PSA:

I haven't updated this folio in frankly far too long! I've had a multitude of articles published since April of 2018, but haven't done my part in keeping this compendium alive.

Trust and believe, I'm still writing. I'll update this soon.

Love youse.

"I would have tried gay conversion therapy."

This article was originally published in the Lifestyle section of The Sydney Morning Herald, on the 15th of April 2018. Available here.

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On Saturday Victoria's Opposition Leader, Matthew Guy, reportedly received suggestions from a Liberal Party branch to give parents increased access to gay conversion therapy.

The motion also proposed changes to the Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Act to re-insert “man” and “woman” instead of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity”, as well as a ban on Safe Schools, inclusive of any other syllabus that declares trans identities valid.

The Victorian Government continues to fund Safe Schools, and, given its popular support, it’s unlikely that such a program would find itself banned under Labor – though conservatives have tried time after time. Any motion to rework the Sex Discrimination Act to deny the existence of trans people is similarly unlikely to pass – because it’s 2018 and we’re smarter than that.

As for the suggestions of providing greater access to gay conversion therapy, I have just one thing to say:

Guys. You can’t be serious.

It’s a stark irony that the aforementioned Liberal branch would espouse the idea of “praying the gay away” – because, frankly, most queer people have already given it a try; in their own way, on their own time.

Growing up as a gay youth, schoolyard bullying came packaged with weekly religious studies classes. I would lie in bed and call out to whatever ancestral deity careened across the sky: if I woke up the following morning a heterosexual with no interest in my male peers, I’d forever follow his teachings. When I awoke, despite endless praising of His name, I was not heterosexual.

Of course, if The Lord doesn’t answer your prayers, there’s always the option of hashing out your concerns with a therapist. Which I did. But only after my inner turmoil devolved into suicidal ideation as a goddamn 14-year-old.

“They think I’m weird,” I’d tell a child psychologist, about how the other boys in school saw me, about “the way I was”.

It was as if I carried a secret that everyone could see but, doubtless, held me down – though I was not long off knowing what it was.

I would have wanted nothing more than to change: to be “normal”, to be one of the boys. If you’d told me there was a magic pill I could take to reconstruct the coding of my DNA and straighten myself out, a la The Matrix, I would have dropped it in a heartbeat. I can think of a plethora of homosexuals who would have probably done the same. It could’ve been our new ecstasy.

And yet such a reversal continues to elude us – for the best. What we really should be funding is how to treat homophobia, as, according to research, it is liked to be based around repressed desire for the same sex. (Fred Phelps, anyone?)

Instead of taking steps at dispelling cognitive dissonance, though, by coming to terms with these thoughts, through talking to friends, therapists, or setting up dates with me (don’t be shy, Israel Folau), many homophobes instead attempt to change the world around them. And their focus always seems to be on the most malleable among us: our children.

Ordinarily this kind of sinister obsession with kids would be cause to phone the police. But in the era of Trump, Putin and bizarre same-sex marriage opinion polls, programs that claim to “pray the gay away” have never felt more normalised in the public discourse.

Gay conversion therapy, according to science, can lead to anything from increasing emotional distress to suicide. Such was the case when in 2014, a trans teen named Leelah Alcorn took her own lifeafter receiving a form of the treatment, prompting the introduction of a new US law which would see it banned.

Its functionality has also been widely disproven, with health bodies deeming it cause for alarm. In fact, one of the only studies showing gay conversion therapy could ever work was so thoroughly debunked that, years later, the conductor of the study came forward to apologise for it.

Regardless, attempts to “cure” gayness have persisted, whether through therapy, electroshocks – or more horrific practices like “excessive bicycle riding”.

Between bullying, isolation and the slowly surfacing notion that your life will not be easy and this world is going to hurt you, the idea of a therapy that can change your sexuality and rob you of your shame is seductive.

But I'm glad, now, that gay conversion doesn't work. Because to survive self-hatred and adversity as part of a marginalised group, is to be a more compassionate, loving person. It’s to grow up having a heightened sense of community and empathy – because you’re aware of how brutal the world is, having lived it yourself.

And these Liberals – who I’d like to think are an ultra-conservative minority – are endangering lives by propositioning the therapy as a valid and viable practice. Because it just doesn’t work. And it never, ever will.

"The bitter irony of Barnaby Joyce's "less worthy" comments."

This article was originally published in the Lifestyle section of The Sydney Morning Herald, on the 23rd of February 2018. Available here.

