A primer on non-binary actualities and individualism Down Under In the early 1990s, ‘transgender’ was repurposed by various groups of transsexuals in the US to basically include anyone whose gender expression was non-conforming with society’s expectations. —b. binaohan, decolonizing trans/gender 101 I sat in a courtyard talking with a friend, a heater crackling somewhere to our upper right, the flame stark against my cheek. The chatter before it was otherwise mundane, but it was there, in a split second of revelation amid the same conversation, that the tiny breakthrough suddenly came: ‘Masculinity is so much more rigid,’ she offered. ‘There […]

My faith is a remnant of empire. In 1521 Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan arrived in Cebu, put up a cross and claimed the Philippine islands for Spain. The cross and crown interlock. I grew up conditioned to think religion was a gift. That was certainly the early account from visiting Europeans, who marvelled at the civilising effects of Christianisation in the north and middle islands, in contrast to an intransigent Muslim south and the animistic highland tribes. Even today Filipinos express gratitude for the comforts of faith. In a country riven by poverty and corruption, what else is there to […]

Ever had the feeling you’ve been asleep or even dead—and woken to a world that’s changed beyond belief? I have died a few times, but only for short spells. The official record is 47 seconds (I have the hospital printout showing the flat-line recorded in intensive care), so not enough to give that Rip Van Winkle Effect. Why is it, then, that I am so shocked nearly every day by a sudden lurch into what seems like Blade Runner Country? Why does being awake now seem like being stuck in a bad dream in 2050? It isn’t only the sight […]

It is the winter of 2017. I am in Wyndham and I take up the harbour master’s offer to accompany him on the pilot boat that will usher in a live cattle export ship waiting in the Cambridge Gulf.

Two years ago I wrote an essay for Meanjin titled ‘A View from a Treehouse’ (no. 3, 2016). It was the story of my brush with homelessness. Divorce, debt and redundancy had crashed me out of my comfortable existence and into a chilling moment where I lost my job and was within days of losing my home and my children as well. At the last minute serendipity gave me a sublet on a tiny flat with a jury-rigged enclosed wooden patio on the second floor, sitting just under a huge old tree. I called it my treehouse and it became […]

  I was marvelling at a tree the other day. What a splendid thing it is in and of itself, I mused. Quite pleasing to the eye and functional. It can make oxygen, provide shade, be lived in by birds and insects, bear fruit, be scampered up by possums, hung off by bats and it holds the soil together so it doesn’t blow away. It doesn’t take much to run them either, a bit of water and some nutrients; otherwise, completely solar powered. Now, I can’t make a tree but I can make sense of one. I understand how a […]

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Dang, sorry. This is only available to a Meanjin subscriber. But we can fix that. It’s just $80 for print or $50 for digital. DIGITAL PRINT

Dang, sorry. This is only available to a Meanjin subscriber. But we can fix that. It’s just $80 for print or $50 for digital. DIGITAL PRINT

Dang, sorry. This is only available to a Meanjin subscriber. But we can fix that. It’s just $80 for print or $50 for digital. DIGITAL PRINT

For three years I edited the environment pages of the Conversation website. I published article after article about extinction, bee-colony collapse, the last tortoise of its kind, the last rhinoceros of its kind. I thought I knew how badly things were going for animals. I had no idea. I live in Melbourne. I didn’t expect to see wild animals in the streets around Footscray. But I really love animals, so I went on holidays to places where seeing creatures seemed more likely: Mexican mangrove forests, the Tasmanian wilderness, those kinds of places. I went on a flamingo tour—websites with photos […]

Dang, sorry. This is only available to a Meanjin subscriber. But we can fix that. It’s just $80 for print or $50 for digital. DIGITAL PRINT