By Mary Ward
It has been almost 20 years to the day since a then eight-year-old Brenna Harding and her mothers, Vicki Harding and Jackie Braw, appeared on Play School’s “Through the Window” segment.
“I’m Brenna. That’s me in the blue. My mums are taking me and my friend Meryn to an amusement park,” she says in the segment, which follows the group on a day out at western Sydney’s since-closed Wonderland.
Centre of Play School storm: Brenna Harding, then 8, hugs mum Jackie Braw as Vicki Harding looks on. Credit: Dallas Kilponen
The backlash was swift. Then acting prime minister John Anderson criticised the segment as seeking to “justify and promote the idea of gay parenting”, while several ministers raised concerns about so-called “adult” or “sexual” content in a children’s program. The front page of Sydney’s Daily Telegraph read: “Gay School”.
Looking back on it now, Harding says, even though same-sex parents prepare their children to experience prejudice, it was a shock to receive such a reaction to her “very normal” suburban family.
“My family was very simple to me. These were my mothers: I loved them and they loved me,” she said.
“What was interesting and quite empowering for me as a child was that people were willing to listen to me and my views on my family in a way that they maybe weren’t willing to listen to my mums.”
Brenna Harding is president of queer youth charity Wear It Purple. Credit: Nikki Short
Now a stage and screen actor, recently in the Sydney Theatre Company’s Dictionary of Lost Words, Harding admits it has been disappointing to see the same arguments made against her Play School appearance resurge when Cumberland Council, in western Sydney, voted to ban from its libraries a book on same-sex families targeted at primary school-aged readers earlier this month.
“It’s showing how far we haven’t come that 20 years on this is still happening and this is still even a conversation,” she said.
“People get really concerned about children being involved, not thinking that the children of these same-sex families are also involved.
“And also, access to information is so important to help people understand themselves and to understand the world.”
Children’s literature is a particular interest of Harding’s. She and her mum, Vicki, wrote a series of children’s books together featuring a character with two mums, after discovering none of the home readers at her public primary school in Sydney’s inner west featured same-sex parents.
It is a different story for Harding’s family friends, Eve and Margo, aged 7 and 3, who have several books in their home with families like their own two-mum family, including Harding’s, which Eve can read aloud to her sister.
The book ban debate will return to Cumberland Council on Wednesday after four Labor councillors lodged a rescission motion seeking to overturn the ban.
Councillor Steve Christou, who introduced the initial motion to ban the book, urged his supporters to attend the meeting in a social media post on Saturday, accusing the Labor Party of “working up a campaign” and promising to continue to represent “this community’s values”.
Last week, NSW Premier Chris Minns accused Christou of using LGBTQ+ people as a “political football”, and bringing the motion to council because of the upcoming local government elections.
Harding with Eve and Margo, who enjoy reading books about families like theirs, with two mums. Credit: Nikki Short
As board president of Wear It Purple, a queer youth charity she has been involved with since she was a teenager, Harding said she was acutely aware of the impact such debates have on mental health in the LGBTQ+ community.
“It’s really disappointing that we are fighting the same battles, but everybody who signs a petition, or shares something or contributes their voice to the conversation is slowly changing the dial,” she said.
“In a way, what Play School really showed me was the power of my own voice.”
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