Growing Up Queer in Australia

by Benjamin Law

  You don’t want to be the thing people tease you about.

  Exactly. One of the other things I was scared of was that friends of mine would say, ‘I told you so.’ The shame that other people knew this thing about me before I knew it. I hated that.

  Is that what ended up happening? That friends told you ‘I told you so’?

  No. They were just supportive. And uninterested. [Laughs]

  A lot of people know you mostly for the work you do advocating for LGBTIQA+ rights. When did you get into activism?

  Well, the roots of my activism largely come from the fact I’ve always really cared about children and young people. When I left school, I did a lot of volunteer work with kids and young people who came from disadvantaged – or ‘under pressure’ – backgrounds; kids who had behavioural issues or hard family lives. I got a job at GetUp while doing my masters, because they were focusing on mental health campaigning and refugee rights. Then the national director of GetUp was like, ‘Great, you’re gay. You can also take care of our marriage equality campaign.’ And I was like, ‘Absolutely not.’ [Laughs]

  Why did you have that reaction?

  Because I thought marriage equality was a sham. [Laughs] I obviously don’t believe that anymore, but I thought it was not a priority for the community. I thought, ‘I never want to get married.’ And I thought marriage was . . .

  A distraction from other important LGBTIQA+ issues?

  Exactly. And I kind of thought the institution itself was gross and weird. And I took umbrage with the fact I was given the campaign: ‘Well, it’s just ’cause I’m gay!’ Whereas now I look back on it, and I’m like, ‘That’s good. We should have people from affected communities involved and leading.’

  What swung you around to the fight?

  At the end of 2013, the ACT accidentally legalised same-sex marriage for six days; it was a bureaucratic fuck-up. I went to Canberra in my capacity as a same-sex marriage campaigner, and attended a bunch of weddings as a guest, making videos and lobbying – stuff like that. And I went to the wedding of Ivan and Chris Hinton-Teoh. It was the first time I’d been to a wedding where I didn’t think it was gross and weird. I felt like I belonged there. When I looked around, there were my people.

  Suddenly it was a queer space.

  Yeah. Watching Chris and Ivan get married, seeing this demonstrated to me, I realised marriage belongs to us as well. It’s not a heterosexual thing that’s being extended to us. We’re just as entitled to it. From that moment on, I became completely obsessed with it. I remembered being nineteen, discovering I was gay and feeling like I had cancer. And I didn’t want other young people – when they’re discovering who they are – to feel like that. That was the other part of my obsession with marriage equality. My belief was – and remains – that if kids grow up knowing it’s okay to be gay, they’re going to have the same opportunities and the same acceptance.

  In what ways do you feel you’re still growing up as a queer person in Australia?

  I grew up a lot over the five years I worked on the marriage equality campaign. For better and for worse, I developed a hardened shell to withstand that much criticism – from opponents and community alike – to withstand the torrents of anonymous abuse and attacks in the right-wing media, and to withstand the constant setbacks on the campaign.

  It’s a trade-off, isn’t it? On the one hand, emotional vulnerability is a really important asset to have, but it can be a liability.

  Totally. And the nature of the marriage equality campaign – but also the nature of all LGBTIQA+ reform – is built on the back of people telling their personal stories. As queer people, we open up the most intimate parts of ourselves and our lives and our families, in order to appeal to the majority.

  For them to recognise our basic human dignity.

  In the desperate hope they’ll see their humanity reflected in ours.

  And that’s taxing.

  Yeah. So I think in the wake of opening up myself repeatedly, again and again, once my book is out I’ll close myself up for a little bit.

  You mentioned attacks from enemies: that’s expected. But attacks from within the community might be less expected for some people.

  Attacks is probably too strong a word. But when I first started receiving hard criticism from the LGBTIQA+ community, it hurt so much more.

  You can never please everyone, even if ostensibly you’re on the same side.

  Absolutely. But at the end of the postal survey, I understand that being an almost self-appointed spokesperson for our community’s issues and having a public profile means I might get reported in the media as a spokesperson for a community. So it’s not only fair but right that I’m criticised and held accountable.

  That’s a healthy way of looking at it. For a lot of people, it’s really challenging to get any criticism. Our immediate reaction is defensiveness.

  Especially when it’s criticism about work that’s taken so long, and required your blood, sweat and tears. It’s hard. But if I’m not getting criticism, I’m not progressing the conversation around our rights and the legislative reform we need.

  Say you could go back in time and go back to little Sally Rugg and give her advice about her burgeoning queerness, what would you tell her?

  I’d tell her to stop having sex with men to try to figure out who she is. I’m surprised I didn’t get pregnant! And I’d tell her to try to find her community. Had I found a queer community sooner, I would’ve known I had the belonging and unconditional love of the community as chosen family.

  LGBTI-Q&A:

  Kate McCartney

  Writer/director and actor

  Benjamin Law: Where did you grow up, Kate?

  Kate McCartney: I was born in Perth, but I left Perth when I was three, moved to Sydney until I was nine or ten, then moved to Melbourne after that. Now I’m thirty-eight, so I’ve been here for a long time.

  Tell me about the first crushes you remember having.

