What's wrong with working with the Lib Dems anyway? Where do I start ....

I’m hearing some concern that I am letting my political position get in the way of working with the Liberal Democrats to fight the Grampians bans; that we can work with the Lib Dems on this without supporting their other policies. I don't think it's that simple. I disagree with the National Party on many things as well, but I think working with the local National Party member on the Grampians bans is a good idea. What is different about the Lib Dems?

Firstly, the Liberal Democrats are hardly well regarded politicians. They have almost no political clout or standing. They are laughed at (quite possibly because they deserve it).

Secondly, they are raising a motion in the upper house, which is for all intents and purposes, useless. It’s grandstanding. If you pay attention to politics at all, you’ll see plenty of radical (at both ends of the spectrum) motions raised in the upper houses of our parliaments and they have a brief moment of talking about this for before they are swept aside. Passing such a motion does not affect any actual change. The Legislative Council is a house of review. Changes to legislation happen in the Legislative Assembly.  People are asking what this means now – in terms of practical change, it means diddly squat. We got some publicity, and we got associated with the Lib Dems.

Thirdly, these guys are anathema to any green leaning person or politician. Look at their policies. They want to break down National Parks, deny climate change is a problem, reject the value of the environment outside of commercial ones, deny the extinction crisis exists and I expect if they ever develop a policy about cultural heritage, they’d say that had no value either. Then they cover their arses by saying if these things ever really turned out to be a problem, they would be resolved by market forces if we just reduced regulation and commercialised stuff. Hunting saves endangered species. Forestry saves old growth forests. I’m not joking, this is in their policies. I hear a lot of people criticising PV for the Peaks Trail, the impact of that and accusing them of using these bans to push climbers out in the process of making money off parks. Go have a look at what the Liberal Democrats advocate about commercialising natural assets and contemplate that future. Ecotourism is nothing compared to what they want for our parks.

Fourthly, they have added their agenda of breaking up National Parks to the motion. Their edited down motion is an improvement, but note the last point on it still. As long as this happens (and I suspect they realise it’s not most climber's position, because it seems to be discussed as an aside, as if we might not notice it), we can’t accept their support for our position without being entangled in theirs.

Working with these guys is an almost instant refusal of involvement by all environmental and left wing politicians. When we collaborate with these guys, people looking on are going to tar us with this brush. We already have a bunch of media, bureaucrats and politicians saying we damage the environment and destroy cultural heritage and then we sign up with a party with horrendous environmental credentials. How do we argue that we care for the environment and respect cultural heritage whilst standing with a party that thinks we should allow land clearing, whale hunting, logging of old growth forests and clearly state that individual freedom, private property and prosperity are more important that the environment? What is the risk that this just reinforces an image of climbers as selfish hedonists wanting to just do what they always have done?

Addendum: I wrote this yesterday, and this morning I have read the proofs of the discussion on line. https://beta.parliament.vic.gov.au/parliamentary-debates/Hansard/HANSARD-974425065-2354/?fbclid=IwAR1exkYNCWuffthPi9vgZdgt_l-2rmCvzBYpabXBv5IGe8mW6cCntBO_QkM. Please take the time to read the context in which Tim Quilty is raising this. His speech begins with a rant about totalitarian regimes and how one couldn’t have a fishing club in Russia or China. His next point lumps us in with loggers, hunters, four wheel drivers and fishers. He goes on to an extensive spiel about the need to curtail government and spruiks his point about breaking down national parks. He sounds ignorant rabbiting on about Parks being managed from Melbourne by people who don’t know or care about the park, when we know that the Grampians have a regional land manager in Halls Gap and Arapiles has one in Wail and local staff who are devoted to land management. It's also worth noting other member’s statements of support for the concerns, but being unable to vote with the motion due to fundamental disagreements with aspects of the motion and Liberal Democrat policies.

The language the Lib Dems have chosen – lockouts – has been freely adopted by climbers around the discussion, and I wonder about that as well. Because people are hurt and angry, are they picking up on these extreme voices and running with them? Falling in with their language also suggests to others we are falling in with their positions and values as well. Can we stick to using bans please?

Have a read of that speech and consider if you really want that to be what represents you.

Are raving libertarians good bedfellows?

