HOMOPHOBIA AND GAY HATE CRIMES

Kendall Lovett was born on 6 October 1922 in Hobart, Tasmania and when he was about 7 years old and the world was in the middle of a terrible depression and his father, an electrician, was out of a job, and moved his family to Sydney, where Ken grew up.

He went to school in North Bondi and was bullied at school - and outside school. When he was about 12, he started high school at Sydney boys' high school, but didn't get very far before he ws struck by rheumatic fever and was in hospital for a few months, then had a relapse and didn't go back to school - in a formal sense.

In the early years of his adolescence, he discovered early on that he was attracted to males, not females, and subsequently lived his life as a gay man.

Homosexuality was illegal at that stage and remaimed so until gay people started fighting for their rights and gay liberation was formed and the fight was on.

In the USA, apart from small movements amongst gays and lesbians, liberation was not forthcoming until an explosion occurred when the police in New York raided a bar in New York called the Stonewall in 1969 and the fight was on for gay liberation.

As movements around the world grew, and gay voices were being heard everywhere, gay hatred grew as well, aided and abetted by religions which became louder and louder over time and gay people were assaulted - and worse - everywhere, leading to murders in increasing numbers, often aided by those in the community who were hired by government organisations to "keep the peace" - mainly the police.

Ken was a very quietly spoken and mild-mannered person but he discovered early on in his adult years that gays were not tolerated in society and, like many around him in the society in which he lived - he kept his sexual orientation well and truly in the closet.

On the other hand, he discovered the "closet" world and lived his life accordingly. He found gay men in Sydney, and in his late 20s, he and another young man who he was meeting in Sydney and one night the two of them were sitting and talking at the top of the Botanic Gardens in Sydney when some policemen started asking them questions and they had a narrow escape from being arrested.

I learnt bits and pieces of his early life beacuse I only met him when we were both in our 60s but over the years I amanged to fill in bits and pieces of his life as he became involved in many ways with gay politics. and homophobia which was,and still is, so prevalent in our societies.

Ken ran aways with the young man he had been with in Macquarie Street at the beginning of the 1950s and came to Melbourne, where he lived for almost the next 10 years. The young man came home to their residence one night and found Ken in bed with soemone, and that was the end of that relationship, but it didn't take long for Ken to get involved with another man, and when the other man got transferred to London at the beginning of the 1960s, Ken went to London to be with him and they lived together until the other man, also Ken, was transferred back to Australia, to Canberra because that Ken - Skinner - worked for the Australian government and had to go where he was posted. Ken Lovett did not want to go and live in Canberra, so in 1964 when Ken Skinner left Lodnon, Ken Lovett remained until the late 1960s, when his father asked him to return to Sydney and in 1968 he left London for Sydney.

When he returned to Sydney, he stayed with his parents in Willoughby till 1970 when he managed to rent a house in Woolloomooloo and lived there until 1994 when he retired from Choice - Australian Conaumer Association - at th age of 70 and bought a small house in Maryville, Newcastle and stayed there until we bought a house in Preston, Melbourne in 2000 and where we were when Ken died of Metastatic Prostate Cancer in October 2020, leaving me alone and bereft.

From 1970 until his death in 2020 Ken was an activist to the end, covering as many issues as possible considering his work and family and other activities, encompassing human rights and their abuses.

Living in Woolloomooloo in the heart of the gay world, homophobia and assault did not escape him, and a few times he was lucky to escape injury, after suffering a few burglaries and chases down Crown Street where he lived to escape from the bullies chasing him.

I met Ken in 1988, the year I started coming out as a gay man and I was already getting involved in socialist activist groups by 1988 and after attending a demonstration and ending up in the Domain in Sydney, some young people holding a banner which they were folding, they handed me a leaflet about a demo being held outside the building where the UK consulate was housed. Margaret Thatcher was introducing a homophobic bill called clause 28 to the British parliament making vrious homosexual activities in schools illegal and there were several other anti-gsy items in the bill which contained many human rights aouses.

'LOVE WILL ALWAYS WIN': GAY A-LEAGUE STAR HITS OUT AT HOMOPHOBIC ABUSE

‘Love will always win’: Gay A-League star hits out at homophobic abuse

By Vince Rugari
9 January 2022

Adelaide United defender Josh Cavallo has called out homophobic abuse he says was targeted at him during Saturday night’s A-League draw with Melbourne Victory, saying he could not find the words to describe how disappointed he was.

