Feb 26

I thought that telling people I was gay was a tough gig. It still makes me nervous at times. The stigma around being gay is fading out, like a farmhand on a horse riding off into the sunset. Not that I’ve ever been a farmhand or ridden into the sunset. I have, however, been on a horse

Working in the 80s and 90s would have been so much harder for me if I was out. I well recall the homophobic jokes and teasing that I laughed along with. Being gay was not ok.

Until now. Being gay is ok for me.

The stigma around mental illness still exists. I know plenty of people who have an illness.

So, big breath, I too have a mental illness. I’ve been fretting about telling you. In some ways it feels like coming out. The stigma associated with a mental illness feels the same.

The same questions pop into my head

  • How to tell you?
  • What will you think of me?
  • What if you don’t want to be my friend anymore?
  • What if you change how you treat me?

And that’s just the start.

The answer to the first question is easy – “I wanted to let you know that I have a mental illness”. The real work is then afterwards, that’s when the stigma rolls in, or more importantly, that’s the perception. My perceptions, as I have often observed, are not always spot on, and like coming out, it’s an internal stigma, so the only logical answer to the next lot of questions is “Fuck you” if your answer is anything other than “OK, no probs” to question 1.

I have had depression for more years than I care to remember. For many of those years I have worked with my GP and psychologist to understand the nature of my illness and find ways to mitigate it. The last thing I have ever wanted to do is tell others. I didn’t even want to admit it to myself.

When I left Family Life in March 2017 it was after a long stressful period at work. There was so much going on at the same time, and this became a real turning point for me. I was there for 18 years, and I always enjoyed the job. As my mental health declined, so did my work, so did my mood and so did my interactions with others.

When I made my farewell speech then, I said to the staff that part of the reason for my leaving was my well-being. My mental health. I explained how I was trying to look after it, I had begun some medication, and need to stop and rest for a while.

I didn’t tell anyone else about my reasons, I said that I was leaving to complete my studies.

Work out of the way, I could focus on studying better. I muddled through, I really did. I don’t know how I actually passed. There were many dark days and while medication took the edge off, I was still not very well at all.

It was two years later when I started a new job. I was onto my 2nd medication, and it seemed to work, I was reaching a better equilibrium and felt ready to take on the next challenge.

And I love my job, I love the work we do, and the people who do it. It ticks all my social justice boxes.

Eighteen months into the job and I could feel the wheels falling off again. I tried hard to keep things under control, but I was slipping.

For a reason I don’t really understand, I came off the medication. While the medication helped, it really made me exhausted, to the point that my brain would just shut down by around 6 every night. I’d have to go to bed, which is just ridiculous, so I’d stay and watch telly for a couple of hours while snarling at Michael for chatting to me.

Initially, when I came off the meds, I actually was pretty good, for a little while. The crash sort of sneaked up on me. Little things at first. It was easy to say the pandemic was causing me stress, and it did, it kept me awake at night, trying to work out how to look after our teams and the people we support. I could put my mood down to that stress.

After I was particularly snappy in one of the leadership team meetings, not rude mind you, just snarky, Kon, the CEO, took me aside and asked me if I was ok. That’s an outrageous question to ask! Indignantly I said, “Yes, of course I’m OK”. The next words out of his mouth are the single most important he has ever uttered to me.

“No, you’re not ok”

Weak knees, tears welling up, head down and a slight stutter as I finally acknowledged the truth. “You’re right”.

What a precious moment. Another person cared enough, not just about my job performance, but me as a person, to tell me he was worried about me, to ask why my responses and actions were out of sync, to check in with me, really check in on a professional and personal level.

There are others too, of course, who have been trying to tell me. My husband, Michael, more on that soon.

I have to say that I love my job, I want to throw myself into it and work hard. I felt like I was working with a team that is making real change for people, and I find that important and rewarding. Furthermore, I didn’t want to mess this up, that’s an anxiety all on its own. The guilt of walking away in the middle of a pandemic was gut-wrenching for me.

Walk away I did, and this time, I thought, I’m pulling out all stops. First stop to the GP – I wanted a real diagnosis, not that his diagnosis wasn’t real. I wanted a psychiatrist to give me the once-over. I really wanted to put a plan in place to help me manage. I knew I could live with depression, I just knew I couldn’t do it by myself.

What’s essential to me in my leadership role is modelling behaviours. Over the course of the pandemic, I was aware of the huge impact it was having on the well-being of the staff. It was really a tough gig for all of us, locked up at home, trying to help some of the most vulnerable people in Victoria and struggling to make sure we could make ends meet.

It felt so wrong at the time to have to take leave. It is what I have been saying, though to the staff, if you’re unwell, take the time off. We’ve got this, and we need you back, so go heal.

Here was an opportunity for me to model a bit of self-care, and there’s little point in doing that if I don’t tell people what’s going on. So I did. I was quite upfront with people. I told them that I’m not well, and I’m taking a mental health break to look after my depression.

I hated taking the time off. I’m glad I did. I think it’s difficult for some people to do this. We’re so caught up in our bullshit that we forget we are only human. There should be no shame in not being at the top of your game. Nobody batted an eyelid when I had time off to have my skin cancers removed. Nobody cared I took time off to have my wisdom teeth removed. Nobody should care that I need time off to have my depression removed, or mitigated, or managed. I don’t know the right word.

So, I did take some extended leave, during a pandemic, where I got to sit at home and do nothing. A dose of mountains, trees, kangaroos and small goats would have been ideal, but impossible. So, home I stayed. Taught myself how to program in Python. Set up a Raspberry Pi, bought some lenses to take photos with it and read.