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This close to the 40th anniversary of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, you'd be hard-pressed to find something that elicits more glee than the prospect of seeing Cher in real-time. That's unless you count the brilliant schadenfraude accompanying the epic tale of Australia's most famous baby daddy: the boot-avoiding, bonk ban-inspiring former Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce.

On Wednesday night, Joyce and his partner, Vikki Campion gave their first interview since their political infidelities went global; from the comfort of Joyce's "bachelor pad", to Fairfax Media.

It was everything you'd expect from the sentient potato: He resented how questions of his personal life had shifted from "inquiry to malice". He loathed any inference that his love child would be "less worthy than other children", and abhorred the idea that said youth would grow up as a "public display". Talk of his secondary relationship while Campion worked with Senator Matt Canavan, was a case of "don't ask, don't tell", he said.

It's one thing to see a politician with a track record of opposing LGBTI rights for traditionalist reasons cop it after violating binding matrimony. But when said pollie makes a call for kindness – after subjecting countless Australian citizens to pain and suffering in the name of the same-sex marriage postal survey, and then refusing to vote on the subsequently laid-out bill at all – you wonder if the universe has a sense of irony.

Joyce, who stepped down as deputy prime minister on Friday, wasn't too worried about discussions moving from "inquiry to malice", when the postal vote debate shifted from casual questioning – to full-blown hate speech, as the laws against malicious campaigning were struck out. Where was his misery-laden concern, when homophobic posters were hurled about Australian city streets, and religious-based lobbying groups pushed patently false rhetoric about the nature of same-sex marriage law?

Of course, Joyce won't have to worry about his child being seen as "less worthy" than other children, because he'll be able to grant the fifth a luxe lifestyle courtesy of his parliamentary pension dollars – plus benefits.

But the same couldn't be said for the countless LGBTI youths he was wilfully complicit in subjecting to vitriol, when schoolyard bigots were given license to rain down pain on innocent teens; those far too young to marry, but still old enough to know which way their heart points. And don't bullies know it. This is to say nothing of the children of same sex couples, who were doubtless made to feel less-worthy while one of the key arguments of the No Campaign – that children do better with heterosexual parents – was raised continuously despite all evidence to the contrary.

Unfortunately, the Joycian proverb of, "Thou shalt not subject thine spawn to public scrutiny", had already been violated – by Joyce himself. At the thoughtless expense of queer children, who already deal with mental health issues at higher rates than their cisgender, heterosexual peers.

We saw LGBTI teens call for help at unprecedentedly high levels, all because our elected officials chose to ignore the opinion of the majority: that same-sex marriage is a long-withheld right, deserving of being enshrined in law. Because the children of politicians are apparently more valuable, their livelihoods more deserving of being defended, than young gay teens already suffering through a crisis of identity.

And perhaps Joyce's most stunning faux pas, was when he uttered the phrase "don't ask, don't tell", in explaining the justification for his relationship not being discussed.

From another, this could be seen as a thoughtless invocation. But from the now-former leader of the Nationals, bringing to mind the United States' since-repealed discriminatory policy that disallowed gays, bisexuals and lesbians from military service, is too significant a coincidence. Where Joyce desires his relationships be met with indifference so that he can continue to serve his constituents, others have for decades wished the same – so that they can continue to serve their country.

If I sound hateful, it's not due to a lack of compassion. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I'm sure that Joyce cares for all his children, and I firmly believe Campion doesn't deserve the flak that I've seen her cop from more unscrupulous commentators in the media.

But Joyce is a politician who, along with other members of his party and the government in power, neglected the wellbeing of their own citizens in the interest of flexing their legislative and ideological muscle. The LGBTI community have dealt with this for decades, in differing strokes, from less savoury humans, who respond to criticism not with press conferences – but with fists.

And when you're a homosexual, one who all too familiar with darker days of wishing specific people – senators, even – would relent from using powers beyond yours to invalidate your relationships – you can't help but laugh.

So it's only fitting that before next weekend, when we celebrate the achievements of the LGBTI community, we also toast to those traditional anti-gay lawmakers who fell from grace into a pit of their own hypocrisy.

This 40th Annual Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras, when you're mincing to Believe on Sydney's Oxford Street between one circuit party and the next: Pour one out for poor Barnaby.

"Find a way: What we can learn from Sally Field."

This article was originally published on the Lifestyle section of The Sydney Morning Herald, on the 21st of February 2018. Available here.

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We need to talk about Sally Field.

I know, I know; we've been talking about her for years. The Academy alone has gifted the 71-year-old actress and director with two Oscars, on top of the literally tens of other significant awards she's acquired in her sterling career.



