How did people now in their 60's/70's/80's grow up as homosexuals in the Australia of the 50's/60's ? There was a seniors LGTI ball in Melbourne recently as part of Senior Citizens week and an article outlines the many stories of life as an outsider.
And the piccies are to die for...!
I've seen it all': LGBTI elders come back out at the ball
In the midst of Australia’s same-sex marriage survey, a glorious night in Melbourne celebrates those who came of age when being ‘in the closet’ was all but compulsory
by
Gay Alcorn
They arrived in sequins and feathers, six-inch heels and pancake makeup. They arrived, too, in T-shirts and hiking boots, frocking up for no one. There were walking sticks and wheelchairs, a blind man with a guide dog, a woman with a shirt saying “This is what an old lesbian looks like”. This was their night, and they’d come as they please.
In the midst of a survey on same-sex marriage that feels to many like a judgment on the equality of gays and lesbians, here was a night to celebrate those who had come of age when “in the closet” was all but compulsory.
Here were people who remembered when homosexuality was illegal, when transgender people were shunned, who had come out when it was an act of courage, who had nursed the dying through the scourge of Aids.
They arrived in sequins and feathers, six-inch heels and pancake makeup. They arrived, too, in T-shirts and hiking boots, frocking up for no one. There were walking sticks and wheelchairs, a blind man with a guide dog, a woman with a shirt saying “This is what an old lesbian looks like”. This was their night, and they’d come as they please.
In the midst of a survey on same-sex marriage that feels to many like a judgment on the equality of gays and lesbians, here was a night to celebrate those who had come of age when “in the closet” was all but compulsory.
In the midst of a survey on same-sex marriage that feels to many like a judgment on the equality of gays and lesbians, here was a night to celebrate those who had come of age when “in the closet” was all but compulsory.
Here were people who remembered when homosexuality was illegal, when transgender people were shunned, who had come out when it was an act of courage, who had nursed the dying through the scourge of Aids.
Humour and outrageousness have always accompanied resistance. Comedian Gerry Connolly, resplendent as Queen Elizabeth, opened proceedings with “my fellow Queens, lesbians, faghags and enlightened hets”.
She noted that in November, she and Prince Philip will have been married for 70 years and if “Lizzie can marry, lezzies can marry”. Indeed, LGBTI truly stood for “Let God Bless the Queen, Intermittently”.
Cowboys in pink hats and tight shorts strutted their stuff. Carlotto, a “74-year-old boiler”, said she had fought for equality since opening the cabaret show Les Girls in 1963. “I’ve seen it all,” she sang, “and I’m still here.”
There was poignancy throughout, a tender acknowledgment that amid the diversity, all of them had had publicly “come out” at some point, painfully or otherwise. The shadow of the same-sex marriage survey was the thread, the latest skirmish in a long struggle for equality.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/10/ive-seen-it-all-lgbti-elders-come-back-out-at-the-ball