Diagnosis came when I sat with the psychiatrist who ran me through a series of questions about life. Mild to severe depression he proclaimed. Oh yes, he proclaimed, we had full trumpets, the unrolling of a parchment and the tolling of bells before the big announcement. Well, that’s what it felt like. At last, I had some words. I hadn’t realised just how important this was for me. I think that just popping a few pills wasn’t enough, I needed to know just what I was dealing with. The psychiatrist prescribed a bunch of blood tests and from that my third medication was introduced.

And this time the changes in my mood were so much better. The time off, seeing my psychologist weekly, the psychiatric assessment and a treatment course all helped me to get back on track. It was about a month before I returned to work, raring to go.

Now some months later, I’ve taken a couple of weeks off for an intensive program of TMS. Again, it was important for me to let the leadership team know, and the staff too.

I don’t feel mighty, I’m hoping that my little blog will help someone, I’m hoping that letting my team know they’ll know it’s ok to take care of themselves.

I feel like this is tough for me. Everyone’s journey and experience is very different to mine. I don’t want for a minute to undermine yours.

What I do want, is a world free of stigma. Stigma creates trauma, and we need to let go of the things that cause said stigma. It’s a nice way of saying, if you’re a misogynist, a homophobe, a transphobe, a mental health phobe (is there a word?) to pull your head out of your arse. Stigma sucks and has real life impacts for those at the other end, and you have no excuse for being phobic.

Finally, you know what’s vital to me? Michael. I have told him he is the love of my life. We have been on this journey together, and this wonderful man has waited for me, he has put up with so much while I’ve been to the bottom and slowly back to something near normal. He sees in me something that keeps him here. As I do in him. My relationship with him is an important part of my happiness. I just want to be with him. I want us to be happy. I’m grateful, happy, pleased, thrilled, I don’t know how to express it. I’m rapt that he is in my life.

You, you take care of yourself.

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Jan 29

For years there have been calls to rename the Margaret Court Arena, she is an Australian tennis great. Great enough for a patch of sealed land to be named after her. 2020 is the celebration of 50 years since she grand-slammed a few balls.

Court is a homophobe. She says very not nice things about anyone not-straight, and she has done this using her position as a sporting legend to generate controversy and to convey her sinister message.

Then, along comes Tim Wilson – member for Goldstein with this little beauty:

“If you believe in a society of pluralism and diversity you have to accept people will have different views on morality,” said Wilson, who is openly gay and married his long-time partner shortly after the passage of the gay marriage legislation in Federal Parliament.

[Source]
Red faced Tim Wilson

This isn’t a different view on morality, the issue here is that of gender identity and sexual orientation. The reason to rename the court isn’t because of a different moral stance, it’s because Court uses her position to vilify people. The rest of society understands that sexuality and gender are not based on morality. Wilson’s attempt to restrict it to a ‘different view on morality’ is foolish. It ignores the real harm done when sporting ‘legends’ use their status to spew rhetoric that has been shown to cause great harm to people. Sure, everyone is entitled to their opinion, doesn’t mean we need to give it credence by naming a sporting field after them.

“Airbrushing people’s legacy for expressing cultural dissent is too ‘1984’ for my liking,” Wilson added, a reference to the totalitarian dystopia of George Orwell’s novel.

[Source]

Airbrushing her legacy? Why on earth not? In any case, she isn’t being erased from the history books, we’re just asking to rename a tennis court. Her record stands. As to it being ‘1984’, that’s a little rich coming from someone who is in a government that does doublespeak all the time.

As usual, Wilson adds nothing to the debate, only ill-thought-out concepts that reek of his own bias and personal privilege.

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Sep 08

The Australian Dream written by Stan Grant

It wouldn’t be right to say that I don’t like football. It wouldn’t be right to say that I do like football either. I don’t go out of my way to watch it or participate in it. I don’t have a passing interest in it or really care in the slightest about it. I accept it as part of the culture in Victoria.

Mind you, I don’t really follow any sport, so I’m not singling football out.

When you live in Victoria, it’s pretty hard to escape football. I mostly manage. Apart from those family dinners on a Friday night where the telly comes on after the meal and those of us interested sit around it watching, the rest of us sit at the table and continue our much more interesting chit-chat.

When Michael suggested to me that I might like to go and watch a movie about Adam Goodes, who until recently was guilty of being a football player, I thought perhaps my husband had begun his descent into madness.

Now, I know of Goodes. He was after all an Australian of the Year, even though he was a football player. He been the subject of much media coverage over his stance on racism in Australia football.

I guess he’s an OK bloke, even though he used to play football.

So, anyway, on a cold Melbourne Saturday afternoon, the sort that’s usually reserved for die-hard Richmond fans to go to watch their team play in the mud at Windy Hill, I found myself sitting in a cinema watching strapping young men kick a football around.

The story that unfolded before me was so gut-wrenchingly powerful that at times I had tears rolling down my face.

Here is the story of a man who clearly loves his footy and found himself at the top of the game. He then left it when the focus of others was on the colour of his skin, instead of his ability to kick a football.

Adam Goodes is an Indigenous Australian. During his time on the footy field, he was recognised as a player of note. Played in grandfinals, got medals, you know, the sort of things that mark you as an elite sports person. At the same time, he became a controverisal figure when he refused to accept the casual racism that was being hurled around. As Stan Grant says in the Australian Dream, he was a loud angry aboriginal, nobody likes that. The footy crowd would take to booing Goodes every time he got the ball. This ultimately led to him leaving his much loved game.