Recently, Field made headlines when her son – 30-year-old Samuel Greisman, a writer and director with a jaw-line that makes me angry – made her aware of the figure skater via text. Field's response was to implore Griesman to pursue Rippon, effectively playing matchmaker, which, if you ask me, is perfectly understandable, because they clearly don't call them figure skaters for nothing.More specifically: We need to talk about her, her son – and the jaw-droppingly talented Olympiad currently tearing up the rink in Pyeongchang, South Korea: 28-year-old figure skater Adam Rippon.

Griesman published the adorable exchange with mother-darling on his Twitter account – and the ensuing gay screaming could be heard worldwide.

If my mother were Sally Field – she's not, unfortunately – then any text message interaction reminiscent of her being an actual human person and not an Oscar winner would probably go viral, too. But it's not just the simple celeb-factor that I'm excited about. Because this seemingly innocuous interaction between mother and son bears so much more weight than you might think.

For years, to be a homosexual - one mired in the endless fog of a world that hates you for what you are – meant that love felt like a losing game. Moons would wax and wane, and yet The Gays remained static in their isolation: locked in a state of fear and self-loathing, terrified to fall for or express their love for members of the same gender.

Homophobia was the weight that held you down, endlessly hissing venom on how "You're not supposed to like him", or, "If people knew how you felt, they'd hate you". Your crushes weren't crushes; they were a curse. And never did you hate yourself more, than when you had to lie to the face of your family about not having one when you did.

But when mothers can dote on their gay sons and urge them to find love, it signals a shift from all that. We become further distanced from our tormented past; those generations of gay youth so secretive about their love, freed at last. And when that mother is Sally-f--ing-Field, doubtless an international icon, the impact of that freedom is amplified.

Far from the more personal significance it bears for families, it also signals an extremely important change when it comes to gay youth and their icons. While it's obvious that Griesman admires Rippon for more than just his routines – and I don't blame him because Jesus Christ on high – there are elements to Rippon's sudden fame that render him more remarkable than just being damn skilled in his skates.

Rippon is the first openly gay Olympic figure skater to grace the world stage, as well as being the first openly gay male athlete to win a medal at the Winter Olympics - and he's taken both these facts as nothing short of an immense responsibility. He's also unrelentingly been what a more conservative commentator might call a queen.

This means that he's not just the unrequited desire of more than one generation of homosexual - but he's the clever, steadfast and intensely political dreamboat of young queers everywhere. We're seeing before our gawking eyes an example of unapologetic queerness being elevated to famous athlete status, and it's opening the door for many young men – not just Griesman – to openly and just as unapologetically thirst.

But can the same be said in our sunburnt country? Do gay teens – or gay twenty-somethings, or thirty-somethings, and so on – have politically and socially conscious gay Australian athletes playing our favourite sports, over which to lose their minds?

We kind of don't.

Australia has always had a very particular "Aussie battler", "yeah-the-boys" culture, with our dusty cricket matches and the brutal machismo of AFL football . In fact, I can't think of a gay Australian cricketer on the field today, and the words "out gay footballer" are reserved only for the retired.

That's not counting Ian Thorpe, one of our most famous Olympiads, who came out in 2014 after years of media speculation. Thorpe is an undeniable Australian icon. But he also spent years in the closet even after his retirement, impeded only by question marks of plausibility rather than the harsh scrutiny of reality, effectively lessening a more homophobic media lens. That sets him apart from athletes like Rippon, who live day-to-day in the current and far more unrelenting spotlight.

In this country, our sun-kissed LGBTI larrikins are cursed almost twice over with the same burden of any other gay youth: you can't express love, let alone love for the same gender. And if you do, expect to be harangued by the more "bogan" among you. Yet this nation has always done a good job of looking elsewhere for inspiration, being the lucky last to implement marriage equality.

Which is why Sally Field and her laughter-inspiring family interactions represent a necessary – and particularly maternal – change to societal attitudes Western-worldwide; many of which Australia desperately needs to adopt.

If we're to liberate boys from the toxic masculinity that inhibits sons from gabbing to their parents about their boy-crushes, and if we're to ever see our own AFL athletes and cricketers leave the closet – that our boys (and girls) will freely dote on, then we require more mothers like Field to usher them into wedlock, and or at least hope of romantic bliss.

So as fetching as you are, Mr. Griesman, Son-of-Field: Adam Rippon is my future husband. I'd appreciate it if you'd stop ogling him now.

"People called my rape divine justice."

This article was originally published on News.com.au, on February 19th 2018. Available online here.

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THE first time I tried to write this piece, it sounded like the hysterical screaming of a Hollywood thriller script. Then a voice in my head said, “What would your grandmother think?” The second time, I tried to “make it funny”, but I came off sounding dishonest.

