(Artist: Miriam English)

Post-Convention Report: Our First Mini Convention! OUT-A-SPACE, the first mini convention for the club SPACED OUT, was held on Sunday 11 June (Queen's Birthday Weekend) in Prahran, Melbourne, Australia. We believe it was the first such event in Australia aimed specifically at the GLBT community, although an unfortunate coincidence meant that SinpOZium, a "Slash" convention, was being held in Sydney on the same weekend.  (Undoubtedly, they picked the same weekend for the same reason: Queen's Birthday!) The day began with a talk by Guest of Honour, Kerry Greenwood, a published Australian author.  She spoke of the various "queer" characters in many of her stories, and of the intricacies of getting a gay-type character included in a novel. Our first panel featured Kerry, our club convenor, Geoff,  and JOY-FM media personality, Addam Stobbs.  They discussed "Alternative Sexuality, Alternative Science Fiction", the topic having been selected due to popular demand at Aussiecon 3, last year's world SF Convention held in Melbourne. (Report continued on next page.....)

Queer time travel:  had we but world enough, and time...   By KR.

artwork by Miriam English

The definitive time travel movie was "The Time Machine" (1960), based on H G Wells' classic novel. That same decade also saw two time-hopping scientists in TV's "Time Tunnel" trying to stay alive without altering history.

Their British TV counterpart was "Doctor Who", a time traveller who took a more active role in forging the destiny of varied planets and races.

More recently, Marty McFly and the Terminator have been movie characters (one played for fun, the other for horror) who struggled to survive time travel without making themselves disappear into time paradoxes.  Current TV shows "Sliders" and "Seven Days" also feature time explorers.

Episodes from various "Star Trek" TV series have shown time travel. In these stories, characters were careful to avoid altering time or, if they did so, they dutifully restored time back to its original flow.

One of TV's most unforgettable time travellers was the "Man Out of Time" from the TV series "Logan's Run" (c.1975).  This story demonstrated the power of paradox - a favourite theme of a later tongue-in-cheek series, "Red Dwarf".  "Babylon 5" incorporated time travel episodes into its' main plotline.  The characters were essential to, and interactive with, the correct flow of time.

Sadly, none of these media time travel stories have included a queer character (although admittedly, Red Dwarf's Lister came close by giving birth).  However, these other shows do serve as a base-line for comparison with one other TV time traveller.

"Quantum Leap" was a US TV series produced between 1989 and 1993.  It featured Dr. Sam Beckett (played by Scott Bakula), a time-trapped scientist who, like his predecessors in "Time Tunnel" was lost in the mists of time.

This series suggested that our lifespan is analagous to a piece of string. Beckett had collapsed his "string" into a ball, enabling him to "leap" from one randomly overlapping day to another within his own lifetime.

In each episode, he found himself within the body of someone who had lived between 1952 and 1999.  Shattering the tradition of most SF media time travellers, who carefully avoided altering history, Sam was required to actively influence the life of each alter-ego so that he could positively change time and "leap" into the next episode.  He was helped along the way by his colleague, Al Calavicci (played by Dean Stockwell), who was visible only to Sam as a hologram, and who gave him statistical information as supplied by Ziggy, the Quantum Leap computer.

The series tackled many social issues by placing Sam in past times, where he had to challenge contemporary social values or practices.  Through this interaction, Sam was able to fight racial, sexual or disability discrimination.  Thus "Quantum Leap" became gay-friendly SF.

One gay-suggestive episode was, "What Price Gloria?" from the second season (1989).  Sam leaped into the body of a young, female secretary from 1961.  His friend, Al, complained that his "best buddy" had become an attractive woman and that he (Al) would need years of therapy to overcome "repressed homosexual crap".

While Sam dealt with the main plotline of fighting sexual harassment and inequality, Al finally accepted that his buddy was sexually appealing, stating that "love is part of friendship" and he rekindled his passion for his own wife.  Such gay overtones were played mainly for comedy relief against the heavier plot line concerning women's rights.  Nevertheless, this episode was presumably quite daring because it mentioned homosexuality on prime time television.

Another episode that discreetly touched upon gay-related issues was "Private Dancer" (third season, 1991).  Sam leaped into the body of a male stripper in New York City in 1979, and he befriended a young, deaf waitress named Diana.  Upon learning that Diana was destined to become a prostitute and die of AIDS in 1986, Beckett vowed to alter history by encouraging her to become a professional dancer instead of hitting the streets.