Let this sink in. At a football match with tens of thousands of fans, a whole bunch of them boo every time you touch the ball.

I do recall most of this, as it happened. Only because it crosses from football into society. Goodes becomes a topic of conversation outside of football. News bulletins lead with it, newspapers gave it front page, social media lit up. People like me couldn’t miss it.

What I did miss however was the nuance of the story. For this I had to see the movie. It was pretty clear, pretty quickly, that this story wasn’t so much about football. It is about the very essence of racism in Australia.

I don’t think I’m a racist. But how would I know?

I can pick a homophobe for you, because I know what it’s like to hear the casual homophobia in day to day comments. Take this little example from today, as I was trying to write this blog I saw this tweet:

Still not sure? What is a manly hug? Why does he need to give it to another man? Why didn’t he give him a womanly hug? A gay hug? An affectionate hug?

Adams is 80 years old. In his time, you probably didn’t hug men at all, in case it’s seen as gay. If you do have to hug another man, for example, because their wife just died, that’s ok. But you better give them a manly hug. In case people think you’re gay.

Is Adams a homophobe? I have no idea, I’d be surprised, based on his politics. Is this an example of casual homophobia? Yes, I think it is. It’s the sort of language that isn’t needed and seeks to establish himself as a man that doesn’t want to be perceived as gay. As if there’s something wrong with being gay. Of course, if you’ve never been at the end of homophobic language, this would roll off you and you’d find yourself booing me every time I touched the ball.

Have I ever been guilty of casual racism? You bet. Lots of times. At times I’ve been an all out racist. For this I’m sorry, and for all the times I’ll be a racist into the future I hope that someone is there to call it out.

Australian Dream not only tells the story of Goodes, it tackles an issue that so few of us what to hear about. The ingrained racism that is in every part of white Australia. None of us want that racist label, and yet we are so unaccustomed to listening to the voices of those that are impacted by our words. We dismiss their feelings and responses rather than listen to them.

Evidence shows that a young aboriginal person is more likely to kill themselves than their white counterpart. We lock up aboriginal people at a much higher rate than any other group of people. We still won’t let them be acknowledged in the constitution.

Australian Dream looks at racism from the eyes of those being discriminated against.

You need to see it.

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Jun 02

Recently I was on the tele talking about Margaret Court’s foray into the marriage equality debate.  Court is a tennis legend, won all sorts of games in the 60’s and 70’s.  She was good at watching a small green ball and hitting it with a stick with strings.  That’s my understanding of tennis.

 

And here’s Michael earlier in the day talking with Neil Mitchell on 3AW

Court has decided to say some very outdated things about GLBTIQ people over the last week.  There have been calls for the renaming of a court at the Melbourne Tennis Centre named in her honour, The Margaret Court Arena.

The debate has been raging between those who claim that Court is being bullied, those against renaming the court and those who think we should.  Everyone has an opinion.

At the heart of all of this is a single concept.  Free Speech.

Just what is it you’re allowed to say in public?  Of course, you can say anything you like.  Court has spoken in public,  she has used her legend status to be heard.  Now she is claiming that her free speech is being denied, despite having full access to the media and being able to further her ideas and still be heard.

What we’re really seeing here is important.  It’s about what’s acceptable topics in modern Australian society. We are deciding what our community standards.  Australians are struggling with that very notion.

The same as we’ve struggled with holocaust deniers, racist statements and misogyny.  We are witnessing an adjustment in attitude.

It’s simply no longer appropriate to use a public forum to express views that vilify the GLBTIQ community.  It’s not OK to call us products of the devil, say we can’t raise children, or even that marriage is only between a man and a woman.

The days of saying those things in public are passing.  You can see it happening before your eyes.

Before those that will be upset by this notion cry about free speech.  The free speech has been flying for years, and society is saying enough is enough.  Modify your language if you want to have discussions in public.  You’re not being told that you can’t hold your views, you’re not being told to change your views.  You are perfectly entitled to believe whatever you like.

As a society the expectations of community engagement are undergoing an adjustment.  Just like there are the deniers, the racist and the misogynist still out there, they have mostly being told to shut up.

Bigotry around gender diversity and sexual orientation is next.

Our society will be better when that bigotry is added to the list of unacceptable talking points.

Time to adjust the attitudes.

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Jun 14

handholding
Another mass shooting in the USA hardly seems surprising. Each one is horrific and I look at the senseless deaths and the grief of those who have lost their loved ones.

I am detached from the violence. I think the answer to end massacres like this is easy, putting it into action is proving somewhat harder for the USA.

The shooting in an Orlando gay night club is frightening for me because it specifically targeted the GLBTI community.

As I understand it, the murderer saw two men kissing and thought this an appropriate response.  That is simply beyond my comprehension.

Last night we had a minute’s silence at the Laird Hotel.  Michael and I went there for a karaoke night.  The pub is men only and it is crowded.  It was uncanny when the silence became real.  A noisy pub with loud music, singing, the sound of laughter, the loud conversations all ceased.

A poignant moment as the hush descends and my mind turns to the reality of what has happened.  A bunch of people, just like me, out for a good night’s entertainment.  Enjoying the company of our community, having a good time.  Then terror.  Tears roll down my cheeks.   I hug Michael in one of the few places where I feel safe to do so.  Now, for a moment that too seems dangerous, I have an irrational moment of angst.