I don’t want to sound dishonest, though. I want you to know that I’m serious. Because this isn’t misery porn: This is rape.

I was an addict looking for a hit in an apartment with someone who could give me what I thought I wanted: Dissociation from reality. That’s how I met him.

But when the drugs he gave me sent me to the brink of unconsciousness, and every groan or pained writhing on his couch was met with him telling me to “Shut the f**k up”, I could hear an inner voice telling me that something wasn’t right.

It was only when they began to wear off — what acts he performed to my barely-conscious body for his own pleasure I could hardly contemplate — that I started to realise what kind of place I was in.

The front door was barricaded shut with heavy boxes; all perceivable cracks covered with gaffer tape. From beneath a lampshade gazed a webcam, staring down at me, lights blinking.

And he was standing in the corner of the room with a sharp tool in hand, hacking away at the drywall. When I would rise and stumble to his kitchen sink, trying hard not to vomit, he would whip around with a sharp intensity and hiss to “Sit the f**k down”. The look on his face was that of pure murder. When I looked down, I saw sheets stained red.

He was completely psychotic. To him, there were spies in the walls. Suddenly I was looking at the face of someone who could be my murderer.

I don’t know how long he kept me there. All I have to go off are the time stamps of text messages that read: “Call the police and send them to this apartment. Someone is going to die here today.” And the videos — almost farcical in nature, taken on my phone, depicting a man in a blue thong decimating his own apartment walls — that serve to validate the experience.

Brandon Cook admits he stopped co-operating with police after the assault as he was too traumatised at the time to talk about it.Source:Supplied

What he did put me in the hospital. I am loath to recall how I escaped his apartment — how hard I had to pretend — because it makes me ashamed. What I do know is that police and paramedics found me on the ground outside of a 7/11, openly sobbing.

He had struck fear into my heart and used me for his sexual pleasure. I had been too afraid to say no, let alone adequately consent. He’d broken me.

The following 24 hours comprised of a rape kit, multiple statements made to numerous detectives, and no shortage of shame and self-hatred. Not the kind that creeps in when you’re standing on a train platform, beckoning you to jump — but the shame that screams loudly in your ear, until all you can do to keep on walking is to pretend that you aren’t really there at all.

I remember being wheeled into emergency, my body actively twitching uncomfortably from the substances setting my synapses wild. I would laugh and say, “I’m just happy to have a good reason to be in emergency for once.” Happy to be a junkie with a problem that society “deemed valid”.

At one point I leaned over to a police officer — one of the women who stayed with me the entire time — and whispered deliriously, “Although, I was on drugs. Which means I asked for it, you know?”

It’s taken me until now to realise that I hadn’t been “held hostage”. Not really. Being held hostage denotes a value apparent to the hostage-taker — of which I had none. I had been taken in, dosed up, used and abused — and then left on the side of a road to die. That f**ks with a person.

It should come as no surprise that later, when I received a letter from the police saying that they wouldn’t investigate my case without my full presence and co-operation, I was furious.

A reasonable person might deem it logical that the authorities couldn’t investigate a crime without the involvement of the complainant. But this case did not involve reasonable people.

I had been held against my will; violated, abused and made to be afraid. I’d done everything that they’d asked for — everything that was expected of me — and still they wanted more. More, more, more.

So I did what many millennials are ought to do — righteously, in the era of #MeToo and #TimesUp — and publicised my outrage at the letter on social media.

The response was scathing and typical: I was told to “play the victim a bit less”, accused of being out to ruin someone’s life, and called a compulsive liar by virtue of being a drug addict (as if this stereotype wasn’t already evident to me). It was even suggested that my rape was divine justice.

Brandon was shocked at the response the post about his experience received on Facebook.Source:Supplied

And yet they didn’t know what happened to me. I had only shared “something horrible” — no specific details. I wasn’t even given the benefit of the doubt.

I wonder, sometimes, if my story would have held weight in the larger #MeToo movement. As a male survivor, I can’t imagine feeling understood, let alone feeling solidarity, with my own gender.

Yet I see the #MeToo movement, and so badly want to raise my own voice. I want to feel included, supported and to have my trauma recognised, but it isn’t.

Maybe it’s because men refuse to allow other men to identify as survivors. Or maybe this is a reflection of how #MeToo has yet to tackle laziness in its own efforts: an unwillingness to accommodate all survivors of abuse. It’s the worst club you could want admission to, but to those who aren’t in it, it’s all the support and understanding in the world.

