The title of this recording is "Senthorun Raj (1)". It was recorded in Wellington Town Hall, 101 Wakefield Street, Wellington on the 17th March 2011. Senthorun Raj is being interviewed by Gareth Watkins.  Their names are spelt correctly but may appear incorrectly spelt later in the document. The duration of the recording is 8 minutes. A list of correctly spelt content keywords and tags can be found at the end of this document. A brief description of the recording is: In this podcast Senthorun Raj from Australia talks about attending the human rights conference. The content in the recording covers the 2010s decade. A brief summary of the recording is: In a podcast recorded at the Wellington Town Hall, Senthorun Raj from Australia shares insights into attending a human rights conference. The recording captures Raj's involvement with the gay and lesbian rights lobby in New South Wales as a senior policy advisor, leveraging both political lobbying and academic research to advocate for the rights of same-sex couples and their families. With a background encompassing sexuality, law, and cultural studies, Raj has completed a thesis examining the understanding of sexuality and persecution in Australian refugee law. Raj identifies a prevailing ethnocentric understanding of sexuality within Australia, noting that decision makers often rely on anglophone and consumerist notions that fail to recognize the diverse expressions of sexuality among diasporic or displaced individuals. This westernized conception overlooks how sexual and gender minorities can experience persecution, even if they do not conform to stereotypical depictions related to public visibility or cultural associations. Addressing the current challenges faced by queer communities in Australia, Raj points to a legislative gap at the federal level regarding anti-discrimination laws to protect sexual and gender minorities. Other pressing issues include the lack of marriage equality, limited access to medical treatment, and difficulties in securing identity recognition on official documents. Despite these challenges, progress is noted within New South Wales, specifically the recent move to legalize same-sex couple adoption, marking an end to the state's direct legislative discrimination. The potential for interdisciplinary approaches to activism and social justice is a key takeaway for Raj from the conference. Such collaborations can extend beyond legislation and policy, encompassing cultural, social, and educational change. Raj emphasizes the need for engagement across disciplines to foster a more holistic activism strategy for sexual and gender minorities. Post-conference, Raj plans to leverage insights and international best practices in developing policies to combat homophobic bullying and to further the cause of federal anti-discrimination laws in Australia. Through community engagement and informed policy-making, the hope is to transform conference dialogues into tangible action and advocacy. When discussing personal experiences, Raj acknowledges facing race-based discrimination more than sexuality-based discrimination in Australia. Such reflections highlight Australia's challenges regarding racism and bring attention to its negotiation with its indigenous populations. Raj urges the importance of talking about race issues in an honest way, rather than relying on vague policies such as multiculturalism, to effectively advance diversity and confront race-based discrimination. Looking towards the future, Raj underscores the essential nature of conferences like the one in Wellington, which invite diverse perspectives and foster dialogue. Such collaborative endeavors celebrate community strength through the respectful negotiation of differences. Raj expresses hope that perseverance in creating platforms and mechanisms for inclusive discourse will mark significant progress from the present state. The full transcription of the recording begins:  I'm representing the gay and lesbian rights lobby from New South Wales. So I work as a senior policy advisor. Um, so in terms of my professional background, I do political lobbying in Australia around the recognition of same sex couples and their families. Um, in addition to that, I also, uh, have a bit of an academic kind of background in sexuality, law and cultural studies. And I've just finished my thesis looking at the way sexuality and persecution is understood in refugee law in Australia. And I'm here at the conference to present some of my research in one of the conference rooms. What were some of the findings in your research? Largely that the way sexuality is understood is very, very isotype. Um, it comes from a very ethnocentric or anglophone idea of, um, sexuality, as you know, enabled through consumerism through public space, through promiscuity through, you know, association with particular cultural objects like Madonna or Oscar Wilde. And so, um, a lot of the problems faced by diaspora or displaced sexual minorities is that they don't readily identify with the kind of tropes that or stereotypes that decision makers feel that sexuality is, and so part of my research was sort of critiquing the ways in which sexuality needs to be understood in very specific historical and cultural circumstances and that people may not even understand the vocabulary of gay and lesbian and yet still face persecution on the basis of their attraction or gender presentation and so forth. So what do you think are the biggest issues facing queer communities in Australia at the moment? Legislatively speaking, Australia still lacks federal anti discrimination laws that protect sexual and gender minorities. Um, marriage equality is also another considerable issue, um, impeding the rights of sexual and gender minorities for adequate relationship recognition. Um, sex and gender diverse communities also have a broad range of issues in terms of access to medical treatment. Um, identity recognition on official documents, um, and so forth. So there are still considerable gaps, uh, in terms of the legislative framework in Australia. But, you know, very recently in New South Wales, we've seen, um, a good push towards the recognition of same sex families with, uh, same sex couple adoption, ending the last piece of direct legislative discrimination in the state of New South Wales, For example, what do you kind of take out of these kind of conferences. I think there's a lot to take out from these conferences, especially conferences, which bring together such a diverse and eclectic mix of individuals working in a different across different areas. I think primarily what we need to understand is that any form of activism are dedicated to ensuring the rights and recognition of sexual and gender. Minorities has to be interdisciplinary. It has to work across the board. It can't just be located in legislation or policy. It needs to be located in cultural change, in social change in education. And I think in these sorts of conferences that really bring together that interdisciplinary, we're able to better our own work in the disciplines that we do work in and to ensure a more holistic and kind of diverse approach to, um, activism and to social justice for sexual and gender