  I had a cartoon crush on Aladdin. But when I was a bit older, I certainly had a crush on Atreyu from The Neverending Story.

  So there’s a theme going on of smooth-chested boys with open vests.

  With no body hair! I still feel that way, to be honest. There was also the princess in The Neverending Story.

  The Childlike Empress.

  Yeah, I think for a long time when it came to women, there was always that sort of confusion there, about whether I wanted to be them or lusted after them. Ultimately it was possibly a hybrid of the two. I feel that way about Sarah Paulson now.

  Did you have an understanding of your capacity to have crushes on the Childlike Empress and Atreyu?

  I don’t think I had any language around my queerness or bisexuality, which is how I identify. I understood it in relation to other people, but I didn’t really understand it in relation to myself, until my early twenties, I think. I was quite comfortable when I realised I was queer and going, ‘Oh, I think I’m bisexual; I don’t think it means I’m a lesbian.’ But then there was tension around that for other people within the LGBTIQA+ community, as well as straight people. People are a little bit more comfortable with binaries.

  I feel bisexual people occupy such a unique space within the queer community because—

  Well, we’re vampires.

  [Laughs] —you’re the ones that are looked at with suspicion by both straight people and queer people simultaneously. How have you felt that personally?

  Less so from non-binary people, or anyone who operates on a spectrum of non-binary identity. I’ve never felt like that from them.

  They understand that there aren’t any binaries for gender, so they understand there aren’t any binaries for sexuality either.

  Yeah, there’s just a little bit more lived experience that’s similar there.

  For straight people, with bisexuality they’re often like, ‘Oh, they’re confused.’ For queer people, it’s often, ‘Oh, they’re gay and in denial.’

  Or they’re ‘e
xperimenting’. I spent the majority of my twenties in relationships with women. But the next person I happened to go out with after a long-term girlfriend was a man.

  How was that news greeted by people?

  For my straight friends and my family – not all my family, though – it’s like my queerness never happened. It’s very easy to get wrapped up in the heteronormative world. It was a bit of a struggle. In terms of the queer community, it’s hard to say if I lost friends. A lot of change happened during that time and it was just a time of fluctuation, but I’d also have people tell me that my membership to the queer community had been revoked.

  Oh god, as a joke or seriously?

  Sort of as a joke but also, like . . . not. There was a bit of acid to it. There’s a sting there.

  You’ve mentioned your bisexuality in The Katering Show and Get Krack!n. What were the viewer responses to that?

  People at an executive level asked if I was comfortable talking about it. Like: ‘Just to let you know, you’ve accidentally just said that you were bisexual, just flagging it.’

  A bit of pastoral care! What were they afraid was going to happen, exactly?

  I don’t know, but obviously that spoke more to their discomfort than it did mine. ‘Like, yeah, I’m aware.’ I also have a very fierce and protective watchdog in Kate McLennan, so I basically wouldn’t respond, and McLennan would go for them. From the community itself, and from other – particularly, young – bisexual kids, it has been really beautiful. Just saying, you know, ‘Thanks for saying out loud that you’re bisexual.’

  Did you have anything or anyone like that growing up? Bisexual characters, bisexual representations or discussions of it, as a kid and as a teenager?

  No, just vampires in films. [Laughs] Maybe in my twenties, but certainly not in my teens. As a teenager, absolutely not.

  Right, so prior to your twenties it was exclusively Anne Rice.

  Exactly. [Laughs] And I was a Goth, so you know all the signs were there. In my twenties, there was Buffy.

  Willow and Tara.

  I don’t know if I was reading that necessarily as being bisexual or being gay. I think I was just sort of like, ‘Ah! Lady love.’ The L Word happened at about that time, but that’s not a great representation of bisexuality, because Alice – the bisexual lady in that – got one boyfriend who left the picture pretty quickly. After that, there was zero mention of her identity.

  Bi-erasure!

  That was her bi-erasure, yeah.

  Did you ever have a moment where you had to come out as bisexual and reveal yourself for the first time?

  It was actually pretty easy for me. My mum basically called it. She just was like ‘That’s your girlfriend.’ And I went, ‘True, that is my girlfriend.’

  Wow. How old were you?

  I think I was twenty-three.

  And beyond that, what was her reaction once you’d confirmed it?

  I mean, she said some slightly silly things. But the big, guiding, base-level kind of message was love. My dad came to that realisation as well, eventually.

  So you’ve had a pretty good run with your family. Do you still find yourself repeatedly coming out, though?

  Yeah, I came out the other day, on radio. But usually if I’m in a situation with someone who is from the queer community, who is also in the media, they’re aware.

  We’ve all passed that information around to each other.

  It’s gone through the newsletter . . . which you edit, right?

  And distribute. Final question. Go back in time and talk to the teenage bisexual Kate McCartney. What advice are you gonna give her?

  Just, you know, have another Sub Zero and be more honest with yourself.

  It’s only a very specific generation that gets that reference. I feel honoured to be part of it.

  Also: you probably don’t just want to look like that person; you probably want to make out with them. AND YOU SHOULD! Go right ahead!

  This is something I still struggle with as a 36-year-old! Do I just wanna look like them or fuck them?

