The guardian angels of the LGBTQIA+ community are spreading their wings amid a rising wave of hate.
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The Rainbow Community Angels formed in Melbourne in early 2023 after about 15 events were cancelled or postponed after threats to organisers and venues.
Among those were drag storytime events hosted at council libraries and a youth pride ball in the regional Victoria town of Wangaratta.
Anti-LGBTQIA+ protesters spout hateful and grotesque views that gay people are "groomers" and "paedophiles", Rainbow Community Angels co-organiser Flis Marlowe said.
"It's a very old fashioned and outdated idea; like a moral panic against queer people being around children," she said.
"We don't want that to become the dominant story because we have our own children."
Ms Marlowe has a long history campaigning and advocating for the rights and wellbeing of the community as a queer parent of three children.
"We would really hate for [LGBTQIA+] events to suddenly be adult-only and for people to become suspicious that queer and trans people are groomers or paedophiles like they did 30, 40 years ago," she said.
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Ms Marlowe said the loss of events for the community would impact representation, "people's sense of social connection to community and feeling safe in their own neighbourhood".
"We're concerned that these are not isolated events that one neighbourhood or council is dealing with; they're really connected," she said.
A community under threat
In early June, the largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organisation in the US Human Rights Campaign (HRC) declared a state of emergency for the community after more than 75 anti-LGBTIQ+ bills were signed into law in 2023.
HRC president Kelley Robinson said the threats facing the community were "real, tangible and dangerous" amid a "tidal wave" of homophobia and transphobia.
Ms Marlowe said the spread of hate in the US was "very clearly" being mimicked in Australia.
"Given everything that's been achieved in the past 20 years, it's really rolling back those achievements in a really negative and toxic way," she said.
In April, Monash City Council in Melbourne cancelled a drag storytime at a local library after its council meeting was crashed by protesters to the planned event.
Premier Daniel Andrews responded in Parliament and said it was "an exercise in hate speech".
"It is out of step with the values of fair-minded, decent, mainstream Victorians; it is on the fringe," he said.
"Let's send the clearest message... equality is not negotiable."
Group aims to create hope and resilience
Rainbow Community Angels was created by older members of the community who wanted to support younger LGBTQIA+ people.
"We're doing the work ourselves because we want to show solidarity and be a visible, loud, proud presence to the younger LGBTQIA+ communities to say that we're not sitting back and letting this happen to them," Ms Marlowe said.
"It happened to lots of us at school and in our families and communities when we were younger and we don't want that world to come back and haunt these kids."
There are two roles within the group - angels wear wings to physically shield people from protesters while marshals ensure spaces are kept secure.
All the volunteers are trained and the group is non-violent.
"Part of the training is to support people feeling much more confident physically and emotionally to attend these events," Ms Marlowe said.
"And to stand together in solidarity against these small groups of people who are loud and vitriolic, and allow the events to go ahead."
