In 2018 I’ve commenced work as an entertainment writer for Brisbane based queer magazine, Qnews.
My first piece for the year was a really insightful interview with comedian Mel Buttle.
You can view the original link to this article here: https://www.qnews.com.au/comedian-mel-buttle-off-leash-brisbane-comedy-festival/
Let’s get one thing straight: cheating is unpleasant. No-one wants to be cheated on and most people don’t want to cheat on the person they love, but the reality of the world is that cheating happens.
In the last week the international media has gone into meltdown as the Ashley Madison scandal unfolded before us and we’ve all lapped it up under one simple belief: these people are cheaters, therefore they are bad people.
But the thing we don’t stop to think about, the thing that no one wants to admit is that relationships are hard. Long term relationships involving busy lives, careers, parents and children take their tolls on couples. One of the hardest things to navigate in theses relationships is sex.
Ask a long term married couple with a 3 small children running around the house, juggling one or two careers between them, “How often do you have sex?”
Chances are the honest answers will reveal weeks and sometimes months between this most cherished of loving acts between two people. But ask them as well “Are you still in love?” and you’ll see through their tired eyes the answer which you know is true as they reply, “yes.”
This is the catch 22 that we don’t want to acknowledge or understand: people who love their partners, love their families and love their children have affairs.
Do they do it with the intention of hurting their loved ones?
The simple answer is no.
If they wanted to indulge their most selfish of desires, they would pack their things and leave their relationship. They would abandon their partner, their children and seek to set up a new life in the pursuit of better sex and freedom, leaving broken homes and broken hearts. Instead they make a choice, a questionable choice that we’re conditioned to believe is the very worst crime they can commit, they have an affair.
The definition of affair varies depending on who you speak to, but predominantly these affairs are of a sexual nature, intended to fulfill a desire that’s not being met. Sometimes it’s simply sex, sometimes it’s indulging a fetish, something kinky, something different, ultimately it’s something they don’t feel they can talk to their partner about.
Is this the right choice to make? Probably not.
Should they talk to their partner? Absolutely.
Is it always that simple? No.
But what these people do is something that is beyond our understanding, that doesn’t mean we get to be their judge and jury. Who would we wish to condemn more, the person having sex outside their marriage as their wife and children live unaware or the person that abandons their family for a new life?
In the throes of the Ashley Madison drama it’s time we put down the pitchforks and picked up the mirror to take a look at ourselves. Sex and love can exist both simultaneously and separately. It is possible to love one person and have sex with another and it’s possible for people to make questionable choices about their own lives without being put on trial by the world.
The story of each person on Ashley Madison is unique and different, there will be some awful people there intent on infidelity and deceit. But spare a thought for those on there out to have an affair to help preserve their marriage. It’s a strange concept to entertain, but is it really so outrageous?
With the details of their choices now online who’s making the choice to destroy their marriage? We’re making the choice to cast these people out and ostracize them for their choices, choices we don’t understand.
What Ashley Madison should be teaching us is to talk more openly to our partners about sex. To reach out, explore, connect and continue to develop loving and sexually fulfilling relationships with our partners. Talk more, judge less.
The Internet has changed the face of the music industry for both good and bad. It’s refreshing to experience the good reasons and one of those is Ryan Amador. Over 200,000 people around the world have discovered the music of this soulful New York twenty-something as he sings about the heartbreak and passion of love, strength and identity. Most well known for his song “Define Me”, his recent album proves he is a musical force well worth the attention he has been getting. With vocals that match some of the industry’s greats his work is passionate and honest: if his track “Instead” doesn’t leave you in tears you must have a vacant heart and the rest of his album will take you on an emotional journey you won’t soon forget.
You may have seen Ryan perform at this year’s Brisbane Pride Fair Day or at his intimate gig at The Junk Bar. His self titled album is out now.
We snapped Ryan at Fair Day and yes, he very talented plus a dam nice guy as well!
This review was originally published on QNews and can be found here 
As part of my role as a 612ABC Community Correspondent I was lucky enough to again cover another Brisbane Pride Festival event, our Gala Launch Night.
Our launch night was held last Friday night the 29th of August where we launched our 2014 theme campaign “Define Me? More Than A Label”.
You can listen to my full report streaming via the ABC link below.
The following is a recent article I wrote for The Brisbane Times about my experiences being a young gay teacher in Queensland.
I’ll never forget my first time stepping foot into a Catholic school as a wide eyed and eager teacher-in-training, still filled with the motivation to empower young people and work my magic as an educational leader.
The private schooling sector was the bulk of where I received my training and the primary basis of my future teacher employment. It was also a contributing factor as to why I won’t be returning to teaching any time soon.
