Last month we were discussing how OUTinPerth could make a greater impact in different areas.
Our team brainstormed ideas for the year ahead including how we contribute to conversations about gender identity and transitioning, suicide prevention, support for people who have experienced sexual assault, the level of drug use within our community, sexual health and HIV and AIDS prevention and many other serious topics.
We also looked at the tag line that’s featured on our cover for many years – ‘Gay and Lesbian Life and Style’. It’s always been a word play on the phrase used by people who are homophobic and describe non-heterosexual sexuality as a ‘lifestyle choice’.
We decided that this phrase had outlived its relevance. A phrase that incudes gay and lesbian – without acknowledging the full spectrum of diversity is sexuality and gender was not an apt descriptor for OUTinPerth in 2015.
We did consider adding the alphabet soup of LGBTIQQAAOPPTSNBLTTLCRSVPBRBLOLETC but it seemed somewhat cumbersome.
So we changed our tag line to read ‘Something Different’. Because we’re all about celebrating difference, in sexuality, in gender and in thinking.
We hope to bring you stories told from a different perspective, feature personalities and celebrities who are remarkable because they are different, and if we chat to someone who is more mainstream – we’re committed to asking them different questions.
Last year during an interview performance artist Strykermeyer reflected on his creative process and said to me that he thought one of rules of creativity was to always run away from anything that was constant.
If our columns, regular features or content starts to become repetitive or boring, let us know, and we’ll change it to something different there as well.
Graeme Watson
