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Well...Basically
Well...Basically
188: Russ Gluyas; The Love Project
On today's show we were joined by a very special guest, Russ Gluyas. He came on the show to talk about his work with The Love Project and ACON.
We talked about ageism in the LGBTQIA+ spaces, the work he does to help the community, and much, much more.
We hope you enjoy today's episode!
this is well, basically, with your host mike de silva and sam weeks on today's show we were joined by a very special guest, russ ulyas.
Speaker 3:He came on the show to talk about his work with the Love Project and ACON. We talked about ageism in the LGBTQA Plus project, the work that he does to help those who are part of the community, and much, much more. We hope you enjoy today's episode. This is Well basically, well, basically.
Speaker 5:And they said you can never have the microphone too close to your mouth. They were always like. She used to balance it on her chin, and now, whenever I present, I balance the microphone sitting on my chin. I do it less now, though, because I've got a beard, so you can hear that.
Speaker 1:But it's always important to put it right up there.
Speaker 5:Yeah, to almost eat the microphone.
Speaker 3:You do a lot of public speaking right.
Speaker 1:A little bit. Yeah, not a huge amount, but Andrew does he's very good I hate the sound of my voice, do you?
Speaker 3:really.
Speaker 5:It's a very nice voice.
Speaker 3:How's the volume for you in your ears it sounds in your ears. That sounds good, okay, cool, okay, I'm going to have to pick a song, because that's how we'll start. We can all have a little boogie. Let's go with this one. I should turn on Bluetooth first. Hey, that's good.
Speaker 5:I kind of liked it coming through the room. It sounded like it was distant.
Speaker 3:I didn't like it. Wide connection what am I connected to?
Speaker 1:I do love all the 80s 90s tunes.
Speaker 5:That's Sammy's vibe Every single time I put forward a modern song he's always like uh-uh-uh, five decades ago. I'm fine with that. I'm absolutely fine with that. And you're the guest of honor.
Speaker 3:Five decades ago. Let's talk about ageism. That is what we're talking about today. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Better. Shaka can't complain about that.
Speaker 5:Hey, Absolutely, Shaka's your favourite eh, Andrew, I actually love shaka khan.
Speaker 5:We saw her on the graham norton show I've seen her twice at the end more so we saw her at the graham norton show, but it was the album she brought out recently that she did not want to put out. That the like um album was forced out of her, basically, and she just did this terrible performance like a little two-step with a lip sync, and then when she finished she was like I need water for my throat and we were like you weren't singing. It's such a queen.
Speaker 1:Oh no, she was incredible. I just completely went off.
Speaker 5:She's an incredible artist. She's just 10 out of 10.
Speaker 3:Welcome to First Time Listeners, second Time Listeners, third, fourth, fifth. You guys who listen every week, we love you the most. You're pretty great. Put up with our chats. I am here, andrew is here, mikey is here and we have a very special guest who I'm going to introduce in a moment. We're just going to bop out for a sec.
Speaker 4:Talk a bit of trash, please Would this be your karaoke go-to.
Speaker 5:No, I can't sing. I'm very flat.
Speaker 1:That's what karaoke's all about, isn't it? I don't like it at all.
Speaker 5:I think there's like a bridge you go over where you're so bad. It's just not fun for anyone.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we've got lots of friends who are good at singing. Oh, I know.
Speaker 5:Isn't it a tragedy, isn't it the worst? No, no.
Speaker 3:I can't actually think what my karaoke song would be. Probably like, I learned to play guitar to like all of the John Mayer songs, so I probably do one of those, I think.
Speaker 5:That's a good pick. What's yours, Mikey?
Speaker 4:I think about this so often in the kitchen when I'm singing Probably Cindy, how about now? That's better, cindy.
Speaker 1:Lothar.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, yeah, okay, is there another?
Speaker 5:Cindy, cindy Lou, who, cindy Lou, who. Who's that? One of the who's from Whoville in the Grinch, oh, okay.
Speaker 1:I think I'd prefer drag to karaoke any day. I agree, it's the same sort of thing.
Speaker 5:But Easier and harder, yeah yeah, harder prep, easier execution, yeah, More fun.
Speaker 1:More relaxed Once you get there, it's just like just be.
Speaker 5:I back it. What's your karaoke song, Ross There'd?
Speaker 1:be so many, there'd be more drag songs, but Chaka would be a big one actually Hard to sing.
Speaker 4:Wow.
Speaker 3:That's the reason why I wouldn't pick anything like that, because I can't sing like that. Why would I even try? And you guys have heard his voice already. He's on the show. We have a very, very special guest. He is a client, but also someone who I've been very, very well. We have all been very interested to talk to today. We're excited to welcome russ glue. Yes, is that how I pronounce it?
Speaker 3:perfect, I've never had to pronounce it before, so um russ is the program coordinator for aging at acon. For the past decade, russ has been leading acon's aging initiative, the love project, which stands for living older visibly and engaged, which supports older LGBTQ plus individuals and living healthier, more socially connected lives. Russ is deeply passionate about reducing ageism, increasing the visibility of all the LGBTQ plus people and celebrating the unique resilience and life experiences. We are thrilled to dive into the work of Russ the work that Russ has been doing to create safe and inclusive spaces for older members of the LGBTQ plus community. Welcome.
Speaker 4:Russ, everybody Give him a big round of applause.
