New Website Domain FAQ
A Gender Agenda Logo
A while ago Peter and I were on a radio show and discovered to our chagrin that our website address is almost impossible to communicate clearly verbally! We painfully spelled out our email addresses and the web address, several times…. A-G-E-N-D-E-R-A-G-E-N-D-A-DOT-O-R-G-DOT-A-U…
After the radio show, we decided that we should probably change our website. We were a little concerned that changing the domain might mean changing the name of our organisation, and we are rather fond of our name. Eventually though, we came up with some domains that were available, but wouldn’t require us to change our organisations name, and then narrowed it down to one that we liked most.
The other night we switched our domain over to www.GenderRights.org.au , and after much pain and grief, I managed to get the website migrated across, and working, and set up some magical things called ‘301 redirects’, so that all of our visitors would be able to find us again.
However, this momentus change has lead to a few ‘frequently asked questions’, so I’m taking this opportunity to answer them now.
Q: Does this mean you are changing the organisations name from A Gender Agenda?
A: No, we’re just changing the domain. Our slogan is ‘Gender Rights are Human Rights’, so Gender Rights fits as a domain name, without us changing our organisations name.
Q: Does this mean that A Gender Agenda is going national?
A: We’ve only changed our domain name, not our direction or mission. A Gender Agenda is a rapidly growing organisation, and we are very active locally in the ACT, but we are far too small and over worked to pull off any kind of national organisation (Though the question is deeply flattering every time its asked!). We’d love to go national one day, but really can’t right now.
Q: Oh no! I wont be able to find your website now!
A: Chill. The old address will automatically redirect you to the new website. Once you’ve been redirected, just bookmark the new site, and delete the old bookmark. The redirect will work for about a year, before the old domain goes offline.
If you have a link to us on your website, changing it over to the new domain as soon as possible would be most appreciated.
Q: I’m having trouble getting to a page I had bookmarked. It redirects me to the new site, and then it gives me a ‘404 Page Not Found’ error!
A: Unfortunately I’m learning as I go with this website biz, and I have lost a few pages in the migration and upgrade (not that I’m exactly sure *how* that happened). If you had a page directly bookmarked, or click on a link in google, and it takes you to a 404 error, go to the home page, and try navigating manually through the website to where the page logically should be. If you can’t find it, and its important, email me at ryan@genderrights.org.au and I’ll try to find the info for you.
Q: What about the A Gender Agenda email list I’m subscribed to?
A: The email lists will also be migrated to the new domain over the coming week. You’ll be notified once that has happened, so don’t worry too much about it.
The AGA Youth Group
The A Gender Agenda youth group met for coffee this evening at Tosselini’s. I fucking love our youth group! Its for people under 30 who are trans, intersex, gender questioning, queer, genderqueer, and the friends and partners of any or all of the above. We’ve only had two meetings so far, but each one was heaps of fun, and we’ve already made four new friends, who I hope keep coming along.
Canberra is a pretty sleepy little town, and even though we’re national leaders with regard to Gay and Lesbian rights, we tend to be a bit behind the times when it comes to queerness and gender diversity. There seems to be a pretty persistent belief that all trans people are straight elderly ladies who started out as boys. Tonight as I sat at a table with a pair of cute radical queer dykes, young trans men, and young queer trans women, I felt very at home, and mused that most people don’t even realise that we have this many gender diverse and radically queer people in Canberra, let alone this being a rather smallish gathering of a narrowly defined demographic. I really hope that AGA’s youth group continues to grow, both in numbers, and in diversity of genders, sexualities, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and abilities.
We started talking about what kinds of things we might do in the future, and floated such ideas, as having a glamorous and highly silly dress up party, a craft-a-noon, going bowling, or just meeting up for another coffee. We’ll also be adding a mailing list for the youth group to use for discussion and organising, so no doubt things will start to happen.
I’d like to finish off this post, by thanking Robyn and Gabrielle for taking over the task of organising the Youth Group. You are both AWESOME!