minorities. How do you kind of keep that momentum going from a conference like this? You know, basically turning words into into actions. What? What do you think you will do when you get back to Australia? Well, at the moment, um, we're currently working on achieving federal anti discrimination legislation, Um, and also, um, at a state level, working towards getting policies around homophobic bullying in schools and getting funding and resourcing. And at this conference, I know that there is a specific focus on, you know, rights and legislation, um, and also around education. And so hopefully, um, hearing some of the research presented hearing some of the models that have been utilised, say in different jurisdictions, um will help inform my work and what I'll be able to report back to the to the government, um, in New South Wales and in Australia about what our current models, What our current best practise approaches, Um, in order to ensure that, you know, the work that we do isn't reinventing the wheel, but consistent with the good models that we see around the world, Have you yourself personally had any kind of discrimination or human rights issues? Sexuality related, Um, not directly. Oddly, I tend to find more race based discrimination in Australia than I do sexuality, but that has to do with other privileges that I have as well in terms of class and and education and that kind of thing. Um, I think one of The really interesting things about a conference such as this is that it highlights the kind of, uh, intersectionality of discrimination in that you know, we're never just gay or lesbian or discriminated on the basis of just our sexuality or gender identity. But complementary factors like race, gender, nationality, class, faith, you know, ability, uh, age, all those kinds of factors into plays in how we get discriminated against. And these sorts of conferences really draw attention to the importance of thinking about discrimination and social justice in a much more broad, diverse, holistic approach than a discrete kind of way of thinking about identity is So tell me about racism in Australia. Um, wow, that's a big question. Um, I think unlike, unlike New Zealand, I think Australia still has a long way to go in terms of its recognition of the indigenous populations. Um, currently, there's a discussion around getting the indigenous people or the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people recognised in our Constitution, which currently does not exist. Um, I think race as a term is very reluctantly used, and racism is a very reluctant term. I think multiculturalism is often used as the kind of policy vehicle, um, to kind of stifle any discussion around racism. Um, and yet we've seen that multiculturalism is really this kind of fiction, Um, that the government, uh, tends to use, in order to, you know, consolidate all these cultural differences together or, you know, harmonise them for their own purposes. And yet we still face systemic discrimination on the basis of race. You just look at asylum seekers and the treatment of them in Australia and the way they're mobilised as political footballs during any federal election. Um, still indigenous issues around health and education and welfare and the Northern Territory intervention in terms of, you know, uh, dealing with child sexual assault, but with a very blanket. Very, you know, non consultative, very neocolonial approach has seen disastrous effects in the Northern Territory and other indigenous communities. So I think Australia does need to move forward in terms of its race politics just by talking about it and consulting with groups and really trying to achieve diversity rather than pay lip service or policies such as multiculturalism. Is there a willingness to do that? Um, I hope so. I don't necessary, I think. Well, there's been recent discussion about multiculturalism again, it's been revived in Australia. But, um, I do hope that there will be greater attention paid to it, and certainly with the indigenous Australians. You know, now that there's talk about including them in the Constitution. And now that there is a campaign around recognising the kind of, you know the disparity in terms of life expectancy and the you know, um, employment prospects and all those kinds of things for indigenous Australians, hopefully we'll see greater social, legislative and policy change around around race, um, based issues in Australia. If we were to scoot forward 30 years and you had to, um, impart some words to somebody listening in 30 years time, what would they be? Um, that these sorts of conferences are absolutely essential, and it's always best practise to invite people from different spectrums. Um, across the world, geographic context, religious context, gender, sexuality, race, um, to promote dialogue. I mean effectively. That is the strength of of a community. Um, it's the ability to negotiate differences rather than erase them. And so I think in the future, if we develop mechanisms and you know whether that's a conference, whether that's a You know, a forum, whether that's just simply interpersonal communication between two people that validates and respects people's differences and brings them together in a conversation rather than seeks to put them in a hierarchy or to contest them against one another, I think that will be a fantastic improvement to where we are now. The full transcription of the recording ends. A list of keywords/tags describing the recording follow. These tags contain the correct spellings of names and places which may have been incorrectly spelt earlier in the document. The tags are seperated by a semi-colon: 2010s ; Asia Pacific Outgames ; Asia Pacific Outgames (2011) ; Australia ; Marriage Equality ; New South Wales ; Oscar Wilde ; Pacific ; People ; Senthorun Raj ; Space ; Wales ; Wellington ; Wellington Town Hall ; access ; actions ; activism ; adoption ; anti discrimination ; assault ; asylum ; attraction ; board ; bullying ; change ; class ; communication ; community ; conference ; consumerism ; conversation ; discrimination ; diversity ; education ; employment ; equality ; face ; faith ; forum ; funding ; future ; gay ; gender ; gender diverse ; gender identity ; government ; health ; homophobic bullying ; hope ; human rights ; identity ; intervention ; justice ; law ; legislation ; lesbian ; listening ; lobbying ; march ; marriage ; other ; persecution ; policy ; politics ; promiscuity ; queer ; race ; race politics ; racism ; recognition ; refugee ; research ; sex ; sexuality ; social ; social change ; social justice ; stereotypes ; strength ; time ; work. The original recording can be heard at this website https://www.pridenz.com/apog_senthorun_raj_1.html. The master recording is also archived at the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, New Zealand.  For more details visit their website https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.1089486. Senthorun Raj also features audibly in the following recordings: "Session 7, Gender, Sexuality and Rights" and "Senthorun Raj (2)". Please note that this document may contain errors or omissions - you should always refer back to the original recording to confirm content.