Can we just do better?
Last weekend I went to the Aurora Renaissance Ball.
It’s always a good night. Fun crowd, good costumes, inspiring speakers and great work being done.
Sydney’s LGBTI+ community is one of the best at including you – lifting us all up and making us feel welcome and important, so it’s always a pleasure to be amongst it.
This year was special. I got to meet a ‘78’er’ – Peter De Waal.
I didn’t just have the honour of meeting Peter, but got to sit with and talk to him.
I was instantly uncool, gushy, and a total fangirl. I asked a million questions, and was blown away by every answer. You’ll also be relieved to know I had the wherewithal to say Thank You. After all, this man was part of a small group who changed society for all of us.
I won’t diminish the moment as it was so special, but I will share generously enough so you can appreciate why that’s the case.
A few details that matter.
Who are ‘The 78’ers’?
They are so named as they were the group to march for LGBTI+ rights in 1978. They were the first Mardi Gras, a set of protests to the Darlinghurst and Central Police Stations, the Central Court, and to Hyde Park.
They marched when our laws still said it was ‘criminal’ to be gay.
They marched when it was dangerous. It was already the era of ‘gay hate crimes’ which lasted from the 1970s into the 2010s in Sydney. I marched in 1985 as an Ally, and the theme that year was ‘Fight of our lives’ as the AIDS epidemic hit the world, and particularly this community. It was a devastating time.
What else did Peter de Waal do?
He was a founding member of CAMP – Campaign Against Moral Persecution – the fight for decriminalisation, which was finally won in 1984.
Long before there were organised services, he opened his home. He ran a counselling and support service from the front room of his house in Balmain.
And to marriage equality?
Peter told me of the great love of his life. 48 years lived and loved beside Peter ‘Bon’ Bonsall-Boone.
I asked him if they married. Peter said “‘We always wanted to, but Bon passed a few months before the 2017 Marriage equality act was passed”.
What else happened at the Aurora Ball?
A lot of money was raised. We learnt that less than 5c of every $100 charity dollars raised in Australia goes to the LGBTI community. That night, $175,496 was raised.
I heard from three grateful recipients of small funding grants.
There was the Rainbow Families, and the newsletter they’ve written for kids in rainbow families, complete with the double-down of Dad jokes that come with two Dads.
We heard from Trans Legal Service, and how they funded community sausage sizzles in country towns all over Queensland in their successful fight to stop the anti-trans laws coming south or west to the rest of Australia.
We heard from a lovely group of humans who now employ a part-time community admin person to ensure that LGBTI+ Christians could hold their faith and have somewhere to go and celebrate and build community every weekend.
We heard the community felt under siege. Predominantly the fear is based on the craziness of what’s coming the other the side of the world, particularly from the USA right now. Winding back inclusion and undoing decades of progress in inclusion.
And all night, people kept thanking Michael and I for being ‘Allies’.
It got me thinking. Deeply…
Firstly, I’m embarrassed to be thanked for being an Ally.
I appreciated being welcomed and included, but the ‘thanks’ felt odd.
I was being thanked for believing we’re equal and you deserve the same human rights and freedoms as I have. For being inclusive and open. To be thanked so much, for something so easy to do, shows you how so many people must not be showing up for this group of people. I did think about it a lot the next day. Our bar, and it shouldn’t be a high one, is a day when treating people as your equal is considered ‘normal’, rather than anything special.
Secondly, for all the pomp and ceremony of 2017’s Marriage Equality referendum celebrations, we took way too long. We were 48 years too late for Peter and Bon. I’ve been madly in love with Michael for 34 years, married for 33 of them. Peter and Bon deserved that too.
48 years is a lot of different governments, slogans, political stifling, and people arguing. It’s a very very VERY long time to give someone the same rights the rest of us were born with. And it’s a heck of a lot of living too.
So, where do I land?
We can all do better, and it need not be grand.
We can see each other. Hear each other. Care about each other. Be happy for each other. Be excited for each other.
We can do it everywhere, including at work. Whatever the workplace may be!
And we don’t have to wait for 48 years. Or for slow laws to change. Or debates or political arguments to be complete. Or training to be complete. Or policies written.
We just need – to quote Ruth Bader Ginsberg – to get off each other’s necks and stop holding each other back. Let each be and live our best lives.
Without needing to be thanked for it.
And that was Peter’s line all night. When he heard thanks, for being truly extraordinary, he always noted the impact of so many trying to move things forward that got the result. And as an aside, when the music started, he totally rocked to Pink Pony Club.
We can all do better.…and a LOT faster … if we move forward together.
AND: Most importantly, if you’d like to get involved and support Rainbow Giving Australia, here’s the link you need:
