Senior gays to fight change

Senior gays to fight change

Noel Tovey has had an extraordinary life by anyone’s standards. Now 75, the acclaimed director, dancer and West End choreographer who has worked with the likes of Judy Garland, Vera Lyn and Kenneth Branagh, and the principal dancer with Sadlers Wells Opera Ballet in London, has turned his attention on the rights of the gay elderly.

A long time political agitator, caught up in the Stonewall protests in the late 1960s, Tovey has penned an open letter to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on the recent changes to legislation for same-sex couples and what that means for the community’s elders.

The letter contains, as does Tovey himself, an authority and eloquence which seems to step over the dry, bulky political-speak surrounding the new laws, which some bemoan will mean gay pensioners are worse off.

The point he makes is an interesting one -” that the government has no right to harass the elderly into revealing their sexuality.

Old people have suffered great hardship and trauma in the past and you moved to apologise for this and acknowledge that pain, he wrote.

As an older indigenous man, who is also gay, I am deeply concerned at the suffering of gay elderly people who, like me, have experienced severe trauma in the past due to the ignorance of those around us.

Tovey said it is the changes to legislation which force people to come out that will leave the elderly population feeling exposed.

I have worked tirelessly to improve the lot of my own people, and by that I mean both indigenous and gay. he said.

People of our vintage still have these fears -” they were ingrained, like racism is ingrained.
There is an age group -” doesn’t matter if they’re rich, poor or whatever -” they still live in fear of being blackmailed if they come out.

Echoing the sentiments of many queer rights groups, Tovey has asked the government to implement a grandfather clause into the legislation to protect gay elders from harm. A grandfather clause ensures existing long-term situations are not adversely impacted when new legislation comes into effect.

I am mindful that had my own life story not become a fortunate one, I would still more than likely be a hidden gay aged pensioner myself, Tovey wrote in the letter.

Tovey’s own life sounds like a movie script. Taken away from his family in 1940, he experienced a troubled childhood, was sexually abused and lived in poverty.

In what seems a miraculous escape, Tovey hit the bright lights of the London stage where he became a great success.

He published his first autobiographical story of survival and success, Little Black Bastard, in 2004 which was turned into a one-man play and is showing as part of Melbourne’s current Melbourne Midsumma Festival.

One of the reasons I’m doing my show again is basically for young people, to see that you can be whatever and rise above it and have a life.

At the moment I haven’t opened the script, because once I do open the script it’s like opening Pandora’s box in my mind, so I start going through nightmares and not sleeping, it’s full-on.
Tovey said for all the apparent openness and acceptability in today’s world, he feels there is just as much non-acceptance, especially in terms of racism.

The big thing people in Australia haven’t really grasped, and I don’t think the government has either, that there are two distinctly separate indigenous communities, he said.

There’s the traditional, where English is not their language, where they live and perform the same ceremonies that have been performed for a 100,000 years, then you’ve got people like me who are mixed blood.

There needs to be a deeper understanding of all things indigenous. There has to be an understanding of gay indigenous people.

Working on a follow up to his first book, Tovey said the second installment will be focused on his political past rather than the glamour of the stage -” dedicated to his political awakening when visiting a slum in Soweto and hearing Martin Luther King’s I Have A Dream speech.
The book will also focus on the AIDS epidemic, to which Tovey lost his long term partner, Dave.

If you’re born black, you’re born political, Tovey said.

Asked whether the same applies for being gay -“ after a pause he answers, yes.

info: Little Play Bastard plays in Melbourne as part of Midsumma Festival at Gasworks Arts Park, Gasworks Theatre, February 5-“7, 8pm. Details: www.gasworks.org.au

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11 responses to “Senior gays to fight change”

  1. Kate, Mark and Sam,

    The point that you are missing is that gay couples in receipt of welfare payments have been benefiting for many years because of a loop-hole in the legislation. That is, because same-sex relationships were previously not recognised, both individuals in a same-sex couple could receive payments as singles – something which heterosexual couples could not!

    Now, same-sex couples will be treated equally as heterosexual couples. This is not a disadvantage, this is not “less payments” – this is getting paid what heterosexual couples have had to live off for many years.

    Same-sex couples are not being disadvantaged – they are just having the ability to receive over-and-above their entitlement removed.

    I have trouble understanding all this brow beating going on. Same-sex couples in recepit of welfare payments have been receiving more money for years than what straight couples receive under the same circumstances.