Many of my friends will be following the Grampians access saga. I’ve been remarkably quiet for opinionated old me about it, loosely related to computer dramas and other life shit getting in the way. And maybe by going on holiday. But recently, things have taken a turn in a direction that inspires at least a brief rant, because ACAV are working with the Liberal Democrats to raise the topic in parliament and asking climbers to blindly support it.
Is no one else concerned with jumping into bed with the Liberal Democrats? You may remember them from such illustrious members as David Leyonhjelm. There's a little taste of him here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R7s5JBz19U. You may also like to look into their policies. Try their environment one on for size: https://www.ldp.org.au/environment. They have a great attitude to climate change as well: https://www.ldp.org.au/energy. Don't get me started on the economic, health and welfare ones. Their website is full of unsubstantiated claims that sound like the fanciful whims of blinkered ideologues.
I’d not heard so much about the Victorian representatives, so I did a little googling. You too, may enjoy this inspiring maiden speech by the same Tim Quilty that is introducing this motion: https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/mp-tim-quilty-s-rexit-speech-20190219-p50yw6.html. You might also like to read their motion closely in consideration of their policies, because they have thrown a little bit of their own in it by connecting discussion of the bans to a motion to decentralise, break down and privatise national parks. I’m really uncomfortable about collaborating with them.
Discussing the issue in parliament is great. Introducing it via a fruit loop party, maybe not. Adding wild libertarian ideas to the discussion, yeah, really probably not. Perhaps there are wiser things then joining in with far right libertarian, self interested, privileged nut cases out of touch with reality and without empathy.

On moratoriums and access

Climbers are all up in arms this week. Not surprisingly really, given that we started with a proposed voluntary moratorium on new routes in the Grampians and progressed to a proposed ban on all climbing in the Victoria Range. What shouldn’t be surprising however, is that we have got to this situation. Climbers have been in denial of their impact on the environment for a long time now. We all like to think we are lovely, caring, green, lefty people. In the meanwhile, climbers drive around gates, ignore closures, drop rubbish, leave literal shit piles, have illegal fires, collect illegal firewood, “clean” cliffs, damage vegetation, the list goes on. Even when we are being responsible, we still have an impact in our use of the park, and the increase in bouldering and accessible sport climbing crags has had a huge effect in recent years. Anyone else remember what Andersons looked like before it was a popular bouldering area?

Bouldering has a lot of people massing around the base, exploring between boulders, flattening landings with pads, then jumping on them. No wonder it ends up cleared. Similarly, sport crags are high traffic areas. There are just more people in general at our crags these days.  Erosion and clearing around the base increases, tracks broaden, chalk becomes even more prolific. We like to think we are an alternative sport, but we are not so much these days. We can’t be a tiny group flying under the radar. We need to step up and take responsibility for managing our impact, and policing other climbers who are not. We need to participate in the solutions, not just waiting for someone else to. Ever just gone climbing when there was a working bee at Arapiles? Time to stop being selfish and do your bit to maintaining our crags. Ever said “someone needs to fix this”? Well, become that someone. If you don’t know how to fix it, offer to help and learn. Climbers are talented at ignoring concerns until they become an access crisis. These issues about development and impact are not new. If you haven’t heard about them until now, well, take it as a lesson to keep yourself better informed in the future and get involved.

I am actually against the moratorium, simply because I think we will spend too much time debating the moratorium rather than getting on with finding solutions. I suspect in 6 months time, we will still be arguing about the moratorium, not discussing the problems leading up to the proposed moratorium in the first place. As you might have noticed, complaining about the moratorium and sledging the VCC, PV, the Greens (hell, why not blame the purple people eater whilst we're about it?) seems to be taking up the majority of conversation at the moment. The rate of new route development is not actually that great that we will risk terrible damage if we leave it be whilst we negotiate access issues. It just angers and distracts climbers from what we need to actually be doing now and as a voluntary moratorium, it’s almost worthless practically. All the people who are currently ignoring other actually legislated restrictions are almost certainly going to keep ignoring voluntary ones.  Its one advantage is that it may send a message to PV that climbers are trying to do something to address their concerns. There are climbers slinging abuse at the VCC and others in classic selfish, thoughtless wanker mode. If you’re one of them, take a chill pill, get some perspective (like permanent crag closures) and see if there’s something constructive you could do instead.