Cavallo also criticised Instagram and Twitter for doing little to stop further “hateful and hurtful messages” he received after the match.

Josh Cavallo has hit out at homophobic abuse he says was targeted at him in person on Saturday night and on social media afterwards.

Josh Cavallo has hit out at homophobic abuse he says was targeted at him in person on Saturday night and on social media afterwards.Credit:Getty

The 22-year-old became the first active top-flight male professional footballer in the world to come out as gay in October.

Little more than two months later, he is suffering from the sort of homophobic slurs he said he knew would inevitably be used against him after his historic announcement, which triggered a global outpouring of support from some of football’s biggest clubs and personalities.

Cavallo played 36 minutes off the bench in Adelaide’s dramatic 1-1 draw against Victory at Melbourne’s AAMI Park, but came off during injury time with a suspected concussion after an accidental elbow to the head from Lleyton Brooks.

Club sources indicate Cavallo also complained of similar homophobic abuse during United’s FFA Cup quarter-final loss to Victory on Wednesday night, which was played at Coopers Stadium in Adelaide.

Both clubs have condemned Saturday night’s events, which are now the subject of an investigation by the Australian Professional Leagues, with any perpetrators to be banned from attending matches.

“I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t see or hear the homophobic abuse at the game last night. There are no words to tell you how disappointed I was,” Cavallo wrote on Instagram.

“As a society this it shows we still face these problems in 2022. This shouldn’t be acceptable and we need to do more to hold this people accountable. Hate never will win. I will never apologise for living my truth and most recently who I am outside of football.

“To all the young people who have received homophobic abuse, hold your heads up high and keep chasing your dreams. Know that there is no place in the game for this. Football is a game for everyone no matter of who you are, what colour your skin is or where you come from.

“To @instagram I don’t want any child or adult to have to receive the hateful and hurtful messages that I’ve received. I knew truely being who I am that I was going to come across this. It’s a sad reality that your platforms are not doing enough to stop these messages.”

Cavallo finished his post by thanking those who had sent him messages of love and support, saying they outweighed the negativity, and praised people who “reached out after making a stand at the game. I commend you. Thank you to those fans, you had me emotional. Love will always win.”

Melbourne Victory said in a statement that the club was working with Adelaide, the APL and AAMI Park to identify those responsible.

“The club is committed to celebrating diversity in football, and strongly condemns this behaviour which has no place at our club or in our game,” the statement read. “Melbourne Victory sees football as a platform to unite fans no matter what background.

Spectators found to have breached these standards will be banned from future matches.”

APL chief executive Danny Townsend said: “Our players, staff and fans have the right to feel safe on and off the pitch. There is no place for bullying, harassment or abuse in Australian football and we have zero tolerance for this harmful behaviour.

“We are working with both clubs to investigate the incident and will issue sanctions to any people found to be involved. We fully support Josh Cavallo and want to ensure he can focus on his football performance, rather than on vile abuse. We will continue to concentrate our efforts on creating safe and welcoming A-Leagues for all.”

Adelaide United CEO Nathan Kosmina said the club was “appalled” by the abuse Cavallo received.

“Adelaide United is proud to be an inclusive and diverse football club, and to see one of our players subjected to homophobic abuse is disappointing and upsetting,” he said. “Josh continues to show immense courage and we join him in calling out abuse, which has no place in society, and it will not be tolerated by our club.”

Beau Busch and Kate Gill, the joint chief executives of Professional Footballers Australia, said Cavallo’s abusers had “illustrated their cowardice.”

“There is no place in our game, our society, for those who seek to direct abhorrent abuse at others,” they said in a statement. “Josh will continue to have the full support of the PFA and his peers and we will work with the APL, and the authorities, to ensure that those who sought to subject Josh to vile abuse are dealt with and that as a game we live up to our zero tolerance commitment.”

