Inside Sydney Fair Day: Health, History, And Queer Joy;

Step into Sydney’s Fair Day with us and feel how a community festival can be equal parts celebration and survival kit. We walked the grounds, gathered stories, and stitched together a day where drag kings share a bill with doctors, and history stands shoulder to shoulder with prevention.

First, Professor Richard Tillman breaks down anal cancer in plain language—who’s most at risk, what symptoms to watch for, and how a simple self-check in a warm shower can prompt the referral that saves a life. He connects the dots from late presentations to early screening, the parallels with cervical cancer, and federal momentum to scale access. It’s practical, calm, and immediately useful.

Then Dr Marco O’Reilly brings HIV care into sharp focus. We talk U=U, why having sex with someone who knows their status is safer, and how PrEP can be tailored—from daily to on-demand—while keeping an eye on kidneys and bones. He’s candid about GP education, access for people without Medicare, and the promise and pain points of long-acting injectables. The takeaway is simple: sexual health is primary care, and it should feel easy, non-judgemental, and informed.

We widen the frame with Cancer Council’s Rachel Jarvis on equity and research that actually reaches people—LGBTQIA+ communities, regional audiences, and anyone who needs resources in their language. And we sit with two 78ers who lived the first Mardi Gras, speaking to arrests, public outing in the press, and the long arc of acceptance. Their presence turns a party into a living classroom: joy has a history, and care is how we honour it.

Across the park, NSW Police GLOs explain how to find a liaison officer when reporting sensitive issues, small queer-led businesses prove community commerce can be generous, and the main stage keeps us grinning—from meticulous drag king transformations to an opera rendition of WAP that stopped us in our tracks. Fair Day isn’t background noise to Mardi Gras; it’s a compass for what matters: visibility, health, and the everyday ways we look after each other.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review—your note helps more curious listeners find their way to the conversation.

Transcript

Tempo: 120.0

SPEAKER_06 0:08

Welcome to Fully Grown Hymos, a podcast about our adventures as fully grown hymos navigating today's world full of inquisitive friends' questions about gay life and the unexplored activities of a life lived as fully grown homos.

SPEAKER_08 0:21

We'll discuss the gay 101s, sex, sexuality, and topics we don't even know yet. As we want your input into what you want to hear, nothing is off limit, so email us on the fully grown homosepodcast at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_06 0:33

Or message any of our socials at Fully Grown Homer's Podcast.

SPEAKER_08 0:59

Good morning, Matthew.

SPEAKER_06 1:00

Good morning. It's Sunday. A week on from last Sunday. Yep. And what did we do last Sunday? Oh, we went to Fair Day. What's Fair Day, Dave?

SPEAKER_08 1:10

Well, Fair Day is a day of celebration. Yeah. That is celebrating the community for the LGBT plus Q community. Yeah, yep. Um, where people gather to um come together and enjoy activities um and learn a lot. Oh yeah, learn a lot. And you know, and just spend the whole day with family friends and you know, celebration of fun and life, I suppose.

SPEAKER_06 1:36

And look, I guess it's part of the Mardi Gal Mardi part of the Mardi Gras calendar of events. It's one of the very first events. It is my it's it's it's like about a week in or something like that, a couple of weeks in. Um, but it's literally my favourite week of the um, you know, of the of the calendar. Of the calendar, yep. My favourite week of the calendar, my favourite event throughout the whole season. I mean Mardi Gras is the pinnacle event, the actual parade and everything like that. But it is a fair day, it is definitely my favourite event.

SPEAKER_08 2:06

I think this is my fourth one. Um I've always wanted to go and then went until you told me to go, and I went with you, and then obviously ever since then I've been going. Yeah, because it is fairly. We missed one when they close it down because of the asbestos problems. Yep, yep. Um but this year to me seemed bigger. It was huge and the weather was so kind.

SPEAKER_06 2:25

The weather was great because it looked like it was gonna rain, but it was a little bit cloudy. But it has been either scorching hot or teeming rough.

SPEAKER_08 2:34

Two years ago, it was so hot was it.

SPEAKER_06 2:36

There was a little bit of rain in the afternoon, um, but it was like everyone sort of took cover for a moment, and then basically as soon as the rain passed, they were all back out at it again. Yep. Um, but like Fair Day in itself, I think congrats to Marty Gray, you get it right every year. Um, the amount of stall holders this year, it definitely seemed like there was more, but it wasn't overcrowded. Like, I think that's last year it felt like it was really crammed. Yeah, whereas this year it actually It flowed very well, didn't it? It flowed well, there was like lots of different places to go on the street.

SPEAKER_08 3:10

You know, without people falling over each other, there was enough room for people to watch what was going on, yeah, um, and still navigate between the stalls and the information stands and the drink and the food and everything else that was there.

SPEAKER_06 3:23

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_08 3:24

Um so what kind of people were there then, Matt?

SPEAKER_06 3:26

Oh, everyone, everyone was there. So the thing is with Fair Day, it is an all-inclusive event, right? And um, even our heterosexual brothers and sisters are welcome. Yeah, they're in there for everyone in between. And like it's if you're an ally, um, it's a great place um to actually go and find out a little bit more as well, because I know that last year we took Dick and Fanny um along with it, and they found out a hell of a lot about our community, uh just through different stalls and different events, and they didn't realise, I guess, the girth of access and things that actually happened in our community, and I I even the things that actually affect our community, um, because they noticed all the services that were there and they went, Oh, we didn't think it was any different. We didn't think it was any different. Um, but we got there a little bit earlier this year. We were meeting up with a lot of friends, which is again one of my favourite reasons to do fair days because you get to meet up with friends that you haven't seen for a little while and stuff like that. And um, you get to just be comfortable, be yourself.

SPEAKER_08 4:27

That's right.

SPEAKER_06 4:27

Um, and we met up with quite a few, yep, but we got there a bit early, and we actually took our podcast gear with us with us this year. And last year we wandered around and told people about our podcast and said, We'll have to get you on, we'll have to get you on. But we didn't ever get around to it. Well, the same storeholders were there.

SPEAKER_08 4:45

So yeah, quite a lot of information. There was a few different people there. Quite a lot of information. This year, as you're as the listeners will find out.

SPEAKER_06 4:52

Yeah, we say we took our podcast out and we took it out of the pouch and said, All right, let's just have this on us so that we can say to people, are you happy to have a chat? Yeah, and and we did, and we captured four really great conversations that I will play throughout the podcast a little bit later, but four really good ones. And then we talked about um anal cancer that we touched on last time, yep, from what we could remember. But we actually had the top guy there this time. Yeah, we had um what was his name, David? We had Professor Richard Um Tillman, yep, and he was fantastic, and he was so free with his time, yep. Um, and he basically talked a lot to yourself um because you're very inquisitive and sort of ask all those kind of questions and that, and um Dave's gonna be the next Tracy Grimshaw, that means with my accent. Um but he he um asked a lot of questions and he was so free with his time, which was really, really helpful. Yep. Um because as we discussed last year when we went to podcasts, anal cancer is something we never knew about, though. Yeah, absolutely. Um so you'll hear a lot from him.