In the sorting out that will follow my community will be sidelined.  Yet again the focus will shift away from the real reason for this and we will settle on the individual and hold him accountable.  Little focus will be on the root cause.  That root cause is what is loosely called holy texts.  The bible, the koran, the torah or whatever other ancient text.

In the version I grew up with it says this:

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them.

As much as this is down played with the notion that somehow I can be saved, the real issue is not addressed.  There it is in everyday English, ‘abomination’ , ‘death’ and ‘blood’.  The catholic church builds on this to claim that I am intrinsically disordered.

Want to fix it?  Get over your ‘sacred’ text and strike out those phrases.  Its time for a rewrite – we can call it the expurgated version.  It’s not the first time it’s been re-written.

People are dying.  That needs to stop.

We all need to feel secure in our world.  You know what, I want to personalise this.  I need to feel secure and I don’t.

The Premier of Victoria says that Victoria is a safe place.  He has encouraged couples like Michael and me to hold hands in public.  I feel mostly safe, but yet here again is a reason that makes me nervous.  There are organisations, politicians and the media who continue to exist to undermine my security and continue to want me to climb back into the closet and lock the door.

I want to feel safe.

Thank you to all my family and friends who provide that security.

Just maybe love will win.

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Oct 08

It’s Mental Health week this week.  It seems an opportune moment to press the Publish button on this blog that’s been waiting for a while.

This is from my hand written diary from 1982 and documents the trial I underwent in making the decision to leave school.  Malcolm Fraser was the Prime Minister and What About Me by Moving Pictures was at the top of the charts.

Year 11The entry is written in 1982 about events a year earlier.  I was 17 in 1981, barely coping with my sexuality that I was trying so hard to repress, I don’t mention it directly, but I can see it’s impact in my own words.  I wasn’t letting anyone in to see the real me.  My close friends had left school at the end of Year 10 and Year 11, I was isolated, a few of the students in Year 12 had grown up with me and we’d been through primary and secondary school together – they were my enemies!

It’s clear to me, looking back, that I was struggling with my life, my religion and my sexuality.  I wasn’t in a good place.  The isolation was horrendous and I couldn’t see a way out.  What I didn’t see or understand until some 12 months later is that people really did care, they wanted to help me.  It took an enormous amount of courage for me to reach out and ask for help.

My life did get better.  I have not regretted the decisions I made back then, I’m glad that I went on to bigger and better things.  The adults in my life did want to help me out, they did see my struggles and tried to get me to open up, the real blockage for me was my sexuality.  This internal battle is why I want the world to see the damage that is caused when homophobia isn’t stopped and challenged.  The anguish I went through should not have happened.  It’s hard enough growing up without having an unmentionable and important part of your life that you feel needs to be hidden.

Here’s the entry, I’ve fixed the spelling (apparently I though my peers where piers and I still can’t spell unfortantely without a spell checker) but not changed the wording.

12 Jan 1982

Today I seem to have quite a few entries in the diary – perhaps because I have been neglecting writing things in it.  I think the main reason for this is trying to get motivated.  This attitude seems to be one that is common amongst my peers.  This is I feel is one reason why I failed at having a go at Year 12.  Yet, I, at the moment, don’t regret it.  I often think that had I become motivated in the early stages of ’81 I might have done a lot better than I did, never the less I didn’t, so I have no one else to blame but myself.  My only hope (in fact one of my many hopes) is that I never live to regret my actions.  At the moment this seems unlikely.  As I can’t see into the future it is a hard thing to say it won’t have some repercussions in later life.

School seemed a place that I just didn’t fit.  None of my peers particularly liked me and often was called a poof, suck and many other things.  Such name calling never seemed right to me and I assumed that such things would fizzle out as we (me and my peers) got older and more mature, I think I was kidding myself.1  The name calling continued, perhaps not as much, but it certainly didn’t stop.  I returned to school in Feb. 81 feeling perhaps just a little frightened, like a child and his first day at school, I think I was more frightened of attempting H.S.C., and of course the reaction of my peers2 who I thought might have grown up.  They had a bit, at least the name calling had perhaps stopped a bit.  But NO-ONE bothered to talk to me, unless I spoke to them first, even then a conversation was brief and abrupt.  Then again I didn’t really try to become overly involved with my peers. (As you can see there seems to be contradictions in this entry.  Yet it really was like this – Here are even more contradictions).  But I did try very hard to become a bit more involved in school activities.  I was a quiet sort of force behind the Social Services, in starting that.  I was involved in the school newspaper “The Dolphin” in which I wrote some news and so on.  Nevertheless this didn’t seem to me to be enough to keep me interested in the academic side of school.

The Year 12 retreat3 proved to be a very interesting one.4  I stopped and reflected on my life and what I was doing.5  I think that perhaps I then made a decision to leave school.  The next thing to do was to get enough courage to make a move as there was so much to consider before I made such a decision.  Meanwhile things at school were still pretty useless.  I had enrolled in correspondence school to do music, a subject I enjoyed and one that I looked forward to.  Unfortunately, someone, somewhere, along the line ballsed the whole thing up.  So when my papers did come through I was about five weeks behind.  Trying desperately to catch up, my other school work seemed to be falling behind, as I was more interested in Music.  Finally the pressures of school caught up with me, and depression soon came.  I couldn’t keep up with my fellow students, as I became more and more depressed I began to think about leaving school, a thought which had been on the back of my mind since the start of the year.  I started to miss morning classes because I didn’t want to get out of bed.  I was frightened, (then again I really didn’t try to make an effort) frightened of school because I was behind, frightened of my peers for their harassment.6  I really did become more and more depressed, and I believe that I was on the verge of suicide, something that nobody else could even see, I myself couldn’t see what was happening, and I did want so much to reach out and talk to someone, but the courage to do so was never there so I just closed myself off…. to think.