Speaker 3:You're doing really good. That's fantastic. Yeah, I mean like I've been training you for what? A couple of years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, almost a year and a half. A year and a half, I think, it was like May, maybe last year.
Speaker 3:When we first started training, Russ just said he works at Akon.
Speaker 5:You thought he worked for Akon? Yeah, Her rapper. You're like that's so cool, man I love that.
Speaker 3:Can I meet him? But I thought it would be really really good to have a chat, and obviously we touch on a lot of this stuff on a weekly basis, but you know someone who is well-versed in talking about this stuff on a consistent basis, Sure. And you're also a lovely, lovely man. Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, likewise, you're my bum man. Really you got my bum back into shape, oh my God. Yeah, likewise, you're my bum man. Really you got my bum back into shape, oh my God.
Speaker 4:He did that for me too. I think he's got a little fetish, honestly.
Speaker 3:It's true, the work he does on arses is on crab.
Speaker 1:It's been great. It's been really good. I think you're a great trainer. Oh, I love that Positive feedback?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I like it. I like it. Should we roll into some questions? Yeah, okay, cool.
Speaker 5:It's like a question time. It is like a question time Just for you, does everyone?
Speaker 1:know, what ACON is.
Speaker 3:Tell us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, give us a Because the viewers, the listeners may not. So I think it's important because ACON is celebrating 40 years next year and it was started as a really grassroots community organisation in response to the HIV epidemic and the AIDS epidemic in the 80s. So in 85, community came together to create ACON and it's just gone from strength to strength. But in the first 10, 15 years in particular, it was really the main focus was for primarily gay men, supporting the prevention of HIV transmission and supporting people living with HIV, which was really really devastating throughout the 80s and 90s. So yeah, that's sort of the origins of ACON and now it's grown over the 40 years to be this really large health organisation supporting lots of people across the whole community.
Speaker 1:So, HIV is still sort of the core funding source and the core work that we do, but now it's a very broad umbrella supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, multicultural people, women, trans people yeah, the whole gamut.
Speaker 5:We're very lucky to live now in a time when HIV isn't a death sentence and when they're talking now they can see on the horizon the end of HIV coming. But obviously in the 80s it was, you know, not just a physical death sentence, which is terrifying but also a social death sentence. There was this big pariah attitude at the time which I guess ACON would have been at the forefront of trying to combat that yeah, look, sort of stigma and discrimination still exist around HIV.
Speaker 1:But obviously back then it was huge and we were sort of just really sort of coming into ourselves in the early 80s, having come out of Stonewall from America in the late 70s, finding our feet, just about sort of moving forward. And then the epidemic hit so it was pretty full on, pretty hardcore. I lost lots and lots of friends and I was diagnosed in 89. So it's been a good journey for me to get through it all.
Speaker 5:In 89, was there treatments? You know 89, were they able to treat or maintain? I don't know what the timeline for medical treatment of HIV and AIDS is.
Speaker 1:So there was no real good treatments late 80s, early 90s. The combination treatments started to come in sort of mid-90s. So I was very lucky to sort of get through the first five or six years on a lot of different trials that were quite toxic and sort of devastating to sort of health as any forefront medicine is.
Speaker 5:They basically just shoot you in the shotgun and go oh, we've fixed it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that was happening to so many people and I was just sort of lucky to sort of get through that period and then get on to the good treatments.
Speaker 5:But yeah, mid period and then get on with the good treatments. But yeah, mid 90s is when the combination treatment started and they were really effective and started to get better and better. And actually from my curiosity if, as a consummate professional, have covered the first question very, very nicely, that we're going to ask which is ideal, um, but I wanted to check is acon primarily focused on gay men, or is it a gay and lesbian, bisexual, transgender, lg, lgbtqia+?
Speaker 1:So it started off primarily for gay men, because they were the ones experiencing the highest rates of HIV transmission and AIDS. But over the years the LGBTQ has become really synonymous with all the work that we do. So we work with lesbians and trans people and bisexuals and so the whole gamut. So it is. I think a lot of people still see it as a HIV-specific organisation and even though that's the work that we are mainly funded to do and that's the primary focus of ACON, it's a broad umbrella. So we do lots of other work and lots of other funding comes from other different sources um state, federal, um corporations that support working with women and the multicultural community and aboriginal highlander people um aging the work that I do maybe a very, very good segue.
Speaker 5:Um, when we read through your brief, you talked about how you run programs for older LGBTQ. I say IA plus is the nomenclature that I've got I think LGBTQI plus is a more common one maybe but that you involve older LGBTQ plus community members in the co-design of activities. So I wanted to know what some examples of successful programs are that have emerged from this collaboration.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's really important. I think you don't do any work without the community sort of consulting with the community and knowing what they want. If you get funding, you want to spend that funding on exactly what their needs and preferences are. So that's a really great part of the work that I do. I get to to speak to the community, get to engage with the community all the time. Um, so just in an ad hoc way, I'm hearing what people want, um. But then we do have specific sort of consultation groups that we engage for periods of time to really dig into what they're wanting.
Speaker 5:How do you source the groups? I don't know that maybe this is getting to weird technical side, but I'm really interested in how groups of people can be, like picked from to get their opinion, because it's really difficult to find people that aren't in some way biased by like a reward that you might be giving, like a payment for a group, or like how are you sourcing and hearing the?