SPEAKER_08 5:57

And the and recently the actor, um, what's his name? Um from Dawson's Creek. Um come Jesse, someone I can't remember. Yeah, yeah, he recently passed. Yeah, he passed and he passed away from anal cancer. And he was in his 40s, and as you'll hear from the segment um with Dr. Sorry, with Professor Richard Tillman, he explains the rise of anal cancer and what he's been looking out for. We won't give too much details away because there's no point because he's the expert and he'll explain a lot more in that regard.

SPEAKER_06 6:28

But we had chats with with lots of people. We had chats with people from the um sexual health clinic. Sexual health clinic, Dr. Marco Riley, yeah there as well, and and he's from the Teller Clinic um. Teller Square. Teller Square. Um sorry, Tyler Square Health Clinic. Um, and he is such again, it's such a knowledge. Engaging person as well. He went over to he went over to a conference recently in America. In America.

SPEAKER_08 6:54

He said he was the probably qualified out of everybody there, in his terms. I mean, I think he's exceptionally qualified. But he was able to literally represent Australia and they said to him the the best people in the world that can treat these things are the Australian doctors.

SPEAKER_06 7:12

Yeah, and he they did talk about, and I don't know whether that was while we were recording or while we weren't, but we were you're here. Um he talked about the country that is most likely to actually eradicate HIV, and most of the nations over there actually voted Australian will be the one to actually eradicate HIV, which is phenomenal, pretty sensational, given the size of um people.

SPEAKER_08 7:35

You know, I mean, we're literally a small, small demographic in a big country.

SPEAKER_06 7:40

Yeah, so we're making some really good headway in the same.

SPEAKER_08 7:42

Yeah, and then we spoke with Cancer Council. Yeah, we spoke to a lovely woman called uh Rachel Jarvis. Yeah. Um, she volunteered to give us some information. She she spoke about various different things within the Cancer Council, what they specialise in, what they do, and she's from a scientific background, and then she fell into this this position, you know, working with the cancer council by by sort of like mistake, but she's loved it ever since, you know.

SPEAKER_06 8:05

But yeah, so so we had lots of chats with them, and then I think with everyone. One that I I think, and we've got to pay absolute respect to these people because without them, yeah, we wouldn't actually be in the position where we are today. Yes, right. And that's like the 78ers. Now, for those that don't know who the 78ers are, we'll let um Robin and Robin explain that in the interview in detail. So these two ladies, 78 originals people original that actually sort of protested against the police back in 78 um and took to the streets and supported the LGBT community. Um, and they were two um lesbians of a certain age. Obviously, they were part of the 78ers, so they're not 25 years old anymore. That's right, yeah. Um, but um there's some awkward moments in there where Dave tells them that they're gonna die soon. Well, it wasn't like that.

SPEAKER_08 8:56

I was I was just basically referenced to the fact that you know people of their stature and people that were around back in the day um have passed on. Have passed, yeah. And you know, it's only a matter of time where it will be a case that there'll be nobody left to represent the 7080s.

SPEAKER_06 9:12

So they've actually written what they've done is they've actually written a book called Camp as well that you can find in good bookstores, um, right, as well. And they will talk about that as well because we do ask them to give that a plug um as well. But lots of information from those ladies and on from from everyone we spoke to. Yeah. But look, I mean, you know, some people weren't really sort of like wanting to do it, but they did it for our benefit, and I think that was really which was great, but and and for our listeners' benefit. Um, so lots of information coming your way. Yeah, but then there were some other people that we spoke to. And these are these are sort of like stalls that we didn't engage in last year. But we didn't, but also we didn't really have like because of I guess they're we're so we spoke to New South Wales police, right? Yep, and now they're not really in a position where they can sort of do a podcast interview as such. No, right, as such, but they were happy to have chats with us, like ridiculous off the record, um, and stuff like that. And we spoke to two of the um GLLOs, which is their gay lesbian liaison officers, right? And they were telling us all about who these people are and what they do in their actual roles within their own their police force and stuff like that. Now, a couple of the guys the one the girls and one of the guys that we spoke to there, they were from my local area, um, which was the Surrey Hills Police Station, um, and their knowledge is ridiculous, right? But they were saying how if they and they've got this special little badge, like an upside-down triangle, yeah. Yeah, right. And it's got the little rainbow on it, and it's there, but you wouldn't know it, yeah, right, unless you're looking for it. So if you are somebody that gets in trouble with the law or somebody that is looking to report something, yeah, right, and you're not comfortable speaking to a police officer for any number of reasons, ask them to speak to your Glow, right? If you're part of the LGBQ community in Australia, right? Um, right, and they will get somebody because they just understand a little bit what we go through. Now we don't know other police forces use the same um system.

SPEAKER_08 11:16

They would they would all have the same obviously reporting from New South Wales police. I think what they've done over the years and the support and the um the amazing work that they do is phenomenal.

SPEAKER_06 11:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 11:28

Um, and these people that we spoke to, they're all representatives of that group.

SPEAKER_06 11:32

Yeah, of the and um they you mean they and they do go through intensive training, and and they did say that not every single person that is a GLOW officer is is part of the LGBT community, but they're allies. Absolutely, and they've gone through some training to basically and it's completely voluntary, it's not like it's forced upon them, so they're not like install in they're not signed in as a cop and they get told you've got to do your GLOW training, you have to be a GLO member, right? They voluntarily choose to be that, right? Like the um So in your in your area wherever you may be, there will be a GLOW officer.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 12:06

Um, but again, if say for example, you're wanting to report domestic violence and it's male or male domestic violence, which we spoke about last year, yep. Um, it's and you might think, well, if I go and report to this copy's gonna go, well, you're a man, just hit back. Right. The glow officers will actually probably have a little bit more understanding of how it affects our community. Empathetic, empathetic, yeah, both sympathetic. But uh they'll have a more of an understanding how it actually affects our community and things like that.

SPEAKER_08 12:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 12:36

Um we asked them about different backlashes that they actually receive when when big events happen, like when um that that um gay police officer murdered the the two two guys uh last year two years ago. Yep. Um and they said they received a lot of backlash there. A lot of people were not feeling safe within the community, safe within um the police force, uh stuff like that. They thought, do the police really have our backs and things like that. Yeah, so it was so like we had some really good insights with them. Um there was and the female officer that we say. She was like the guy was great, he was fantastic, she turned me straight, honestly.

SPEAKER_08 13:17

She was she was beautiful. I mean, I know she's a lesbian, but she was beautiful.

SPEAKER_06 13:22

She turned you into a lesbian, that's she did, yeah. But she was gorgeous, and like she she said she'd happily come and have a chat with us. So we welcome you on. Just hit us up via the um via the Instagram message, right? Right, yeah, hopefully you have. Um, but I gave you cards, so um, hopefully you did sort of hook in with us. Um, so hit us up because we also have a dating opportunity for you as well. Sammy might have out. We went back, didn't we? We went back. We went back and we took our friend Sammy and she checked you out and she was like, Oh my god, she is beautiful, she's gorgeous. And so, yeah, so good dating opportunity for you as well. Sammy's amazing. Um, we love Sammy so much. Um, but yeah, so but the New South Wales police, thank you for keeping us safe. And I know you cop a bit of stick at times as well, but but you really do help us look after us.