I lay awake many nights just thinking about what I was going to do, and then finally I set a date to leave school.7  Friday April 3rd 1981 – I wrote in my pocket diary – “THE END – ON THIS DAY I HOPE TO LEAVE SCHOOL FOREVER”

I have no idea when I set that date, but I did, and I missed it.  It was another week before I left school.  Why?  Perhaps I, again, didn’t have the courage, perhaps I wanted another chance, perhaps I was confused about what I wanted or perhaps I don’t know.  Nevertheless I did try and hack it for another week but to no avail, so on Friday April tenth 1981 (exactly seven days after) I went to school to say to the Studies Master “I no longer wish to continue my education” (That’s a quote!)  So Mr. Shaw (my Studies Master) talked to me about it, and finally agreed that he believed I was doing the best thing, which made me feel a whole lot better.  I then realised that there really are people who care, and people who are willing to help.  The trouble was to find the right person.  Mr. Shaw helped me a lot that day.8  He rang the Commonwealth Employment Service and made an appointment for me for two o’clock in the afternoon.  So that was it, after twelve or thirteen years of school I was finished.

I cried as I rode my bike out of the gates of Monivae College, knowing that something that had been a big part of my life for six years was now finished.  Perhaps I cried because I again was frightened of being in the BIG WORLD by myself, perhaps I cried because I was ashamed of myself for being gutless and feeling useless that I couldn’t succeed in life because I was no good at school.  I was also very happy.9

I went home and told the folks that I did have an appointment at the C.E.S. at two, so they helped me prepare.10

So at about five to two I rolled up outside, stood for a minute before walking in.  I asked for the right man, only to discover that no one at all knew about my appointment.  But all were pleasant, and I filled out the right forms applying for the dole, and registering myself us unemployed.

After a discussion the nice young (married) lady suggested that I approach Mr. McNaughton and enquire about a job there as I already had a part-time job there.11  I told Mr. Mac. that I had left school and asked him if he was willing to employ me.  He said he would have to think about it, and told me to come back on Tuesday 14th April 1981 – So I did.

At eleven o’clock I showed up, and Mr. Mac. said that he was willing to employ me but only under the following hours.  Monday to Thursday 12.00 noon till 5.30 p.m.  Fridays 10-12, 1-5, 6-8 (in winter 12-5, 6-9) Saturday’s 5.30 – 8.00, 9-12 noon.

I agreed to these hours, and although I wasn’t crash hot on them, thought it was better than going on the dole.

So on Tuesday 21st of April 1981 I started working at P.R. & L.A. McNaughtons Authorised Newsagents, 150-152 Gray St.  Hamilton.

Here ends my true story of the hassle I had in 1981 – and if you think how long all this took only twelve weeks, and I am pleased of the decisions I made, and I hope that I will never live to regret April 10 1981 – A day which will long live in my memory.

I am grateful to Mr. & Mrs. McNaughton, to Monivae College, and most of all my parents who tried so hard to support me and help me, a job which they did and will always do so well.


 

Sane Australia is a good place to start if my blog raises any issues for you and you’d like some help.

 

  1. I could never understand why people thought I was a ‘poof’ as I wasn’t ‘camp’ in the slightest
  2.  Code for someone might work out that I really am gay
  3. This is mostly a lot of prayers and team building
  4.  I was sleeping in a dorm with 15 other guys, some of them I fancied, this was a real challenge for a 17-year-old gay guy
  5. How could I stop being gay?
  6.  Fear of being outed as gay was a huge concern
  7.  I was begging god to take this ‘poof’ stuff away from me
  8.  We later went on to be friends when his son was in my Cub Pack
  9.  The relief of not being found out caused the tears, the freedom to start over and be free of the name calling made me happy
  10.  This was perhaps the first time my father let me make a decision about my life.  He sat on my bed and told me that if I didn’t want to go to school that was ok, but that I had to get a job.  He then asked what I wanted to do, I told him I wanted to be a teacher, he said I wasn’t smart enough to be a teacher – that was devastating and had long-lasting implications for me.
  11.  It was a Newsagency.  I was doing fill-in paper rounds and working Saturday mornings
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Jan 11

Last night Michael and I along with Andrew, a friend, went out for dinner to a lovely Vietnamese restaurant in Fitzroy.

Michael dropped me off and drove off to find a car park.  Andrew was waiting on the street for me.  We greeted each other with a smile and a hello.  I would have like to have kissed him on the cheek.  A small gesture of friendship.  The right way for me to greet him.  But I didn’t.  Nor did I shake his hand, because that just felt too formal and business like.

We three sat at a table and after a time the table next to us was taken by 4 men, clearly a couple of couples out for a similar night of good food and company.

Here we are, a group of homosexual men surrounded by straight people.  All enjoying the company of our friends, eating, drinking, talking, laughing, looking.

handholdingI sit next to Michael because I like to be near to him.  I rarely touch him in public.  When I do there’s a risk analysis that my mind runs through before I reach out and place my hand on his knee or around his shoulder.  I’m looking around me to see potential threats.  Is that bearded bloke behind me with the tattoos of a skull on his elbow ok?  Will that mother over there try to shield her daughter from me?  Will the staff treat me differently?