I remember the fear that gripped me during those first few weeks of my practical placement – the stories we had been told, the warnings and the advice we’d been given.
In my classes at university there were many gay men and women and we all shared similar fears around our sexuality and the classroom. Professional advice had always been “keep it neutral”, removing possibilities for student interference in our personal lives.
Which was all well and good, but it wasn’t always the advice our heterosexual peers received. They had no need to “hide” anything, when they are to get engaged, married or have children it gets to be an article in the school newsletter, complete with smiling photos and well wishes. For us, it’s better left unsaid.
One girl returned from her placement in a private all girls school a nervous wreck. During a weekend at the theatre with her girlfriend a student had spotted them holding hands in public. The following week the news had spread through the school like wildfire, climaxing in a hostile exchange in the middle of the classroom from one of the students.
The only support given to her by the supervising teacher was a scolding about keeping her private life to herself and out of the school.
I didn’t see that girl again, whether she ended up graduating I’m not sure, but the experience had scarred her and it set the fear in all of us.
It was one of my very first days as I was sitting nervously at my desk that one of the teachers beside me in my cubicle started making friends. We were talking about what sort of music I liked and my answers were a dead giveaway.
“Are you gay?” He laughed.
I hesitated for a moment, I couldn’t lie.
“Yes” I said as calmly as I could.
“Really?” He laughed again, nervously.
“Yes, really…”
I let it hang there for a moment, neither of us really knew what to say. I think I had just caught him off guard, but he smiled warmly and we continued on. It was awkward, but he ended up being one of my favourite colleagues.
The general reception from all the teachers was great for the most part. As with any workplace there were people you bond with and those who you share space with, but never anyone who I had a problem with. My sexuality wasn’t on display as such, but it was relatively “known” to most of the teaching staff I assumed.
Over the course of two years I sat three placements in that school and had a great time, had some wonderful and challenging teaching experiences, and made some excellent friends.
My experiences in the state system had been mixed, nothing to do with my sexuality, just archaic institutions, burnt out teachers and a system bursting at the seams with paperwork and bureaucracy. It wasn’t the best system to work in, certainly not the one for me, so I opted to stick with the private sector.
One of the first contracts I was offered was back at the very same school, contacted by my supervising teacher who was so impressed with my work he asked that I cover his long service leave contract. After passing my interview I was granted full temporary teacher status within the school. Welcomed with open arms by my colleagues, the first few weeks were great.
However, over the years I had built up a small portfolio of community media and GLBTIQ activism work and it didn’t take the kids long to find out thanks to the internet.
Being a small all boys catholic school it was the talk of the school. The boys reacted the way all boys do at ‘scandalous’ information, gossiping, joking and pranks, not a great many efforts were made to diffuse the situation.
It wasn’t the easiest discussion to have with senior management at the school, all staunchly Catholic men who you could see shifting uncomfortably in their seats, fidgeting with their collars and avoiding eye contact.
They said what they had to and we moved on. It was my teaching colleagues who took the important steps in helping settle things down and help the boys move on to their next scandal.
Overall, it was a relatively dull affair that lasted all of a week or two.
I never discussed it with the students, we all moved on. I had met very pleased parents at awards night, made friends with colleagues and seen my students achieve some great work in my classes, so I felt as though my time there had been a success.
The school administration seemed to feel somewhat differently.
At the conclusion of my contract the ties were severed.
My partner and myself who had recently become foster carers applied to have our son enrolled with the school, a process we were told was almost a guarantee for any current or past teacher. After our interview we were told acceptance/rejection letters would arrive in May.
We received ours just three weeks later in March, rejected.
Meanwhile. I had sent numerous emails and made many phone calls with differing contacts at the school in order to arrange further work as a substitute teacher, all communication went unreturned.
It was implicitly clear this door had been shut in my face and this place was no longer welcoming to me based on my sexuality.
The naysayers would easily say there is no proof, but when you live an experience like that you don’t need proof.
That experience alone has deterred me from teaching further and I’m not alone – other teachers have had worse experiences and there are many who fight to keep themselves closeted while at work for fear of losing their jobs.
The travesty of this situation is that if I wanted to take this to court, if I wanted to stand up and say “They did not invite me back because I am gay“, the law would say “Yes and that is their right“.
When we have a law that pushes teachers into the closet, that divides people and tells them they must hide parts of who they are in order to retain a job, then we have a very serious problem on our hands. That is not a system that is just and right, that is a system that persecutes and divides and what message does that send to our teachers and our children?
“1 John 4:11: Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
This article was originally written for and published with The Brisbane Times, the original can be found HERE
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