I’m a bloke, and straight, as far as I know. At times, when I’m socialising with a crowd that might include a few gay friends, I’ve been drunk enough on good times, good company and wine to wonder out loud what my gay quotient is (because I believe we all are subject to some degree of homosexual inclination). This gets a good discussion going, in which reminiscences, denials from some of the straights, and theories are thrown into the pot. When I really think about it though, I believe that if I were to be measured on that one aspect of myself and found more interesting the queerer the score I got, I would be rated as a fairly mundane person—quite straight—for while a guy can look good to me (in one of, or some of, the many ways that people can) it’s only girls that get me aroused. Not obviously though, because, even as a straight guy, I’m sexually fairly uninteresting, while mighty attractive!? I’m loyal, you see.

I have queer friends. Some of them, very close. My sister-in law, Alyn, is one of them. Seventeen years younger than me, she was one and a half years old when her sister, Ilona, and I started our relationship way back in ’68. Of a Saturday night, Ilona would baby-sit and I’d spend evenings there. I’d stand Alyn on the kitchen bench and she’d jump off into my arms. She had absolute, baby’s trust in me. One evening I was talking to Ilona in the kitchen as we made coffee. I saw Ilona’s eyes widen as she looked over my shoulder and turned to see Alyn launching herself off the bench! She had climbed a chair-stair to the bench and we hadn’t noticed. I dived, took a lovely low slips catch and spent the next five minutes explaining to Alyn that she needed to be sure I could see her to be able to catch her. I explained, one point at a time, that Ilona had seen her and that had caused me to, that she was very lucky I had caught her and I loved her and didn’t want her to get hurt. She was a lovely, bright baby and listened to every word I said. I could see the way her eyes moved when I explained positions, places and realizations to her that she understood. Finally, though, I made sure we had a good thing going by saying, ‘Before you get on the bench, you tell me.’ She, like any playful child, made a real game of that one; so much so that we’d hide the chair after a half-hour of it.

Alyn tried heterosexuality way back in the ‘80s. Maybe she was as heterosexual as anyone else (taking the riders at the start of this article into account). I remember her going out with boys: pleasant, seemingly low-key affairs with fresh-faced, nice boys who came back again and were still her friends ten years later, long after it was known she was gay, but who gradually disappeared into their separate, married and mortgaged lives.

In ’85 or ’86, at eighteen or nineteen years of age, when she was attending Adelaide Uni, doing chemistry, she met a medical student (a distant guy that I barely got to know) and went out with him for around six months. Her mum told me that Alyn came home very distressed one evening and never went out with him again. It’s not right, though, to assume either that she was gay and suddenly realised it or that he abused her. I don’t know, and I won’t speculate. Alyn’s dad was disappointed, missing out on a doctor as a son-in-law, but he got over it.

After the med student, Alyn took up with a girl, another chem student. She’d had close girlfriends before but this was different, playing in cricket and football teams; seldom out of each other’s sight. After a year or so of this, Alyn told me, ‘Prue and I love each other,’ to which I said, ‘I know,’ and she laughed and said: ‘I know you know. I just had to tell you,’ and we had a teary-eyed, happy hug.

Alyn and Prue had a wide circle of friends. They had nothing against straight people. They bought a unit, then a house, together. Alyn had two in vitro fertilisations from a nice, gay guy, to produce two beautiful children. Previous to Alyn’s two children, from the same father, Prue had one child—a young man now. He is close to our family, despite the fact that Prue and Alyn separated in 2002. They share the children as any separated, civilised couple might—without the need for lawyers.

Every few weeks we get together at one home or another, most often my mother-in-law’s. Alyn, her brother, his wife and their grown children and partners; Alyn and Prue’s kids and their dad and his Officially-Married-To-Him-In-Canada-Partner; Cilona and me with our kids and their partners. Prue doesn’t come but she’d be welcome if she did. Sometimes others are added to the mix, including my song-writing cohort of fifteen years who went all the way through the M>F thing in the late ’90 and who goes to the pub with me and drinks double-Jacks with beer chasers when we hit a song on the head (hasn’t forgotten what it’s like to be a bloke) and other close friends who are usually probably straight and are certainly open-minded. Coming out would be easy in such company. I would encourage anyone who’s in need of sharing their ‘difference’ to find such healthy company to do it in.

In ’94 or ’95 my songwriting friend said to me, suddenly, as we sat under huge trees to the side of my old house: ‘You know I’m transsexual,’ and I laughed for perhaps one-eighth of a second before I realised he—now she—was serious.

‘That’s okay,’ I said sincerely, while not imagining how hard the journey was to be—for her, her wife and young family and all the old friends, some of whom would throw in the towel, while others have stayed the course. I grieve for my old mate, while realising the part of him that she wanted to remain with her is still there.
I believe that many of those who are intolerant of homosexuality are not so much homophobic as phobic. They don’t want their uncertain and often precarious course through life disrupted. They are having such a difficult time coping with ‘normalcy’ that anything ‘different’ has to be avoided, denied or rejected as a matter of priority.

When you tell someone you’re different, seek the truly strong: the thoughtful—those who care for others. I believe it’s a good idea to find out how cynical a person is about what’s ‘right’ and acceptable’ before going further. A nice, healthy cynicism—a questioning; a pertinent challenge to established, narrow views, not wholehearted angry paranoia. The neurotic who defends you can damage you just as much as the neurotic who opposes you.

Seek those who are gentle and strong. Don’t be fooled by appearances. Be patient, and believe in yourself. Take your time getting to know people—and good luck.

And to those straights who lose sleep over the acceptance of homosexuality as an entitlement. Relax. . . . queers are unlikely to demand your compliance.