SPEAKER_08 14:09

It's something in in work, and I mean they're they're making amends and they're they're actually pushing forward with so many more positive steps towards helping out in the community.

SPEAKER_06 14:18

I think it's great. So on on the main stage, like from there, we we chatted to a lot of people, like we went to different stalls and chatted to lots of people, had some food. Um, but we chatted to like we went and chatted to Will and Dan from Tinker Co. Yep, um, who it was always great to see those boys. Um and they were busy, yeah. They um they were busy, like a a lot of people love their their product. Uh Tinker Co. If if you don't listen, you don't know. They're guys that um started their own business through a I guess um something that happened with Dan. Like he had a stroke and um got a support dog and and basically started making some bandanas for Tinker. And um people said it turned into a business for them. Full-time business. Um full-time business. They've both basically been able to sort of step away from what they do full-time and um they do markets online products online and all that kind of stuff. But they they make quality right their stuff, their bandanas that I bought years and years ago, they're going strong, yeah, right? They're going strong, like, but it was actually really good to wander around and see the pets that were actually wearing Tinkunko stuff, right? Yeah from past years. Some of like Cole Following, haven't they? Yeah, yeah, because they are they're for the community, yeah. They they they're part of the community.

SPEAKER_08 15:35

And they give back to those community, the Stroke Foundation, and also they they provide um funding for certain things with the LGBTQ. So they're very generous with their time, their money, and also their resources. Yeah, so yeah, and they're good guys as well. So if you get trying to support them for sure.

SPEAKER_06 15:50

Yep, definitely. If you've got a puppy, or even if you don't have a puppy and you want to wear a really cool neckerchief or puppy. You want to be a puppy? Oh, you want to be a puppy, yeah. Um you want to be a pup, part of the pup community, and wear a proper bandana, didn't we? Yeah, we did. We seen some pups around as well. And this is the beautiful thing about Fair Day is you see everyone, everyone. Yeah, there's hot guys in speedos, there's drag queens that dare to do day drag, which oh my god, like day drag is harder than night drag because you can see the five o'clock shadows sometimes. But again, the were there, lower above. Well, column A, column B. Well, we did have a very hairy armpitted friend um as well that I missed. But yeah, there was a girl there that had a very hairy armpits, but we will move on from that. Um, we support everyone's choices. Um, but on the main stage, when we got there, or when once we got to the main stage, a drag king drag king show. Um and I've never seen that before. No, you hadn't. I have obviously um because I'm way more um in touch with my um entertainment side, entertainment side, whatever. Um, but uh the drag king show was awesome, and there were some very talented kings up on that stage. There were and drag queen drag kings who who are, I guess, part of the drag community, right? Um they're generally females that dress as males, but there are also now some males that are dressing as males, um, which are just hyper extensions of males and stuff like that. So they'll have where drag queens will have pads for their hips and their boobs and all that kind of stuff, and corsets for their waist. The drag kings are generally over-accentuating their muscles and their thighs and stuff like that to look more masculine and hyper masculine. So it's actually quite an art form in itself. And we were chatting with a friend of ours, Rob, and or I was chatting with her, and she went it entered it as fun a couple of years ago, and she ended up winning it twice in a year. Yeah, and like killed it, absolutely killed it, um, and then got quite a lot of work out of it, which she said it was just supposed to be a fun hobby, yeah, and ended up actually getting quite a quite a amount of coin out of it as well.

SPEAKER_08 18:03

Because we met with Rob and Aaron. Aaron was doing a gig and he was coming down from the same day afterwards, yeah. But he got there in time, so we met them, and we met these two guys at the Naked Man camp. So it was the first time we've actually caught up with them since that time. Yep. Um, but hopefully, going forward, we'll be able to catch up with them a lot more. Yep, yep, definitely. Great guys. Um, we need to do a podcast with them anyway, don't we? About their experiences as well.

SPEAKER_06 18:23

Yep. Um, but then we had like we had um again, we were apart from the drag kings on the main stage, you had some DJs that were really cool. I think DJ Dan Murphy was um DJing, which he does a lot of the um oh my god, what's the thing that I'm thinking of? I don't know. Uh it's the music theatre one anyway. He does those. I can't remember it's gone, it's escaped me. Um, but anyway, it's really good. He's awesome as well. Um, but and then they had this opera singer who did a version of Wet Ass Pussy um by Cardi B, and she did it in opera, and she was like a soprano, and it was fucking amazing. She stood there in this red uh flowy gown with like these ribbons. This was a cisgendered woman, a real woman, yeah, yeah, yeah. She was a real um cisgendered woman. Um, and um she had this big red gown, but it had like two little ribbons that basically just covered her tits, right? And but she was gorgeous, absolutely stunning, but stood there and operatically did Wet Ass Pussy, and it was just like people were like, Oh, she's doing opera. And then when they worked out what she was singing, like Cardi B's Wet Ass Pussy is is the furthest thing from opera you could possibly imagine. Yeah, and it was just like wow, and it is on online, so Google it. Um, just Google Fair Day Wet Ass Pussy Opera Singer, um, and you will find it. And it's it's like next level, it's just like holy fuck, where do you learn to do that? Um, and and where do you get the idea to create that? Because it was just she was she was in the next level amazing. And look, one of our friends also was there on the main stage at some stage throughout the day, but we didn't actually see her, which was Catherine Acorn, who does the Divine Bet show. She's great, she's beautiful, and she's amazing. Um, but there is literally something for everyone. Like I collected pamphlets, right? As you do, and I've got like the Bondo Road Doctors, which is part of um Marco Rolly's stuff. I've got like um Rainbow Mortgages, I've got Over the Rainbow Funeral Co. Um, right?

SPEAKER_08 20:33

No, there wasn't there was there was one we were going to do, but we didn't get time to come back. They were doing something about the fruits and vegetables given away, remember? I can't remember what they were doing. They were they were providing the community with food of some sort, but we had to go back because he needed permission to talk with us. Oh yeah, I can't remember. Remember the one? I think turn back over. Who's that's that one?

SPEAKER_06 20:52

No, that was no, that was that was crispy B. Bacon, who was actually a really cool clothing company that actually operates here out of Sydney. Very, very cool. Um, and look, one of our good friends, well, I'll say good friends, but he's super hot, and we just fawned over him for a while, which was Gabe Woods, who's um again, he's he does OF content and adult content. He's like sexy as fuck. Um but he wears a lot of their stuff. But then you've got the Pride Business Association. Oh my god, I've got so many things in here. Um but like so many different bits we picked up. But picked up the Australia posts were there with their rainbow things. Is this the one? No, that's the anal cancer, anal rectal death. Okay. But I don't know what I've done with yeah, we'll have to find out the list and try and plug a bit a few more.

SPEAKER_08 21:34

But yeah, so we did we did lots of um well you'll be able to find out and put a list on the on the website anyway.

SPEAKER_06 21:39

Minus 18 were always there, and they're actually a great connector for people that are under 18 that are um part of the LGBT community.

SPEAKER_08 21:47

And there's just so many different organizations out there that go unheard of or they don't get the recognition that they deserve. Yeah. Um just because they're not publicized enough. I mean, and you know, them being representatives there allow. People to understand and have that insight to what they provide, and that's what we were there for mainly to try and get information out there. We will drop all those interviews in. But there was one thing there, Matt, that I know that you love more than anything, and it's only been there for a few years, and that's the pissing wall.