Desiring Gendered Bodies
Pleasure Activism Australia was kind enough to republish an article on gender and sexuality that I wrote. They are a great website, and a group working for a very important cause. After all, who couldn’t use a little extra guilt free pleasure once in a while? Anyway, go check them out, and here is my article reposted for your enjoyment.
Community Picnic: October 09
A Gender Agenda love our picnics. They are laid back, family friendly, low pressure, and tend to be lots of fun. Our last picnic attracted close to 70 people across the afternoon, and everyone seemed to have a ball!
This picnic is intended to be a fun day out for the entire alphabet soup. You don’t need to be trans to attend, you don’t even need to know a trans person. If you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, genderqueer, intersex, asexual or questioning your gender or sexuality, or know someone who is, you are more than welcome to come along and join in the fun.
Remember that you can bring your whole family, parents, partners, kids, and pets. Its a day out in a park, and there’s a playground for youngsters to play on. There are also BBQ facilities for those who want to cook food.
We try to be as inclusive as possible, so if you have a disability or other special requirements that we might be able to help with, please shoot us an email, and we’ll do our best.
WHAT: A Picnic
WHEN: 10th of October 2009, 12.30pm
WHERE: Glebe Park in Civic
WHO: You, and your family
WHY: To get to know other people of diverse age, sexuality, gender identity and expression, in a fun and family friendly environment.
Another reminder will go out closer to the event, but pencil the date into your calendar now!
Coming up for A Gender Agenda
SpringOut 2009
Its that time of year again… the run up to November, the month of Canberra’s local Pride Festival. A Gender Agenda and NewCTN are holding a joint stall at SpringOut’s Fairday this year. We’ve got lots of fun activities and events planned for the day, so come along and check out the festivities!
Also during November we have planned an Art Exhibition of Trans Political Art, with the grant kindly provided to us by Pink Tennis, the local Gay and Lesbian Tennis Club. This will be shown both in the Legislative Assemblies Exhibition Space, and in another Art Gallery, that we are still confirming.
There will also be an A Gender Agenda Picnic on the last Saturday of November, so mark the 28th of November in your calendar, and keep it clear!
In less cheerful news, we will be marking Transgender Day of Remembrance again this year. TDoR falls on the 20th, which is a Friday this year. We are hoping to have a ceremony inside a building, but again we haven’t yet confirmed locations. More details will be posted closer to the date.
Anyway, we hope to see you at an event soon.
Gender Library Update
A Gender Agenda has been very busy over the last few months. Even though we’ve not been updating the website much, plenty has been happening. We’ve held a fundraiser, continued lobbying the ACT Government for legislative change, provided free training for a group of local volunteers, supported student politics, and generally been out in the world, trying our hands at new things.
I think one of the most exciting new idea’s that we’ve had, has been the AGA Gender Library. The rationale behind the project, is that here in Canberra we don’t have a queer focussed bookshop, and none of the local LGBT Organisations have any trans employees, or information for or by trans/genderqueer or intersex people. This means that there is a dearth of information for sex and gender diverse people, and for those people who wish to educate themselves, and become more knowledgeable supporters of the sex and gender diverse individuals in Canberra. We thought that if we could collect enough of that material, we could provide a social and informational hub where people can gather to learn and talk about the myriad of issues that face the sex and gender diverse community both locally, and further afield.
A few months ago we sent out requests for book donations, and titles of books that people thought we should purchase, and since then we’ve been accumulating a stock pile of literature, films, and resources for transgendered, intersex, genderqueer, and other sex and gender diverse people. I currently have two big boxes of books in my lounge room, that have been donated by people from all over the country. The Bookshop Darlinghurst was kind enough to give us a 10% discount on the books we purchased from them, and an organisation in the USA refunded us the cost of our shipping when they heard what the books were for.
The public support of this project has been absolutely phenomenal. We’re currently looking for some kind of physical space where we can set up our library, and we’re hoping to have everything good to go so that our grand opening can coincide with Gender Diversity Day 2010.
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