As Victoria celebrates the 40th anniversary of the decriminalisation of sex between men earlier this year, AQuA has invited some people to reflect on this event and the subsequent 40 years of law reform activism. Our speakers will look at issues that are often overlooked in the law reform story, and at what has been happening since with laws relating to sex, gender and sexuality. The story is not quite what you might be expecting.

Register for this Zoom event at https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIld-GtqzkqGd3YC1nBToUeRI-7J-Qyrj5x

The keynote speaker is Dr Leigh Boucher who is an historian and Senior Lecturer at Macquarie University, who has been part of an ARC Discovery Project ‘Gender, Sexuality and Australian Citizenship since 1969’. His research centres on the construction and representation of difference in liberal democratic political and popular cultures.

Other speakers are:

Jamie Gardiner OAM is a long-standing human rights activist and pioneer of Australia’s LGBTIQ+ rights movement from the 1970s to the present. He has been a board member of an array of significant community organisations, including the Human Rights Law Centre, Victorian Council for Civil Liberties, and is a Community Member of the State Government’s LGBTIQ+ Taskforce (and its Health and Justice Working Groups) since its inception in 2015.

Sally Goldner AM has been involved in Victoria’s LGBTIQ+ communities for over 20 years, including being a founding member of Transgender Victoria, co-facilitating Transfamily, CR’s “Out of the Pan” and Bisexual Alliance Victoria Treasurer. She received an Order of Australia in 2019, the 2015 LGBTI Victorian of the Year and joined the Victorian Women’s Honour Roll in 2016.

Jane Green is a sex worker, activist, and speaks from the lived experience of a queer sex worker. Jane has material published on sex work in a variety of periodicals, including The Guardian, The Age, Interface Journal, Star Observer, The Professional and Tits & Sass. Jane is the former Vice President and Treasurer of Scarlet Alliance (Australian Sex Workers Association), as well as former media spokesperson for Vixen Collective (Victoria’s peer only sex worker organisation).