The queer(y)ing of Australian public culture discourse: activism, rights discourse, and survival strategies

This essay examines the contemporary context of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activism in Australia situating the theoretical and practical concerns in the ambit of survival strategies and rights discourse. Drawing on media, interviews, and a specific piece of proposed legislation, the essay surveys and analyses the effects of LGBT strategies of survival that are demonstrated in public culture discourse. The socio-cultural and political terrain of late twentieth and early twenty-first century Australia bears witness to a public culture discourse that is deeply ambivalent about its LGBT dimensions.