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In solidarity with them.

You're listening to transm on 4zzz, amplifying the trans and gender non conforming voices of Brisbane and beyond.

You're listening to Transmission on 4 Triple Z 102.1 FM. My name is Ray. I use they, them, pronouns.

And I'm es, I use he, him, pronouns.

And today, look, I'm thrilled to be in the, in the hot seat today. I am.

I can see you smoking in the hot seat over there. Just sizzling.

Just, just sizzling. I'll be having a chat about something, some news items in a minute and a bit later on in the show I'll also be playing a pre recorded interview that I did with Ori Diskit from Transitive Rag, which is a new trans journal out here in Meanjin. Very excited you.

I'm keen.

I'm. I'm so pumped. Things that I'm less pumped about this morning is the news, the horrors.

So language content triggers all those things? Maybe not language, but just, just triggers.

Definitely. Yeah, I was gonna say definitely a trigger warning for, look, just transphobia, especially when it comes to young people, which is the, the vibe I feel at the moment, unfortunately. So. Recently a mother in Queensland says that the Queensland Department of Health inadvertently sent her private information to another parent, thereby outing her trans teenager. The email error happened when responded to the mother's request for a quote unquote statement of reasons relating to the state government's decision to ban puberty blockers for transgender children. In the process, the government had asked several parents for their for very detailed medical information about their children, including name, date of birth and whether their child is a patient. At the Children's Gender Clinic. The parent describes the experience as quote, unquote sick and unsafe and said the level of personal detail requested felt intimidating and like being forced to out the child in order to obtain government documents. The incident comes after the Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls issued a new order banning the prescription of puberty blockers for transgender patients just hours after the Supreme Court ruled the government's first attempt was unlawful.

Also Queensland LNP meeting proposes transgender toilet laws over the weekend, State Council meeting LNP on the Gold coast put forward a range of resolutions for discussions amongst their members, including one from the LNP Women's Branch titled Use of public Toilets and change rooms. The resolution calls on the state government to legislate that in public facilities where male and female toilets and change rooms are provided. So in brackets, A, only biological women and girls may use female toilets and change rooms. Oh, yay, that's me. And B, only biological men and boys may use male bathrooms with a limited expectation, limited exception for children up to eight years old. Oh, I suppose I could use that one too, right? Yeah, why not? Although the resolution is not binding, it would not automatically become law if passed. The proposal reflects a push within the LNP to restrict access to gender affirming facilities and services, raising strong concerns in the trans and gender diverse community about the potential impact of our safety, dignity. Dignity and rights.

Yeah, I'm not about it. I mean, I think a lot of trans people, especially in the current climate, already feel unsafe and have done for, you know, for decades when it comes to just wanting to go to the bathroom. And yeah, we all just want to do our business and leave.

I don't know what anyone else is doing in there other than things that all humans have to do, which is go to the toilet.

Yeah, I'm going to the toilet. I may fix my hair. I may. That's, you know, one time I have gone into the bath.

Okay, don't go in the men's bathroom. No one's fixing their hair.

Oh my goodness. I've gone into, when I've gone into the women's before, one person was giving someone else just a full on haircut and I was like, you know what? Go off. And you know what? If that's, if that's the level of like, you know, the things that are happening in the bathroom, I'm like, actually, you know what? I'd prefer to be in this bathroom.

You know, there's only one real instance where I feel like I might be outed in a men's bathroom. And that's, that's if I wash my hands.

It's unfortunate because no one else is washing their hands. Oh my goodness.

And then when I do it, I think people are like, what the hell's that guy doing? It's called hygiene.

It's called look. Yeah, exactly like the sofa's always full.

I can, I guarantee you that's awful.

Yeah, I was. Honestly, wash your hands. Use the bathroom that you feel most comfortable using. God, what a.

And don't be a dick.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like, exactly.

Just like policing other people's toilet, like bathroom behaviour. It's weird. Just focus on yourself. Don't worry about anyone else. Just do your thing and get out. What the heck? What are you doing?

I just. I just need to have a whiz. Like. That's it.

Yeah, yeah, pretty much, yeah.

And also. Yeah, it's good times.

