Small towns are like tiny cities, stripped of the white noise. Their size makes it easier to see inside, like a house with the curtains flung open, but the human dynamics are the same.
Because you can see the detail, the good is accentuated, as is the bad. Difference stands out in a small town but it can be embraced. Or not. There is no point in generalising.
Still, some people do. Bob Katter famously said in 1989 if there were any homosexuals in his seat of Kennedy he would walk backwards from Bourke to Brisbane.
At that time, Simon Hicks was living in his electorate, working on a cattle station.
Simon had not come out at that time and when he heard the comment, his rising self-acceptance of his sexuality was pushed back down. Katter’s comments told him there is no safety here. Back in your box.
“That attitude pushes it down into your head, it makes you keep to yourself,” Simon told me.
Ultimately, this is not a story of discrimination in country towns. Which is not to say it doesn’t happen. But these stories belong to ordinary people getting on with ordinary lives. Or as extraordinary as any one of us.
Simon now lives with his partner, Greg May, just outside the northern New South Wales town of Tenterfield. They have an Australian stock horse stud, a gourmet pizza shop in town and Simon still travels to the mines to raise the money to develop their property.
They met nearly 10 years ago when Simon was managing a property in Glen Innes. Greg grew up in Nundle, playing polocrosse. They were both late to come out about their sexuality, which happened separately in their 30s.
Once they met up, they worked together in the mines. In the first week on the job at a BHP mine, workers were friendly but strangely muted. Simon laughs when he remembers a fellow worker later told them that the company got the workforce together to do a bit of anti-discrimination training a week before they arrived. “A gay couple is coming.” That took care of any outing required, says Simon.
A mine conjures images of uber-masculinity but Greg says they never struck any problems and management did not tolerate any discrimination. A few miners didn’t talk but that is nothing new in a workplace. The pair struck up friendships, with straight men, a few lesbians who worked there and gay men who were not out “for their own reasons”.
Likewise, in Tenterfield, they have had 100% support from neighbours and townspeople. Of their sexuality, Simon says “we’ve not been hiding it, we do not flaunt it, it’s who we are. We are just ordinary people”.
After the US supreme court decision declared marriage equality across that nation, Simon and Greg were excited by the rate of change, coming hot on the heels of the referendum in Ireland. They got engaged, nine years after they first met. When the vote came up in the Coalition party room, the couple crossed the road from their pizza shop to seek a meeting with their local MP Barnaby Joyce. They were told to email, but have had no reply.
Later, when the Nationals insisted the new prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, stick to Tony Abbott’s decision on a plebiscite after the next election, they were angry and disappointed.
“If that was a young person seeking validation for who they were, and they got that reaction, no wonder suicide rates are so high,” says Simon, who congratulated the Young Nationals for recently supporting marriage equality.
“The Nationals as a party try to promote country areas to grow and be the place to be. But they need to look at what it says to young people coming out in their electorates. It’s not right.
“If they want to be a relevant party they have to wake up to themselves. With their Coalition agreement, it says really we tolerate you but we don’t accept you. As a political party that’s not the message you should be sending.”
Kyla Nicholson grew up in Crystal Brook, South Australia, with a population just over 1,000. She describes her childhood as a happy one. She is the eldest child of a policeman and a hairdresser. At 12, her state of mind changed, switched on by puberty but confused by her sexuality. She too buried it. She studied her image for any sign that might show people what she was unwilling to admit, that she was a lesbian.
At 15, it got too much and Kyla took an overdose of pills, followed by stints in psychiatric hospitals. During that time, she was asked by a nurse if she was gay. Kyla denied it but thought, “shit, can they see it?” Later, she admitted she was a lesbian to a psychologist. “No you’re not,” came the firm reply. That was that.
She married at 21 to answer a question that no one but herself was asking. She gave birth to her son Matthew at 22. A house, a child, a life. She thought, “Fuck, now I’m stuck”.
It took another 10 years of angst and for Matthew to get a severe illness (he has since recovered) to bring the issue to a head. She continued to have suicidal thoughts with “certain things worked out in my head”. When she made an admission to her local GP, he was supportive and they talked through the next stage.
“Do you think Matthew would rather a gay mum or a dead mum?”
Kyla told her husband and worked up the courage to tell Matthew one day in his bedroom.
