QX Article

QX Magazine Asylum Article

QX is a funny little magazine. Each week it's pages are chock full of air brushed party boys hanging out in Vauxhall and Soho, pulling duck faces and looking up into the camera. But whilst this is the reason a majority of its readership come scuttling into the bar to grab their free copy, it also has a fair amount of devotion to topics such as politics and queer history, as well as being an avid supporter of gay theatre in the city. If I'm honest they can seem a little dry compared to the constant intellectual freshness that you can often find in Attitude. It's writing tends to suffers from the same problem I find in much of the political reporting in the gay press, in that it is rather editorial and lacks human heart or interest, or doesn't give much indication of how we as readers might be able offer support or lend pressure on the issue. I, like many of the reader I'm sure, tend to be guilty of skipping the pages with lots of writing on, not because I don't sympathise but because they end up reading as moaning and tutting, and turn into rather a frustrating experience. That said, this weeks article on the asylum system and it impact on LGBT individuals is a good overview, and the writer's admission of his own ignorance places him in a good place for the casual reader. It shocks me speaking even to members of our own LGBT 'community' (in as much as that exists!) how rife the opinion that 'these people' want something that it ours and somehow do not qualify for the same level of humanitarian protection simply through accident of birth. QX has a massive readership, and whilst I am sure only a fraction of those will get through the article is great that the issues is being discussed so publicly in such sympathetic terms.