PHYLLIS PAPPS AND FRANCESCA CURTIS CAME OUT ON NATIONAL TV IN 1970. THEIR ACTIONS CHANGED AUSTRALIA FOREVER

Phyllis Papps and Francesca Curtis came out on national TV in 1970. Their actions changed Australia forever ABC Radio National
By Nick Baker for Compass
15 Mar 2021
Phyllis Papps and Francesca Curtis pose for a photo against a white backdrop.

>Phyllis Papps and Francesca Curtis are sharing their love story with Australia again.(Supplied: Vicki Jones Photography)

When the cameras started rolling on Phyllis Papps and Francesca Curtis in October 1970, both their lives and Australia would never be the same.

Fifty-one years ago, the pair made history by being the first lesbian couple to come out on national television, in an interview with the ABC's This Day Tonight.

"The early 1970s were very, very conservative ... Gay women were invisible, because people didn't think lesbians existed," Ms Papps says.

Ms Papps and Ms Curtis, who are still together and live on Victoria's Phillip Island, have once again shared their story.

In the documentary, Why Did She Have To Tell The World?, which premiered on Compass on Sunday, the pioneering women look back at their journey.

'Nobody talked about it'

When Ms Papps and Ms Curtis were growing up, male homosexuality was illegal across Australia.

Legislation did not include lesbians, because, as Ms Papps reiterates, "they were invisible".

In this environment, both Ms Papps and Ms Curtis struggled immensely with their sexuality.

A black and white photo of Phyllis Papps and Francesca Curtis from the early 1970s.

Phyllis Papps and Francesca Curtis embrace in the early 1970s.(Supplied: The Australian Queer Archives)

"I didn't know anything about homosexuality or lesbianism. Nobody talked about it in those days," Ms Curtis tells the documentary. Ms Papps came from a very traditional Greek family and was briefly engaged to a man.

"I knew I was different, but I was forced to live a heterosexual life because my mother expected it of me and society did," she says.

A montage of images of the two lesbians who came out on national TV in 1970.

When Ms Papps confided to a colleague at work about her sexuality, the result did far more harm than good.

"[The colleague] gave me the names of three psychiatrists, and I went to one of them," she says.

"[I was given the drug] sodium pentothal, injected with it, and then had to talk."

Ms Papps and Ms Curtis met through activist circles and became prominent members of Australia's first homosexual political rights group, the Daughters of Bilitis, which later renamed itself the Australasian Lesbian Movement.

The pair exchanged wedding rings in July 1970 and in a matter of months, were known around the country.

Ms Papps and Ms Curtis agreed to take part in a story about lesbianism with the ABC's This Day Tonight to push for wider acceptance and visibility of the LGBTQIA+ community.

"No-one wanted to go on [the show], they were all in the closet, so Phyllis and I volunteered," Ms Curtis says.

Stand-in host Peter Couchman introduced the pair by saying, "most people find it hard to understand the kind of love that Phyllis and Francesca feel for each other".

"The law condones it, but many other women are revolted by the very thought of it and a lot of the churches regard it as perverted and unnatural," he told viewers.

Mr Couchman went on to ask Ms Curtis if she ever felt guilty about her sexuality.

She responded: "I think I had three months approximately of guilt. And then it went to a stage where I wanted to get up and I wanted to tell the world and I wanted the world to accept it."

Phyllis Papps and Francesca Curtis in a black and white photo taken during This Day Tonight in October 1970. The couple say the interview was a turning point — but came with a high personal cost.(ABC)

The impact of the national spotlight on Ms Papps and Ms Curtis was immediate.

"My mother took legal action against Francesca and myself to prevent us from making a claim on her inheritance," Ms Papps recalls.

"And my mother said, 'I'm happy to see you again, but I won't see both of you together' ... In our personal and professional lives, [This Day Tonight] was quite devastating."

But their TV appearance was heralded as ground-breaking and a key moment in Australia's long and unfinished road towards LGBTQIA+ equality.

"I believe This Day Tonight was absolutely major in creating a force," Ms Papps says.

Broader LGBTQIA+ progress happened slowly in the years following the interview.

South Australia became the first state to decriminalise male acts of homosexuality in 1975, but it was not until 1997 that Tasmania became the final Australian jurisdiction to do so.

And marriage equality would not pass federal parliament until 2017.

"It has been a life of struggle ... Not because we couldn't cope with being ourselves, [but because] we couldn't get people to accept us," Ms Papps says.