It is good times. I also wanted to mention just some things I've noticed in community since the. The reinstating of the ban for puberty blockers in the public health care system for trans young people. There's a lot of discourse and community, there's a lot of finger pointing about who's taking credit and who's not taking credit and who's this and who's that within not for profit organisations, NGOs, activists, grassroots activists, all this. It's all, you know, it's a very tense time. A lot of people, you know, we won and then we lost and it's all up and down. It's a roller coaster of emotions for community at the moment. And one of the really big things that we need to focus on that's super important is solidarity and standing with each other. As I've said many times on transmission, the transgender community is not monolith. We do not all share the same opinions about things or ideas about things. And a lot of times we don't always share the same ideas around tactics and ways that we can support community and ways that we can do direct action. However, there is one thing that we all do have in common, which is that we deserve to have a life full of joy, happiness and the right to access our medical care and the right to have jobs, the right to have a roof over our heads and food in our bellies just like any other person. And I think that's the main thing that we need to focus on in the community right now, is standing together and aiming all of our artillery at the real enemy, which is the LNP government in Queensland, which is Tim Nicholls, Christa Fouli and the like. Those are the people that we need to be focusing our energy on. Not targeting NGOs, not targeting not for profit organisations, and certainly not taking hits at other activists within the community. Whether that's figurative or literally, it's just a waste of energy and a complete misdirection of anger. Yeah, we all make mistakes and sometimes we say things out of frustration, whether that be online, in person, wherever. But the main thing is, is that we come together, we put those things down, because we've got bigger fights ahead of us. I would like to call to action anyone who is interested in supporting community. Show up to protests, sign petitions, you can even follow social media pages. There are a myriad of them that we recommend on the transmission socials. Ransradio with a Z. Go take a look there. There's also Mean Jin's People's Pride Transjustice project. We've also got. Gosh, there's so many others, my brain's blanking on them.

I was like this. My brain is as well.

And I think I mean trans justice as well.

Yeah, and I completely agree. I think that there's, you know, we've been taught to fight for our rights, and the, you know, that creates a lot of infighting. There's a lot of trauma. There's a lot of stress going on at the moment. And, yeah, we need to remember that we're all in this together, even if we don't necessarily have the exact same views. Things can be love, you know, as a polyamorist, love, some good communication. You know, communicating is really important and making sure that all of our voices are heard and that we, you know, we understand that, you know, this will be done. Like, we will. We will win.

Our squabbles will pass. There are things that we will not remember, and we will move forward. The things that we will remember is how many young people we saved, how many young people's lives we made a difference and how much of our lives that we are proud of for the kinds of things that we do and the kind of people we are.

Yes.

Something my mom used to say to me was like, ez, before you do something, is the thing you're about to do gonna make you a better person or not? Oh, and I'd like you to ask yourself that when you're in community, if what I'm about to do will make me proud of as a person, but also will I make my community proud and will this make me a better person? That's what you should ask yourself before you start finger pointing at who's who and where your anger is going to. Because it's all about us being the best people that we can be so we can show the world that as trans people, we are just as deserving as anyone else to have a life full of love and joy and happiness.

100%.

Yeah.

Let's. Let's go to a track. I was like, wow, while y' all are listening to this song.

How about.

Honestly, how about, you know, like, while you're having to listen to this song, have a think about, you know, what your next steps might be and that, you know, might even just be like, yeah, like signing a petition going to a protest. It can be contacting that trans friend of yours that you haven't seen in a while and checking in and seeing how they're doing because stuff's rough at the moment.

Nothing about you, just thought about you, you know.

Yeah. And I think that's. I think that's really important.

Yeah. Agreed.

You're listening to transmission on 4 triple Z.

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My name is Rae. I use they them pronouns. And you're listening to transmission on 4Z. Z Z 102.1 FM. I'm really excited to be airing an interview that I did earlier this week with Ori Diskett, who is a writer, editor, sex worker and law student here in Mean. Ori has recently started Transitive Rag, AKA Trans Rag, which is a quarterly magazine of trans writing and art based here in Meanjin. Issue one was released on the 17th of October and submissions are now open for issue two. So if you want to check out trans rag, it's trans-rag.com and if you do want to see the journal thrive, you can also support them on that page as well. And check it out because there's some incredible trans writers and there's some really intense, beautiful pieces as well as some. It'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry. It's absolutely wonderful. So this is my chat with Ori Diskit. Would you like to introduce yourself and a bit a bit more about yourself.

Hi, I'm Ori Diskit. My pronouns are he, she and. I'm a writer, editor and most recently law student from Meanjin, Brisbane.

Amazing. And I'm so excited to be chatting with you today because we are talking about the newly released Transitive Rag. We are, we are. And tell me a bit about Transitive Rag, or as the cool kids call it, transrag.

Transrag, yeah. Which is a completely intentional shortening. It's. So Transitive Rag is a new literary magazine or rag. I'm calling it because queers love to reclaim pejorative terms. So I've reclaimed the word rag because we're trashy. So Trans Rag is a online magazine of writing mostly. There's a few pieces of art in there, lots of poetry, a little bit of personal writing. And in future issues, we're looking at publishing all sorts of stuff, from fiction to interactive digital projects to audio projects to basically anything I can put on a website.