SPEAKER_06 22:16

Oh, yeah, yeah. So they're giant, giant. I do enjoy it. Um I'm not okay. Let's make this very clear. I'm not into um pissing. I'm not into water sports. Um I would deliver pissed on somebody, I wouldn't that wouldn't faze me at all. I quite enjoy that, I reckon, probably. But I'm not into getting pissed on. But I do like a sideways glance and stuff like that, and I like to check out people's cocks and think whether or not I think that actually works well on them. Um in me, um, all over me. Um, but like they're these big plastic walls, so they're kind of like the things that you see that barricades on the side of walls, the big orange things, but they're just these big big troughs, so they basically link them all together.

SPEAKER_03 22:59

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 23:00

And it's quite cool because they do it in a big U-shape um in this one, at this event, but they do them at all big events. Um but it's so easy and so efficient and so quick.

SPEAKER_08 23:10

It allows the portal cabins to be used for what they're meant to be used for.

SPEAKER_06 23:14

Like, and there are people that line up for portaloose still, and I sit there and I think to myself, bro, why are you doing that? Like, and I know why they're doing it, because creeps like me stand there and look sideways at their cocks, but that's alright. But there was some there was some nice cocks there too. There was that ginger that had his big black kilt on, and he fucking had his dick out, and I went, Holy fuck, that's why I like gingers. Um it was a nice dick. Um, but yeah, so hi, Mr. Ginger, get it.

SPEAKER_08 23:41

So you got the benefits of being there.

SPEAKER_06 23:42

Yeah, yeah, I definitely, yeah, I definitely enjoyed that as well. Um, and directed some of our friends to when they needed the bathroom and said, Oh, you need to go there. But if you were to sum up the day in terms of just a fair day activity we do, how would you say to the listeners? Inclusive. Inclusivity, inclusivity, um, fun, light, um. It's a must on the calendar. If you've not been to a fair day and you're in Sydney, right? Um, or even if you're not in Sydney and you're planning on coming down for the Mardi Gras, right? Make sure that you come down with enough time to get to Fair Day.

SPEAKER_08 24:18

Because I will say this back in the day before I met you, and you know, I I knew about Fair Day, but I didn't know about it, if that makes sense. I'd heard about it but didn't know what it was about. And my perception was it was all about taking dogs to a park, and everybody sat down with their dogs and had a picnic, and that's what I thought it was about. And it couldn't be anything further from that truth. I mean, there was dogs there. Yeah, there's always people, you know, it's pet-friendly and stuff like that. But what I'm saying is the atmosphere, it's like going to a carnival. Yeah, it's like going to a carnival, a theatre, it's like having everything in one place in one time, yeah. But you've got people that you can be yourself around without any judgment.

SPEAKER_06 24:57

People dancing, people wearing the stranger things, but they were happy, but they're happy, and there was no gorgeous.

SPEAKER_08 25:04

But there was no no incidents there. There's no violence, there's nothing.

SPEAKER_06 25:07

I mean you have police representatives, but there was nothing there.

SPEAKER_08 25:10

There was no incident at all.

SPEAKER_06 25:12

And and people are actually sort of it's just a happy fun day. Yeah. And so, like, I'd say, get your ass down there.

SPEAKER_08 25:19

But you also gotta show make make make a shout out to the um the SES and all the other people there, all of the organisations out there that support the communities, regardless of whether LGBT or not, yeah. They were all there representing you know their their professions and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_06 25:36

But it was good because like and and like I said earlier, the part that I really love is the catching up with friends. Like we got Sammy to come along, we had Robin Aaron, we had Clay. Yep. Um, like we've seen other people throughout the day that we knew, um, which you always run into someone, you know. So if you're going down there trying to hide, wear a pub mask. Um well you've still been recognized. Yeah, so we know it depends on how much they expose of you.

SPEAKER_08 25:58

And those people from the um the naked man cover weeks or down at the restore, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 26:03

Same Sam Henderson from his his coaching as well session. Um, but that like just so much to see, so much to do, um, so many hot men.

SPEAKER_08 26:12

And it's just it's a shame it's only one year, one day a year, isn't it? Really? Oh, it could be a whole weekend. Oh, it could be fantastic, or a whole week a whole week would be a whole night. It'd be boring.

SPEAKER_06 26:20

Yeah, but if it was a whole week, then you get to see a lot more. But yeah, but we we also said that we'd love it on a Saturday. Um, not necessarily because I work, because that's the only downside. It's Saturday. It finishes about like nine o'clock at night, which is fine, but because we're old and we go home, but we could definitely see it pumping on.

SPEAKER_08 26:36

But we we carried on to Newtown.

SPEAKER_06 26:37

We went to Newtown, had some dinner and stuff like that. And that's a great place as well.

SPEAKER_08 26:41

So yeah. And we actually had food in that store. And then that bar. Can't remember what it was called, upstairs or something. I can't remember.

SPEAKER_06 26:48

Oh, we just went up some party, it was quite nice later. Yeah, can't remember where it was, but yeah. But yeah. Well, that was our fair day experience, and um, I will obviously drop these interviews in right about now, and um enjoy listening. Enjoy listening, have fun, and hopefully you'll learn a lot as we did. Yeah. Alright, so on that, I'm gonna drop the interviews now, and you'll hear them one after the other. We won't do any intro.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Okay, my name's Richard Tillman. I'm uh uh a staff specialist at St. Victor's Hospital. I'm also a professor at the University of New South Wales, and my primary interest is around anal cancer. Okay. Um anal cancer is a particularly um high rate because it occurs at particularly high rates in people living with HIV, uh, particularly gay men, but it's also a significant problem for people who are gay men who do not have HIV as well. Um and also uh women who've had a history of cervical disease, uh particularly positive women as well. So it's a real interest to people living with HIV, but also HIV-negative gay men as well. Now, at the moment, sadly, uh people present rather late uh with bleeding uh from the anus. And when that happens, it's often very difficult to treat because it's a very advanced stage and require chemotherapy, radiotherapy, which have got lifelong uh consequences. We can save about 70% of people who present at that stage, but 30% will still die despite the best available treatment. So the obvious answer is if we can screen people before they get to the cancer stage, then we can prevent all that horrendous unnecessary death. Now it's extremely similar to cervical cancer. You probably don't know, but up until about 1980, women used to present in exactly the same way. They presented with fresh vaginal bleeding and it was too late. And then the screening program, the cervical screening program, and Australia leads the world in it. Australia introduced a screening program for women, which involved just a simple swab. We can identify those at high risk for pre-cancer, treat the pre-cancer, and then the people go on and have a normal life. What we want to do is introduce that for gay men, particularly gay men living with HIV. And um, we're very fortunate to be awarded a grant by the federal government in Australia to design such a study. And that will be starting towards the end of this year. Um, there are already guidelines in Australia for this to happen to people living with HIV. Unfortunately, there is no current funding to support that, but again, we're working with the federal government to hopefully introduce that uh nationally uh probably next year 2027. Okay. Um so in the meantime, we don't have most people can't access the screening programs. But what they can do is first of all, you've got to be aware of symptoms. So uh the key thing is change in bowel habits. So if you notice a lump in your bottom end, if you notice an unusual bleeding pattern, if you notice pain there, or if you feel that you don't fully evacuate your bowels, you go to the bathroom, you have a poo, uh, but you don't feel completely clean, then get somebody to have a look inside because there may be a lumping side already. Typically, when cancers develop, uh in our experience, they are over three centimetres in size, three centimeters at the time that they finally present, and that's too late. So, what you can do now uh is if you're comfortable, is to self-examine. Women breast self-examine, identify lumps, and then they get treated early. The same principle applies to the anal canal. And if you're a gay man, particularly one living with HIV, then it's really important you have awareness of those symptoms, but also you feel comfortable examining your body. Best to do if you're going to do it yourself, do it in the shower, a nice hot shower, you're nice and relaxed, a bit of a loop, gently pop your finger in, just swing your finger around your anal canal. It should be nice and smooth. Yeah, you don't need to go further than your second knuckle, um, because that's all your anus is. You don't need to go any further up. Uh you can swing your finger around, there will be towards your your ball side of things. There is a lump which you're prostate, and that's a normal thing.