But throughout the difficulties, Ms Papps and Ms Curtis always had each other.

"You do have some highs and you do have some lows, and you stay together because you love each other, you care for each other ... you're great friends," Ms Papps says.

A changing Australia

The documentary's writer and director Abbie Pobjoy says they set out to "hold up a mirror to Phyllis and Francesca's national coming out 50 years ago".

"[I wanted] to showcase their hardships, triumphs and activism," they say.

"Now in the completion of the project, I realised that this story has also held up a mirror to myself, my fellow storytellers and the next generation of LGBTQIA+ young people and where we have to go next to secure our acceptance and livelihoods."

In recognition of their advocacy work, Ms Papps and Ms Curtis received a lifetime achievement award at the 2019 Australian LGBTI Awards, where they urged young people to continue the fight.

A group photo of the winners at the 2019 Australian LGBTI Awards, including Phyllis Papps and Francesca Curtis.

Phyllis and Francesca want the next generation to continue to build on their activism.(Supplied: Australian LGBTI Awards)

Looking back, Ms Papps says she has seen many examples of changing attitudes towards the LGBTQIA+ community, but one stands out.

It was during the marriage equality postal survey of 2017, when Australians were asked if they supported legalising same-sex marriage.

"My mum was in the nursing home, aged 98," she recalls.

"In a very gentle way I said, 'Mum, how did you vote?' And proudly she said, 'I voted yes' ... They were almost her last words.

"It took a whole lifetime to get to that."

Tutu’s passing is a reminder of the ANC’s unfinished business

Tutu’s reconciliation efforts were supposed to be followed by justice for apartheid victims. That is yet to happen.

Sisonke Msimang Sisonke Msimang is a South African writer and political commentator who focuses on race, gender and democracy. Published On 27 Dec 2021

South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu passed away at the age of 90 on December 26 [File: John Stillwell, Pool Photo via AP]M/p>

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who passed away on December 26, was a tireless campaigner for justice. Though he officially retired in the mid-1990s, he never stopped haranguing those in power and expecting them to do better. As he famously said, “I wish I could shut up, but I can’t, and I won’t.” Over the course of his life, many of his opponents wished the same. Thankfully for South Africans of all ages, the Arch, as he was affectionately known, never learned to keep quiet.

There was no voice quite like his, and his passing is a reminder that the task of bringing justice to the racially traumatised nation he tried to help heal remains unfinished business. Tutu dedicated his life to non-racialism – a peculiarly South African phrase describing a utopian vision that went beyond equality and spoke to a deeper desire to connect with authenticity across racial, ethnic, class and gender divides.

Remembering Desmond Tutu

Today nonracialism has fallen out of favour in the country. The kind of hope Tutu espoused is in short supply at the moment. In the last decade or so South Africans have lost their innocence and even the most ardent champions of racial and economic justice find it hard to call for much more than tolerance. For Tutu, of course, there was no room for such an anaemic response to social justice. His enthusiasm for ending oppression seeped out of him in tears and giggles and whoops; his love for people – “abantu” – was infectious.

Many people divide Tutu’s activism into two parts: his efforts to end apartheid (for which he won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 before the award lost some of its moral sheen); and his efforts to build a nation in which South Africans could embody the ideals of the Rainbow Nation he and his friend and comrade Nelson Mandela spoke of with such eloquence. He was widely admired for the former and was more controversial in respect of the latter although, of course, there was little difference between Tutu before and after South Africa’s freedom.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Tutu served as general secretary of the South African Council of Churches and thus occupied a crucial – and perhaps singular – space in the South African liberation movement. He was at the forefront of an era of marches and boycotts, but he was also called upon to minister to the grieving at scores of funerals in the bloodiest period of the South African conflict.

Those were grim times and Tutu was often at the centre of the fray. It was during this period that the now iconic image of Tutu emerged. He was often “a solitary figure in his purple cassock”, negotiating with police to let mourners express their pain.

It came as no surprise that Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In his acceptance speech he wondered if, “oppression dehumanises the oppressor as much as, if not more than, the oppressed”. He suggested that the oppressed and the oppressor “need each other to become truly free, to become human. We can be human only in fellowship, in community, in koinonia, in peace.”

