Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Monday 28 November
8:15 PM - 9:30 PM
In 2013, Russian made news around the world, introducing federal laws banning ‘homosexual propaganda’. The laws effectively made a crime of gay activism, reducing non-heterosexuals to second-class citizens.
While Australia discusses the prospect of gay people having the right to marry, there are many other countries where gay people are deprived of even more basic rights. Russia might have earned international headlines for its 2013 laws, but the situation is even worse elsewhere. There are 73 countries where homosexuality is punishable with a prison sentence.
For this conversation, we’re bringing Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen together with queer author and icon Dennis Altman for a broader conversation about queer rights. The pair will discuss gay rights and gender diversity, locally and across the globe. How helpful is the language of human rights for discussing the oppression of LGBT people? How do populist, anti-Western sentiments play into the oppression of gay people in non-western countries? What do we know about the displacement of gay and gender diverse people across the world? And how optimistic can we be about a brighter future?
Presented in partnership with La Trobe University.
Featuring
Masha Gessen
Masha Gessen is an opinion columnist for The New York Times and a Distinguished Professor at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. They have written extensively on The ...
Dennis Altman
Dennis Altman has written 15 books since his groundbreaking Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation. The Bulletin listed him as one of the 100 most influential Australians ever. He is Patron of the Australian Queer Archives and Pride Foundation Australia.
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Anna Brown
Anna’s fingerprints are on nearly every major reform for LGBTI people in recent years with her work at the Human Rights Law Centre. Most recently, she played a critical role in the national campaign for marriage equality and ran the constitutional challenge to the postal plebiscite in the High Court on behalf of Australian Marriage Equality.
During 2017, she also worked to ensure that young trans people can access vital hormone treatment without the cost and delay of going to court (Re Kelvin). Her work also includes strategic litigation to advance marriage equality (Cth v ACT) and recognise sex and gender diversity (Norrie’s case); securing federal LGBTI discrimination protections and ongoing work to erase historical convictions for homosexual offences across Australia.
Anna is also Co-Chair of the Equality Campaign and Co-Chair of the Justice Working Group of the Victorian Government LGBTI Taskforce. Anna was previously the Co-Convener of the Victorian Gay & Lesbian Rights Lobby, helping to secure the historic apology from Victoria Police for the Tasty raid, adoption equality for same-sex couples and working to stamp out homophobic, biphobic and transphobic harassment through the ground breaking ‘No to Homophobia’ campaign. Anna has also served as a board member of the National LGBTI Health Alliance and ILGA Oceania – an organisation working to advance LGBTI rights within the Oceania region.
In recognition for her contribution to the LGBTI community, Anna was named Victorian GLBTI person of the year in the inaugural GLOBE community awards in November 2014, was a finalist for the Tony Fitzgerald Community Award in the 2014 Australian Human Rights Awards, was a finalist for Victorian Australian of the Year in 2015 and won the Tim McCoy Award in 2015.
Anna’s work at the Centre also includes strategic litigation to advance protester rights and advocacy on police accountability and discrimination law reform. Anna previously worked an adviser to the former Victorian Attorney-General and Deputy Premier, the Hon Rob Hulls. She has also worked as a Senior Solicitor with the Victorian Government Solicitor’s Office, a Senior Associate with Allens Arthur Robinson and a Federal Court associate.