GERRI
I grew up in rural NSW near the Murray River. I think I always knew my identity but wouldn’t have been able to name it. ‘Lesbian’ and ‘gay’ weren’t terms you heard in the 1950s and 1960s. I was probably looked on as a tom boy. But others were too; we were country kids and we did everything that the boys did. I came to Perth from Darwin with my first partner in 1976 on our way to south-east Asia, but never left after we made friends with the lesbian community here. We’d never had that before. Even in the 70s gay and lesbian identities weren’t discussed. There was no language or media about it. If there was a lesbian theme in a story, one or both of the partners suicided or reverted to a hetero relationship. Everything was dark and horrible and unpleasant. So we first assumed that there weren’t other people like us. Discovering that there were was the start of my coming out journey.
When I went nursing I tried to go out with men but there didn’t seem to be ever anything more than friendship from my point of view. When it went beyond that I would drop them immediately. Terrible! They must have wondered what was going on. I didn’t know either, until I met my first partner in Darwin, then it was clear and we just fell in love.
In 1974 my then partner cautioned against me telling my parents. My father was a conservative Catholic and I would have been cautious about telling him, but my mum was very well read and had no religion. In the 1930s she lived quite a bohemian lifestyle and in the 1970s would tell me how conservative she thought Australians were. I think my mother knew about my identity, even though it was something that we never spoke about. Without referring directly to what she meant she’d say ‘You need to be happy and you need someone to support you’. And in her view that would only have been achieved through a man. Perhaps she’d known women that preferred a same sex partner, who grew old alone.
My brother was also gay and he came out to me many years later. The fact that he’s gay has been a huge support for me and vice versa. His coming out opened our relationship immediately. I know he’d been struggling with it for some years and had been in a relationship with a woman previously but I think eventually he realised he needed to follow his heart. Once we were honest with each other we had a whole new commonality to share aside from our childhood.
When we first came to Perth CAMP (Campaign Against Moral Persecution) was running. We weren’t really involved in it. The closest we got to political involvement with other lesbians were the Reclaim The Night marches, where women marched through Northbridge in aid of safety on the street. The marches were primarily organised by lesbians but were open to all women. Same with any feminist activity at the time.
It was still illegal for men to have sex with other men, but there was no law regarding same sex for women. Still, it was certainly not something to discuss. One had to be very careful in the workplace about who you came out to. It wasn’t a tea room conversation. If there were parties or events you’d go alone or organise one of the gay boys to come with you. The dominant culture at the time was still that being a lesbian or gay was very much a ‘no no’. You could still be discriminated against for it. When we were first buying a house we went to the bank and people warned us to be careful because they would not give a loan two women in a relationship. Luckily our bank manager sussed out the situation pretty quickly and said it was fine. Other friends of mine in the same situation had real difficulty. There was no anti-discrimination law at the time so you never knew how people would react. That probably changed when homosexuality was decriminalised for men. The AIDS crisis impacted us as nurses. By that stage we knew gay fellows here in WA as well, so we volunteered to get involved with HIV and AIDS care. On our days off we’d do shifts with people who wanted to be nursed in their own home. It was really tricky for gay men with AIDS because there was discrimination against them at hospitals. As a result many wanted to be at home and left alone. It was a question of palliative care for these chaps. My brother at one stage told me he was going to several funerals a month in Sydney. And he was only in his 30s. The ads about AIDS in Australia were terrible. In one, there was a girl rolling a bowling ball down an alley and all of the pins fell over with the grim reaper featured. A pretty raw campaign to get people to practice safe sex. Ultimately I think Australia is looked upon as having one of the best responses to the crisis. What it did though, was to divide the community in some ways (blaming the homosexuals for society issues) but it also triggered parents to say ‘It’s my son that’s got this, and he’s gay’. So it opened up the conversation: gay people live in the community like everyone else.
For some years GALS played a very important part in my life; it was also the place where I met my partner in 2000. We met at North Perth Lesser Hall at rehearsal. She was a tenor, very unusual for a female at GALS at that time. GALS provided a safe, creative and welcoming place for me and some wonderful memories.
These days being gay is in the media all the time. Every sitcom has a gay or lesbian character. I’m hoping it’s a lot easier for young people.
When I went nursing I tried to go out with men but there didn’t seem to be ever anything more than friendship from my point of view. When it went beyond that I would drop them immediately. Terrible! They must have wondered what was going on. I didn’t know either, until I met my first partner in Darwin, then it was clear and we just fell in love.
In 1974 my then partner cautioned against me telling my parents. My father was a conservative Catholic and I would have been cautious about telling him, but my mum was very well read and had no religion. In the 1930s she lived quite a bohemian lifestyle and in the 1970s would tell me how conservative she thought Australians were. I think my mother knew about my identity, even though it was something that we never spoke about. Without referring directly to what she meant she’d say ‘You need to be happy and you need someone to support you’. And in her view that would only have been achieved through a man. Perhaps she’d known women that preferred a same sex partner, who grew old alone.
My brother was also gay and he came out to me many years later. The fact that he’s gay has been a huge support for me and vice versa. His coming out opened our relationship immediately. I know he’d been struggling with it for some years and had been in a relationship with a woman previously but I think eventually he realised he needed to follow his heart. Once we were honest with each other we had a whole new commonality to share aside from our childhood.
When we first came to Perth CAMP (Campaign Against Moral Persecution) was running. We weren’t really involved in it. The closest we got to political involvement with other lesbians were the Reclaim The Night marches, where women marched through Northbridge in aid of safety on the street. The marches were primarily organised by lesbians but were open to all women. Same with any feminist activity at the time.
It was still illegal for men to have sex with other men, but there was no law regarding same sex for women. Still, it was certainly not something to discuss. One had to be very careful in the workplace about who you came out to. It wasn’t a tea room conversation. If there were parties or events you’d go alone or organise one of the gay boys to come with you. The dominant culture at the time was still that being a lesbian or gay was very much a ‘no no’. You could still be discriminated against for it. When we were first buying a house we went to the bank and people warned us to be careful because they would not give a loan two women in a relationship. Luckily our bank manager sussed out the situation pretty quickly and said it was fine. Other friends of mine in the same situation had real difficulty. There was no anti-discrimination law at the time so you never knew how people would react. That probably changed when homosexuality was decriminalised for men. The AIDS crisis impacted us as nurses. By that stage we knew gay fellows here in WA as well, so we volunteered to get involved with HIV and AIDS care. On our days off we’d do shifts with people who wanted to be nursed in their own home. It was really tricky for gay men with AIDS because there was discrimination against them at hospitals. As a result many wanted to be at home and left alone. It was a question of palliative care for these chaps. My brother at one stage told me he was going to several funerals a month in Sydney. And he was only in his 30s. The ads about AIDS in Australia were terrible. In one, there was a girl rolling a bowling ball down an alley and all of the pins fell over with the grim reaper featured. A pretty raw campaign to get people to practice safe sex. Ultimately I think Australia is looked upon as having one of the best responses to the crisis. What it did though, was to divide the community in some ways (blaming the homosexuals for society issues) but it also triggered parents to say ‘It’s my son that’s got this, and he’s gay’. So it opened up the conversation: gay people live in the community like everyone else.
For some years GALS played a very important part in my life; it was also the place where I met my partner in 2000. We met at North Perth Lesser Hall at rehearsal. She was a tenor, very unusual for a female at GALS at that time. GALS provided a safe, creative and welcoming place for me and some wonderful memories.
These days being gay is in the media all the time. Every sitcom has a gay or lesbian character. I’m hoping it’s a lot easier for young people.