A decade later his country was free, and Tutu was able to test his theory. In 1995, a year after the historic elections that ushered in the African National Congress (ANC) and put Mandela into the role of president, he was appointed as the chair of the country’s new Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a new entity designed as an experiment in collective healing.

Internationally, the TRC was widely acclaimed for prioritising reconciliation over revenge. At home, there were mixed feelings. On the one hand, the public hearings held by the commission modelled the kind of transparency that had never been seen before – apartheid thrived in the dark of course. On the other hand, Tutu’s insistence on forgiveness sometimes manifested as an institutional reluctance to pursue tougher forms of accountability than forgiveness.

As the TRC collected evidence of wrongdoings perpetrated under apartheid, Tutu wept and harangued and pleaded with witnesses, trying desperately to cajole them into admitting wrongdoing and asking for forgiveness. This was often charming and sometimes confounding.

In a now infamous series of exchanges, Tutu begged Winnie Madikizela-Mandela to apologise to Joyce Seipei, the mother of Stompie, a child she was alleged to have played a role in the killing of in the late 1980s. She apologised, though she was bitter about the exchange for years afterwards.

Today a generation of activists who know little else of Tutu and who hold up Madikizela-Mandela as their hero see Tutu as having been too hard on her. They are not wrong, of course. Still, Tutu was also scathing when it came to addressing former apartheid leaders, like FW De Klerk, who lied and withheld crucial information during their testimonies.

Tutu was neither made nor broken by the difficult exchanges that took place in the context of the TRC. He was a man with nothing to prove and he ran the commission with a deep sense of love and a commitment to truth-telling and forgiveness. This instinct sometimes overshadowed his country’s need for tangible justice, for perpetrators to serve time behind bars and for victims to be provided the details of where their loved ones had been killed.

In the end, however, the most important critiques of the TRC have little to do with Tutu. By focusing on the stories of the most obviously wounded – the relatives of the tortured and murdered – the commission missed an important opportunity to address the structural and systemic impact of apartheid. In other words, in spite of its harrowing stories and its scenes of spectacular grief, the TRC was never given a full mandate to address the group effects of apartheid – the loss of opportunity wrought on generations of Black people by naked racism.

To be sure it is almost impossible to tally such a loss. How do you add up the harms done and would an exact figure lessen the pain? The burden of answering this question falls on the new generation.

The TRC handed a list of apartheid operatives who were thought to have been involved in killing anti-apartheid activists to the National Prosecuting Authority. In the two decades since then, successive ANC governments have done nothing to bring those people to justice, nor have they ever agreed to address the question of redress and compensation for all the victims of apartheid.

The fault for this does not lie with Desmond Tutu. To the contrary, his death reminds us of the unfinished business of the transition from apartheid to democracy. This was not his business – it is ours.

The jaded among us would do well to heed the great man’s words. With his trademark bluntness, Tutu said, “If you want peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.” This insistence on reaching out and across all sorts of divides was the key to his effectiveness.

I am not sure I would be free to be me today had he not put on that purple robe day after day trying to make peace where only moments before there had been strife. For this I – and many South Africans, Black and white – owe him everything.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Sisonke Msimang is a South African writer and political commentator who focuses on race, gender and democracy. Sisonke Msimang writes about South Africa, race, gender and democracy. She is the author of two books: Always Another Country: a memoir of exile and home, and The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela.

Two world wars, but no land: Herbert’s skin was the wrong colour

By Tony Wright

11 November 2021

Herbert Lovett had to wait for the Australian Imperial Force to reduce the minimum height for volunteers before he could sign up for World War I.

The AIF, which initially ruled its soldiers had to be at least five feet, six inches tall (167.6 centimetres), soon enough found itself running out of volunteers willing to face the slaughter on the bloodied fields of France and Belgium. Herbert Lovett, who served in two world wars.

Herbert Lovett, who served in two world wars.

It decided in April 1917 that men who were at least five feet (152.4 centimetres) would be accepted.

DR RODNEY SYME HAS DIED AGED 86 AND THE WORLD IS POORER FOR THE LOSS OF THIS GREAT MAN

This article appeared in The Age after it had appeared in the SydneyMorning Herlad, which is a bit strange, seeing he was a Victorian and died in Victoria.

