Homosexuality has come a long way, with a long way to go in Stuff

I watched (naturally) the special Q&A episode on ABC last Thursday night which aired after the special documentary about the history of gays and lesbians in Australia. If you’re in Australia, the documentary can be accessed here and the Q&A episode here
I was a bit concerned about Frank Nile being on the panel, but he obviously had to be to give an even playing field on the panel. Fred Nile is the leader of the Christian Democratic Party here,

He started off remaining as polite as he could, but it didn’t take long for the stupid comments to fly. I mean, really, I can’t expect anything less from him, really. I was actually impressed he didn’t insult the LGBTI community from the get-go.

The episode aired straight after the documentary, which was cool because I assume it meant that everyone on that panel had watched it before the Q&A episode began. Tom Ballard did a good job as the special-episode host also, keeping everyone in line and when Fred said something stupid.
The transgender woman on the panel was damn inspiring. An audience member asked, “Why would you mutilate your genitals? The natural genitals you were born with?”
Without hesitation, she answered firmly, “I’d rather have mutilated genitals than a bullet through my head.”

It was a damn passionate moment. I’ll admit even I didn’t understand transgender people growing up. I was completely ignorant and I remember I used to chat to a transgender MTF back in the MSN days, and I was polite, but not polite enough. I believe I just stopped chatting to her. This was the mid-90’s and I just didn’t get it. I wasn’t even sure who I was around this time in my life. Looking back now I only wish I could go back and apologize to whomever that beautiful person was. She knew who she was, and I was the one who didn’t.
Watching the two shows just made me reflect. On everything us gays and lesbians must have been through in the 80’s when I was too young and the 90’s when I was discovering I was different, like them. Everything from the police arrests at the first Sydney Mardi Gras to the celebration it is today, to the gay hate murders of the 1980’s where people used to throw gay men from the cliffs into the ocean below, to the making of ‘Priscilla’ and how liberating it was.

During the Q&A episode, the host mentioned that the 1976 special that was filmed in MT Isa was going to be re-shown after the show, entitled “Homosexuality: Gay Rights And Wrongs”.

This intrigued me, so of course I looked it up Iview. I soon learned that it had also been on

It blew my MIND that this was filmed in MT Isa, of all places. Not that I’ve been to Mt. Isa, even though it’s where my little brother lives. But I did grow up outside a country town and I can’t imagine that rural area would have treated gays much differently to the rural area I grew up in.

The subject of the 1976 special was a guy named Lex Watson, and he had to answer some of the stupidest questions, which I guess I expected. This was filmed 7 years before I was even born, and here was this guy answering each question fired at him sensibly and informatively to the ignorance around him.
It was heartening to see a rare few people back then had their wits about them and didn’t give a shit how other people lived their lives.

One woman in this asks, “Why are there more gays today than there were 20 years ago?”
Lex answers along the lines of, “There isn’t. We’re just not staying in the dark anymore.”
Man, so so brave to do that in 1976, in MT ISA! Just blew my mind. But I was proud. I just hoped he was okay after the show went off the air. Who knows?
And I wonder how popular that show was when it aired 40 years ago.

I’ve been meaning to write this entry for a while so I can look back on it. The Iview episodes will stop working after a few weeks, which is a shame, but ah well.

Last updated June 24, 2015