Speaker 1:voices. It's pretty straightforward, like I'll I'll advertise for a group to consult on the work that we're doing and then we sort of speak to everyone and we try and get a diverse group, um with a representative representation from from all parts of the community. It's not always possible people don't always step forward, um. And it's also sort of managing the expectations of people when they come into a co-facilitation or co-design process, because sometimes the the expectation could be really high on sort of we're going to sort of deliver all of this stuff, but I've only got this little bit of money to do it. So it's sort of got to be realistic and manage kind of what we can do for how much funding we have, try and prioritise kind of what the most important things are.
Speaker 1:But look, over the years I've been 10 years with the project this year we've done everything from sort of digital literacy to mental health, physical health, lots of legal planning for the future. I'm just about to embark on three years of palliative care, end-of-life planning work. So yeah, it's a real spectrum Lots of physical activity, yoga, meditation, lots of art. We love lots of art.
Speaker 1:So, we did a great cultural of cultural, not cultural, but we did an art event just at the end of the financial year involving or including two Aboriginal artists and just brought community in in a very intergenerational way, because I love that whole idea of intergenerational conversations. And art, I think just sort of really people respond to being in that space and they don't necessarily actually talk about mental health or talk about legal advice, but you can start to have those sort of broad side conversations.
Speaker 5:Sneaking the veggies into the bolognese Exactly. Very, very interesting. I did want to check. Is there anything that you in your consultation with community that you found out? That you were shocked to find out like something people wanted to do or people didn't want to do, that you were like I'm positive, like I got this wrong?
Speaker 1:Not got wrong, just perhaps wasn't aware of. So yeah, I wouldn't sort of say I completely missed that, but maybe the end of life conversation, which has come up a lot over the 10 years, occasionally when you're sitting with a group of 65 plus elders, that's going to be part of the conversation. How am I going to be cared for when I'm older? How am I sort of what's aged care looking like for me as a queer elder? So, yeah, nothing that sort of really surprised me, but I think what happens is the lens of queerness over just the general issues sort of enhances the issue if that makes sense.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I agree, especially with age issues. Um, we might get into this in a second, but particularly in the gay community, there's this focus on youth and virility and gay people are seen as like 20 to 30 year old, 20, 35, muscly and very attractive people, um, but it means that once you move outside that window, you know this invisibility that people talk about of like women, aging. Is this like heightened invisibility that happens to gay men as they get older, which I think is less of an issue now, but it's definitely not not an issue.
Speaker 1:It's still quite a significant issue in the community well, I've been a therapist for 15 years 15, 18 years too and I was working as a therapist with acon for about nine years and sort of holding both positions, um, and most of my clientele were gay, lesbian or trans. But I guess I've had the opportunity of working with sort of older gay men.
Speaker 1:And when I say older, it's really kind of 50 plus and yeah, that's certainly one of the issues of perhaps being sort of feeling invisible as they get older, but it's not an issue for every older gay man. It's not sort of a general thing, but it is an issue for some older gay men. Yeah.
Speaker 5:Very interesting.
Speaker 3:I love that, I feel like that was literally the question that we had lined up what unique challenges do older LGBTQ plus people face compared to the broader aging population, and how does the Love Project help with this?
Speaker 1:Well, again, I think it's sort of that I always sort of see it as the lens of queerness that gets thrown across all of the general issues. So whether it's um sort of aging or ageism or age care or end of life stuff or relationships as an older person, um, there's a lens that sort of gets thrown across that just makes it that more difficult. And I guess, to put it in context, to to sort of give it some context, is, the people I'm working with are 60, 65 plus, so they have a very, very different lived experience of being in the world as a gay person or a lesbian or a trans person. It wasn't even legal for me to have sex until I was 22, even though I did.
Speaker 5:Hey, we don't commit crimes here.
Speaker 1:Hey, I don't know, but to put that in context, like I was a 20-year-old man, a 22-year-old young man, and then it became legal in New South Wales for me to have sex, God, what a night that would have been for everyone.
Speaker 5:That would have been a big party, I reckon, on the street.
Speaker 1:Well, the funny thing is I sort of I don't like, in hindsight now I know that date but I didn't know that date back then. I was just out there doing it and sort of having fun and moving on and trying to stay safe and deal with my own sort of family shit and all that sort of stuff that was going on. So I'm 61, so the people I'm working with are all older than me, so they have a very different lived experience of walking through the world, of always being sort of having to hide themselves or face discrimination and aggression and violence. So yeah, and the people I work with, I hear that all the time that sort of they had to live. Lots of them had to live very sheltered lives, very hidden lives.
Speaker 5:So even longer periods of time than you know when it became legalised as well, you know they would have set up their lives to continue on, so would have held on to this until, I mean some very recently.
Speaker 1:Well, even now, I guess aged care is a big one, because you might have heard that a lot of people sort of say they don't want to go back into the closet with aged care and it's a big thing for a lot of people. They don't want to go into a service that's not inclusive.
Speaker 5:Is it common in aged care that it's not inclusive? Is that something that?
Speaker 1:happens Really.
Speaker 4:Yeah, wow, some of them are run by religious groups aren't they?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, there is a I don't know what the percentage. I think it's sort of a high 80% of religious organisations that run aged care in Australia. What? Don't quote me on that, but it's a high percentage.
Speaker 2:You were pretty close, Russ Of the non-for-profit run aged care facilities. About 65% of them are run by religious or faith-based organisations.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Sveti. Thank you so much. She's so good.
Speaker 1:Yes, I like.
Speaker 3:Sveti.