Yes, there are many crags in the Victoria Range that are in Special Protection Areas. This isn’t new and it isn’t news. 2003, remember? It’s just that climbers have never bothered to keep themselves informed. There is an “it will never happen to us” attitude. Whist a small group were talking about the growing concerns from traditional owners, Parks Victoria and other park users, most climbers were just pretending these concerns would go away. That what they did didn’t have an impact because they were just one person. Until we had hundreds of such one persons. Burying your head in the sand has never been particularly effective. Do your bit to minimise your impact. Educate others to do so as well. Speak up when you see people doing the wrong thing.  Join groups working on the negotiations. Engage in adult discussion with PV and TOs about our concerns. Next time you hear a whisper about access issues, check it out and see if there is anything that you can do before it becomes a crisis.

Climbing accidents and climbing culture.

Arapiles saw some terrible accidents the other week. There have been a proliferation of accidents requiring rescues in recent years and in the midst of processing the recent accidents, I have been reflecting on what is happening and what we can do about it. I suspect the increase in accidents result from both the steady stream of new climbers to trad and aspects of climbing culture that feed risk taking in new climbers. Accidents most frequently involve inexperienced trad climbers, poor use of equipment and poor judgement.

Climbing does belittle the bumbly and idolize the hardman (I am using the gendered word intentionally). We can become very grade focussed and people feel inadequate for not climbing hard enough. This leads to people coming into climbing wanting to increase their grades and push their limits sooner than they safely should. Climbing hard is great. I love it and I choose to climb hard stuff most of the time. But I have a long background of climbing behind me that makes it safe for me to do so. When we promote a culture of climbing hard, people want to take shortcuts in the learning process in order to climb hard. They want to climb the same grades on trad as they do on sport or in the gym, and this is just not a realistic place to reach in a hurry.

Back when I was a lad, there were more self limiting factors on progress. When you learnt on rock and on gear, you were developing strength and climbing skills at the same time as leading skills. You only progressed at a rate that the strength and skill developed. This meant we did spend more time on easy and moderate routes in our early climbing career. We couldn’t actually climb hard enough to get ourselves into trouble that quickly. These days, people come into trad from climbing gyms and sport climbing. They are strong. They can pull harder moves. They are physically capable of getting themselves into more dangerous situations.

Learning trad takes time. Fortunately for us, Arapiles has the best easy routes in the world available. There is no reason to skip consolidating skills on easy routes. They are fun. People should be learning to place gear, build belays, read routes, manage the rope, protect for the second etc on easy routes. It’s not about the climbing, it’s about the skills. When people just run up the climb on minimal gear because it’s easy, they cheat themselves of the learning experience. Just place gear. That’s what you are here for. There’s no point in doing miles to practice if you don’t actually use them to practice. I also want you to have enough gear in so that if anything unexpected happens, some of it could turn out to be crap, but you’ll still have other gear there to save you. By the time you’ve romped up hundreds of metres of easy routes, I want you to feel confident to place good gear efficiently enough that you could do it under increasing amounts of duress. We don’t learn well under duress. Our brains are busy just trying to get through. We learn when we are safe and comfortable. So take advantage of our beautiful easy routes.

Climbers are also holding onto a view of themselves as dirtbags. Once upon a time, underemployed climbing bums, students and drop outs may have been a dominant number of climbers. Lots of us have lived hand to mouth out of the Pines. But that is not the main demographic these days. Climbers pay to go to the gym several times a week, then pay for petrol in their fancy SUV to drive out to the crag for the weekend. We have money. Therefore, we could be paying for climbing instruction. But mostly, we don’t. We still like the idea that we will find someone to teach us. Surely someone would love to be our mentor? We think it’s ok to say, hey, I’m a newbie, do you want to teach me?

Well, as one of those potential mentors, I can say the number of requests well exceeds my interest in mentoring. There are so many people coming into climbing these days that the number, time and goodwill of potential mentors is not able to keep up. Teaching climbing is a skill and doing so takes away from our time to climb for ourselves. I am becoming old, cynical and selfish and you have to be a pretty special person before I’m going to spend my precious time teaching you these days. We should be prepared to pay for instruction the way we pay for other things. Besides, relying on meeting mentors risks meeting crap mentors. There are in fact more than a few not so competent wannabe mentors out there. And if you don’t know what you are doing, how can you assess the quality of teaching you are getting from your newfound mentor? Or the youtube videos you are watching? Suck it up and pay for a course. A few hundred dollars will set you up for a long life of climbing. You’ll still need to gain loads of experience and still need to find competent climbing partners and assess the value of information provided by others, but at least you will have a grounding of good information to base that on.

