Wear It Purple Day 2023: A boy who played with Barbies

Friday, August 25 was Wear It Purple Day, an opportunity to show love and support to LGBTIQA+ youth.

Its parent organisation, Wear It Purple, was born following a spate of youth suicides in 2010, with the common link being they had been bullied and harassed about their sexuality or gender identity.

Today it helps schools, universities, community groups and others with support and resources to create inclusive experiences for rainbow young people, plus host Wear It Purple Day events.

According to support service Minus18, 66 per cent of youth in Australia experience bullying based on their identity. To put that in context, ABS data said there's 3,170,619 people in Australia aged between 10 and 19. If 10 per cent of them were queer, that's 317,062 people, and if two-thirds of them are bullied, that's 209,261.

That's a lot of kids. Imagine if one of them was your child, niece or nephew, a student in your class, an employee, a grandchild, a sibling - how would you feel?

Homosexuality was removed from the International Classification of Diseases by the World Health Organisation in 1990, and Tasmania stopped it being a crime in 1997.

As a proud gay 36-year-old man who came out 20 years ago, I can say early intervention by caring and compassionate people made a difference in me accepting my sexuality, and myself.

As a kid, I loved playing weddings with dolls - making dresses for them out of serviettes, tissues, scrap material from mum's sewing kit, anything I could get my hands on.

One night in 1994, aged seven, I was watching a program with people on it who, to my mind, looked like scary extras from Beetlejuice.

The person looking after me - a teenager - said "if you keep playing with Barbie dolls, you'll look like that when you're older." I had one last wedding with the dolls that weekend and never played with them again.

I realised I was gay when I was about 15 or 16. I didn't want to be gay - my classmates threw the term around like confetti in a derogatory way and said "no homo" like a mantra, yet couldn't stop touching each other between classes - confusing much?

I remember someone accusing our camp Year 10 dancing instructor of being gay, and one of my male teachers constantly being asked by a macho classmate "are you gay? are you gay?", to which the teacher always went quiet and had this apprehensive look on his face.

All I knew of LGBTIQA+ matters was HIV, social ostracism and disapproval by the Roman Catholic church. Plus remember the dolls? I mostly feared my family and friends disowning me - particularly in light of having Italian ancestry and a culture of self-censoring according to what we thought others might think to make them more comfortable. I thought I'd never get a proper job and would just be this invisible outcast. Safe Schools or anything like Wear It Purple didn't exist and I didn't know any queer role models.

The first person I told I was gay was my Year 11 home room teacher, Ms Crescitelli, on a Friday in May 2003. She had noticed for months that I was quieter and more withdrawn; the confident and happy student who loved cars and Kylie Minogue was replaced with this reclusive mess who kept saying weird things like "I'm just building a brick wall around me".

Unable to get me to speak, she organised another teacher - Mr Canavan - to pull me aside, thinking a male might help. At the start of computing class, he made us students line up against the lockers and asked everyone to go inside, "except you Anthony" with a stern voice. He and I walked to the empty school hall and he said "Anthony, you look like s***; what's up?"

I froze. Unable to get anything out of me, he sent me to the head of senior school, who then referred me to the school's social workers. I. Would. Not. Talk.

That morning, I realised I couldn't stay quiet any longer and asked Ms Crescitelli if I could speak with her at the end of the day. We got along well; she was sassy, funny and didn't take herself too seriously. With everyone gone, it was my time to speak. I couldn't say it - "I'm gay" - it was too confronting. I ended up with a notepad and frantically wrote this four-page letter in front of her about it and other things on my mind and made her read it. One of the first questions she asked was "are you sure?". I nodded.

She, the social workers and probably other staff I didn't know about helped me get in touch with Second Story, a service that offered free counselling to young people. It had a sub-service called "Inside Out Project", which specialised in support for young LGBTIQA+ people. I was introduced to a counsellor and he let me borrow books from its library.

The two I remember were Timothy Conigrave's Holding the Man and rugby player Ian Roberts' biography Finding Out by Paul Freeman. The latter was a hard read as I wasn't a sporty person, but I resonated with him busying himself in his chosen craft to bury his feelings. I realised "if he's a big macho bloke and could come out and people still respect him, then so can I."

Thankfully (?) I can count across two hands the instances I've been made fun of because of my sexuality. They've mostly been taunts in school and name calling in the street (including over having a man-bag, of all things). Many others haven't been so lucky, with tragic consequences.

Yes, coverage about the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey in 2017 sucked to listen to. Thank you to those who voted yes. I've come across articles drawing similarities about the nature of discourses about that survey and the Voice to Parliament. And it's extra painful for First Nations queer people.

"This is the second time our community has had the entire nation eyeballing them, knowing that conversations are being had about them in homes around the country, and not all of them are favourable," BlaQ Aboriginal Corporation chief executive officer Shane Sturgiss told SBS News.

They don't need or deserve any of this rubbish, and it's a "yes" vote from me.

Today, I say a massive thank you to my immediate and extended family, my closest friends who some go back as far as year 8, school teachers, gym buddies, plus past and present bosses and colleagues who have accepted, stood by, encouraged, supported, celebrated, and loved me as I am. I am so grateful to have been blessed with a terrific bunch of people.

I also want to thank the people who have come before me; who sacrificed so much and created the paths that allow me to live how I do today.

It breaks my heart when I've opened the dating app Grindr to see people aged in their 30s and 40s ask for discretion if we were to meet. I ask them why and they're generally not out because they've either got a wife and kids, have only just realised they like guys and are discovering themselves, come from a culture where homosexuality isn't accepted, or a combination of these scenarios.

If I've learned anything in the past 20 years, it's that the more comfortable I am in myself, the more comfortable people are with me. And the best defence has come from this line of thinking: "those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."

It's so great today to see many out and proud Australian identities: Matildas captain Sam Kerr; senator Penny Wong; professional soccer player Josh Cavallo; journalist and writer Benjamin Law; musicians G Flip, Troye Sivan, Sia and Zaachariaha Fielding; comedians Joel Creasey, Steven Oliver and Urzila Carlson; AFLW player Erin Phillips OAM; the late Alexander "Lex" Watson AM; Professor Bob Wong; swimmers Ian Thorpe and Matthew Mitcham; senior military figure Catherine McGregor; former AFL coach and player Danielle May Laidley; the late activist Uncle Jack Charles, to name a few. You're all among today's heroes.

So, after Wear It Purple on Friday, if you see a boy playing with a Barbie, let him; he'll be fine - he'll work out how to change a tyre, do a push up and cook for himself. And if you see a girl playing with monster trucks, she'll be fine too. As for that person who told me to stop playing with dolls? I know it was a much less tolerant time and they were only looking out for me and did what they felt was best for my well being; no harm done. Today we're closer than ever and I love them dearly.

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