SPEAKER_03 30:56

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Uh but if you find any roughness or irregularities, then that's a sign that there may be something worth having investigated further. Talk to your GP, get a referral to the cholera surgeon, and have an investigation.

SPEAKER_07 31:08

So talking to GPs, are they are they on board with this as well? Do they know much about it at all?

SPEAKER_01 31:13

Um GPs, like all the rest of us, come in various shapes and sizes, and some GPs are better than others. So uh if your average family-friendly GP in the suburbs probably doesn't know much about it, they have more concerns about the pediatric stuff and the women's issues and so forth. But the inner city GPs by and large are are aware of these and will be able to do a proper digital analytical examination D-A-R-E day, um, and and if they find anything, they can refer them on to specialists.

SPEAKER_08 31:39

Okay, and in terms of like demographics of people, you're saying that people leave it to an older age. What is the sort of like common age of people that are starting to develop this sort of like digital?

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Okay, so the the guidelines uh the Australian guidelines is people living with HIV over the age of 35 need to be aware of this. And uh if you're a gay man, if you're a non-gay man but still living with HIV, then over the age of 45. If you're an HIV negative uh gay man over the age of 45.

SPEAKER_08 32:05

Okay, and are you in conjunction with like the bowel cancer sort of like side of things as well?

SPEAKER_01 32:10

So bowel cancer, um although anatomically they're adjacent to each other, they're completely different. Right, okay. So gay men and people living with HIV are no greater risk of bowel cancer. They're clearly at risk of bowel cancer, we all are. Yeah. But people with the additional problem with HIV HIV are at no greater risk of bowel cancer. Um, so uh and and and the bowel cancer kits, we those of us who are a certain age will get a little poop test from the photographic, they're great. They're specifically designed for bowel cancer. What they do is they detect microscopic amounts of blood uh in the in the poop. Uh and uh occasionally we see patients who who got referred to us because in fact the the blood was coming not from a bowel block. That's what I was gonna ask you whether you're gonna be able to do it. But again, it's too late. Right, it's too late. I mean it's it's already big enough to start bleeding, yeah. Uh, and it becomes more difficult, more complex to treat. You want it earlier than that.

SPEAKER_08 33:03

So, in terms of the treatment side of things, if someone is at a stage where you can treat it, what is the treatment and what does it involve?

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Okay, so it depends how early on it is. The sort of stuff we we do something called high resolution in our sapiens and vincents, which is a uh which is a technique where we microscopically examine the anal canal. And cancers at the microscopic level and just cover that's a story, maybe with a bit of a treatment around the edges, but essentially it's so easy to if they're called at that edge.

SPEAKER_08 33:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

Unfortunately, that's the minority of cases. They're usually, I say, typically three, three and a half centimetres in size.

SPEAKER_08 33:37

At that stage, um, unfortunately Would that be like the sort of like the ring thing I felt last time with that with that big indication there?

SPEAKER_01 33:44

It's usually a big lump.

SPEAKER_08 33:44

Imagine a big I thought it was like a volcano because you you put your finger around it and it went inside. There was like a little bit. That would be fine. That probably would be that one, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

So volcano, it's not usually hollow in the middle, but a lump more like a volunteer. Right, okay, okay. More like a lump. More like a, I don't know, like a walnut. Oh, okay, right, okay. So it's got a hard surface to it, it's often tender. Um would it just be like a single one or would it be multiple ones? Again, it depends how advanced it is. I've seen patients with seven centimetre long walls and they didn't have any symptoms at all. So um again, the key thing awareness, yeah, uh, change in symptoms, uh, and getting it checked out as soon as you can. Um the average age at which our um people living with HIV present with any cancer is 55-0. People without HIV is about 60, 6-0. Um, but obviously they love their cancers 10, 15, 20 years before that, yeah. And we have this long period when we can potentially intervene to stop having to undergo all their horrible radiotherapy things which they have to have if they present late.

SPEAKER_08 34:46

Yeah, okay. It's great. I mean, I I'm so I'm so in awe of you guys that spend your your life. The work you do, they're dedicated quite crazy or things.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

This this young man here is in long, he's a colleague inoscopist at some Bix's hospital. He does uh quite a lot of examinations as well, and and and Vinny here is one of our nurses. We have a team now of people who are beginning to build up these services around cancer.

SPEAKER_08 35:09

But again, I mean I I think you know it's a huge shout out to you guys that dedicate your lives to uh the good cause of helping other people in that regards. I mean, not just doing this, but other things as well you do within your profession, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

Well, thank you for saying that. But in fact, we enjoy what we do. I think because we feel we're making a real big addition. We feel as though we're making a difference to people. Yeah, yeah, for sure. By the time people finally come to our clinic, they've often extremely worried, very concerned. Uh they've often, dare I say, been misinformed by some areas. And by the time they come to us, they feel safe and we feel we can significantly contribute to their quality and duration of life by some relatively straightforward interventions that we can do.

SPEAKER_08 35:48

Fantastic. At the moment, so do you want to just introduce yourself and what you do?

SPEAKER_02 35:55

Yeah, so so my name's Marco Riley. I'm a GP and sexual health physician, and I work at the Sydney Doctors and Taylor Square private clinic, and we have another practice called Bondo Road Doctors. Um, so we we provide primary care, so we're a GP practice, but we're also a bunch, some of us are sexual health specialists. So we do a lot of HIV care, a lot of prep for HIV prevention, a lot of trans health, a lot of LGBTI, QA plus health care basically. And then just general general practice for anybody who needs a GP.

SPEAKER_08 36:28

So because we normally go when we get our test, we go every three months to our local hospital to get our test done. Yep. So is that the same sort of thing that you do there, or is it slightly okay?

SPEAKER_02 36:37

Yeah, yeah. So we've got lots of people who just come in every quarter for their daily prep script and their routine STI screen at the same time.

SPEAKER_08 36:45

Are you seeing a change in the demographics of people coming through now? It's being more openly accessible and stuff like that for being trusted testing and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_02 36:52

Uh we haven't seen a huge shift. We're very busy. We've, you know, we've been around, Taylor Square's been around since 81 and uh 1981 and East New Doctors 407 since 1994. So we've always been involved in HIV medicine and prevention. Um, what we're trying to do, I work for Asham, which is the peak HIV organization. What we're trying to do is cheat teach GPs all around Australia about HIV prevention.

