We Came Running
33 queer years and still we protest to protect our most vulnerable
In 1992 I was 18, reckless, and excited to be ‘out and proud’. I was a young, white lesbian, raised in middle class suburban Australia on a rich diet of privilege and entitlement. And although I’d had a miserable senior year at high school where I was outed and subsequently left school, much to the relief of the administrators, I really had experienced few obstacles in my short life. I embraced my incarnation determined to claim all that I believed I was entitled to.
A scant few weeks into my journey I had a first date planned with a young woman, she was street smart and funny; her family had immigrated to Australia from Mauritius, they were religious, and had thrown their daughter out into the street when she told them she was gay. We were opposites in every way. I thought she was the coolest most lesbian girl I’d ever met. She was amazed that my parents hadn’t disowned me and that I’d never lived in a youth refuge.
For our first date, we planned to meet at a pub in Newtown, Sydney, called 1The Bank Hotel, every Wednesday night it hosted a lesbian pool comp. For many women it was the biggest night of the week, the pub stayed open until nearly 3 in the morning, heaving at the seams till last drinks were called. I remember it was raining, and a little bit chilly. I was incredibly nervous, I’d never been inside this bar before, in fact I’m pretty sure this was the first time I’d ever stepped into a pub on my own. The bar was sparsely populated, undoubtedly Melissa Etheridge was playing on the jukebox. I looked around for my date, I couldn’t see her. I screwed up my courage and asked a couple of older women lounging near the pool table if they’d seen her. They hadn’t. I waited a little while, then sure that I’d been stood up, went home.
This story takes place in the before-mobile-phones times, she didn’t have a landline because it had been cut off, so I had to wait till Saturday to find out why she hadn’t shown up. Or worse, that I had been too impatient and left only moments before she’d arrived at the pub. What I found out on Saturday broke something inside me forever. She and her roommate had been walking to the pub from their share house in Dulwich Hill and a police paddy wagon had pulled up beside them. Two officers had searched them, dragged them into the back of the wagon and raped them, then left the young women on the side of the road.
I’d had my fair share of school bullies, and had heard stories about the older boys driving into the city to ‘poofter bash’, I’d experienced creepy adult males trying to get sexual with me in incidents since I was twelve. I understood that, for want of a better way of putting it, the civilian male population was to be held at arms length until proven safe. But, in my naivety, I believed that the folks wearing blue were different, that they held themselves to a higher standard - the law. I had been taught as a child that the police would always help me if I was in need. They were the good guys.
Now dear reader, forgive your narrator’s simplistic standards - who at 18 isn’t predisposed to a black and white’ish view of the world? In the years to come I would learn to appreciate nuance, the spectrums and continuums that we all exist within. But in that moment one of my untouchable goods had done something irredeemably bad. My world view cracked and a huge chunk of my innocence calved like a glacier and floated away.
Only a handful of weeks later, having now become a regular at the Wednesday night pool comp a group of activists showed up bearing trays of shiny umpires whistles, the local queer press was promoting them loudly, bill posters and stickers appeared up and down the inner city streets. The Whistle Project, inspired by efforts overseas, came into being to encourage community solidarity, vigilance, and action to combat violence directed specifically at the queer community; hate crimes, poofter bashing, rape, murder, we were being held under by an endless wave of targeted violence. It was one of a number of initiatives in play at the time. The method was simple, equip as many folks as possible with the whistles, educate them and the community about their purpose, form relationships with local business to create identifiable safe spaces and in the case of Oxford St, organise identifiable groups to walk the street to provide positive representation, assistance, and to act as a peaceful deterrent to would be assailants.
I bought a whistle. I wore it everywhere. My mother used to ask me if I had it on. I never had to use the whistle, thanks to luck, not planning or good judgement, but sometimes I would wonder, if I blew this whistle, would anyone come to help?
I hadn’t thought about that whistle for months, but on the 8th February 2025 I was standing outside Queensland Parliament house, one of 5,000 who showed up to protest the QLD State Government’s Trump inspired decision to halt affirming care for trans youth. Here we were, more than thirty years after I bought that whistle; a minority, vulnerable yet fierce, staring down systemic abuse, fear and ignorance. Standing tall in the face of lies and misinformation, refusing to be weaponised by faceless white men in pulpits and parliaments. In a world besieged by the roaring voices of self-interest, goading, gloating and the ignorant chanting of the mob, a single whistle can still be heard.
And I have the answer to my question; we came running to help these young people.
https://sydney-city.blogspot.com/2023/03/newtown-bank-hotel.htm