This story was notable because, even in the early 1990s, when this episode was made, AIDS was seen as primarily a "gay plague" and yet the series mentioned AIDS in a heterosexual context - possibly because this may have been the only way to get AIDS mentioned on US television at all.

There was no such skirting around the gay issue in the show's best episode, "Running for Honor" (season 4, 1992).  This time, Sam leaped into Tommy York, a Naval College sporting hero in 1964.  Tommy's room-mate, Phillip, had just been expelled from the college for being "queer" and Tommy was confronted by the violent homophobia of his classmates during his defence of Phillip.  Serious doubts were raised about Tommy's own sexuality.

This episode was produced at the time when the "Gays in the Military" issue was reaching its hysterical heights in the USA, and this was reflected in the prejudice shown by Sam's friend, Al.  As an Admiral, he expressed the view that gays have no place in the military, and Sam questioned Al's homophobia and stereotypical assumptions.

Some fans of this series might feel that Al's homophobia was somewhat uncharacteristic of a person who, in other episodes, had openly criticised other forms of prejudice.  Still, Al recanted by the episode's end, admitting that he had been wrong.  Another interesting twist in this episode was that the show parodied the Hollywood tradition of using gay characters as suicide or murder fodder.

The apparent American response to the gay-themed episode was probably predictable.  "The Quantum Leap Book" (author Louis Chunovic, Boxtree Books, UK, 1993) reported that "Running for Honor" was probably the most controversial episode of the series, and was threatened with censorship and advertiser boycotts. However, it was filmed essentially as written and played to high ratings.  (Homophobes please take note of this audience acceptance!)  Such homophobic threats against a gay TV character say more about the TV industry than they do about the show itself.  At least the series creators were willing to try...a bit.

However, the series missed many opportunities.  Sam never leaped into an openly gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered person.  He never contracted AIDS, fell into same-sex love or got queer bashed.  On a more subtle level, Sam's romances were always heterosexual and featured him, within a male body, kissing a woman.  Why didn't he ever have a romance within a woman's body, kissing a man?

A final problem in the series was the religious implication that Sam's leaps were being directed by God. This was presumably a sell-out to the Bible-thumping middle American audience but potentially offensive to everyone else.

Still, "Quantum Leap" should be recognised as the ground-breaking series that it was for its time.  Meanwhile, let's do our own speculative time travelling and look forward to the day when media SF finally quantum leaps towards true equality for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendereds.
 
 

Following on from the article which appeared in the last issue of "Diverse Universe" about transgender characters in media science fiction, the following additions have been pointed out.

Although "Doctor Who" is dead as a series, it appears that you can't keep a good Time Lord down, and the good Doctor appears to have become quite "queer friendly" since his last official appearance on telly.

In the recent British film, "Get Real", the two main characters are gay schoolboys who struggle for self- and social- acceptance.  The main character, Stephen Carter, suffers in the meantime from the excesses of a father who is a mad "Doctor Who" fan and who will happily drive around town dressed as a Cyberman.  Maybe the author of "Get Real" was making a message about the hypocrisy of a society which will accept "difference" in the form of science fiction enthusiasts but which still vilifies the "difference" of homosexuality.

Meanwhile, back in the TARDIS, the good Doctor appears in "The Curse of the Fatal Death" from BBC Comic Relief.  Without giving away any surprises, this video features an amazing cast including Rowan Atkinson, Hugh Grant, Joanna Lumley and Julie Sawalha, and it certainly adds a new "queer" slant to the Doctor Who tradition.

The videos for "Get Real" and "Curse of the Fatal Death" should hopefully be available now (or shortly) from your local video shop.  Check them both out!

"I remember it so well. That first time. God I was frightened. I guess anyone would have been. Be it a planned thing or not, the anxiety leading up to… You know?" said Liam.

A gentle voice interrupted, "Yes I know, but tell me about the lead up to it." The man from across the table then asked, "What made you go out, what made you decide this would be the time? I don’t need to know about the sex, everyone does it, what was the first night out like?"

Liam smiled, but not in a comfortable way, he was never used to talking about himself, and especially about the first night he started to go out on the scene, and more to the point the first time he had been with anyone. It was even him more anxious knowing that the guy across the table was his very own captain of the spaceship he works on.

Just for a moment Liam remembered what his captain said to him before going to Rainbow Nebula, ‘Forget the formalities tonight. I may be your Commanding Officer, but tonight we are just 2 poofs having a night out on the town’. Liam was shocked at the statement at first, but each time he needed to relax about what he was talking about, he just remembered what his captain said.