And when we're talking about what's up there at the moment, that's issue one.

Issue one.

Very first issue.

Absolutely. Issue one launched just recently in the middle of October. You can read it for [email protected] but there is a link in there if you would like to contribute to help with the. The running costs and paying the writers. But yes, so it's trans-rag.com or if you want to follow us on Instagram, it's Trans Dot Rag. Because Instagram doesn't like dashes and websites don't like dots. So you work with what you've got.

I feel like those lines in and of itself is the start of a poem.

Yeah, look, everything's a poem. Everything's a poem.

I was like, everything's a poem. And I feel like some of the poetry that you've collected in Trans Rag is incredible. And like you were saying before about reclamation, like, especially with the word rag, I feel like a lot of the poetry in Trans Rag at the moment is, you know, reclaims it. It's very. Well, it's very, as one of the authors said, Edgy.

Yes, yes, very edgy. Very. Yeah, kind of out there. Unhinged. As part of the initial submission, call out asking for contributors. I was very open about wanting things that are unhinged and, you know, reclaiming trans slurs and reclaiming queer slurs. It's one of the few content warnings across the whole website is there's going to be reclaimed slurs here. And one of the things I said in the submission call out was, send me the things that straight people won't publish. Send me the things that you. You've had rejected from other publications or that you're finding difficult to get published. I think one of our contributors posted on Instagram about. Because it's. You can submit up to five. When you're submitting poetry, you can submit up to five. And one of them said, I sent five poems and Ori picked the most unhinged one.

And I'm like, yeah, like, that's a good vibe. Yeah, yeah. And I feel like there's not enough journals around, like, you Know, even though I think we've got. Not necessarily in Mean, but like, you know, Australia and worldwide, like a saturation of like, especially. Especially new journals.

Yes.

That want often, like, you know, marginalised voices is what they, you know, are keen on. But I do feel like when it comes to trans voices and specifically stuff that, like, as trans people, we're writing that's very unhinged and edgy and the things that, you know, CIS sensibilities can't handle, you know, having a journal like Trans Rag is so incredibly refreshing.

Absolutely. And I think, you know, like you say there's lots of people trying to sort of do the same thing I'm doing, which is carve out a bit of space and, you know, launch a new publication. But often people. I think I see a lot of folks trying to, you know, you want your. You want to have a big readership, you want to get it out there. And a lot of that is respectability issues. Issues of, you know, being respectable, of sensibilities. In my mind, it's. It's an oxymoron to say we want marginalised voices, but also then choosing the things that are respectable and the things that are in line with sensibilities. Because the whole idea of respectability politic is defined by the mainstream and is defined by voices that aren't marginalised. And so I very much wanted to, yeah. Try and carve out that space. And that's why it's called a rag at the end of the day, is. Is I'm playing with that boundary between, you know, depending on who I'm talking to about it, I pitch it either as a literary journal or as a trash rag because, you know, that it's. It's both and it's neither, and it's.

Which is with gender in itself. And I feel like the. The presentations that we often have to put on where it's like, oh, in this workplace.

Oh, yes. If I. Yeah, exactly. If I want to get some. Some publicity in a particular outlet, I need to put on the. The literary journal equivalent of a monkey suit and, you know, be respectable for a moment. But then, you know, the. The trans folks, particularly the contributors, there's. I think that there's some things on there that there's one piece of art in particular that's so unhinged and I couldn't explain to you why it's trans, but it is. And particularly trans feminine. And it, like, it's. There's these representations of trans culture and I think that's so much of it is you know, and we've spoken a bit about why it's called rag, but it's called transitive on purpose as well. I mean, not just because the word trans is in it, but because, you know, I think trans art is transitive. It does something to you. It's like a transitive verb. It's doing something to something else. And it doesn't just exist in a vacuum because we like our art as queer people is how we pass on our culture. You know, we can't, we don't get to pass culture on, aside from very few of us, from parent to child or, you know, because we're distributed and we crop up in any family, unlike a lot of marginalised identities. It's not passed down through generations, it's passed down through art and culture. And yeah, so I think the transitive nature of it was important as well.

It comes back to what you were saying before about carving out space and that kind of being really intentional about that. And I think you've gone about that in a really expansive kind of way, especially with the creatives who have been chosen to represent their work and, you know, the website itself and the, you know, how accessible it is. What did it kind of take to, to put it all together and like, you know, also, where did the idea come from?