Many social media users blasted him for not co-operating with police.Source:Supplied

Either way, men are so conditioned to keep their anguish to themselves, that when we fall victim to sex crimes, patriarchal strangleholds tell us we can’t ever reach out for fear of being seen as less than what society demands.

And when we’re retraumatised — like I was so many times, and like it was commanded of me — it feels almost grossly novel. We have no framework to ease our pain, and all we can do is hide.

Society constantly asks us to revisit our trauma, no matter how close it brings us to the edge. But maybe, someday, we will have the strength to ask for more.

Comments questioned whether Brandon was completely making the story up.Source:Supplied

When I was in hospital on that day, I called someone — more than a friend — and begged that he be by my side. He came without hesitation, and held me in my hospital bed, while a detective asked — yet again — for details of the incident.

When the detective left, he looked down — and he saw me. He saw me. His eyes were all warmth and comfort, like he was seeing something special for the first time. And all he said was all I needed to hear.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

I wept. Not only because I realised that I could love this man. But for a moment, the trauma, the pain, the judgment and the fear, were gone.

I was finally safe.

"I Want To Be Sexy"

This piece was originally published on the website of 56 Dean St, Europe's busiest sexual health clinic, as part of their wellbeing programme. Available online here.

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All I want is to be the sexiest lad in all the lands.

It’s why my jockstrap collection is growing. It’s why every few months I pick up some weights in an attempt to look less like a twink, only to put them down again in a huffing sweat after a solid five minutes. It’s why my previous point was actually extremely generous.

It’s also why I’ve taken gay sex drugs.

I want it because it feels essential. I want it because in the discotheques with their smoky hazes and bass-laden beats thumping in sync with strobes, I see sweat and musculature and eyes winking, and I’ve learned – been encultured – to salivate. I want it because even in our progressive microcosm of the modern world, being #insta famous or fit or hunk or daddy is a fantastical dream. It’s all so beautiful that it feels a stark ludicrosity I ever deigned to want for more. Yet I’m without.

But when I’m buried deep in the inhaled fumes of a drug like meth – I am sexy. I am sexiness.

I writhe and twist and twirl and I’m that guy you wish you were and you’re in me and it’s painless and exciting and filthy and fun. You look up and your lids flutter because I’m that good and I’m that hot and I’m oscillating between pleasure and lust and wondering how I even got you naked in my bed.

For a brief period, I reclaim my sexiness. For a while, I am the Adonis, no matter how twink reality is. I have what I want.

I want it because you want it, pressed against your body in the early hours. I want it because I wonder if I’ll ever be lovable – be loved – without it. I want it because though we push back against the market of unattainability, the “porn star” with his body and biceps and backside is still the peak of the gay pecking order – and anything more, like our activism and intellectualism, is somehow novel.

And sometimes I want it because it was taken from me.

Sexiness robbed by blindly clawing hands, shredding humanity and empathy from mere fuckable object in the mist of a sauna. Or drained from the mind of a boy who gazed into the eyes of the man he is somehow supposed to be – only to be viciously one-starred by his leering goal leaning up on the bar. Or held down and stamped out by a creature in a bed who refuses to take no for an answer.

Sometimes I want it because it feels present in the man I once was: before I knew about body goals, fitspo, societal expectations and porn. Before strangers, friends and lovers-turned-monsters vanquished him.

And when life turns to tumult, I feel the gay-shame and the sorrow and my past innocence bleeding from my very skin. I feel how very far from the insta-fit beautiful-Adonis-bod I am. Not sexy; never was.

So I become feverishly scratching hands, tearing innocence from hollow physicality in the fog of a sauna. I become the asshole in the nightclub corner swiping left on a boy who just wants to hold my hand. If I am so horrible (and I can be, and I’m sorry) I become the terrible thing in a bed that cannot hear no – until I can, and I’m horrified of my own hands.

And when I’m drowning in shame, I take a few drops of fantasy.

I scroll and swipe and fear for my future, and I’m desperate and searching for connection, in a too-cruel vapid world that wants me ripped and toned and straight. You look down at me and I’m remorseful and pained and your eyes darken because I’m that close to your home, shaking dangerously on rotten stilts, and you’re wondering if you’ll ever be sexy – or just happy – without stimulants.

For a brief period, I wallow in my sorrow. I douse the flame of my pain in liquid ecstasy.

Because there is a skeleton of whom I once was lying dusty under my skin, and I’ve twisted my face to grotesque tears trying to rip it out. So hard that I never see the honest-to-God truth that my culture of sexiness ignores.

I (you) am (are) perfectly good enough.

Just the way we are.