With a long pause, and a wave of anxiety coming over him Liam started to tell his life story. "I guess it happened just over 2 years ago.   I was 23, still living off my parents while finishing my studies at the Academy, and doing some part time work on a trading vessel. For a few years before that I knew I was not the same, but I just didn’t want to accept it. I tried to get close to women, but even the offer to share a bed with anyone made me run for miles. To top things off, I had never been with anyone before that night."

Both men then took a sip of their drinks. Liam felt a bit more relaxed, ‘God at least the first part is over’ he thought.   "I knew where the places to go were, I was often turned on by the fact, but I was so scared that a friend or even a work mate would see me go to one. I was brought up thinking space was sleazy, particularly the gay areas, but to top it off I thought that being gay was even sleazier. Maybe that is why I acted more androgynous about sex. But one shore leave I got the courage to have a look."

"My crew mates and I went on a pub crawl of Flinders Space Port. It was in some remote area of the northern sector. However I'd been to that area before, and I was told that not more then 2 days space trip was a bar where the queers hung out.   After the pub crawl came to an end, I told my crew mates that I was off to catch my transport to catch up with family and friends for the week." Liam paused. A tear started to come to his eye, and then he sniffled.

James, Liam’s captain, asked what was the matter.

"Just the emotion of everything. Man, I want to say so much, but very little is coming out." Liam sighed, took a deep breath. Just as he was about to go on, James grabbed Liam’s hand and said, "It’s alright. If you don’t want to say anymore, that is fine with me"

Quietly Liam replied, "No, I have too. My counselor said talking about things makes it easier to deal with everything in the long run." Once again he paused, took a sip of his drink. His hand was still being held by James, he felt more comfortable about it, in fact he thought he was enjoying the warmth of someone’s hand holding his. Liam put down his drink, wiped away the smallest of tears and proceeded to say, "Of course going to meet my friends was a lie. I had planned to come here to Rainbow Nebula. That was 2 years ago."

James lightly squeezed Liam’s hand, and inquired, "You must have been scared?"

All he got in return was a little smile, then a nod. "I didn’t know what would happen. God, the anxieties back then! What if I met someone? Am I cute? But more to the point, where would I take a guy if I met him." Both guys smiled.

Before Liam could get another word in, James added, "Well as for the second question, yes you are."

Liam pulled his hand away, "Sir, .. er James, please. I can’t. I feel uncomfortable now."

James quickly apologised, "I am very sorry Liam. I am used to talking to guys who are sure of themself, but I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable. That comment was more as a friend then anything else, please forgive me."

Quite shaken James replied sternly, "It’s not that easy James. This is my night, and I thought I could trust you to listen. Do you want to hear the rest, or should I just leave now and see you back on board?"

"Of course I do. Tell what it was like here your first night, the details we can talk about later, ok?" replied James, who added a sweet little smile to the end.

"Ok, I guess. Well, I cased the placed out twice. Not being a totally gay area I knew I could have bumped into friends. That was the last thing I needed at the time. I walked up to the door, and they asked me for 30 credits."

"What? That’s day light robbery for this place, this place only charges 15 normally. What was the occasion?" asked James.

Liam smiled and thought to himself that his captain is not the ‘oh so innocent man’ he acts like back on board. "Well, it happened to be the Queen’s Birthday Celebration. There were gay and lesbians, and xenons everywhere. I got inside and well, I happened to see a friend who I thought long thought was gay. I hugged him and told him I wasn’t so sure about myself then just started to cry"

Liam paused, but quickly continued before he James had a chance to reply. "Later I met this guy, well I saw him in the crowd and well I didn’t want to be there, but I didn’t want to go home alone. The confusion took the better of me, and I grab the guy’s bottom and next thing…"

James interrupted, "Liam, how do I saw this?" James paused, "I guess I knows what comes next, and well that is only for you and your close friends to know about. Anyway, I need to have a dance, you want to join me?"

"I thought you would never ask", replied Liam.

Then both men laughed so hard as they made their way to the dance floor.

This story is based on my experience in dealing with being gay. The majority of Liam’s story was what I did and felt like 2 years ago, and well I still have similar feelings about talking about my past. James on the other hand is me today, as well as the hundreds of friends I have met in the last 2 years. I guess James is the confident me these days, but is also the friend I wish I had before starting my long journey of coming out. I thank you for reading this, and if it helps one more person deal with coming out, my job here is done.