Sci-Fi & Squeam

26 Jun 2016

The World of Queer Geeks

Games & Hobbies, Horror Films, Society & Culture, TV & Film

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Episode #325 Tuesday June the 7th,2016 at 10pm in the JOY studios Melbourne Town. It’s Radiothon week and Sonja The Squeamer and Dylan-DylStick-Adler return fresh from the War Craft movie premiere in Melbourne to talk about those Orcs and what did they think of this new movie of the video game, directed by Duncan Jones.

Sonja chats to the amazing Ryan Griffen the man behind the very 1st Australian Aboriginal genre TV show called Cleverman now playing on Australia’s ABC.

Below: Ryan Griffen creator of Cleverman

And both Sonja and Dylan express their opinion on what happened with the event director of Supanova’s homophobia stance and controversy recently online when he shared an anti–Safe Schools Coalition post of a petition he had signed, and how our hosts say there is no place for queerphobia at pop-culture events.

Below : Dylan Adler AKA DylStick Does the Decks !

Here is the statement from Queer Geeks of Oz as it appears in House of Geekery :

As a geek and a queer geek it really concerns me that the Event Director, clearly someone who has great influence and a founder of a pop-culture organisation affiliates himself to a hateful petition that has an anti-Safe Schools stance. So why do I think that? Well, my background is as the organiser or helmer (if there is such a word) for the very 1st LGBTIQ discussion panel in Australia at any major pop-cons called Queer Geeks of Oz. QGOO was developed on the premise that our queer geek community needed a voice and to be visible in what used to be a very hetero-normative environment. Geeks come in all shapes, sizes and genders and backgrounds…that couldn’t be ignored any longer in my opinion, hence Queer Geeks of Oz was born! We have done, to date, 2 Oz Comic Con panels and 1 at the former Armageddon con and last year at PAX Australia. The support across the platforms of geekdom has been and is fantastic and positive, but there has been one absence and that is the other large major player: Supanova. Whether we have been snubbed,ignored or neglected by the Supanova organisation is not the point but our invitations in the past to talk to them have been met with silence. So, basically, I think of well their loss. All I have ever wanted to do as an organiser of QGOO is to make sure our little but resilient niche community is included in cons that have an invested interest in representing diversity and we have happily acted as spokespersons on LGBTIQ issues and topics that arise in the nerd world. Now with this post of the owner of Supanova who have hosted the likes of great advocates like Lucy Lawless to the wonderfully out and proud John Barrowman and icons of such importance as George Takei, it pains me and distresses me to see Mr Zachariou have such a position that threatens to harm our young queer people. What is Safe Schools (actually called the Safe Schools Coalition?) ‘Safe Schools Coalition Australia is a national network of organisations working with schools to create safer and more inclusive environments for same sex attracted, intersex and gender diverse students, staff and families.’ (from their websitehttp://www.safeschoolscoalition.org.au/)

As LGBTIQ young people are tragically amongst the highest in suicide numbers (after indigenous Australians) it worries and naturally makes me defensive to protect and to speak out about Mr Zachariou’s stance.
These are queer youth, and of course our future, and such a matter and action that he has taken supports the putting at risk all those beautiful young people, some of who no doubt would frequent Supanova and similar pop culture events as they are one of the biggest entertainments, he says through his actions that these young people don’t really matter. This is where I draw the line. Our kids are at risk and Mr Zachariou needs to apologise to those kids, explain why he shared and obviously signed the petition, and acknowledge he needs to do something like relinquish his control of Supanova and he needs to make amends through a donation to Safe Schools or Minus 18 or offer his time as a volunteer to such an organisation.It’s Time, Mr Suapnova it’s TIME.’

Below : Dylan.