Vikki Campion: There remains pockets of Australia where it is still dangerous to be a gay person

It took witnessing a gay-hate bashing first-hand in regional Australia to properly comprehend that people still believe a person’s sexuality is a reason to flog them, writes Vikki Campion.

I was driving down a dirt road a few weeks ago, bruises blooming on my back and thigh, with a bloodstained dress twisted on the back seat, when I realised I had been stuck in the bubble I so often accuse others of living in.

It took witnessing a gay-hate bashing first-hand in regional Australia to properly comprehend that people still believe a person’s sexuality is a reason to flog them.

It happens in places you would least expect, white picket fence towns, sophisticated coffee shop and art gallery towns, private school, wool-tie towns.

Sadly, for many, home towns.

Even as Sydney Morning Herald apologised for giving actor Rebel Wilson and her partner a 48-hour deadline to come out, there is a crucial lack of understanding that, outside the corporate rainbows in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, violent homophobia lives on.

My friend is on the ground trying to cover his face as wild beefy fists of brickie’s strength connect with his nose, eyes, cheeks. Blood puddles under his head wounds.

There’s my pathetic attempts to intervene, getting in the way of fists, not feeling the pain then, no physical match for the attacker and not helping much either.

Grunts, taunts of “f. king faggot”, that sickening thud of meat on meat, fist on face, echoing across the night.

When the attacker leaves, my friend won’t let me call the police.

When people aren’t “out”, when their partners aren’t “out”, when they live one life at home and another life at work, or vice versa, there is no friendly constable invited inside to assess the aftermath of violence. There are no witness statements, there’s no police report.

There’s no justice.

When people aren’t out, particularly if they are romantically linked with anyone with a profile, no ambulance is called and no paramedics attend.

There cannot be any paper trail or incident reports to leak.

There can’t be any record for those who do big business by sensationalising the personal lives
of others.

My friend refuses a trip to the hospital. Instead, with rudimentary first-aid knowledge, I’m trying to keep him from falling asleep with a concussion. Frozen peas go on black eyes, paper towels until the nose stops bleeding, painkillers, a fruitless check of broken bones and a bathtub soaking bloody towels and clothes.

The night is spent cleaning up blood before it stains, it’s using all the paper towels. Soaking blood from a rug, cleaning the spatter off the walls, the puddles on the floor.

In the Canberra bubble, I never question the safety of those walking hand-in-hand with their same-sex partners.

This is the horrible misjudgment the SMH made. In many parts of the country, it doesn’t matter whether the partner of a high-profile person was male or female. But there remain pockets where it does matter and it is not safe.

Some will always believe that, when you sign up to public life, you sign away any semblance of privacy. That is not true of unknown partners.

The idea within some media seems to be if people will click, it’s publishable, even if dragging a high-profile person out of the closet also involves dragging out who they love, no matter the ramifications.

There are people who aren’t out because they haven’t realised it for themselves yet, or aren’t ready, or they are protecting someone else.

Whatever some heartless, judgmental nobody sitting in the safety of a non-discriminatory and supportive community believes is newsworthy, the grim reality is that some have not “outed” themselves in their own communities for safety reasons.

Maybe not on Oxford St.

But in the 7.6 million square kilometres away from urbane capitals, that part of Australia that most metropolitan-based media rarely, if ever, venture for news.

For every famous actor who isn’t “out” in LA, there are construction workers, miners, politicians, teachers, doctors and farmers living in regional Australia, for whom being outed could have terrible and, in extreme cases, life-threatening consequences.

My friend is working remotely while his facial injuries heal, faster than the “f. king faggot” slur that lives on in memory.

He lives a quiet life and has only seen the Mardi Gras on a television screen a 35-hour drive away.

I’m still soaking his blood out of my dress now, and it is painful to acknowledge as a country that in 2022, there are those among us who are still using “faggot” as a slur and view sexuality as an excuse to beat the living daylights out of a person.

It’s better to acknowledge and address it than to pretend it doesn’t exist.

“Outing” is nothing short of bullying, no matter how you try to justify it as news.

That bubble, the erroneous belief Australia had matured out of violent homophobia, only burst when I was covered in the blood of a wounded man who deserved to be safe.