Speaker 1:I've been to the last seven episodes on the weekend.
Speaker 5:Oh good, yeah, she does hard work all for free, as well, but yeah, high percentage High percentage.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot sort of being done and sort of is progressing to make services more inclusive. But aged care in particular isn't notorious for, isn't well known for having that inclusive it's not the golden girls scenario.
Speaker 3:It's something I obviously, as a straight man, would have never even thought about.
Speaker 5:This is being Me as a gay man. I've never thought about that. That's terrifying.
Speaker 1:Yeah that is really.
Speaker 5:There's a real market though.
Speaker 1:But imagine, even if you're sort of trans and you're wanting to maintain your chosen identity and you have to go into aged care and they don't support that.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So there's sort of layers upon layers, of sort of nobody really wants to go into aged care. It's not a great situation overall, it's it's. It's really not fantastic, um, and a lot of that was sort of proven through the royal commission into aging in the last couple of years, um. But I guess what has come of that is there needs to be lots of change, and there's about to be change made in the next month or so, um but, yeah, for our older, queer people it's.
Speaker 1:It's a tricky situation. You know you don't want to sort of have to go in and hide yourself and be who you're not well russ that is eye-opening yeah my mind is blown.
Speaker 5:We are so early on in the taste well, it's a really, really important one.
Speaker 1:You know like sort of um it's been hard for some older queer people and I tend to use the word queer as a general term but, it's not for every older person, so we have to note that too. Queer is something that was sort of a derogatory term earlier on. That's been since reclaimed. It's been reclaimed now, but queer is often not the word that a lot of older LGBTQ, peoplebtq people would necessarily go to do they prefer lgbtq?
Speaker 1:yeah. Well, anything besides queer, yeah, lesbian, trans, gay, homo, whatever it is homo's good, I like homo.
Speaker 5:Yeah, homo's fun yeah I like a little party. Uh, on facts that we didn't know. What are some common misconceptions about ageing within the LGBTQ plus community?
Speaker 1:Look, this is interesting Again, it's that lens that gets put across, the general experience. But and I guess some people might think that older, queer people kind of live a lonely existence and I think what we do well is we have chosen family. So we might not necessarily have our biological family that we've moved through life with, but what we do have is a very solid sort of chosen family that we move through life with.
Speaker 4:So it might be the Golden Girls scenario, exactly, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'd love the Golden Girls scenario.
Speaker 5:I'd be quite happy to. Well, their house was huge as well. They lived in a mansion.
Speaker 1:I know who would you be, blanche?
Speaker 5:Blanche. Oh, no, damn, dorothy.
Speaker 4:There's room for two Blanches.
Speaker 5:Yeah, four Blanches.
Speaker 3:I've never, watched.
Speaker 5:Golden Girls You've got to get on. That's a good binge show. Yeah, that's right. Russ, who would?
Speaker 1:you be in the Golden Girls? Probably not, blanche. I'm not going to admit that up here. Yeah, I'm probably.
Speaker 5:Blanche. Yeah, good, good, we've got three Blanches and a rose.
Speaker 4:I like a good Dorothy. I'm very, very dark.
Speaker 5:Yeah, Dorothy's good Also, she had the best shoulder pads of all of them.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I can rock those shoulder pads. Or the mother, oh Sophia.
Speaker 5:Sophia yeah, she was the youngest actress do you know?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely Of all of the four of them, and she played the mother.
Speaker 5:Yeah, she played the like mother of Dorothy. And really dry and funny and the scene where she gets the free meal in that really expensive restaurant, the free bottle of champagne it just sends me.
Speaker 1:Salting the champagne Endless runs on Instagram and on YouTube of all the girls that just continuously come up.
Speaker 5:Absolutely, that's a great binge show.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were groundbreakers really. They spoke about a lot of issues that weren't being spoken about. So it's quite good to see that now, when you think of the times that they were talking about sort of lesbians or aged care or whatever it is, they were sort of pushing into those sort of topics that really weren't being spoken about that much.
Speaker 3:You need to watch the show. It's great. It's so funny.
Speaker 5:It's honest, it is.
Speaker 4:It's very funny they did HIV, they did aging and loneliness.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And they shared a gay brother as well. Yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah, they really did break ground on that. But yes, I don't know if we've interrupted the end of the story you were telling, but you were saying that there's a misconception that ageing LGBTQI plus people are seen as lonely. But realistically, some of them have found their chosen family and have made a nice community around themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 5:And I imagine ACON's a big part of doing that as well.
Speaker 1:Well, the project that I run is a big part of that. Like, really, what underpins the project is social connection. So, whatever we do if we're talking about legal staff or mental health or whatever it is I'm always really focused on creating a safe atmosphere and environment and welcoming for everyone to come in. It's not just for gay men or for lesbians or for trans people.
Speaker 1:It's for everyone, but it's about sort of a safe environment for people to come in and be able to be with each other and reconnect Sometimes they haven't seen people for a while or make new friends and then go on to build their own social support networks. And I love that, because the groups have come in in the past and now they sort of have movie nights when they get a barrel or they sort of watch films or whatever it is, but they sort of start to form their own and I was going to say, eventually they'll make, uh, you obsolete, the best, the best thing you can hope for is that they never need to see you again.
Speaker 1:there might be a time when I'm not there, so that's good, I I'm really happy about that.
Speaker 5:That is good.
