In 1978 I moved to Perth,  and joined the Australian public service, working in social security & veterans' portfolios.  I completed a graduate course in psychology, though I have never worked in that profession for a living (call it empathy-deficit if you like!).

I was heavily involved with the gay liberation movement, leading a number of marches through the streets of Perth in the late seventies, and publishing a Gay Lib newsletter distributed at the tertiary campuses. Later I became involved with the running of Perth's Gay Counselling Service (as it was then called) as Assistant Director and later Director. 

In Western Australia, I and my partner could have been jailed for 14 years for sleeping together; you could get a shorter jail sentence for killing someone! Not surprisingly then, during my years in Perth I was involved with several campaigns aimed at decriminalising gay male sexuality, my last being the 1989 "partial" reform (which resulted in the discriminatory age of consent of 21, only recently rectified). 

I was one of the founding members of the Western Australian AIDS Council in the mid 1980s, and was politically active in that area till 1986, when I realised my over-commitment was wrecking my health and my relationships with others. After that, my activism was confined to just being an openly "out" gay man.

In 1997 I took a retrenchment package from the public service, and in my spare time learned to box. I later became involved in tournament judging and administration. I was the founder of Boxing ACT, the body responsible for Olympic boxing in the Capital Territory. I am an Oceania-level boxing judge, and a former member of the national Council of Boxing Australia. 

I am now retired from the workforce. Over the years I have worked as an electronics technician, soldier, student union president, bar attendant, mining camp labourer, clerk, AIDS Council manager, computer programmer, project officer, IT systems tester, public service manager, IT trainer, policy researcher, computer help desk analyst, and desktop support consultant. I like to think I'm flexible ;)

I  have done quite a bit of family history research which I have published for my families some years ago. I owe a great debt to my parents (both now dead), who gave me the best start they could in the lean years after world war two. They had a hard start to married life, with few luxuries.  When I finally managed to "come out" to my parents and my sister and brother, I received their total support - if only every gay person could be so fortunate. Despite the wasted and lonely years of asexuality in my teens and early twenties, it seems to me that I've had a rather easy life and every year seems better than the last.

I am an atheist and believe in living life to the full because there isn't going to be another one afterwards. Whilst I respect people's right to believe in an after-life, it's irrational and ridiculous to me and I assert my right to criticise all religion as an impediment to freedom and justice.

Some demand we show "respect" for their religion. I quote HL Mencken (1925): "even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights.  He has a right to harbour and indulge his imbecilities as long as he pleases, provided only he does not try to inflict them upon other men by force.  He has a right to argue for them as eloquently as he can, in season and out of season ... But ... he has no right to be protected against the free criticism of those who do not hold them.  He has no right to demand that they be treated as sacred.  He has no right to preach them without challenge."

I have experienced being the target of gay-hate violence. Half a dozen thugs with baseball bats attacked me not so many years ago right here in our lovely capital city. If I weren't both lucky and prepared to stand up for myself, I would have died that night.  We have certain politicians and certain religious fanatics to thank for the continued existence of anti-gay violence. They talk about "family values" but they don't include us in their definition of "family". The same double-talk was used by the Nazis over 60 years ago, to justify the murder of countless innocent people. It seems to me that the moral bigots of today are just as deranged as Hitler was.

I am committed to equal rights for gay and lesbian people (and for that matter for everyone).  Over the years I've lobbied politicians, led street marches, been arrested for civil disobedience, taken governments to court, and initiated criminal prosecutions which saw  thugs sent to prison.  I've done my little bit to change the way society treats gay people, and I did so because I remember all too clearly the pious lies, hypocrisy, deception and persecution that marked the decades when I grew up. To get a realistic picture of just how hypocritical and punitive western society has been towards gay men and lesbians, take a look at Remember Those Who Kicked Down the Doors

I'm not a door-mat.  My contribution to the nation and to humanity is no less worthy than anyone else's, and I won't consent to being treated as a second-class citizen by people who don't approve of my sexuality.

It's easy however to be over-focused on your own situation. Whilst gay people have indeed endured a history of oppression, the treatment of Australia's indigenous people, the original owners of this land, has been utterly appalling. Anyone who thinks otherwise should read "Why weren't we told?"  by Henry Reynolds. I was one of Henry's history students at James Cook University in 1973 and am grateful to him for opening my eyes to the self-serving lies we had all been taught by white historians intent on obfuscating the truth and denying the achievements of indigenous Australians.