Andrew Blythe: Coming of Age

With all the recent changes on the marriage front everyone seems to have their eyes aimed somewhere along an imminent horizon of hope, with blue sky dreaming guiding where our community is heading.

Sitting in the public gallery at Parliament House, I was aware that history was going to be made the night of the civil union debate, regardless of the outcome. However, that the decision came one night before the 21st anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Queensland was, for me, especially telling.

21 was traditionally a person’s ‘coming of age’, when society deemed that they were able to fully participate in the life of their community. Despite changes in recent years, 21 remains a magic number; in January 2012 Queensland Pride also celebrates this milestone.

It grew as a natural complement of the gay rights movements of the 1980s, and looking through those early issues, I’m amazed that the original organisers had the guts and tenacity to lay down such an uncompromising format, one that I can still use today.

What most impressed me about those early editions was their scope: pages and pages jam-packed with distinctive community notices, opinionated features, and a cornucopia of shows, events and nights out.

And all of this written from a “Statement of Principles”.

The statement headed up every early edition, and one in particular still catches my attention:

“QP takes positions on questions of concern to lesbians and gay men that include a commitment to the international gay/lesbian movement ending lesbian/gay oppression, ending womens oppression, womens rights to be independent of men, support for workers defence of their economic and political rights, and the free and unrestricted right to consensual sexual and affectionate expression.”

I still believe we have a way to go before we can definitively cross any of these ideals off our ‘completed’ list, but the fact that they remain issues does not mean that the last 21 years has been in vain.

Social change is always a long time coming; the ‘ideal’ way ahead of the messy detail of how it will work in practice. Just as those early writers recognised that decriminalisation would not automatically lead to a disappearance of homophobia, so the introduction of civil unions will take time to find resonance with wider sections of the community; some opposition will always remain.

21 years of Queensland Pride is a reminder of what that journey might look like, how things that once appeared impossible eventually came to fruition. In 2012 that journey is set to continue; If you’re after a travelling companion we’re happy to come along for the ride, because “We came out when Queensland did!”