Yeah, look, I mean, I don't know that I can point to a single, A sort of inciting incident of why, you know, where the idea came from. But it, it kind of grew over time as I was, you know, getting some publications of my own. I mean, I've been a professional writer and editor for quite a while, but only had, like, creative publications of my own more recently. And part of that was, yeah, I mean, seeing how difficult it is to get published and how often when, like, if I have something published that is about being trans, it's usually. I've usually been a bit more conservative, live with it. And I've usually been a bit more. I tend to only get to share the really unhinged stuff at, like, poetry nights and that kind of thing because nobody's vetting what I'm gonna say on the microphone before I stand up so I can just let my little unhinged trans heart sing.

Because I feel like journals are often like, you can be trans, but you gotta write about trees or something. Yes, no shade to trees, but, you know, no.

And for sure, like, I, I, I, I had a poem published last year that was exactly that. Earlier this year, I should say there was exactly that, that was about being trans. But it was also about nature and it was about, you know, the landscape and. Yeah, and I think a lot of the time as well, there is a expectation that trans art is about trans trauma. And which isn't to say that that's not something we write about. In fact, there is a gut wrenching poem about trans deaths towards the end of the issue that I think I cried when I first read it. It's just phenomenal. But I also want to focus on trans joy. I also want to focus on the positive and the comfort and exhilaration and euphoria that comes from being trans. Because I think that's the thing that a lot of people don't understand. And so that's the stuff I wanted to. To share and to put a spotlight to. And so, yeah, putting the issue together was a challenge in that way. And I absolutely had to send rejection emails to so many phenomenal writers. And that was one of the hardest. I mean, that was the hardest thing in this whole process. You know, I started off being so terrified that nobody would submit. And then when people were submitting, I went, oh, no, I'm gonna have to reject so many good contributors. And part of that is like, so little of that is to do with that writer's writing. It's to do with balancing out the issue. And you know, it's such a cliche when anyone listening who's a writer will know you get the email. That's like, we couldn't fit you in this issue. We just couldn't fit. But that's exactly what it was like, was trying to. Yeah. Get that balance and trying, I guess, to take the reader on a journey as well. You know, I was trying to think of what order I would put them in as I was, as I was selecting the pieces. And part of that was. Yeah. Leading people on this journey through that. Yeah. Kind of, kind of takes like had the issue issue itself, has a bit of a narrative.

And I think it's also like, really for practical reasons as well, because, like, there's a lot of literary journals out there that don't pay, whereas trans rag does. And so there is that kind of, you know, like, in terms of like the nuts and bolts, there is a. A budget that you gotta adhere to.

To be frank, I went over budget. I initially budgeted for 10 to 12 pieces and then ended up accepting. Accepting 15. And you know, we don't pay a huge amount. We pay an honorarium. That's not reflective of the, of the creative energy and time that people put into these pieces. It was important to me, I guess, in an ethical sense to pay something, that there is that flow of. Of consideration of what's, you know, valuable and showing that. That we value these people's concerns, contributions. Even if. Even if I can't pay as much as I would like to.

And I feel like it's like a. Like whenever I'm like, I'm in a cafe and I'm there to write a poem. Hey, at least that honorarium last time is paying for my coffee. I don't know, it feels like some kind of trans reciprocity. We're like, exactly. We don't have a lot of money, but we're doing our best.

I've. I've received small honoraria from. For my publications and then I'm redistributing that out to other people and, you know, obviously looking forward to future issues and hoping to be able to expand and to pay more. But yeah, at the moment it's. It's absolutely just a small budget out of my own pocket. And so, you know, part of that was trying to make sure I found the best cost options for like, web hosting and the platform we use and that sort of thing. Because, yeah, I needed to make sure that the money was going to the contributors over, you know, some huge, like, Internet corporation.

And I was gonna say, if people do want to send like a little bit of money to the Trans Rag kitty, where can they go to do that?

Yeah, so that's. There's a link on the webpage. So on trans-rag.com there's this sort of table of contents comes up second. You'll see. I do recommend if you, if you're interested in reading, hop on your laptop or even like an iPad or something, because it. It's designed to feel a bit more like a magazine. And so it looks a lot better in that landscape format. But there's a link in a little box and then I think I've repeated that same link further down in my editor's forward. And that's essentially a pay what you can if you can, with different price points. And that's just kind of optionally paying for your. Your edition.

Yeah, a nice little tip jar.

Exactly.

And yeah, we'll put all of that information in the show notes as well. If people want to submit to the second issue, what can they. How can they do that? And like, what kind of. Do you know what kinds of things you're looking for? Or is it, you know, just vibes based at this point?