SPEAKER_08 37:19

PrEP shouldn't be because we we've noticed that going to GPs, they're uneducated in terms of that side, not uneducated, uninformed. Unaware. Yeah, better.

SPEAKER_06 37:29

When I went to my GP first because I was in a long-term relationship and came out of that and sort of went to do prep, and I was a Gramble. And I walked in and I said, I'm after PrEP. And he had no idea. He googled, he said, What's up for? And I said, like for HIV. And he said, You've got AIDS. And I went, No, it's about preventing HIV going forward. And he's like, he said, Oh, you're gonna have to come back tomorrow. Because he literally he rang a friend, they didn't know, so like literally it was just it was a nightmare to actually get it.

SPEAKER_02 37:59

So yeah, so we do run education for GPs in you know, all over the country, online and workshops in southwestern Sydney and Western Sydney, wherever. Like, this is not something that we want to keep close to us. We want everybody to do it. It's like prevention, like you know, contraception for prevention of pregnancy. Yeah, we want all GPs to know how to prescribe PrEP and prevent new HIV transmission.

SPEAKER_06 38:22

So are many straight people, like I know our heterosexual girls, our friends and all that, they have no idea what PrEP was. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:30

Is it is it something for the broader community? It's it's in this country um HIV in the heterosexual community is quite low prevalence. So but there are certain circumstances where you know someone might be conceiving and have an HIV positive partner, like try trying to fall pregnant and have an HIV positive partner, or perhaps inject drugs, you know, and at risk not through sexual acquisition of HIV, but otherwise, but so it's it's it's individualized, so it's it's case specific. So we would welcome any non-judgmental conversation with any person who wonders if they're at risk. And sometimes when people come in and ask you for it, they don't necessarily feel comfortable disclosing why they're asking. So while I I talk to people about risk and try and understand the reason for why they need protection, if someone doesn't want to disclose that it's the same as if someone wants to have an HIV test. I've already given them an HIV test, it doesn't matter. And it's a prep I check a bit more because the medication does come with some hip motor things, which is yeah, kidney and bone issues. So we do need to be a little bit more careful and assess risk a bit more.

SPEAKER_08 39:41

Because I've gone from daily to on demand because of my kidney function. And I'm grateful for the doctors looking after me and mindful of being mindful of that because you know, if I didn't know that, then I would have carried carried on and it would have got worse probably over time. But you know, for me I'm grateful for that, but I'm also grateful for the fact that there's a there's still I'm still able to take it, you know what I mean. But you know, for me it's just like you know, subpervention is better than the prevention, I think.

SPEAKER_02 40:02

100%, and you know, there's some really exciting stuff coming through in terms of injectable print. So there's the two-monthly, which we're still it's approved in Australia, but funding has been an issue.

SPEAKER_06 40:14

And then there's a six-monthly. It's up there from a price point.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

It's not it's not going well, unfortunately. It's twice refused at the um the pharmaceutical benefits advisory committee, but then the six-monthly um uh injectable called Lena Kapavir has performed spectacularly in international trials in um girls and young women in in Africa and and then in men who have sex with men around the world and trans people as well. Sure. Um and that's just been approved at TGA three or four weeks ago, but I think you know it's gonna take time a while before it gets happening.

SPEAKER_08 40:50

In terms of stat-wise, I mean, in terms of like the number of people presenting themselves with HIV these days, is it remarkably lower compared to what it was back before PEP was available?

SPEAKER_02 41:00

Uh in 20 uh yes, it's it's spectacularly low. Like the numbers in 2023 were the lowest new notifications in Australia since the beginning. Um, the the deep the data gets a bit skewed around COVID because of reduced testing and reduced sex, obviously, but the numbers are going slightly up over the last couple of years, but we just think that's returning to proper testing rates from pre-COVID, basically. And when you actually look at the 10 or 12 year data trend, it's actually looking fantastic, basically. And as as people, you know, with u equals you, with immediate access to treatment, not waiting for your CD4 count to drop to a certain threshold when you're diagnosed. So U equals U, access to prep, like we're doing spectacularly.

SPEAKER_06 41:50

So, what is U equals U for somebody that doesn't know?

SPEAKER_02 41:52

Yeah, thanks. That's a great question. So U equals U means undetectable equals untransmittable. So if you're living with HIV and you're on treatment and you have an undetectable viral load, and for people who understand viral load numbers, internationally that means less than 200. In Australia, copies of the virus in a mill of blood. In Australia, it means less than 20, but globally we think 200. If your viral load is undetectable, you cannot sexually transmit HIV.

SPEAKER_08 42:21

And this is what we've learnt over the years as well. And we've still got friends that are very nervous about I get I get it, you know what I mean. If you're getting involved with people that have told you that the HIV is positive and stuff like that, and they're on treatment, like I said to them, you know, don't distreat them. At the end of the day, they're probably safer than anybody.

SPEAKER_02 42:37

No, the having sex with someone who knows their status is the safest sex.

SPEAKER_08 42:45

And that's where the positivity needs to be.

SPEAKER_02 42:47

As long as they're on treatment and has an undetectable viral mode if they're living with HIV, but you know, someone who's unaware or hasn't tested recently, the risk of acquisition of HIV there is greater because you know we don't know.

SPEAKER_08 42:59

In terms of the medication that people are on for HIV, um is it changing or is there treatment plans changing for them as well moving forward?

SPEAKER_02 43:08

So it's it's at the moment it's tinofivir, disaproxyl fumerate, or or there's various versions of it, but it's an older version of tinofavir along with another drug called intracytabine. It's in a single pill. It used to be called Travata, it's kind of patent generic companies are making it. The generic versions are safe and very much tested, and they are cheap. Um, and you know, if you have a healthcare card, it's about seven bucks a month, if you don't, it's about 30. We've rolled out in Australia access for people without Medicare cards. I my understanding is free access, but I need to you need to verify that. But um, we want HIV prevention to be absolutely available to everybody. There's a small proportion of people though who may have medical issues that mean or or drugs. Interaction, medical drug interaction, so they can't take those drugs. So if you've got kidney disease or you've got bone osteoporosis, bone health issues, then we have concerns about that main option that's available in pharmacies. And so we've sort of gone back anyway to 2016 or 17 where we can assist people to import a more expensive version that is better in terms of kidney and bone health. So there's still treatment available for people? Absolutely. But we have to help people to import the other stuff. It's a little bit more expensive, but it is available for sure. And then down the pipeline there's the injectable stuff we've talked about. So in terms of people that don't know where you are, whereabouts are you again? So I work at a place called East Sydney Doctors, which is on the corner of Forbes and Burton, opposite the National Arts School, just down the road from the Oxford Hotel, and then we're also at Taylor Square Private Clinic, which is just next to the Rainbow Crossing on Berk Street. Sorry, how will people go about um making contact with you in that regard? They can give us a call, they can Google East Sydney Doctors Taylor Square Private Clinic, where they're six days a week at Taylor Square and seven at East Sydney.

SPEAKER_08 45:08

And how many how many team members are there apart from yourself?