Speaker 1:And also that it's for everyone. I think there are spaces that women want to be in just for women, just for older women, and there's certainly spaces that older gay men just want to be in by themselves, and there are groups for that and the trans elder community too. But the Love Project has really always being focused on everyone and just, and I love that because you sort of get all parts of the community sort of hearing each other's experiences absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 5:It also stops that siloification of issues where people go oh well, now this is like a very tiny micro issue absolutely bigger breath.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm just realizing how much I talk with my hands.
Speaker 5:I love it. I love it Very Italian.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's very Italian.
Speaker 5:So, in your time with the Love Project, what are some of the most significant changes that you've seen in the lives of LGBTQ plus individuals?
Speaker 1:Well, I think just what I was saying is the social connection that's a big one, that's probably the major one is the social connection, that's a big one, that's probably the major one. To give you an example, there's a bit of an up and a down to this story, but we'll do it anyway.
Speaker 5:We'd love an up and a down.
Speaker 1:That's ideal. Two women met in the group just before COVID hit and then we took because we meet every month in person, but when COVID hit we went online. So they maintained this friendship through COVID and came out of COVID and became girlfriends. So that was really beautiful. They sort of met through the project. Unfortunately, jackie passed away about 12 months ago. We were able to celebrate Jackie in a really lovely community sort of way. But yeah, social connection is a big one for sure.
Speaker 5:What was the question again. I think you've hit it nicely. What are some of the biggest changes that you've seen?
Speaker 1:And I suppose changes even though I've sort of said that aged care isn't good there are changes being made to improve service provision and to improve the inclusiveness of services, whether it's aged care or medical care, whatever the medical services that people are wanting, and that's sort of being embedded in policy and procedures of organisations.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was going to ask how are they sort of like implementing that? Do they have a group of people? It's got to go right into? They sort of like implementing that? Do you, do they have a group of people?
Speaker 1:It's going to go yeah, it's going to go right into the policies and the ways that an organization works and thinks about the clientele that's coming in. Yeah, but there's, services and I kind of have sort of um, uh, the, the, the pride um the vision that supports uh services to develop their organizations to be more inclusive, and do you guys also have, like I imagine you'd have like a list of places that are really good for people to go as well?
Speaker 3:Or just the bad places. Don't go there. Homophones, homophones, homophones.
Speaker 1:Well, that's unfortunate it's still that list's not very big. Yeah, it's like yeah, I'm not even going to name the couple that are there, because even that couple of organizations still need to sort of do more work towards that, but there there are people working towards making their services inclusive and open and friendly and welcoming. But we've got a way to go. But there there is change. In that space there is change.
Speaker 5:And is that space that sorry, is that change that the Love Project champions? Like is there any kind of I don't want to call it lobbying, but like is there some kind of way the message is getting out.
Speaker 1:Not directly through the Love Project, but because of the engagement that I have with the community and what we do and what we hear and what we deliver. Then that gets fed up into our policy and research team and that's sort of where we have a really incredible policy research um team and icon and that's where they'd be working with us to sort of work with governments to understand kind of what needs to change.
Speaker 5:Yeah, amazing. Um, I did want to jump back. You mentioned COVID. How did that change? How you kept this social connection?
Speaker 2:Because I imagine it would have been a very, very challenging transition to do over those.
Speaker 5:what year and a half that we were locked down? Not locked down, locked down?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was pretty crazy. We'd started something called the Love Club Gathering about three years prior to COVID and that was just a monthly meeting at ACON and 20 or 30 people come every month just to connect and have a chat and be social. And the moment the week COVID hit, I decided that we would take that online. Oh, Not really knowing.
Speaker 5:Wait, did you decide that because COVID had hit, or had you separately been like we can do this online? No, because COVID hit.
Speaker 1:I just wanted to make sure that those people that had been coming in and using that as a monthly get-together and a monthly sort of social connection still weren't going to miss out on sort of seeing each other or speaking to each other.
Speaker 1:So it was all very trial and error and it was all a bit bumpy, um, and some of the older community members weren't that great with their digital literacy, but we we um supported each other and there were times where someone would sort of come on and sort of unmuted. They couldn't sort of unmute themselves and then there was no sort of visuals and then they'd drop out and then they'd sort of come back to two weeks later. But we made it through, like we bumped our way through it. And there was one photo that I remember seeing that there was about 30 people online one week, which was sort of incredible, and it was really just about keeping people connected and social. And I think the feedback and what I heard from that was it was really valuable that people just got to hear what we're doing and I could facilitate that conversation of sort of what are you all feeling like? What's going on? How are you keeping yourself up?
Speaker 5:yeah, yeah, I mean we would do like quizzes and stuff amongst our friends and even that was a real highlight of the week like you would really go into that to be like. I feel what it's like to connect with, like more than my housemates or like my neighbour, when I see them outside.
Speaker 1:you know Well a big thing that I'm sort of conscious of, too is a lot of the people that I work with do live alone, so any sort of social engagement or activity that we do is an opportunity for them to come out and sort of be with the community and be with their peers. So the COVID online stuff was really important. Some people missed out because they just weren't digitally sort of literate and didn't want to engage that way, but the ones that did, I think, benefited a lot from it.
Speaker 5:Amazing. I love that. And COVID changed so much, yeah, so so much.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it forced everyone, but particularly sort of some people that weren't that literate into knowing and understanding because they just didn't want to miss out on having that group?
