Mardi Gras Launches Festival Guide and More Party Details

Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras (SGLMG) has launched its 2012 Sydney Mardi Gras Festival Guide, Parade Entry Kit and more information about the line-up for the 2012 Harbour and Mardi Gras parties.

The festival includes more than 60 events from February 12 to March 4, culminating in the Mardi Gras party and parade.

The festival guide is a pocket-sized edition and will have four alternative covers featuring faces from Sydney’s LGBTI community.

The first of these, featuring Sydney drag entertainer Summer Salt, will be available from this weekend in local bars and clubs. The other three covers feature Mardi Gras 1978 organiser Ron Austin (pictured), Sydney Bear community member Ross James, and Oxford Hotel functions manager Tia Lee, and will appear around Sydney over the coming week.

The guide is an overview of key events, so look out for the full festival line-up in an upcoming calendar and on Mardi Gras’ website.

A new event featured is The Year of Magical Wanking, presented in association with the Sydney Theatre.
Featuring one of Ireland’s most incendiary performers, Neil Watkins, this piece of theatre will take audiences through a wilderness of queerness.

Younger LGBTIs will have a safe place to party at a Queer Prom, presented by Twenty10 and Camp Out, while Queer Thinking returns with speakers including Professor Sara Ahmed, artist Gary Carsley and lawyer Alyena Mohummadally.

The parade will have the same eligibility criteria as this year’s parade, with eligibility based upon each group’s message and LGBTI status.

The Entrant Criteria specify that entries must be either “LGBTQI individuals, groups and organisations communicating a message” or “non-LGBTQI individuals, groups and organisations communicating a clear message of support or celebration for LGBTQI people”.

SGLMG will also hold a Parade Entrants Open Day in the Velvet Room of the Bank Hotel, Newtown, 1-4pm on December 18 to talk to the Parade Creative team about entries.

“This year’s Parade Entry Kit features the same simple criteria that we established last year,” SGLMG CEO Michael Rolik said.

“The Entrant Criteria ensure that our Parade is a platform for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex community to celebrate their diversity and express themselves.

“Whether this is your first time taking part, or you have marched in the Parade for years, we hope you’ll get involved in making the 2012 Parade an unforgettable and electrifying night.”

SGLMG will provide additional funding for community floats thanks to funds raised through this year’s Big Gay Weekend, and will double the funding allocated to its in-house floats.

SGLMG has announced that Lee Dagger of Bimbo Jones, Andy Butler and Wayne G will be among the big acts performing at the Mardi Gras Party, dubbed Mardigrasland in which the Entertainment Quarter will be transformed into a theme park of music, dance and electrifying acts.

SGLMG also announced the ticket options available for the party.

For the first time, general admission tickets can be purchased as a bundle of four, for $99 per ticket, plus booking fee.

A $99 ticket will also be available to youth and concession party-goers, plus booking fee.

Premium tickets will include express entry, access to specially reserved seating in the Hordern Pavilion, access to the express bar lane in the RHI and the Hordern, access to a designated premium lounge with comforts such as couches, a complimentary cloak room, premium toilets, a souvenir welcome pack and a premium wristband for identification.

Tickets are available from Ticketek at www.ticketek.com.au.

The iconic Harbour Party has been named Harbour ’12 Cool Change and will be held on February 25, with acts including Lee Dagger, Kate Monroe, Troy Cox and Olivian DJ, and moves from its traditional Sunday setting to a Saturday after feedback from partygoers.

Tickets are $105 plus booking fee.

“Harbour ’12 is the cool change you’ve been waiting for. We can’t wait to see even more local and international guests join us on the Saturday for this must-do Mardi Gras event,” Rolik said.

In related news, the venue for a December 17 information night on SGLMG’s recent name and logo changes has been changed from the ACON building to Darlinghurst’s Heffron Hall at 34 Burton St.

The event will still take place from 10am until noon.

INFO: www.mardigras.org.au

Still no inquiry into transgender woman’s death

Almost three years after an indigenous transgender woman died under suspicious circumstances in a NSW prison; there is little support for a parliamentary inquiry into the matter.

Veronica Baxter died in a men’s prison, age 34. She hung herself in early 2009, despite being assessed and found to be happy three separate times.

No one can remember who spoke to her last or what was said, and the coronial inquiry two years after the incident has been described as a ‘sham’ and ‘cover up’.

Ms Baxter had commenced hormone therapy, but there was no mention of whether she was provided with ongoing hormone medication in the coronial findings.

This is significant because The Department of Correctional Services and Justice Health have legal responsibility to provide transgender people continued access to their medicine if they have already started the treatment.

Transgender people are known to become suicidal if their hormone therapy is ended abruptly.

Two sets of health notes which would have indicated whether Ms Baxter was receiving this treatment have disappeared. Case notes entered into the computer on the14th of March at the MRRC were not saved and case notes from her time at the Sydney Police Centre in Surry Hills have gone missing.

In response to recent question son notice asking if Ms Baxter was supplied her hormone treatment while under the care of justice health, The Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Michael Gallacher, refused to confirm it, saying only that “All health services provided by Justice Health to Ms Baxter during her time in custody were in line with Justice Health policy.”

Mr Gallacher dismissed any concerns relating to her death, saying “Ms Baxter’s death was the subject of a Coronial Inquest.

The Coroner made no recommendations in relation to Ms Baxter’s death.”NSW Greens MLC David Shoebridge is concerned about the validity of the inquest.

“It is a serious disappointment and a failing in the system that there was a two-year delay for half-day coronial inquest,’’ he said. “That delay has meant that witness recollections were stale.’’ “There was no expert psychological testimony about the impact of Veronica not receiving her hormone therapy in gaol. The details of her last desperate calls tithe prison’s emergency help line were not recorded and witnesses who may have taken the calls denied any recollection of what was said.”

“The death of Veronica Baxter under such disturbing circumstances cannot just be ignored. It is essential that this woman, who was doubly vulnerable identifying as both Aboriginal and transgender, receives some justice. Her family, her friends and the community deserve some real answers,” Mr Shoebridge said.

Ray Jackson, president of the Indigenous Social Justice Association (ISJA), an advocacy group with a long history in dealing with aboriginal deaths in custody, believes Correctional Services and Justice Healthcare conspiring to cover up the circumstances around Veronica’s death.

“This inquiry was a sham. It did not resolve how she died. We saw whitewash,” he said.

By Jason Marshall

Re-posted from: http://www.altmedia.net.au/still-no-support-for-inquiry-into-transgender-womans-death/46115