SPEAKER_02 45:10

We've got about 16 GPs at East Sydney Doctors and about 10 at Taylor Square Private Clinic. We've got psychologists, we've got physiotherapists, we've got dietitians, we've got a big Allied health team, and we also at both sites we run clinical trials. So we're um we run a lot of HIV medication trials. We're looking at setting up some cure stuff in Sydney at the moment as well. But if if people are living with HIV and they want to have a chat about modernising their treatment or they're interested in participating in clinical trials about new medications or cure stuff, we would welcome any enquirers. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_08 45:51

Alright, well, thank you so much, Dr. Bart. For that information. Great to meet you back. So if you want to introduce yourself, so this is Matt and Dave coming from Pride.

SPEAKER_00 46:08

Hi Matt and Dave, my name is Rachel Jarrus, and I work at the Cancer Council.

SPEAKER_08 46:12

Okay, so in terms of like what you do and what you deliver and what you're actually advertising today, can you give a like a just a very broad spectrum of the available services that you provide?

SPEAKER_00 46:22

Sure. I think we might take one step back though and just explain that the Cancer Council has several divisions. So we all do very different things at the Cancer Council. We've got services that we offer, we've also got advocacy teams that do a lot of work with St. February government to advocate for screening and prevention programs. We've also got a research division, which is where I sit. So we do a huge amount of cancer-related research that oftentimes feeds into our prevention programs and our screening programs or the sort of educational materials that we develop for those services. So the Cancer Council does a lot of work around education, so we're not actually delivering um prevention-based screening and things like that, but we've develop a lot of information, a lot of material for the community to access those services, and um really we're just trying to share that messaging, right?

SPEAKER_08 47:08

Are you a government body or no?

SPEAKER_00 47:10

We're a charity and a not-for-profit, we're run fully by donations. Uh so how can people donate to you? Oh well, how can they donate? I think you can go onto our website and donate. Um yeah, I would say that's probably go onto the website.

SPEAKER_08 47:25

Okay, yeah, that's that's good. In terms of like um your sort of like your main sort of like what you do yourself, what how would you describe your pro your part of the actual process of what we do?

SPEAKER_00 47:36

Okay, yeah, great question. So I um I work in the research division, as I said. I'm a scientist by background, um and I did a lot of work in genomics, genomic-based science. I'm not actually a science practicing science anymore, so what I'm doing within the organisation is helping set the strategy and running operations within the cancer research division. So I do a lot of work with trying to obtain grant money for our researchers, helping um discuss you know where we place our resources, so what types of well, where are the gaps across the Cancer continuum? Where can we sort of fill those research gaps? Yeah, and then yeah, work with the researchers to deliver those programs.

SPEAKER_08 48:13

See, I'm I'm very, very grateful for you all for what you do because at the end of the day, without people like yourselves that dedicate your time, your lives, and your abilities to make things better for people, then we wouldn't be where we are now. When we went to Pride in Newcastle, we spoke to a um we spoke to a PhD, well she's a graduate now, so she was studying like science um stuff, and part of her research was to find um a sort of like a correlation between the treatments for transgender people having hormone treatments, they discovered that there's like a condition that affects the lungs. So she is now passionate about that, and moving forward, it was fantastic, honestly. And we met her professor, we did the podcast on when we were up there last time. Her main professor then contacted us and said, Thank you very much for promoting our business. So, this is what we're trying to do. We're just trying to promote awareness for people out there, people that might not necessarily know what's available to them, and also you know, just a broad spectrum of you know what you provide, you know. So, I thank you for that. Yeah, for doing that.

SPEAKER_00 49:13

Just on that note, around the LGBTQI community, we've we've got resources that are available specific to that community. The other thing we do a lot of focus a lot of is equity, right? Equity in healthcare. So, how can we develop materials that might support equity across all different types of minority groups, priority populations, people who don't speak English, the LGBTI, the right community, um regional community, you know, communities that may not actually you know be prioritized often. That's a very big focus for us at the Cancer Council. And so we've got resources for different continuity groups that are available online, absolutely, and um also we'll technically leave next anywhere.

SPEAKER_08 49:50

We'll uh we'll get some information for that. Have you got them with you? Yeah, yeah, because we get we get the bowel stream work coming through. This is what we were saying to the other guys down there, and you know, because the other doctor we were speaking to the professor we spent down there was the anal cancer doctor, and he was saying that they're making advances and they're getting more funding from the government and stuff like that, but you know, they are different from bowel cancer to what they do, but they get referrals from people with bowel cancer that have now been diagnosed with anal cancer as well. So I think it's a win-win when you all work together in that regard, you know what I mean? So and do you do you find that what you have gained from yourself is um something that you anticipated in your you know what we did? No, great question.

SPEAKER_00 50:31

I had absolutely no idea I was gonna land to the cancer council. It was personally and professionally a real delight, actually, in the sense that yeah, I was in a traditional medical research environment, and that was where I sat. Moving into the Cancer Council was sort of somewhat fortuitous and a bit optimistic, and it was a role that you know they decided I could fill, and it's been an absolute pleasure. It really has. It's the the there are so many smart people that work at the cancer council, yeah, and it's and they're doing such amazing work, and it's really having an impact in the community. It's a real delight actually to be part of that community and be part of that workplace. Absolutely. I mean truly the people are going to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_08 51:12

So in terms of like in terms of like encouraging people that are leaving school or looking at this, how would you sort of like encourage them to sort of like look into this?

SPEAKER_00 51:22

Uh uh well, I mean if you're interested in not-for-profits and charity, uh there's obviously a lot you can do as a young person to engage in those in those organizations, certainly. Right? You can volunteer, you can talk to us, you can come, you know, you can come to our offices, um, you can access some of the resources available and get a sense if that's interesting.

SPEAKER_08 51:42

So do you go to like schools and stuff like that to sort of like try and educate the children at an early age to yes, we do do um just like a dating where people can understand what's actually happening out there and yeah, we do do some reach out, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:54

So we do have some community involvement. That's good.

SPEAKER_07 51:56

I mean that regards. So the information is getting out there for people to have more.

SPEAKER_00 52:00

Yeah, certainly. I mean the only other bit of advice I'd have is don't worry if you change it.

SPEAKER_06 52:07

Hey guys, it's Matt and Dave from Fully Grown Homer, and we're here with Robin and Robin from the 78ers. Hi Robin, just tell us a little bit about who the 78ers are and what you do and what you've done for our community and things like that.

SPEAKER_04 52:21

Well the 78ers are the people that participated in the first ever Sydney gay and lesbian Mardi Guar in June 1978. Uh and if you know a bit about our history, you know that many people were brutally attacked and arrested by police that night, uh 53 people. And following that there were a series of protests by our community to protest those original arrests. So we staged a number of demonstrations following the original arrests, uh in mainly in July and August, but every time we got out to protest, more of us got arrested. So by the end of August, 178 78ers had been arrested.

SPEAKER_06 53:13

Wow, okay, that's something I definitely didn't know myself.

SPEAKER_08 53:16

So did you have like a Meetup group, not Meetup group, but a place where you all sort of like gathered to to make these sort of like um um protests? Process, sorry, thank you.