Speaker 5:Absolutely, I also wanted to check in about maybe advice for people. But how can we approach reducing ageism for myself, specifically with the LGBTQ plus community? But maybe if there's some broader tips as well, what can people do to reduce Because ageism is such an insidious jism, jism?
Speaker 4:Jism.
Speaker 1:Such an insidious jism. I like jism. It's a whole different podcast. Yeah, it's taken a turn. Oh, it's past. Such an insidious ism, because I think it's a whole different podcast. Yeah, it's taking a turn oh, it's past 9 pm.
Speaker 5:We're gonna no. Um, it's a very insidious ism, because I think a lot of people don't believe that they have it, but I think ageism is something that a lot of people pervade in the way that they behave or communicate yeah, call it out oh yeah, nice, straight away. How can, but for myself I'm worried I'm doing it. So how can I check myself?
Speaker 1:look, I think we know, I think it sits there and it's um, because I forget what you said when we walked in.
Speaker 5:But there was just that slight comment I said 50 years ago for some years, which I would say isn't far off, maybe 40 years ago, I shouldn't name the time.
Speaker 1:But it's almost like that edge that that's a bad thing, that it was 40 years ago. So I think sort of ageism across the board is really insidious, like you said, but it's really powerful in either people having prejudice against other people or our own prejudice towards ourselves, and I see that a lot with older people too. They're putting themselves down because they're old, for whatever the reason. So I think it's about calling it out and understanding it and knowing. When you say something and I think we know I really do, I think because there's somebody that I know I won't give their name.
Speaker 1:No, give their name but they sort of suggest or they sort of say things a fair bit, with not even knowing that it's an ageist comment. And it's really interesting because they're getting a little bit older, and when I say a little bit older I mean sort of 50-ish, and even some people go, oh 50, oh, my God, that's so old.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, I think it's sort of. It's just, it's the real casualness of a comet. It can be really cutting and really hurting and really directed at someone and that you mightn't even know. But I think in your heart deep down you sort of know if you're making a comment about sort of age.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it is the ism that we don't talk about.
Speaker 5:Yeah true, it's getting, well, it's why things like the Royal Commission into aged care? Was such an important thing to have, because no one was talking about aged people, and so the people running these aged care homes were like doesn't matter what we do, yeah, go crazy.
Speaker 1:Collect that bank. Yeah, get away with it. Old people aren't worth it yeah.
Speaker 4:Remember that article we reviewed and he talked about being 34 and dead in the ground. Basically, who was that?
Speaker 3:I don't know, you know the article about that, about the bodybuilder, that we reviewed.
Speaker 4:Oh, the one that I thought a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 5:Yeah, oh yeah, that's right. A couple weeks, that's right, yeah I have.
Speaker 1:I have had sort of clients, sort of 35, 40 gay men mainly sort of coming in being really concerned about sort of their lives ending because they're they're 35 or 40 and they're not going to find love and nobody loves them.
Speaker 5:It must take every bit of your therapist strength not to laugh in their face I think, oh, look it's, but like that's.
Speaker 1:I think that sort of speaks to sort of particularly for gay men perhaps, how we've come into the world, what value we put on our bodies and our parts that give us that sort of value to be in the community or with other men. And then when that sort of supposedly starts to wilt, ageism, I'm calling it out ageism.
Speaker 5:That's ageist language.
Speaker 1:Internal kind of ageism it's like crikey, like I'm not worth it anymore.
Speaker 3:Yeah wow.
Speaker 5:Yeah, wow.
Speaker 3:That's what's so interesting to me and it's something I've talked to actually both of you guys about, and because, like for me, like when I go in, most of my time spent with gay men is like out and partying and to me it just seems like the thing that happens a lot, yeah, so it's like like yeah, that's the kind of thought I I have had about that before, because, like to me, like it's such a significant part of the culture or, as a straight man looking into it, um, like it's where dance music came from, for example. So like I'm like what happens when that you know, you perceive that you can't be a part of that community anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess that's where alternative communities start to pop up for, perhaps, older community members. All right. Better venues or different venues, different styles of events that sort of are more inclusive, yeah right, and they might be more intergenerational, or they might be just more framed towards yeah right, and they might be more intergenerational, or they might be just more framed towards an older crowd, and it's not just all about youth and abs and whatever else.
Speaker 5:Do you know what? I used to be part of a queer D&D Dungeons and Dragons group, which was intergenerational, because everyone at the table could be a hot elf. Because you're just telling the story.
Speaker 4:It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 5:It was very good, and do you know what I would say? I probably appreciated and enjoyed that more than clubbing. Not that it's necessarily better, but I think there was a better connection there than there was me munging out on a dance floor.
Speaker 3:Yeah true.
Speaker 1:Well, I love that intergenerational. I've always been a big fan of sort of just getting all ages together, together and doing things together. I mean, so we get to hear each other, because, like, even a young person's experience is valid but can be disregarded because of their age. So it's nice just to get people together Not young gays, though.
Speaker 5:Everyone listens to them. Shut up. I say you did touch on it just now, but what kind of role does intergenerational connection play in the work that you do? You've got a very high value on it.
Speaker 1:It's just really important for younger community members to understand sort of the older community members' experiences. That's really it. It's sort of they're moving through the world, they're doing what they're doing and their struggles and their feeling, that sort of what's happening to them, is the most important and it is for them in the time, in the moment. But to actually sit down and realize that sort of lots of generations older than them have been through really sort of solid traumatic experiences in their lives to sort of get there and to make it better for them and continue. We all continue to work together to make it better for all of us. But our elders really have this important way of being in the world.
