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If there is something LGBTIQ+ people know about - particularly older LGBTIQ+ people like me - it is the damage that can be done by being forcibly outed. That knowledge of the destruction of lives from being forcibly outed gives us a little extra empathy with the whistleblowers whose lives are at risk of destruction from the - legal and very polite - AFP raids on the media this week.
As one article today spells out, this will have a "chilling" effect on whistleblowers - thereby enabling all governments to "get away" with - what? We don't know, but the government that created the laws - or failed to enact protective laws - that allowed this to happen is inherently untrustworthy, just as governments that fail to enact anti-discrimination laws - another area LGBTIQ+ and other minority groups are very familiar with - are as equally guilty of the abuses committed against those not protected as those who committed the assaults and other forms of discrimination, and those governments that enact apartheid, anti-sodomy, and other laws that enshrine the evils of discrimination.
Are we going to have to resort to the tactics used in the USSR to circulate knowledge of the gulags and other wrongdoing?
We need, as a matter of urgency, laws to protect bona fide journalism, and their sources.
Bona fide? Well, sadly, the media has shown itself to be incapable of managing its irresponsible elements - the homophobes and transphobes of the tabloid trash, for instance (see here), as well as those who seem to be nothing but mouthpieces for the neoliberals. It's a complication that may be unnecessary and will be unliked, but as someone who has suffered at the hands of homophobic and transphobic rants in the media, as well as the homophobes and transphobes in politics, I'd like to err on the side of caution.
But as a citizen - a very out of vogue term, I know, amongst the glitterati of governance - with lived experience of the devastation of being forcibly outed, and of the power of the press for both good and evil, I still want to see decent protection for the press and their whistleblower sources as soon as is possible.
