Personal Politics Launch at Qtopia Sydney

Personal Politics: Gender, Sexuality and the Making of Australian Citizenship (Monash University Publishing) is a ground-breaking history of feminist and LGBTIQ+ activism in Australia.

Activists in the 1970s hoped that by asserting that the ‘personal is political’ they could address injustice and inequality. This conversation between the authors of this book will explore the efficacy and historical consequences of this style of making politics.

Has there been a retreat from the radical hopes and ambitions of these earlier activisms? Has LGBTIQ+ activism consorted too closely with the ideals of neoliberalism by promoting self-sufficiency and respectability as political virtues? And, whose interests are being served by a political culture in which stories of intimate distress and despair seem to dominate?

Come and hear a conversation between some of the leading historians of gender and sexuality in Australia about what we can learn by critically examining the history of LGBTIQ+ activism in Australia.