A country story

I grew up in a small country town of about a thousand people. I am one of six children in a family with a strong Catholic history.

I had a very balanced childhood being encouraged to both play with dolls, dress up etc and to do "male" things such as fishing, mowing the lawn and so on. My parents were always very clear that they would support their children no matter what. I cannot remember the context of the question in which "but what if one us is gay" was asked. I do remember this happening a few times and their response was always that we are still their children. This was usually followed by what you do in your own home is your business but we have things that are not acceptable in ours. (What was acceptable at home came to change over the years, as I will say later).

In my teenage years I never had any boyfriends or girlfriends. I think it makes a difference when your peers are ones you have known since your first days at school. There were thirty children in my year most of the way through school. This was the biggest class they had ever had.

I think knowing your peers' brothers and sisters and parents takes some of the mystery away from these potential partners. So I think the familiarity and limited choice reduced the options for partners, plus in a small country town there was no way you could have admitted you were gay. I did not know of any other people in the town then who were gay.

I now know that there were at least two others, my brother and a girl a year younger than me. I have talked to my brother a little about how he experienced those years and for him they were very traumatic. He had thoughts of suicide and said that he used to write very dark poetry. One of the things that helped him was the advice from a previous teacher who told him that to be who he wanted to be he needed to leave the town and find his place in Adelaide. He said although she did not talk to him about being gay he felt she knew and this was the first acknowledgment that it was something that could be "lived with".

At the time I was not worried about being single. I just thought that one day I would find someone either female or male to share my life with, and I wasn't going to worry about it until then.

Only once did the thought of being same sex attracted come into my consciousness prior to my coming out. I was in the bridal party for my sister's wedding, as was one of my elder brothers. When he and I were sitting at the bridal table he told me he was gay. Although I was saying out loud to him that this was great, inside my head I heard "Oh no, how am I ever going to be able to tell them (my parents) now. Having one gay child they could cope with but not two".

Because our house was full of wedding guests that night I was sleeping on the floor in my parent's bedroom. My brother must have told my parents because that night I listened to my mother crying in bed and my father comforting her.
To give them their due my parents have never been anything less than supportive to my brother and I. I have so much respect for them. Initially when my sister was living in a de-facto relationship with her boyfriend and they used to go home she would have to sleep apart from him. My parents then moved to accepting that my brother and his partner could sleep together in their house and now my mum is offended if my partner does not come with me for the weekend and she worries she has done something to upset her.

So about ten years after the wedding and my brother's coming out I went home to tell mum and dad that I had fallen in love with another woman. They were pleased but a little apprehensive. When my brother first came out he went off to Sydney and lived off Oxford Street. He was deeply into the gay culture and acquired HIV. However, they have since met my partner and think she is a nice well educated woman and have realised that I am more the stay at home type.

Two things continue to surprise me after all this time- one is that the extended family members from both sides, with a strong Catholic background, have all also been nothing but supportive. The other is that my parents still live in the small country town and they have also been well supported by their friends and networks. My mother is a member of the CWA; these are women a generation older than she is. She has had a lot of support from them when she has needed it. It seems as though her children being homosexual and one being HIV positive are not moral issues for the CWA ladies but are just parenting issues (if this makes sense). Most of them I guess, by their ages have experienced a lot of life events with their children and they want to help a younger woman to cope.

These are the good aspects of country towns; there is the bad as well. My mother found out my brother's HIV status through a gossip in the town. How this all came about is another long story and one for another time.

If I had known other same-sex attracted people when I was young, I don't know whether it would have made a difference for me, but it would have for my brother I am sure. Perhaps in a city or larger town things would have been different for us both. Now in 2001, I am very much in love with my partner and we have a very nice life, with plenty of supportive family and friends.

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