The road to marriage equality in Australia has been a long and exhausting journey—and it’s still not over yet. But yesterday was a historic day for LGBT+ rights, with communities all over the country rejoicing in the fact that 61.6 per cent of eligible voters said ‘Yes’ to legalising same-sex marriage.
For older members of the LGBT+ community, it’s a day that many never expected would ever arrive.
Sandy Anderson, 65, Ballarat
Sandy Anderson says that if someone told her 30 years ago that same-sex marriage would be on its way to legalisation in 2017, she “wouldn’t have believed it”.
The 65-year-old says she would have told her younger self to ‘Get ready for the long haul, because it’s going to take a long time’.
There were tears and shouts of joy and relief and were both just absolutely so overwhelmed.
Sandy and her partner Helen Carrucan have been together for over two decades, and listened to the postal survey announcement together over the phone.
“I was travelling to Melbourne and I stopped before the announcement and we were both on the phone with the radio on in the background,” she tells SBS.
“There were tears and shouts of joy and relief and were both just absolutely so overwhelmed,” she says of the moment the ‘Yes’ vote was announced.
“We’d actually been a bit nervous before the announcement,” she says. “Helen and I have been together for longer than 25 years now and we very much want to get married but we haven’t had that option.”
Helen is a survivor of a ten-year journey with cancer and the couple became aware of the fact that if she were to die, Sandy’s name wouldn’t be on her death certificate.
Helen Carrucan and Sandy Anderson have been together for over 25 years. Image: Sandy Anderson Source: Image: Sandy Anderson
“Things like that make a huge difference,” says Sandy.
She says that the months-long campaign process was “very hard”.
“Being part of conversations in so many different areas of your life where you have to be advocates for a right to be equal with others was difficult.
“We’re resilient, out women of many many years, and yet we found it hard. Often we would think about people who were perhaps, where we were 30 years ago. Which was not so comfortable being in the public arena.”
The couple is planning to have a wedding next year, surrounded by their collective seven children and 16 grandchildren in their garden.
“There’s going to be a lot of rainbows at the wedding,” she laughs.
Malloy Rolfe, 82, South Australia
Malloy was sitting in her retirement village unit when Australia’s head statistician revealed the long-awaited results of the Australian marriage law survey.
“I cried, I cried, I cried, I cried…and I’m still crying,” she tells SBS.
But while the ‘Yes’ result was a relief, Malloy says the postal survey should not have gone ahead in the first place.
“I felt though that this should never have been done and you could see by the response from the community yesterday, the stress that it’s caused,” she says of the prolonged, painful process.
“I cried, I cried, I cried, I cried…and I’m still crying".
“People like Penny Wong just broke down. It’s just…it should never have happened.”
Malloy grew up in the 50s and 60s when it was “pretty dreadful” to be a lesbian but says homophobia is still prevalent in Australia.
She says she's been instructed by the CEO of the nursing home that connects to her retirement village not to discuss her sexuality with residents. At the last federal election, her church handed out pamphlets instructing people not to vote for pro-same-sex marriage politicians.
“They put out a flier about not to vote for people like Shorten or Turnbull or anyone who supported same-sex marriage and to go for Cory Bernardi and all his crap people,” she says.
Malloy hopes the vote will help to improve LGBT+ rights in Australia.
“I would like to think that it’s going to help the community, that we won’t be so trodden on in future,” she says.
“But as far as the way this was done…to have a plebiscite and a postal one….it caused so much pain to people.”
Toni, 70s, Melbourne
Toni was part of the community gathering that took place at Melbourne’s state library yesterday when the results were announced at 10am.
“There was a huge crowd and everyone was very apprehensive and suddenly, all hell broke loose,” she says.
“Everybody was happy and cheering and jumping up and down. There were glitter bombs going off and everyone was very, very excited… ecstatic.”
Toni tells SBS that the postal vote caused unnecessary harm to the LGBT+ community, saying “it just opened up the opportunity for people to be disrespectful”.
Hopefully, it will advance the recognition of people with a non-binary gender presence.
Toni, who is a trans woman, says the result “makes a bit of difference from a transgender point of view”.
“It doesn’t eliminate big problems that trans people have—that is that they have to have surgery before they can change the gender on their birth certificate.
“But, for those who don’t need to change their gender, it means that they can get married without surgery, which is a step forward.
Toni hopes that the legalisation of same-sex marriage will pave the way to improved gender recognition laws in Australia.
“One of the difficulties is the fact that we have multiple levels of government in Australia and the birth certificates are governed basically by the states. And marriage is governed by the federal government.
“Hopefully, it will advance the recognition of people with a non-binary gender presence.”
Dorothy, 73, rural Victoria
Dorothy has been in a relationship with her partner, Margaret for 40 years. They were at a local cafe in rural Victoria with friends when the survey results were announced.
“We were the only gay people there,” she tells SBS. “But we were all absolutely ecstatic when it [the announcement] came through.”
Dorothy adds that she was “getting a little bit tired” of the marathon campaign, “because, to me, it shouldn’t have even been an issue,” she says.
Although, she and her partner received some welcome—but very unexpected—support the day before Australia said ‘Yes’ to marriage equality.
Dorothy and Margaret had a checkup with a local GP—who isn’t their regular doctor–who looked a bit confused when he saw their medical records.
Dorothy tells SBS that he asked the couple, ‘Friends, is that right?’, referring to their recorded relationship status.
“And he sort of clobbered around that and said, ‘I think…shouldn’t that be partner?’
“And we said, ‘Yeah, that’s right’.
“Then he went through all of his normal checks but at the end of it, as we were about to leave, he said, ‘Come here, you two. I think you need a hug for tomorrow’.
“He just took us both by surprise and we had a little sniffle, didn’t we? It was a really beautiful moment.”
‘Come here, you two. I think you need a hug for tomorrow’.
Dorothy and Margaret have no plans to have a wedding but will eventually legalise their relationship for practical reasons.
“The marriage thing isn’t a big issue,” says Dorothy. “But I can see for a lot of younger people, it’s really important to them.
“But the acceptance is what’s important for us.”