  Honestly, I will say this: across the board, I’ve never felt like I fit in to one place, ever. That includes my bisexual identity. Socially, community-wise, work-wise, identity-wise. Now I’m realising that the grey space I operate in is my greatest strength. I’m not a director, I’m not a writer, I’m not an actor. I think that my ability to exist in my own space is actually probably my biggest strength.

  You’re all of those things! You’re not just bisexual in your life but also bisexual . . .

  [Laughs] In my work!

  LGBTI-Q&A:

  Christos Tsiolkas

  Award-winning novelist

  Benjamin Law: Where and when did you grow up?

  Christos Tsiolkas: I was born in 1965 and grew up in Richmond in Melbourne. At that time it felt completely migrant, largely Greek, Italian, Slav and Turkish. Now it’s probably one of the biggest Vietnamese communities in Melbourne. I didn’t speak English until I started primary school and was shocked to find that English was the language of this country. In Year 8 we moved out and that was a strange period too, because at that point I was also aware I was gay. I had a sense of that from really young.

  What attitudes about gay people did you grow up with?

  In Greek culture, there’s two derogatory terms they use all the time. One is malaka, which means ‘wanker’. One is poufti, which means ‘poofter’. But it’s almost like I didn’t, as a child, make the connection between those words and sexuality.

  So, it was more about being effeminate and therefore not desirable?

  Yeah, it wasn’t as much about knowing you were gay or queer; it was about whether you were conforming to really strict ideas of gender. You can be quiet and silent about it as long as you don’t make it common knowledge.

  Did people pick up on this about you?

  It was much more an internal struggle for me. I was much more conscious of being the wog at high school than I was of being the poofter.

  Do you remember having a crush on anyone in particular?

  There was a boy who was in my class – I must have been in Grade 5 – and I had a mad crush on him. We were really physical together. One of my teachers – god, I hated her – in the middle of class said, ‘Take your hands off each other, that’s really disgusting.’ That really changed our friendship.

  Also, I started masturbating really young, towards the end of primary school. With those first tremors of sexual awaking, fantasy life suddenly became more and more prominent, and I realised that my sexuality was not normal. I didn’t have the words for it, but I knew it wasn’t something I could talk about. Two things were pivotal for me and, in a way, saved me. One was literature. I started reading really young. My parents – who, as migrants, hadn’t had the opportunity for education because of the rural-class world they came from in Greece – were so proud of the fact that I was a reader. I was reading books that these days I would probably be told I shouldn’t be reading. There was a Harold Robbins that got me called Dreams Die First. I devoured it.

  Tell me about that book. I’m not familiar with it.

  The reason it was really important was the main character was bisexual. It was the first intimation that maybe I could be both a good Greek boy and also have another type of life. And there was this Australian TV series. Do you know Number 96?

  It wasn’t of my generation, but the show was really saucy and explicit, right?

  It was. Again, I am so fucking grateful I didn’t have censoring parents. My mum and dad loved Number 96. They didn’t have a fear of sex, and because their English wasn’t very good, they would watch it with my brother and me so we could interpret for them. There was a gay character in Number 96, and there was no demonising of him at all. That was crucial and something we should be proud of: out of this culture came one of the first positive representations of a gay man on Western screens. And so I loved the show. I’d also go to the library and read up on what were considered the world’s
great films. There was an Italian film called The Conformist by Bernardo Bertolucci and there’s a scene of gay sex in that movie that formed – still forms – part of my sexual fantasising.

  Isn’t it so interesting how that stuff imprints?

  Exactly. I’m really thankful that I had that, and I think that’s why I’m a writer. I think I perceived that if I was going to make my way through the world, that it was those kinds of films, those kinds of books, that were going to provide me with a map.

  Did you start writing because there was a subconscious drive to provide others with a map?

  It was more a way of making sense to myself. I grew up in a world where – according to my parents and their peers – there were only four jobs available to you. One was to be a doctor; one was to be a lawyer; one was to be an accountant; one was to be a factory worker. Those were the choices. But in that constellation of opportunity, I realised that there was another thing you could be, and that was an artist.

  Did you have a coming out as a gay person?

  I was one of the very few wogs at that school; it was such an Anglo environment back then. I became, for two years, quite religious. We’re talking the late ’70s, early ’80s. I think for me it was a desperate attempt to deny my sexuality. My background was Greek Orthodox, but I became involved in a really evangelical Protestant sect. I would pray to God all the time to not be homosexual, then at night I would wank and think of all the boys and men I wanted to fuck. After I would cum, I’d start scratching myself, like I was possessed by a devil. When I look back at that young kid, I just want to go to him and say, ‘You’ll be alright. You don’t have to do this. There’s another way. Even if you’re interested in God, that’s not the God you need to worship.’ Then I was about fifteen and in a Bible-reading group, and I remember – clear as day – just going, ‘I don’t believe in this anymore.’ I just shut the Bible and walked out of that church room. It was like a little assembly room. And I remember thinking, ‘Okay, if there’s no God, then everything I’ve been told is up for grabs. I can start thinking for myself.’ And at the end of that year, I started having sex for the first time.