Speaker 5:They've been through the hardship, oh yeah, absolutely All of the big social changes for the gay community in the western world and happened in the last uh well, you would say probably 80s through to now. They were the big heavy like like actually violent changes that had to happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um yeah, that's really interesting well I do a favorite with the 78ers and that's always really interesting because that's sort of the touchpoint for us, our 78ers march.
Speaker 1:But it happened a bit earlier in the US. So it was progressing. But it was interesting. I was in Germany last year in Berlin, and went to sort of the Gay Museum in Berlin and it was really interesting to sort of just see that story. It was very similar to sort of what our progression was there was sort of exclusion and to sort of what our progression was. There was sort of exclusion and the sort of community came together and there was that struggle and to work through sort of getting getting all the rights that we needed hey, did you go to while you're there?
Speaker 5:yes, nice, did you get in?
Speaker 1:yes, vibe love that laboratory three times and they come once wow incredible.
Speaker 5:Yes, the, yes, the aura that you put out, that you had to let you in, skip the queue.
Speaker 1:Look, I was with a very good local that knew exactly what to do and how to get in, spoke all the language.
Speaker 4:Do you think the youth get that struggle, or has it kind of gone over their head Do?
Speaker 3:they just hear it. Do they lack that activism mentality?
Speaker 1:hear that activism someone going back in my day I think it's I don't know, maybe sort of 50 50. I think there's some really aware younger people that that know that sort of what they have has come from somewhere and from someone and from struggles um, there probably are others out there that sort of just think oh, my greatest concern is me and I've got to get through this world and make it the best for me. I'm not being called out.
Speaker 5:No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
Speaker 1:No, I think there's sort of there is a lot of awareness out there that it's community, this is who we are, and we've had this progress, and even with Qtopia opening. Have you heard of Qtopia?
Speaker 5:No, what's Qtopia?
Speaker 1:Gay men, you don't know what Qtopia is. Yeah, andrew's a bad guy. I'm a bad guy, I get rapped on the knuckles regularly. I've done my streak, but I haven't been, I get wrapped on the knuckles regularly Down my street, but I haven't been. Yeah well, q-tabia opened this year at Mardi Gras and it's the first real gay museum In the old police station In the old police station. So it was a bit controversial. That is controversial, yeah.
Speaker 4:It's called reclaiming, babe, we say the word queer now as a positive thing. We take their little station, their little batons and we, we take their little station, their little baton. It's up in the hot policeman.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and assless chaps, it's all of that. Well, it's a really fascinating experience to sort of walk through, because it's mainly exhibitions that are there. What's the word for being there?
Speaker 5:all the time. Oh, I know it as well. Svetlana will tell us now.
Speaker 1:That would be a museum's permanent collection and then there's some moving things, that sort of change over time. But, um, there's part of the museum is tells the hiv story and and ward 17, which is really powerful. Um, and that's the subject. Like really took my breath away, having been in Ward 17 and seen so many people die, and then sort of walking through the museum with my older community and sort of people saying I was locked up in that jail, in that cell there, and some people don't really want to step back into it at this stage. Others are embracing it and reclaiming it, but it's an important thing for us to have. So, if you get a chance, just go down. Um, I think it's open seven days a week. What's fascinating is the toilet block too. They're on, on, uh, taylor square. That's all a museum and it's incredible is it really?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's like I've been down that toilet block many many years ago, it's all been locked up for years, Like you weren't even born. But to go down there, it's an incredible exhibition of sort of the toilet block and they've sort of recreated the whole thing. Yeah and yeah, it's just part of the museum. So, it's a good way of sort of just getting up to speed with some of the things that have been happening. Yeah, I'll check that out.
Speaker 5:That's super cool.
Speaker 3:I've got a question about self-care for yourself. So, like in your work as a therapist and in the work that you do currently, I'm sure you hear and get to listen to a lot of sort of you know I don't want to say troubling or harrowing or things that might affect you personally when you hear them. What do you do for yourself in terms of making your like, looking after yourself in those situations?
Speaker 1:when you hear that, yeah, sure, I think, initially acknowledging that we're all human and we're all going to be in relationship with others that have had sort of stories of trauma. So not sort of separating myself, so far from it that it's sort of it's not a reality, but understanding that I have the privilege of sort of listening to some stories and hearing people and that's a real privilege to be in that position. And I must say I can't not walk away from a conversation sometimes and not be impacted. Yeah, but the way I probably balance that is by sort of cooking is a big one for me. Food, I love food. I used to be a chef, so that's my old past.
Speaker 5:Thanks.
Speaker 3:Akella Brownie.
Speaker 5:Oh really, what's your go-to meal? Like what's a good, if you had to show off the meal that you're best at.
Speaker 1:Probably, maybe a curry.
Speaker 5:Oh yeah, We'd love a curry.
Speaker 1:Or a good stew.
Speaker 5:Lots of Italian, lots of French, lots of italian, lots of french, lots of asian, lots of mixes of all of that. This sounds like an invite. Yeah, absolutely, come over for a nice meal.
Speaker 1:Cooking is like my therapy at the end of the day. I'm sure my partner sort of thinks oh my god, what is he doing? Like can't we just sit down and eat? And I'm there sort of chopping and sautéing the onions until they're translucent and then throwing the garlic that I've finally diced in. It might take half an hour longer. You come out with a smile.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and I get excited.
