A review by malcolmmcp
Growing Up Queer in Australia by Benjamin Law

5.0

I didn't expect to like this book quite as much as I have. It wasn't that I had any expectations. Ben Law has assembled a magnificent and highly varied cast of contributors. Varieties of sexualities, gender identities, ages, ethnic backgrounds and abilities are all included in a diversity of storytelling. To select just a few, Stephanie Convery's account of bisexuality is intriguing. Mike Mullins' account, an older gay man from a small country town, is not so different my own story of growing up at the very edge of Sydney. Dang Nguyen's piece is beautifully and evocatively written. The piece by Thomas Wilson-White provides a fitting hopeful conclusion. There are few if any Sydney voices, most being from Brisbane or Melbourne. However, Australia is not Sydney. There are voices from Sydney that I would have liked to include but also voices from Canberra, Albury, Bathurst, Adelaide and Perth to name a few more towns.
My recent reading has included Mama's Boy by Dustin Lance Black and Sally Rugg's How Powerful We Are. I noticed how many contributors mentioned the plebiscite and the resultant marriage equality legislation. It is part of our recent queer experience in Australia, painful and challenging during the plebiscite. The positive legislative outcome although wonderful, was, by no means, a magical solution to queer oppression in Australia.