Vale Dr Rodney Syme

‘He was fearless’: Prominent euthanasia campaigner Rodney Syme dies

By Melissa Cunningham
22 October 2021

Prominent euthanasia advocate Rodney Syme has been remembered as compassionate and fearless man who spent decades fighting for the right for terminally ill people dying intolerable deaths to end their own lives.

Dr Syme, 86, died on Wednesday after recently suffering a stroke.

Doctor Rodney Syme. Credit:Simon Schluter

The Melbourne surgeon was a veteran of the voluntary assisted dying campaign in Australia and was internationally acclaimed for his work in the right-to-die movement.

His son Bruce Syme described his dad as a selfless humanitarian, whose strength of character and integrity and humility was impossible to measure.

Victorian Reason Party MP Fiona Patten paid tribute to the urologist on Friday and said Dr Syme was a trusted confidante and mentor, who was instrumental in the establishment of euthanasia laws in Victoria in 2017.

“There is no doubt that we would not have assisted dying laws in Australia today had it not been for Rodney Syme,” she said.

“His tenacity and compassion changed me as a person. I respond to legislation and I listen to people in a different way after spending time and learning from Rodney. He is an extraordinary person.”

She said the laws had meant hundreds of terminally ill Victorians have been able to end their pain and suffering at a time and place of their choosing.

Andrew Denton, who founded Go Gentle to advocate for voluntary assisted dying after his father’s slow and painful death, said he was filled with grief, at the loss of the “indefatigable and unbreakable” Dr Syme.

“The mighty oak has fallen,” he said. “There seems a vast, empty space in the forest where he once stood. That familiar, comforting shadow no longer cast.

“While his passing fills us with grief and we will miss him in our bones as mentor, friend, and guide, we carry with us in our veins Rodney’s life’s work.”

Dr Syme sat on Victoria’s Dying with Dignity Board, a group he established to lobby for euthanasia laws in Australia, until his death this week. As he pushed for law reform, Dr Syme risked criminal prosecution several ti

The board’s president Hugh Sarjeant said Dr Syme’s attack on what he deemed as “unjust laws” was a catalyst for change.

“He was fearless and his departure leaves a great legacy of success, to the benefit of so many Australians,” Mr Sarjeant said. “The loss of such a wise and kindly friend leaves us all the poorer.”

Vice president Jane Morris said Dr Syme’s empathy and desire to help those dying insufferable deaths knew no bounds. Dr Rodney Syme with cancer patient Bernard Erica in 2016.

Dr Rodney Syme with cancer patient Bernard Erica in 2016.Credit:Penny Stephens
“His generosity with his time, words and wise counsel was infinite,” she said. “He was there for anyone who reached out to him and made everyone he spoke to feel cared for and special.”

Dr Syme has previously said he had epiphany in 1974 after being unable to relieve the pain of a patient with cancer of the spine and was left haunted by her screams from the hospital floor above him.

“That had the most profound effect on me,” he said. “There was nothing we could do to relieve her agony. For the next 20 years, I thought very, very deeply. I studied the medical literature... formulating my views. I began to make public statements. As a consequence, complete strangers started to approach me.”

In 2005, he admitted on radio that he provided the cancer stricken Victorian man, Steve Guest, with Nembutal two weeks before he died, provoking an investigation into his medical conduct, and triggering a national debate on voluntary assisted dying.

“I’m not doing it quietly anymore,” he said at the time. “I’ve sailed close to the wind, no doubt about it, but the law is hypocritical and I’m not the only doctor who is operating in this murky terrain. It’s just that I’m prepared to say so publicly.”>

In 2016, the Australian Medical Board banned him from providing advice to terminally ill patients after he told ABC television program Australian Story that he’d offered to provide cancer patient Bernard Erica, who was in severe pain and dying of tongue and throat cancer, with Nembutal.

He successfully appealed the ban imposed on him by the Medical Board of Australia, aimed at stopping him from providing advice to terminally ill patients.

Former Victorian attorney-general Jill Hennessy, who introduced the state’s voluntary assisted dying legislation, said Dr Syme had left an indelible mark.

“I am so thankful for all he taught us, his compassion, decency and all the reform he helped propel,” she said.