So I'm not I'm not theming issues in, you know, like some publications will say this, you know, they announce a theme for an issue. I, I want to keep it fairly open. If you head to trans-rag.com and scroll down it that the submission link is right next to that, that tip jar link and that'll tell you everything you need to know to send a submission. But we publish quarterly, so got. The next issue will be coming out in January. The submissions have literally just opened. So if you've got something ready to go, you can send it to me right now, but it'll be open for another few weeks. Just check those submission, that submission page for the deadline and yeah, send me your good. Send me your most unhinged stuff. I want to read everything. And yeah, so there's no real theme but often I find a theme emerges, I guess from, you know, the collective unconscious sort of thing, what, what people are thinking about, what people are writing about at a particular time. So, and I think so long as.

Submissions are coming from people who are, who are trans.

Precisely. And, and I have the, the. I have a very broad, broad inclusive view of transness. Includes any kind of non binary, any kind of, you know what includes a.

Piece of art that's got Garfield in it. And I don't know why it's, as you said, don't know why that's trans, but it's wonderful.

That was my favourite alt text I've ever written for an image was that. That piece, Lyra Gaunt's piece called hello World and it's. Yeah, it's, it's just every. I think, I think a line in the, in the alt text is every. Literally everything in the room is Garfield. And just if you can tell me why that's trans, please do, because it is. But I can't explain why because I.

Mean, I would have expected Blur high, but like I'm on board with it.

You know.

It'S, it's wild and I absolutely don't feel if anyone's listening. If you're a musician, if you're, you know, if you make audio soundscapes, if you write interactive fiction entwine, if you would like. Whatever you do, if I can stick it on a website, shoot me an email if you're unsure. I'm always happy to have a chat and you can also message the Instagram as well as a, as an alternative way to get in touch and yeah, always happy to, to speak to new folks and, and excited to see what people are going to send me for issue two.

I'M so pumped. I'm really excited to see issue two. And also if you haven't read issue Issue one while you've been listening to this interview. And if you want to know more about Trans rag, head to trans-rag.com. thank you so much for chatting with me today.

Thank you for having me, Ray.

Thank you, Orey. Hello. Hello. My name is Ray. I use they them pronouns. And you're listening to transmission on 4 triple Z. I'm very excited that we got to chat with Ori Disket transrag on this show. And you'll be able to listen back to that interview and the whole episode on the 4 Triple Z website and also on our on our podcast.

Yeah.

Which is exciting.

You can check out all of the transmission episodes on both all the streaming platforms. You can even go to the Community Radio plus app and listen back to episodes there too. You can check out Transmission Trans with the Z Radio on Instagram, Facebook, stuff like that. Follow us. You can also support 4Z, which is our mothership that beams us out across the airwaves. You can support 4zzz by subscribing to it with an annual subscription. Head to 4z.org au support. Select something. Whether you're a pet or you're not a pet or Whether you're under 18, you want a passionate subscription, you want T shirts, you go, oh, there's so many options. Go check it out.

Yeah. I was like, if you are a cat girl, can you put yourself down as a pet?

Absolutely.

Yeah. Go off. Well, there you go. Get on it.

Yeah, why not? I know people who subscribe their genitals as pets, so whatever. Do what you like.

Oh my goodness.

You know, I just watched you blink through like three times.

I don't know why I was surprised. It's four Triple Z and also like we're on Transmission. I'm like, why did I not expect this? And also I absolutely love it.

Yeah, why not subscribe? Support the station. We love it.

We love the station. We love four Triple Z and we love the. We have Transmission. It's so beautiful.

Me too.

I went into a server the other day and came out and I was like, what happened?

How did.

I got five things.

What's your go to snack at the servo? Do you have like a go to thing?

Within reasons. Usually it's some kind of chocolate bar.

Okay. I'm usually like a powerade of some kind.

Oh yeah, you gotta. Yeah.

Either health or mana. You know the blue one or the health.

Oh yeah. The really pink. There's a pink trans one that everyone.

There's a pink trans one.

Yeah.

There's so many trans things.

Well, I think everything that's pink is trans, so I think that just might actually be my. My brain.

You got, like, rose tinted glasses on.

Literally. It's like all I think about is pink. Oh, my goodness. On that note, someone in the station just walked past in a pink shirt. So go off. See pink. Embrace pink.

We're everywhere.

Oh, my God. Yeah, trans people. We're everywhere.

You'll turn around, you'll see us hanging off the walls where we're everywhere.

And we're also going to be back next Tuesday from 9 o' clock on four triple Z.

Thank you so much for listening to Transmission. See you next Tuesday, 9 to 10am on 4ZZZ.