What’s behind the ‘terrifying’ backlash against Australia’s queer community?

At the start of March, Australia was the queerest place to be.

Members of the LGBTQ+ community and their families walked over the Sydney Harbour Bridge for WorldPride, joined by the prime minister, Anthony Albanese. Rainbows draped the city, eco-friendly glitter was strewn across the streets and trans and gender-diverse performers hit the stage.

Then the tone changed.

Last weekend, a group performed the Nazi salute on the steps of Victoria's state parliament in Melbourne in support of British anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen.

On Tuesday, a mob in Sydney chased and attacked an LGBTQ+ group protesting a talk by a right wing politician.

In the aftermath, Australia's LGBTQ+ community has been left reeling. MPs from Victoria's Liberal party are considering whether to boot an MP from the parliamentary party after she attended Keen's rally, and a Melbourne council has cancelled an event involving LGBTQ+ people after a threat from a far-right group. Victoria's premier has vowed to enact legislation banning the Nazi salute.

But Australia's LGBTQ+ advocates say these aren't isolated incidents - they come after an increase in attacks on the country's queer community.

Keen's visit to Australia was controversial before she arrived.

Keen - also known as Posie Parker - has made a name for herself in the UK, cozying up to far-right commentators and campaigning against the transgender community. Her Australia tour proved no different.

"We're going to say 'hello boys'," Parker told a crowd in Melbourne last Saturday.

She was referring to around two dozen men dressed in black. They carried a huge banner with the words "Destroy Paedo Freaks" and threw Nazi salutes at trans supporters protesting her rally.

After the rally, Keen claimed in a video posted on YouTube that the men who gave Nazi salutes might not have been neo-Nazis.

Days later in Sydney, a mob set on LGBTQ+ protesters demonstrating outside a church in south-western Sydney where Mark Latham was speaking.

Videos of the incident showed men swarming the protesters from grassroots campaign group Community Action for Rainbow Rights (CARR), chanting "leave our kids alone". In another video, a person could be heard accusing police of "protecting the paedophiles". Videos shared on WhatsApp groups in the days before the incident showed a man urging people to disrupt the protest and "drag away" activists "by their fucking hair".

Attenders said they were pushed to the ground and punched in the face.

"We were just surrounded by these people who were out for our blood, basically. It took a lot for police to push them back and for us to make our escape," one protester said.

Three people were charged over Tuesday's clash and both the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney and the Maronite Eparchy of Australia, New Zealand and Oceania condemned the violence.

CARR says it is being targeted online by members of religious rights group Christian Lives Matter, with photos and names of one particular organiser shared on the group's Facebook page. The post - shared to more than 26,000 members - says organisers of the protest brought "terror" to the Belfield Church.

"This evil people [sic] need to be held responsible for their actions!!!" the post read.

Grace Isred, who was standing with the pro-trans rights crowd in Melbourne, said last Saturday's events "filled everyone with rage".

In the days after the Melbourne protest, Keen traveled to other cities in Australia, including Canberra, where she addressed a crowd of about 30 supporters. On the other side, a larger gathering of more than 100 people led chants and held signs.

"One positive is that everywhere, including Melbourne, the pro-trans crowd have outnumbered the anti-trans crowd," Isred said. "But by the same token, you also have quite a disturbing rise of anti-trans movement."

That's something others in the community have noticed. Charlie, who asked not to use her full name for privacy reasons, is an organiser with grassroots political organisation Pride in Protest. She said there had been an increase in attacks on the LGBTQ+ community in New South Wales recently, which she believes may be partly due to the upcoming state election.

"They want to intimidate queer people and bolster candidates," Charlie said.

During WorldPride - a festival held every couple of years in different cities around the world - a group of approximately 30 men staged a Christian protest march in one of Sydney's LGBTQ+ hubs. According to Charlie, the men poured paint on a church that had painted the rainbow flag on their steps.

Another rally, held last Saturday in Sydney, featured a wide coalition of religious groups, with speakers suggesting children needed to be protected from an agenda of "homosexualisation".

Son Vivienne, 53, is no stranger to anti-trans hate. The CEO of Transgender Victoria - the peak body for gender diversity in the state - has been out as non-binary for a long time.

"We don't need a debate about whether or not we exist," they say.

Vivienne is angry the Melbourne protest caused a whirlwind of backlash, with the state's Liberal party debating if they should boot MP Moira Deeming, who attended the rally. Deeming has vowed to fight the expulsion and maintains she has done nothing wrong.

"Our lives are not a debate, we exist already. We are working, we are contributing to society, consuming services and needing health care the same as everybody else," Vivienne says.

Anti-LGBTQ+ groups in Australia are nothing new.

"Fringe extremist movements, they tend to kind of glom [attach themselves] on to the culture war issues of the day," says Lydia Khalil, an extremist expert from the Lowy Institute. "There is a point of convergence in terms of what it is they believe in their ideology around some of these cultural and political issues with regard to gender, sexuality and equality."

Although these movements are fringe, Khalil says it's unlikely they will fizzle out.

"There is a potential for their focus on the trans movement to move on once the main culture moves on from that issue, but we shouldn't expect them to disappear."

Neo-Nazi researcher and left activist Tom Tanuki says the group that showed up in Melbourne did so for two reasons - they agreed with the substance of the event, and they also wanted to use the stunts to help them recruit new members.

"They can walk around, they can Sieg Heil. And then they can walk off," Tanuki says. "And everyone talks about it."

The events this week dominated headlines and social media feeds. They also prompted Australia's LGBTQ+ groups to question their safety.

This week, two Melbourne councils cancelled upcoming drag events over safety concerns.

"This decision in no way legitimises or validates the actions or statements of individuals, activists or protest groups," City of Casey chief executive Glenn Patterson said in a statement.

Hume city council, which cancelled a drag event this week before reinstating it after an online backlash, said it "sincerely apologised for the stress" caused to the performer and LGBTQ+ members and allies. "Hume city council is committed to supporting our proudly diverse community and we wish to re-affirm our commitment to all."

Last year another Melbourne pride celebration was cancelled due to threats from Nazis.

Drag artist Belial B'Zarr was scheduled to perform at last year's event and the City of Casey's event, and says when the Stonnington council cancelled the first event, B'Zarr warned it would only escalate.

"I said, 'hey, this is going to make things more dangerous. Do you want more Nazis? Because this is how you get more Nazis," said B'Zarr, who uses he and they pronouns.

"They've been emboldened. They've been allowed to get away with it more times than they should."

"I still have to work, I still have to make money and pay my bills. But I can't stop existing as a queer person," they said. "But it's getting really hectic If I'm being honest."

B'Zarr said it was "terrifying" how quickly it had escalated, but the community was determined to keep running events.

"This is not the end. We will continue. Maybe it'll look different to what it usually looks like but we're not going away."