  2. Its not a hard concept to grasp.

    All previous Socia Security changes in the last 15 years have contained grandparenting provisions for those already on a pension or benefit. Eg the current pansion age for women in 63.5 not 65. This change was eased in over 20 YEARS!!

    It appears thay grand parenting is something only available to hetereosexuals.

    Gay Australians with any memory of government action can only interpret this latest failure in policy and legislation as typical of the petty malice which has accompanied every legislative advance won by homosexual people -“ delayed and vitiated in every way by the mean spirited politicians who seem to have so much influence in the ALP and the Opposition.

    Write to Ministers & MPs demanding grand parenting of those over 55 – these are the people who have had none of the benefits of relationshsip recognition in their working lives & are now to bear the brunt of the disadvantage in retirement.

  3. When it comes to Gay Rights, its Gay Rights for all age Groups, not just Im a senior and only care about other senior gay citizens (quite selfish).

  4. But the point here, that you clearly missed, is that all their lives they have not had the financial benefits of being defacto, but will now have to be the ones who PAY for the “benefit” of being defacto.

    We, as a community, are forcing our disabled, our older members, to PAY for our equality, while we benefit.

    That is just not fair. If they could have all their financial histories back-dated and all the lost benefits paid back to them, and then pay for the equality, fair enough. But to be financially worse off all their lives and now, with this wonderful equality, have to again be financially worse off…

    thats not a fair go…

    Dont make our elderly pay for our equality!

  5. What’s the emancipation of slaves in the US got to do with the rights of gay people? Aligning gay rights to black issues probably didn’t help Proposition 8, where the people of California rejected gay marriage – for the second time.

  6. Andrew perhaps you are confused: a grandfather clause & a sunset clause are two quite different things.

    A grandfather clause is demanded because of various arguments – the privacy / closet argument is but one.

    The main unfairness is to those lesbians & gays in relationships & currently in receipt of (or entitled to but not receiving) pensions & benefits on the single rate. As from 1 July they will be deemed to be a couple and therefore receive LESS or even be DENIED their benefit.

    This should be taken in the context of the past 15 years’ changes to Centrelink (Social Security) entitlements which have been grandfathered. How unfair that this change -specifically for gays and lesbians – means less payments, when previous changes allowed continuation of the prior payment rates. This is particularly troublesome for older lesbians and gays and those with a disability.

    I think your analogy re emancipation of slaves does not fit the current situation.

    And a word about marriage – with or without marriage the situation is unfair: the outcomes for some Centrelink recipients as outlined above, are not bringing equality if there is this detriment. Equality and equity are not the same thing. Formal equality is not the same as substantive equality. That is the basis of real equal opportunity.

  7. OUtrageous and infuriating suggestion. Imagine if there had been a sunset clause on the emancipation of the slaves in America, or universal suffrage. Don’t hide behind “they still live in fear of being blackmailed if they come out” when what you’re really concerned about is your hip pocket. We have stridently argued for equality. Now we have it. Rejoice, don’t cavil. To argue that “A grandfather clause ensures existing long-term situations are not adversely impacted when new legislation comes into effect” is absurd. If hip pockets are hurt, it is the system of social security and other government payments which need review, no our rights!

  8. “Go after marriage first”…like it was deciding what to order at a restaurant.

    Remember the Human Rights Commission (HREOC) did a very detailed report on legal and financial discrimination?

    How ridiculous would the community look rejecting the report and its recommendations. till nothing short of the right to marry had been won…

  9. Maybe we should have gone after marriage first, instead of defacto first.
    That would have given those that wanted it the choice, without dragging all defactos into the net.
    Defacto recognition should have come much later down the track – 1 to 2 years after full equal marriage granted.

  10. This is exactly why we should have gone after marriage first, instead of defacto first. (thanks in part Jenni Milbank adviser at NSW GLRL, and passionate anti-marriage campaigner).
    That way those who choose to get married can participate, without dragging in defactos who aren’t ready.

    The other thing, is there was meant to be a 1 year “phase in” of benefits-based changes followed by obligations-based changes at least 1 year later. But all the changes hung in the balance (thanks to Brendan Nelson in charge of Libs) and the phase in time was reduced to 6mths- too short.

    So now we are left with a bit of a mess- with a ban on civil marriage, a ban on all ceremonies, …yet all Centrelink defactos “welfare gays” thrown into the spotlight with full equality. But working class gays (with no ceremony/marriage access) have no Private Superannuation reversionary pensions, and have to jump through hoops to prove thier relationship for any other benefits.