witnessed (and been the victim of) many times is the tendency to just cut people off without explanation. Sometimes I still cry about the times this has happened to me. Treating others as if they are disposable is a pattern, and one that I find both devastating and cowardly, yet it has apparently been happening for generations. Why? And can it stop?

I ask the last bit because looking into this trend has probably given me some answers as to why I have had to rebuild so much knowledge when looking into nanna's ancestry. As her ancestry grew more and more fascinating, it highlighted to me how many stories our family had lost. I had to wonder if relationships had been better nurtured in previous generations whether these stories would have stayed alive. And to be honest, I think they would have. So how do we change this for the next generations when people still seem pretty keen on this estrangement pattern?

Anyway, I am going to leave that there. I hope one day I do understand Lorna more, and everyone else while I am at it.