Oncologist Cam Mclaren, who has helped more than two dozen people end their lives under Victoria’s euthanasia laws, said he was unsure if he would have had the courage to do so had it not been for Dr Syme.

“He gave me a lot of strength, particularly in the early days, to continue doing what I was doing,” he said. “What he has done has its own life force. He’s had this exponentially significant impact on end-of-life choices.“

In 2019, he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to social welfare initiatives and to law reform. But in 2021, he announced he would return the honour after controversial former tennis great Margaret Court was promoted to the highest level of the Order of Australia.

Related Article Dr Rodney Syme and Bernard Erica who is dying of tongue and lung cancer.
Euthanasia advocate Rodney Syme challenges medical board over assisted death
In September, Dr Syme won the Health Professional Award for the healthcare worker who had created global change at the 18th World Federation of the Right to Die Societies in Chicago.

He continued to practise medicine well into his 80s and counselled thousands of terminally ill people throughout his medical career, while caring for his wife at home up until her death earlier this year.

In the later years of his life, he spoke to thousands of terminally ill people over the phone from his home in Yandoit in regional Victoria. He often spent hours counselling them and supporting them as they grappled with the fear of both physical and existential suffering. His book A Good Death recounts some of their stories.

Related Article Margaret Radmore is terminally ill. Exclusive Euthanasia 'I choose not to suffer': Margaret's choice to be one of the first Victorians to access assisted dying

Dr Syme is survived by his three children Bruce, Megan and Robin.

At Dr Syme’s request, there will be no funeral.

AIDY GRIFFIN 1954-2021

by Norrie May Welby
The Passing of Aidy Griffin
VALE Aidy Griffin

Aidy Griffin, strategic driver of law reform and social inclusion of sex and gender diverse people, passed away in a hospice on Thursday 7 October 2021, at the age of 67. Aidy worked with others and then local state MP Clover Moore in the mid nineties to draft the first transgender recognition and anti-discrimination bill in the western world. That bill lapsed when parliament rose for the next election, but the cause was taken up again to the government by Aidy and other activists, and it passed the Transgender (Anti-Discrimination and Other Acts Amendment) Act of 1996 (NSW). This is the Act that made possible the later ruling in the High Court recognising non-binary sex (NSW Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages v Norrie [2014].

I first met Aidy at an early meeting of the Transgender Liberation Coalition (aka Transgender Lobby Coalition) in the early 1990s, when they gave me advice about finding a doctor who supported non-binary choices with regard to hormone therapy. Aidy was studying at UTS, which was hosting Queer Collaborations, so they invited me along to co-present some workshops on sex and gender. Aidy gave an academic dissection, and I did a little song and dance, show and tell. Everything I know about Foucault and post-modern deconstruction I learned second hand from Aidy.Aidy was fiercely intelligent, and spoke in a very quiet Irish voice. They were very street smart and politically savvy, and taught me a lot.

At Aidy’s instigation, the two of us took a proposal to the Sydney Star Observer for a regular column on gender and transgender issues, and this became Gender Agenda. We were hosted by Philip Adams on the panel of his ABC Radio National Late Show Live, along with avant-garde drag artiste Cindy Pastel and American feminist academic Jane Gallop. When Philip asked about their gender journey, Aidy replied,“ I took a taxi here”.

We took every opportunity to get in front of cameras and microphones to challenge gender norms and inspire social inclusion, and you can see and hear Aidy starring in the docudrama Sexing the Label, sitting on Gilligan's Island (corner Oxford and Flinders Street) as the 1996 Mardi Gras parade speeds by in fast motion.A nightclub in Kings Cross that was part of Abe Saffron’s network was accused of discriminating against a transgender woman. In response, Aidy negotiated with the nightclub network for a free venue to use for a fundraiser to benefit the trans community. This led to the 'Trany Pride' Ball at the old Les Girls nightclub, which raised money for the first 'Trany Pride' float in the Mardi Gras Parade. This helped build enough community support for the successful law reform achieved in 1996.

There aren’t many people as caring and intelligent as Aidy, and their passing is a devastating loss. But too, Aidy was part of many invigorating heady and sometimes terrifying adventures, memories to cherish, or to just wonder at how we survived them.