SPEAKER_04 53:27

Yeah, well we had an organizing group because at that time there were several gay and lesbian organizations. Robin and I were involved in the very first called CAMP campaign against moral persecution that was established in Sydney in 1970 and then branched out to other places around Australia. But more and more groups sort of formed from Camp, I suppose. Okay. Gay Liberation and other groups, and it was those groups that came together to plan the first Mardi Ga. So we did have meeting places and we stayed together as a large group, basically due to what happened at the first at the first parade.

SPEAKER_08 54:12

So at what stage in the process did you start seeing development being made in terms of like acceptance and and were you ever apologized to by the government and the police and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_04 54:24

We were, when was that? About about 40 years after. Wow, okay, wow, wow, wow. The government did an apology 40 years for the 40th anniversary.

SPEAKER_08 54:37

Did you feel like it was like a genuine apology? Because most of them are not.

SPEAKER_05 54:41

It had been asked for for many, many years.

SPEAKER_08 54:45

Okay. And it felt good to you to actually be apologized to, did it? Did you feel like it was a genuine apologizing?

SPEAKER_05 54:52

Well, I think the police commissioner apologized and uh it was, you know, really behind closed doors.

SPEAKER_08 54:59

So it wasn't a genuine, genuine there, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 55:03

Absolutely organised for general consumption. Right. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 55:07

And also the Sydney Morning Herald apologised because it was the Herald that had published all the details of the people that were arrested on the 24th of June. So their names, their ages, their addresses, so they were outed publicly, and there was uh quite a lot of impact on those people individually.

SPEAKER_08 55:33

So when you were arrested, or the people were arrested, were they sort of like targeted moving forward each time? Did they have like a criminal record against them and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_04 55:41

Uh there were some people known to police as being uh activists, agitators, but the arrests in general, I think, pretty random, weren't they? Okay. Oh yes, they were just picking people up. Okay. Or was it physical?

SPEAKER_07 55:57

Was it physical?

SPEAKER_04 55:58

Very physical. Oh wow, okay.

SPEAKER_05 55:59

And the women were targeted actually first. Really? Well, we were up the front of the parade, and when we were told to disperse, unfortunately, in King's Cross, because it was such a hub of social activity in those days, most of the pedestrian area was filled with people just enjoying themselves. So we started going back down the street. But as uh Robin said, the police had kettled us with their uh vans and things. Okay. So we they just picked us off from the front. Okay. Yes.

SPEAKER_06 56:40

So how different different time that we're living in now. So I guess have you seen when did you start noticing the acceptance changes and things like that? I guess that that that that that we have now? Because 2026. 2026, it's an open slider to be exactly who you want. I mean, I know my employer says bring your whole self to work every single day. Um and when did because you guys actually pay you ladies paved the way for us. I did. I mean, I genuinely believe set the presence for the whole where we are now.

SPEAKER_08 57:14

So I thank you both, because it is important, it really is, you know what I mean? Because you're giving so much freedom and respect and acceptance to everybody.

SPEAKER_06 57:27

Have you seen the changes? Has there been anything where you went, that's us, we've done that. Any moments you've been really proud of because you've seen it change and well I think social change is a very slow process.

SPEAKER_04 57:38

Yes, absolutely. Uh like nothing changed to BDBR. It wasn't until 1984 in New South Wales that homosexuality was decriminalised. Absolutely. So you have to remember people were criminals up till then. And then the women were, yeah, not the women. We got picked off for other reasons, not being real women being the main reason. Um, but there was lots of other things that took a very long time, um, and I think even perhaps the presence of the Mardi Gras Parade over time has changed people's perceptions because it's such a joyous event. Absolutely. Um and when we were in camp in the early years, we all did a lot of community education. So we would go out to these quite conservative groups, basically say, Well, this is what a lesbian looks like. Hello because of all the myths and stereotypes, you know.

SPEAKER_05 58:45

It must be some ugly diesel diet that cuts in a man.

SPEAKER_07 58:50

It's always the same.

SPEAKER_08 58:51

Well, it's always been the religious religious, political, all those things are very much at the heart of negativity, I find, you know what I mean, in that regard.

SPEAKER_05 59:00

And I mean, we're talking about the city. I mean, if you go out to the country, you've still got some of the old concepts about what homosexuality is about. So it's it's very scary for for the younger people out there.

SPEAKER_06 59:15

It is, and growing up, I guess, yeah, there's still a lot of change to happen as well. So um, but yeah, and you've got a book that you've done, and you you were telling us earlier, it's got lots of interviews in it and things like that. How can people get hold of that book?

SPEAKER_04 59:28

Uh well, our book is called Camp, uh, and it's about the pioneer activists in Australia. So, as I said, Camp was what was really the first political organisation, but it did spread around Australia. So we have interviews with members of Camp from its different branches. So it came out a few years ago, it's in its second printing.

SPEAKER_03 59:55

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 59:56

So we yeah, we think it's a really important book because it has people, everyone's own story. So what was it like to try and be a gay man or a lesbian in the 70s when things were just so oppressive? Yeah, yeah. Where if you came out you faced severe consequences. So a lot of people lived in the closet, they've double lives, felt uncomfortable socially. But once they had somewhere to go, a safe space, a safe organization. Well, I know for me it changed my life completely.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:35

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:36

Uh once I found out about him, you know, I just totally changed as a person.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:42

So I think, and that is the legacy of the early pride movement, how it affected people personally on an individual level.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:51

Yeah. And in terms of the um the Madagas parades over the years, have you seen like a change in the way they're going moving forward now compared to where you brought them up to? Because I mean, the every every time we've overgone, it's been different every year. But sometimes I think it's gone one way, it's all I've gone very political, which you've got no control over, I suppose, in that regard. But do you feel like it's been hijacked to some degree that it's out of your control?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:16

Um look, I think our our community is constantly evolving. So you know, I I I that sort of diversity and evolution doesn't bother me particularly because we're, you know, our whole point was to change science. For sure. And you have, regardless of whatever. I know it is different every year. But there's still some very satirical interest.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:42

Well, I think I find that as well, you know, I mean, in terms of what it is about, you know what I mean? It's almost like you put the hard work into it, you've organized it to make it what it is, and suddenly someone else will come along and jump on the bandwagon and take ownership of that, if that makes sense, and it spoils it a little bit because you know it's out of your hand, then isn't it? You know what I mean? But like you say, diversity is where we're going, and like I think that's a good thing. But in terms of what you guys have done and what your legacy will be, I think is I don't know, it's I'm grateful for it, I really am. I I'm so so grateful for it. And you know, moving forward, I mean I hope that the people that you select to represent you going forward will do as a good job as you, you know, in that regard. So thank you so much. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:24

So I've got to give a plug for where you can get camp. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, the best way to do it is just to email us. So our email address is pridepublish, pridepublish at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:40

Awesome. All right, and we'll put a link up there for that as well. Um, so thank you, Robin and Robin. So that was our fair day experience. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. I've been Matt, and I've been Dave as usual. Bye for now. Bye. That's a wrap from us. We've been your Fully Grown Homer's, and we look forward to opening your mind, your ears, and your curiosities. Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe, and share our podcast with your curious friends. You can contact us on Fully Grown Home Over Podcast at gmail.com or any of our socials Fully Grown Home O'Spodcast.