The social and legal situation for LGBTQ people in Australia has progressed remarkably across the last 60 years, yet discrimination, discomfort, and danger remain ever-present realities for queer people. Responding to content from our Pride (R)evolution exhibition, host Geraldine Fela is joined by Eloise Brook, Betty Hounslow, Ghassan Khassiseh and Liza-Mare Syron as they consider the contemporary landscape for LGBTQ people in Australia - imagining queer futures as they reflect on the past.

Geraldine Fela is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Macquarie University in the Department of History and Archaeology. Fela’s research sits at the intersection of labour history, queer history and social movement studies. Her doctoral research, which she is working towards publishing as a monograph, explored the role of Australian nurses and nursing unions in responding to the HIV and AIDS crisis.

Eloise Brook is the Health and Communications Manager for the NSW Gender Centre, a podcaster, writer and speaker. She has worked as a researcher and lecturer into public health policy and political science at Sydney University and Western Sydney University.

Betty Hounslow is a Mardi Gras 78er and was a founding member of the gay and Lesbian Immigration Taskforce (GLITF) in 1984. Betty has worked in community legal centres and women’s refuges and was Executive Director of the Australian Council for Social Service (ACOSS) for many years. Today she serves as a board member for the Asylum Seekers’ Centre.

Ghassan Kassisieh has been involved in over a decade of LGBTIQ advocacy alongside a commercial litigation career in Australia and overseas. Ghassan teaches in public law and is an author on the legal recognition of same-sex couples and their children, Australian refugee decisions on the basis of sexual orientation and homophobia in Arabic-speaking communities. He is the Legal Director of Equality Australia.

Liza-Mare Syron has family ties to the Birrbay people from the Mid North Coast of NSW. A theatre maker and academic, she is a founding member of Koori-Gras, a First Nations queer creative cultural program that is now an integral part of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. She is widely published in the field of Indigenous performing arts and is Co-Associate Dean Indigenous in the Faculty of Arts Design and Architecture at UNSW.

This event is presented in association with the Library's exhibition, Pride (R)evolution.