Another foible of climbing culture is the tendency to romanticise our own rough and rocky road to climbing competency. Many of us didn’t learn in ideal conditions. We threw together a hotchpotch of gear and information, we got ourselves into messes, we somehow got out of them and we can tell an unfortunate number of stories about stupid mistakes and near misses. This isn’t actually anything to be proud of. But you will hear people say they survived it, it was good for them. Like people say about smacking children. But I really think we could do better. We know a lot more about the learning process, teaching skills and we have abundant good, affordable gear available these days. You don’t need to buy a nylon rope from the hardware store and tie it around your waist anymore.

The other much underutilised skill in climbing is judgement. The idealisation of hard and bold can get in the way of people exercising judgement. Rather than just encouraging people to push their limits, we need to teach people to recognise when it is safe to push their limits and to be aware of when they are putting themselves into a risky situation. People can be crap at assessing risk. When we encourage new climbers to climb harder, we don’t teach them to assess when they are ready to climb harder. Talk with them about their climbing, their gear, their skills. Point out risks and things to consider when choosing climbs, placing gear, managing the rope. Direct them to safe climbs to progress on, discuss why they are safer choices so they learn to assess the relative safety of climbs they will do in the future.

Climbing has inherent risks. There is a tendency to want to go around making climbing safe for everybody these days. More bolts, more anchors, more reinforcing of routes. Sport and indoor climbing have created a community of people who think trad is scary and dangerous. When we only think of trad being scary and dangerous, we underestimate the risk involved in other forms of climbing. Creating a bunch of easy sport crags is not only not possible, but isn’t going to prevent accidents anyway. People still hurt themselves on sport. The amount of rock and routes around are far greater than the number of climbers around.  It’s just not possible to safe up the cliffs for people. The most practical way of making climbing safer is teaching people to be safe climbers.

Minimum unit pricing is a minimal step toward addressing alcohol misuse.

This month, the NT brought in a minimum unit price on alcohol. This is being lauded as great leadership in the battle against alcohol related harms, but what price based strategies like this seem to miss, is that problem drinking is not just a "let's have another drink" choice. These people are drinking as a result of other issues in their lives and they have an addiction. They will keep drinking until they are able to find healthy, functional ways of dealing with the issues in their lives, and they will need to come off alcohol slowly, under medical supervision. They already spend a fortune on alcohol. What bright spark thinks they will just stop because it costs a little bit more? Do we drive less because petrol costs a lot more than it used to? Did increasing the price of alcopops reduce teen binge drinking? Anyone noticed the current smoking rates despite the massive increase in cost? Similarly, sugar taxes are a crap way of addressing obesity.  Drinking coke and eating mars bars already cost a lot more than water and fruit. That does not stop people who want to drink coke and eat mars bars from choosing them. Does the illegality and cost of smack stop an addict using it? Do people only drink because it's cheap? What a ridiculous concept.

Those of us who do not a a drinking problem are mostly capable of rational thought about it. We can think, shit, I can't really afford another drink tonight. But imagine if you have an addiction. Physical symptoms that kick in if you don't drink enough. A mental health problem you are self medicating. You feel like you can't cope with the world if you don't have another drink. Are you going to think, oh dear, this all costs a bit much, I might just stop now? Of course not. You are going to drink away all the money you have available, then probably feel even worse about yourself, your life, your drinking, letting down your family or friends and want to drink more.

Price targeted interventions are like the GST. They are touted as fair things, effecting everyone, regardless of income. Did no one stop to think about the relative impacts? A bottle of cheap wine in the NT will cost $10 instead of $6.  That $4 will be meaningless to a well off alcoholic, but a much bigger issue for someone in poverty. For an impoverished person with a drinking problem, they are going to keep drinking, except now they will have even less money for food, housing, clothing, medication, you know, life essentials. They will resort to crime or begging in order to get the money to keep drinking, lose any housing they have managed to hold onto, forego food, because continuing drinking is not really a choice until the underlying issues are addressed. Price increases only add to the socioeconomic costs of problem drinking.