Then I have to remind myself where I am.  I’m in funky Brunswick Street, Fitzroy.  It’s a pretty happening crowd with all sorts of people from all walks of life.  Surely they’re all gay friendly?  This won’t be an issue for anyone.

Only after that do I reach my arm out and place it around Michael’s shoulder.  Michael responds to my touch by either touching my hand or relaxing into my arm and moving closer to me.  It’s a natural, normal response.  A shared intimacy that I love.  Mind you, it only last a minute when I realise that he’s sitting to my right and my right shoulder aches too much for me to sustain it.  I wonder if I always sit with him to my right as an unthinking way of protecting my perceptions of threats.

Nothing happens, of course, apart from my shoulder aching.

When I walk down the street, I never simply slip my hand into to his.  Holding hands requires me to do another assessment of my surrounds.  I’ve had the looks of both support and scorn from others.  I’ve heard the phrase ‘faggot’ muttered when people pass me by.  That, quite frankly, scares the fuck out of me.

When Michael visits me at work we always kiss each other on the cheek.  What I really want is to be able to do that without thinking about it.  The same way I don’t give a second thought to that goodbye kiss in the morning, or the hello kiss at the end of the day in the safety of our own home.  I work in a wonderful diverse environment, and nobody raises an eyebrow about my sexuality.  Yet, I still do a scan of where we are before and after a kiss.

Why don’t I feel safe in my own country?

The ongoing threat to safety is there for me.  Real or perceived it doesn’t matter.  Years of growing up in a world where gay people have been derided and despised takes it toll.  Reports of gay bashing, discrimination and verbal abuse are presented to me on a daily basis.

I want to walk down the street and hold his hand.

I want to put my arm around him.

More than anything, I want him to sit to my left.

Take 20 minutes now and watch Panti speak at TED in Dublin.

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Oct 07

I’ve been in a very reflective mood today as I mull over the events of yesterday.

Two things happened.  Bob Katter appeared on Q&A and as expected more or less said that there are no gay people in his electorate.

Ivan Hinton-Teoh returned to his home town to confront the past.  He was a victim of homophobia in his small rural town.

Ivan is an online friend, we both have an interest in marriage equality, Ivan is the Deputy National Director of Australian Marriage Equality.  His story is powerful and emotional.  A story that needed to be told.  It made me think about my own small town experience.  It has awakened in me just how much I hated growing up.  I felt I was surrounded by bullies and vilified on a constant basis at home and at school.

The home stuff was a lot about being teased.  I was pretty good at teasing too and would wind my brothers and sisters up as much as they did me.  What we didn’t know at the time was that I was gay. The best way to niggle at me was to tell me I was a poof.  At one time my name was Gregory Elizabeth Storer. For a young lad trying to come to terms with his sexuality that sort of teasing had a lasting impact on me.  There was no intent from my siblings to cause any damage other than normal sibling rivalry.  I’m not trying to lay blame at all.  I want to highlight just how easy it is to damage the young mind and how long it can take to undo that damage.

School was just horrible.  From Grade Four I was labelled a poofter, well before I even knew what any of that meant.  I was often the victim of playground taunts and bullying.  That only escalated in Secondary School.  By the time I reached adulthood I was doing everything I could to appear heterosexual.  I lived a double life.  I had a boyfriend and we would sneak away as much as we could. I would pretend to be straight for my family, my work, the scouts and the church.

I knew how bad it was to be gay, how we spoke about gay people.  Religion, the community, my friends, they all despised homosexuals.

I suffered from my own personal homophobia.  I hated the gay in me.  I felt a cheat, a liar, dishonourable, fake and a freak.  My personal integrity is key to my sense of self-worth, so being fake and dishonourable weighed heavily on my mind.

At times I wanted to die.  Often.

I was well-regarded in my small town.  I was even made Young Citizen of the Year.  On the inside I would be arguing about how much I would be hated if only they knew that I was really a homo.

It took a long time, a lot of money, a shitload of personal reflection for me to work out that the public me and the inside me could be joined together.  I didn’t need two sides of me.

In fact, if you don’t mind me stroking my own ego, I am honourable, reliable, decent bloke.  And I am that because my key value is honesty.  Above all else I hold that to be significantly important to me.

I was devastated last night watching Q&A to witness the blatant disregard that Bob Katter has towards gay people.

As Josh Thomas was taking him to task Katter was unable to even look at him.  Here is Katter talking about the importance of mental health for farmers and he is completely unable to acknowledge that gay people exist and at times suffer great mental anguish, something that he has had a hand in creating.

It is his attitude and those of people like him that allows him and our society to marginalise and vilify people just like me.  It is people like him that I went to school with that picked on me and thought it was all in good fun.

It is people like him that even now cause me uncertainty.  Every day I have to deal with what I tell people.  Will they treat me differently if they know I’m gay?  Do I tell them?  What would the ramifications be?  I’m trying to do a job here and it shouldn’t be an issue.  Do I come out to that contractor?  How much of a friendship do I want with that supplier?  Is that a look of contempt from a colleague because I’m gay?

More and more now I simply don’t care, people can like it or lump it.  But a lifetime of checking oneself is hard to simply give up in 10 short years.  How much of it is in my head?  How much is real?

So that’s me.  I have resilience and support.  I have a great well of support, my husband, my children, my family, my friends, my work-mates.  Despite the odd bit of insecurity, I know who I am, I’m not afraid to tell you and will even take you to task at the drop of a hat.  But imagine being young, searching, unsure.  If you are gay and trying to understand yourself and how you fit into this society then last night’s program may have had a negative impact on you.