Speaker 1:I get excited that I've cooked something again, and I'll even sit down and go oh, this is really good, isn't it? I'll be wanting my partner to sort of say yes, it is.
Speaker 3:That's such a nerve-wracking thing when you spend so long making something and then you're like, oh, you give it to someone Sometimes.
Speaker 1:I think, oh my God, this is really good. I can really cook, yeah, but no cooking. I think exercise is a really good one for me, music is a good one. Some reading when I get a chance, some reading when I get a chance Time with Al just to sort of come down, is really good too. And being outside I'm a bit passionate with mindfulness. It's all about just really knowing where you are and feeling the hot sun on your skin or feeling the grass between your toes All the simple things. And travel too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course, on the extreme travel, and I'm about to head off for four weeks.
Speaker 5:Where are you going, spain? Ooh, congratulations. How fun You're going to come back so tanned.
Speaker 1:I'm going to watch my skin being a little bit older. Good to know. Good to know we're learning.
Speaker 5:So now, looking ahead for the LUB project. What's on the future? What's on the cusp?
Speaker 1:What's being developed, More of what we've been doing just building on that work, but particularly in the next three years. We've just received some good money, some good funding from New South Wales Health to do some really interesting palliative care, end-of-life work.
Speaker 1:We started a project about four years ago to build a toolkit for palliative care, end-of-life for the queer community and that toolkit sits on the ACON website and it's a really great resource to sort of dig into everything from sort of end-of-life choices to funerals, to just the whole gamut of palliative care, and what we wanted to do was to take that out to community and we weren't able to because we didn't have the funding straight after that. Well, now we've got that funding and we're really excited and I've just sort of employed someone to help me do that work, to be able to take it out to the community and do things like bereavement workshops and legal workshops and death dinners and yeah, that sort of work that I really like. I'm an existential therapist, so I like talking about death and dying. What's a death dinner? Well, it's a space that you create for people to be able to talk about death and dying.
Speaker 5:What you were going back to before, where you were saying you know my end of life plan yeah, so it can be.
Speaker 1:It can be a death dinner or death lunch or brunch, or what do you serve at a death dinner? Well, we haven't done it, so that'll be interesting to come up with.
Speaker 5:Yeah, what do chickens are made? Maybe beef?
Speaker 1:but let's say I like to highlight this well, I love the idea of sort of having people around the table and talking food and sort of that whole conversation. So I'm quite excited about sort of creating a space where it's almost like we all create the food, so we all cook together and then we all sit down together the whole time. We're just talking about issues around death and dying.
Speaker 5:Fantastic. Wow, that's exciting. I bet that'll be the best meal as well. I hope so. Emotion woven in.
Speaker 1:But yeah, lots of the same that we've been doing, Um, but that's probably the most prominent work and and excited about sort of getting into that.
Speaker 5:Hmm, Amazing. Um, I wanted to check um, how can people get involved with ACON? Um, if they want to help out, if they, if there's a Love Project website.
Speaker 1:You can get to the Love Project website through ACOM or it's just loveprojectorgau. Acom doesn't exist without its volunteers. There's a huge volunteer base. So, yes, you can go through the volunteer process, which is a little bit sort of tedious, but it's great to sort of be part of that incredible volunteer team and then you can put your hand up to sort of do work specifically with the Love Project or with the Women's Project or the Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Project or anything if that's what you want to do.
Speaker 1:But volunteering is a really, really good thing. It the Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander project or anything if that's what you want to do, but volunteering is a really, really good thing. It's an incredible team. It's a really nicely supported volunteer project. But if there's older people listening and they want to just come into the Love Project, then we do have a Facebook and Instagram page which I'm fairly active on and they can just connect and come in once a month to the Love Club gatherings which is the fourth Thursday of every month, and that's usually a nice way just to come in the first time is just to come into that group and just meet a few people and go from there no pressure, come say hello.
Speaker 5:Was that the event?
Speaker 3:you were doing the other week, or is that a different thing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it was the one off the Beresford. Yeah. Yeah, that was more of a gala celebratory event that we did. That's one off every year it looked amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:And that again is for everyone.
Speaker 5:Fun. And then was there anything else you wanted to spruik or mention. I think we've covered the whole.
Speaker 1:And then was there anything else?
Speaker 5:you wanted to spruik or mention.
Speaker 1:I think we've covered the whole, the whole shebang.
Speaker 3:Yeah, love to hear that. Really nice to have a chat. Russ, thank you so much for coming on. I really learned a lot. Like I obviously didn't talk that much because I don't really have that much to say, but like I have a lot to think about now. But we really really thank you so much for coming on board and talking about some very, very important things.
Speaker 4:That's honestly the most I've learned on one of these episodes the whole time I've been on this show.
Speaker 5:It really pays to bring experts in. Sorry, Gavinon.
Speaker 1:It really does. It was fun, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for listening to Well Basically, if you want to find Andrew, you can find him at TheBearbackInvestor. If you want to find Mikey, you can find him at Well Basically, mikey. If you want to find me, you can find me at Well Basically, sam Svetlana is going to cover all of the websites and all of the places you can find information about the Love Club and ACON Go Sveti about the Love Club and A-Con Go sweetie.
Speaker 2:Visit their Instagrams for more information, at A-Con and her sub-view and at Love Project AU.
Speaker 3:Once again, huge thank you to Russ for coming along, and well, basically that's it.