Price related interventions are a classic example of individualising problems in our society. We will punish the people who make poor choices by increasing the cost. If that has other negative impacts on their life, that's their fault because they made that choice. They should realise the consequences of their decision. The underlying message of individualising broader social problems is that people who drink are bad, people who are poor are bad, people who are obese are bad.

Truly great leadership would promote social and structural change. It would address poverty, violence, dispossession, isolation, mental health issues, racism and homophobia. It would fund support services and rehabilitation. It would challenge toxic masculinity. It would target the companies making money out of alcohol. It would restrict advertising. It would challenge the Australian culture of drinking. It would work to disassociate binge drinking from sport, parties, nights out, bbqs and other celebrations. Increasing the price of alcohol is an easy way of looking like they are doing something about the problem without actually addressing any of the fundamental causes that take drinking from a recreational pastime into a problem and not stepping on the toes of big business who make money out of alcohol.

The "great achievement" of this government - axing the tampon tax.

I have ignored the whole tampon tax campaign for years. It's one of those incredibly mainstream feminist campaigns that I've never been able to give two hoots about. The last few days, my feeds are full of people saying what a great achievement axing the tampon tax is. Now, I get it's kinda weird to have condoms and lube and an assortment of "natural remedies" listed as essential items that are GST free as well, but to be honest, condoms and lube are rather useful items and I've saved a lot more GST off them than I would have on tampons. Women's sanitary products are not only expensive, but an incredible source of landfill. About 11000 pads or tampons per woman in her lifetime, each one taking 500+ years to break down. There are about 12.1 million women in Australia. Making for 133.1 billion pads or tampons produced and thrown out by these women. Does that sound like a lot of rubbish yet?

This is why I can't get excited about the tampon tax campaign. Reusable menstrual products have moved on from the old rags used back in the day. The menstrual cup, washable pads and period undies are all comfortable, accessible, convenient, and much more sustainable than disposable products. They also happen to be much cheaper. So who gives a shit about the GST? If the money is an issue, buy a reusable product. I don't expect to spend another cent on menstrual products for the rest of my life. Making the total cost of managing menstruation from about ages 20 to 50 coming to less than $100. But the monetary cost isn't really the main issue. It's the 10500 or so pads or tampons I have not used. The government is claiming it will loose $30 million in GST each year from the tax. I'd rather they spent that money on giving women reusable menstrual products. That would acknowledge that they are an essential item whilst not supporting an industry of waste products.

So I'm just going to give menstrual cups a little spruik. They rock. Never again carry used tampons out from the crag, or for days on a remote bushwalk, or find someway to deal with them in developing countries. No wrapping and bagging and finding a bin. Or doing what a distressful number seem to, chucking them in the bush. Just empty, replace, go. Wash them once a day. They are silicon, it's a 2 second job. That's it. And your risk of toxic shock syndrome will basically disappear. Search for them on ebay, where you can get them for less than a single packet of tampons and wonder why the hell you have been forking out for tampons and getting worked up about the GST all these years. They were good value when you had to pay $40 for them. They are incredible value at $4. That $4 will last you 10+ years. Tell the government and the sanitary product industry where they can put their tampons.

Axing the tampon tax is not a great achievement. Surely it doesn't take any stretch of the imagination to picture things which might be greater achievements for women? The vote, legal abortion, sexual assault centres, anti-discrimination legislation, the tampon tax. Maybe we should refer our government to Sesame Street, because one of these things is not like the others. It's a token nod to women whilst failing to address a major source of waste and missed opportunity to promote sustainable (and affordable!) alternatives. But I guess it would be a fair depiction of this government that the best thing they did for women was remove the GST from tampons.

Queer travels

I’ve been doing a lot of driving lately. Somehow I ended up spending most of that time listening to queer and feminist podcasts. In fact, I got so caught up in one that I managed to get lost driving home from Byaduk. I don’t want to think about what that suggests about how much I am distracted from driving whilst listening to funny, quirky and political podcasts, because they make driving so much better.

Identity labels are controversial these days. I’m afraid I’m old fashioned. I know, it’s odd to hear me say that. Or maybe it’s not. Afterall, I am still a trad climber not driving around in a suburu and owning a cheap and nasty phone. Plus I can’t speak emoji, or say anything meaningful within 280 characters. But what I am oldfashioned about today is the label bisexual. I’m afraid I just can’t jump on board with pansexual. Even when I try and get over images of horny goat men ,

Who could forget Anthony's Pan from Feeling the Ceiling?

there are the fry pans. But other than my distaste for whatever the linguistic equivalent of aesthetics is, there is the somewhat more important issue of the politics.