If you’re a Bob Katter then you need to watch what Ivan has to say.  You need to feel his raw emotions on display for the world to see.  You need to see his vulnerability.  Because Ivan is the young gay kid in every rural community struggling to make sense of himself in a world created for heterosexuals.

Thanks Ivan.

This is mental health week – take care of your mental health.  Be aware of other people’s mental health.

You never know where your homophobic attitudes will land.


If you need to talk to someone about mental health, please phone Lifeline on 13 11 14.

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Oct 01

I’m reliably informed that the AFL grand-final was held very recently.  Apparently somebody called Hawthorn won.  I’m delighted for them.

Clearly my interest in the footy is as close to 0 as possible.

After the game, a famous person, Rob Mills tweeted a photo of a two plastic Lego type toys, a Sydney player bent at the waist, while a Hawthorn player stands behind him, it’s meant to represent them engaged in a sexual activity.

I saw it and sort of laughed at it, juvenile humour and really not very funny.

Other people saw something else in it.  Calling Mills homophobic.

I don’t think he’s homophobic.  I think he got a bit carried away and didn’t think it through.

There’s such a wide-ranging debate going on about what he did and how we respond.  As with any conversation about behaviour, the community, that’s all of us, need to work out what our standards are and have a frank and open conversation about it.

I’m inclined to think that there is an undertone to the image that needs further exploring to understand its meaning.

The use of the toys really represents the victorious team humiliating the vanquished.  This is represented in a sexual manner.  That is a representation of power over the weak. Domination through sex.  It is implied that this is not a consensual act.

And there is the problem.  While this was probably the furthest thing from Mills mind, he has essentially made a rape reference.

The homophobic slur comes into play because that ‘power’ is demonstrated through a forced homosexual act.

I sort of resent that.  The implication that sex is a way to ‘celebrate’ the win by forcing the loser into a ‘detestable’ sexual act as a further way to obtain dominance and gratification.

Mills has done the right thing, he deleted the tweet and he has apologised.  A decent apology with meaning and understanding. He knows he made a mistake.

I certainly don’t feel vilified.  I’m not upset.  But rape is not a laughing matter. No matter what the joke is.

Sex is fun, I know, I’ve tried it a few times.  Everyone has a different standard when it comes to behaviour, jokes and ethics.  But what do we as a community think the standard should be?  Where is that line between humour and offence?  That’s the topic of conversation, not whether we can hound somebody who made a mistake.  The error has been pointed out and make good has been done.

Let’s keep the conversation going, this representation of domination through sex is important as we deal with family violence, rape and the victimisation of women.

We owe it to all of us to stand up for a good decent human standard that means all people are respected and treated with respect.  We owe it to those that are in abusive situations and victims of violence to say that it’s unacceptable.

We need to be decent human beings.

 

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Jul 31

Dr David van Gend is a family doctor from Toowoomba.  He’s also the president of a group called Australian Marriage Forum. He’s written an open letter to the Australian Education Minister, Christopher Pyne. Van Gend is asking that Pyne reconsiders the decision to fund the Safe Schools program throughout Australia and goes on to quote a range of studies and provide information.   I understand that he is talking about Safe Schools Coalition Australia (SSCA), which the government is funding.  The program forms part of the National Safe Schools Framework and specifically the SSCA program is about creating safe and supportive school environments for same-sex attracted, intersex and gender diverse people by reducing homophobic and transphobic bullying and discrimination in schools.  I note that it’s about reducing and not eliminating.  The National Safe Schools Framework is described as  providing Australian schools with a vision and a set of guiding principles that assist school communities to develop positive and practical student safety and well-being policies.  A very noble cause indeed, and a clear recognition that bullying of students needs to be addressed, no matter what the cause. Reading van Gend’s letter isn’t much fun.  It’s the normal anti-gay stuff that I’ve seen a thousand times.  I’ve picked some of his more outrageous bits to think about:

The political justification for ‘Safe Schools’ programmes, or the associated ‘Gay-Straight Alliances’, is that there is a plague of gay-based bullying in our schools, and the only way to counter that is through celebrating homosexuality. That justification, however, is doubtful.

It’s not clear that there is a plague of gay-based bullying in schools, but the Growing Up Queer report released in February 2014 is reported in The Age (7/2/14):

A disturbing two-thirds of non-heterosexual young Australians have been bullied about their sexual orientation, according to a new report that reveals widespread homophobic harassment and violence in schools, at home, work and at sporting events. The Growing Up Queer report, to be released on Friday, also found 16 per cent of respondents had attempted suicide and 33 per cent had harmed themselves largely due to homophobic harassment – mostly verbal among students and, in some instances, teachers.

This is a current research paper with relevant Australian data based on a sample of  1,000 people.  The figures are disturbing and certainly not worthy of the being equalled to something of a plague.  If two-thirds of young gay people are being bullied then we need to address it. Van Gend goes on to quote a UK study, also of 1,000 people.  However, he attempts to use this study to minimise the impact of bullying on gay people.

In one large study comparing a thousand homosexual and heterosexual adults in the UK, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2003, the researchers found no increase in bullying of gay men compared to heterosexual men, whether at school or subsequently, whether verbally or physically. “Reports that gay and lesbian people are vulnerable to such experiences because of their sexuality are often taken at face value”, these researchers noted, with other studies failing to draw a comparison to heterosexual students. In other words, there are many reasons to be bullied at school – for being too smart, too dumb; too fat, too weak; or for being “gay” even when you are not gay. A report in the news only last week finds one-third of 10-year-olds in Australia report being bullied for various reasons. That is something many young people go through, and the claim that homosexual people suffer disproportionate bullying appears to be “taken at face value”.