“It’s nothing wrong but you might not like it” Kyla said, before she broke the news.
He quietly told her to get out of his bedroom. Then he re-emerged.
“I need to ask one question, does that mean you and dad are splitting up?”
“Yes”.
He went back his room. And out again.
“Where am I going to live?”
“Dad and I will have to discuss it”.
He hugged her.
“l love you. Don’t have any more kids. Can I have some toast?”
Kyla eventually told family and friends. Some people she expected to be supportive were not. Others surprised her. Her sister had once joked that she looked like a “dyke” after she’d had a short haircut. She apologised at the news. “Sorry about that, I didn’t know you were one”.
Being the only “out” gay person in town does not faze her any more. She thinks about her 15-year-old self and believes she has made it easier for the next teenager struggling.
“I was scared to give people a chance,” she says. “If I had, it wouldn’t be as bad as I thought. But I didn’t love myself at all. I thought I was a bad person. It wasn’t until I was older, I understood. You have to accept yourself before you come out.”
Now she lives in Gladstone, just down the road from Crystal Brook, with a population of about 600. She works as a barmaid while she is studying for a diploma of youth work to help teenagers. There was a time when some residents refused to come to the pub if there was a “lesbian serving”. That has died down.
Now they crack jokes and ask questions about all the hoary old chestnuts. If lesbians like chicks, why do they go for women who look like men? But it’s all good natured.
“It’s a lack of knowledge. Before me, they didn’t think lesbians could bring up children. Some women thought I would hit on them. They’ve worked through that now.”
I ask if it is different for her, as a child of the town. It goes to the contradiction in small towns that difference is difficult unless it is one of your own.
“The town knew me. I was ‘kissing Kyla’, the Kyla that tried to leap the tennis net and broke her leg, the Kyla that was the only girl who wanted to play footy with the boys – they knew me and that helped.”
Now Kyla has proposed to her partner, Nicole, and they will get married in a civil union. She feels marriage equality is important because without it, children like Matthew could be stigmatised.
“I don’t want my son to ever be made to feel his family is wrong.”
In central western Queensland, the town of Tambo (population 400) sits up against the wild dog fence. It is up the road from Augathella, where Michael Frazer grew up.
Michael’s dad was a kangaroo shooter. Michael’s life in the little town made for a good childhood, but like Kyla, he struggled with the onset of puberty. Bullying began at high school in Charleville, an hour’s ride on the bus.
To cope, he became disruptive, acting up in class and spent a lot of time suspended from school. He had a small group of friends and only came out after school. Michael has discovered that two others in that group are also gay.
At first, he thought it might be easier to come out and melt into a city and he lived there for two years. He wasn’t impressed.
“I got in with the wrong crowds, there were a few bad situations and I got a lot of debt, so I came back,” says Michael.
“The city is so overrated. This is such a great lifestyle, everyone is so friendly. I go to the local pub and can have a decent conversation. Everyone knows everyone. I guess it could be [a bit lonely] if you didn’t have companionship.”
Michael met his partner, Randall Ellison, in Tambo. Michael’s parents had the butcher shop and Randall owned the grocery store. Now Michael manages the newsagent in the same building. They recently got engaged, but at this stage – due to the law – it has to be a “commitment ceremony”.
They are planning a traditional event. Suits and ties, groomsmen, bridesmaids, 80 of their nearest and dearest. But the celebrant will not be able to say “the power vested in me”.
His local member is National party MP Bruce Scott, who retires at the next election. When the issue was raised in the party room, Scott said it was not a high priority in his electorate.
“My own barometer tells me the people in Maranoa are overwhelmingly opposed to same sex marriage,” Scott said.
Michael wrote to Scott to express his opposition to his comments and some constituents spoke out in the local media.
“If a male and female can get married, why can’t we have it in the same way?” asks Michael.
Michael and Randall, Kyla and Nicole will be married by the end of the year. Simon and Greg will wait, determined to be recognised on equal terms in their own community. They wear commitment rings on the right hand, which will be swapped to the left when they can marry on the same terms as the rest of the community.
“It’s a rite of passage,” Greg says. “My brother and sister’s wedding photos are in my parent’s lounge room. I want ours to be there too.”
If this story raises issues for you, call Lifeline: 13 11 14 or beyondblue: 1300 224636.