People with non-exclusive sexual identities have long been invisible, ostracised and belittled by parts of both hetero and homosexual communities. We are too straight, too gay, undecided, pretending, dabbling, or judged by whatever partnership we are currently in. What useful purpose is there is fighting amongst ourselves over bi vs pan? The argument for pansexual is that bi reinforces gender binaries and pansexuality is about people not gender. Strangely enough, bisexuals have been talking about attraction to people not gender for, well, 50 years or so? In practice, bi identifying people are far from reinforcing gender binaries. But bi has been the rallying term in a long fought battle for recognition as an authentic orientation. Afterall, it's a phase some of us have been going through for a long time now! Bi was the word around when I was a young adult, and I've come to be quite fond of it. I don't want to give it up now, and I certainly don't want to be told I am reinforcing gender binaries through using it. Hell, I am a gender denialist. We have chromosomes, hormones and body parts. Physiological shit usually called sex, of which there are actually more than the standard 2 combinations promoted. All the rest is socialised nonsense and I can get ultra grumpy about what is called "feminine". But that's a whole other long rant.

You may have noticed Bivisibility Day last week. Or maybe not, in which case, the visibility aspect of it is obviously still lacking. But being bi can be a blurred road of passing and invisibility. You may never need to come out, or you have to come out again and again and again. Bi people seen with a single partner anywhere will always need to come out as not straight or not gay. Or to just let it pass. Did any of my workmates who met my male partners ever realise I have a history of female partners as well? Does that matter? Am I doing myself and the bi community a disservice if I don't care if they work it out or not? I do tend to not give a shit about what people think about me. I'd really like a world where people don't have to give a fuck about this stuff. One day, we might reach a point where no one makes assumptions about sexuality. But until then, is not coming out participating in heteronormalisation?

Coming out is one of those key passages in queer identities. No one comes out as straight. But when I think back on it, I don't think I ever came out. I don't have a coming out story. I just do stuff and I guess eventually people notice that I don't do the done thing. I don't even remember ever telling my family. But in the way that I also just talk about stuff, I expect I just told my Mum over dinner one night about the first girl I picked up. She turned out to be a little nutty, so I've entertained people over dinner with that story a lot since. I have no recollection of Mum's response, but, knowing my mother, she probably just asked if the sex was any good.

One of the things I love about modern teen fiction (for I have an embarrassingly large soft spot) is the way queer characters are completely normalised. They aren't token. They don't even stand out as a statement. They just exist. Major characters, minor characters, random cameos. Where were any of these in Nancy Drew or Sweet Valley High? This weaving of queer stories into popular literary worlds may be a powerful step in the move to noone having to come out, or for perhaps everyone having to come out. Perhaps it is a sign that we may yet reach a place where people don't make assumptions and are not shocked at whatever is revealed in the course of people just doing whatever it is they do. I expect I have been reading the outliers of modern teen fiction and that there's no shortage of heteronormative stuff out there, but let me have a little delusion that the world is changing. I am cynical enough already.

All this conflict over a few words brings me to the idea of solidarity. The LGBTIQ+ alphabet soup is continually growing. P and A are certainly on the agenda to be thrown in. There's a call from K and BDSM to join up too. A few extra Ps and Qs to mind. At what point does becoming all inclusive lose the power of solidarity? What are the common grounds we are rallying under here? The issues across this group are already super broad and this question would lead me off on another thousand word tangent, but my point is the P and B parts of the soup have an almost entire overlap. I don't go around arguing the semantics of whether pan as a prefix meaning all/everything really means you could be attracted to not only frypans and mythological creatures, but, say, dinosaurs or apricots. So please don't insist that bi reinforces binary sex and gender stereotypes. Instead, let's look at the shared issues arising from a non-exclusive sexuality in a world where people still assume an exclusive sexuality. A world in which bi/pan/omni/ambi/poly/whateveryouwanttocallit-sexuals suffer disproportionately high rates of mental health issues and violence. Fighting over semantics amongst ourselves seems an unlikely priority here.