He omits the following sentence from the report:

Bullying at school was reported no more often in gay than heterosexual men, but the gay men who had been bullied regarded their sexual orientation as the main provocation. Gay and lesbian participants were more likely than heterosexual participants to have consulted a mental health professional in the past, regardless of current mental state.

It is quite telling that he cherry-picks his information to support his contention.  He uses a study that is over 10 years old, well before marriage equality was a reality in the UK.  There are plenty of recent studies around, it doesn’t take much to find them. Van Gend then moves the subject from school bullying to illicit drug use by gay people.  He seems to be suggesting from a 2010 report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare that somehow gay people are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, but I’m not sure of the connection to bullying, nor does he really identifying why he is making that link.  A quick review of the 2013 AIHW report shows a decrease in the use of alcohol, specifically fewer 12–17 year olds are drinking alcohol and the proportion abstaining from alcohol increased significantly between 2010 and 2013 (from 64% to 72%). The misuse of alcohol and drugs is always disturbing, and van Gend is suggesting that it’s because gay people can’t cope and they turn to alcohol, when heterosexuals don’t cope perhaps they resort to letter writing instead of alcohol. Van Gend then makes some observations from his profession:

From my observations as a family doctor, the pressures that depress a young gay man are more intrinsic than extrinsic: the sense that something has gone wrong deep inside; the depressing and degrading effect of his compulsive sexual encounters; the unresolved anger at what he sees to be the cause of his sexual confusion, such as childhood abuse by a male.

I’m not sure about his qualifications, if he’s just a family doctor I hope that he is referring these young gay men to appropriate support.  I’d suggest with his reputation as a conservative doctor, that the only young gay men who visit him are taught from their religious background that something is wrong.  Van Gend is unlikely to reassure them that everything is ok or that they are normal.  He also then assumes that his patient is having compulsive sexual encounters and that he was abused by a man during his childhood.  None of which he supports.  No indication of numbers or resolutions. He then states:

It trivialises a homosexual person’s suffering to blame it primarily on the external environment – or alleged excess of bullying at schools. There are less insidious means to address the perennial problem of bullying — for all students — than by normalising homosexual behaviour in the curriculum.

There seems little room for doubt about the impact of bullying.  Homosexual people have no need to suffer.  It has been concisely demonstrated in the Growing Up Queer report that external factors do impact on the well-being of gay people.  We as a society should make every effort to minimise suffering for all of our citizens, not just those that he would classify as ‘normal’. He then uses information from The American College of Pediatricians, he acknowledges that they are a conservative medical group and claims that they are represented across 47 states.  He neglects to tell us that their membership is about 100 professionals and that they are a break-away group from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).  They broke away after the AAP supported gay adoption.  Interestingly the AAP has around 60,000 members.  So, who are you going to trust? Van Gend then sets about suggesting that when left alone, young men will turn out heterosexual.  He considers homosexual feelings to be some type of confusion.  He’s suggesting that it’s just a phase that young men go through. Finally, after taking us through the standard rhetoric of what makes someone like me gay and how I shouldn’t be treated as a normal citizen he then talks about HIV and venereal disease.  As if this is the singular most important reason why we shouldn’t treat gay people as normal, because it’s bad for our health:

Even using the simplest, most objective measure of harm – the burden of venereal disease (and in Australia it remains the case now, as for the last 25 years, that around 85 percent of new cases of HIV/AIDS are in “men who have sex with men”) – it is obviously harmful to lock a young man into a lifestyle that he might have avoided, were it not for the assertion of homosexual normalcy, by programmes such as ‘Safe Schools’.

It’s so easy to carry that ‘warning’.  No doubt he still thinks that heterosexual people only have sex after they are married and then only have sex with one person.  He clearly demonstrates the need to educate young people about safe sex.  His method of abstinence has never worked.  History is full of tales of sex outside marriage.  We used to call those children bastards. I don’t understand this concept of locking someone into a lifestyle.  He is referring to the gay lifestyle, of course.  Sexuality is not something that you can pick.  Sure, there are some that don’t fit the mould of one or the other, but generally speaking once you’re happy with your life, why would you need to change?  The sort of lifestyle he is talking about is one I know well.  Pretending to be heterosexual.  There is a lot of pain in denial.  My advice is to avoid it at all costs. Van Gend also cherry picks the ‘venereal disease’ information.  I’m not sure of the percentage of men who have HIV in Australia.  However, he ignores the bigger picture.  50% of those with HIV worldwide are women.  Over 35 million people have died from AIDS related illness.  To suggest that we can make HIV/AIDS disappear by asserting that homosexuality isn’t normal is short-sighted and shows a complete disregard for the reality of our world.  Quite frankly it’s disturbing to have a family doctor practising with such a limited view of sexuality.  I’d be so bold as to suggest it’s just outright dangerous. Van Gend is perfectly entitled to express his opinions but when he takes those opinions into the public sphere and uses his profession as a way to lend it credibility then he needs to be scrutinized and held to account. The one thing missing from van Gend’s letter is his motivation.  Considering his faith background he is very likely catholic and still of the opinion that gay people are disordered and an abomination. While he might not actually stone people like me to death, he probably thinks that his god was on to something with that idea. stoning

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