Doug PollardTranscript - Daniel Witthaus in Bathhurst
DOUG: …. joining us on the line now from rev-head central in Bathurst is Daniel Witthaus, good morning, Daniel.
DANIEL: Good morning, Doug.
DOUG: Actually, you’ve probably moved on from Bathurst how, haven’t you?
DANIEL: I have, it’s safe to say I have moved to a bigger centre but yeah, I had an interesting time in Bathurst.
DOUG: [laughs] It certainly sounds like it, this place seems to have lived up to its billing rather more than Newcastle is, in the sense that it’s a much more closeted town for gays and lesbians.
DANIEL: Absolutely – m’mm, the closet is large in Bathurst and the surrounding regions is the word that I’ve got and even there, there seems to be this separation of people not really wanting to spend a lot of time in Bathurst Central because they find it to be . . . fairly redneck-y(sic) was the term used by one of the local health professionals.
DOUG: So, why did you go there, particularly?
DANIEL: Yeah, as some people might know the project that I’m doing in a national tour is a repeat of a project that happened with the Australian Human Rights Commission ten-years ago and Bathurst was the place that they chose to launch it because they thought it was really important to start and launch the actual project in a regional centre. Bathurst is about three-and-a-half hours drive from Sydney.
And because they have – I guess, a strong history – of a queer collective at the university and there was also at the time, the Queer Collaborations Conference which for people who don’t know, that’s where a whole bunch of queer groups from all the universities get together once a year.
They thought that that would be the perfect place in launching [indistinct] a project like that and it turned out that way. So, what I wanted to do was go there ten years later and see, have there been any differences and also just to pay homage to Bathurst itself, for being part of LGBT national history.
DOUG: Yeah – so, what did you find when you got there, when you did eventually find where you were going - - -
DANIEL: Absolutely – I had a couple of – m’mm, misconnections and wrong turns which people can read about in my Blog [ http://www.thatssogay.com.au ], but when I spoke to people I’d love to say that I came up with something new. This is the stage of the tour where I – it’s like Groundhog Week with some of the schools and health professionals I’m working with – m’mm, but – yeah, like, I also found some refreshing stories about – with students in schools. But also – like, the usual problematic ones that we’ve been hearing for weeks and weeks.
DOUG: Yeah. It seemed to me that this was probably the least advanced place that you’ve been to for quite a while. Where the schools, really, for the most part haven’t started tackling this issue yet and don’t really know where to begin.
DANIEL: That’s a really good point and it would be also fair to say that of all the places I’ve been for probably the last six to eight weeks Bathurst doesn’t have a history of any organisations. It’s not particularly well serviced by youth organisations or other kinds of mental health organisations so if things are happening it’s because schools are taking it on board. (and)Because it’s far enough away from Sydney and across the Blue Mountains not a lot of people are going to be travelling out there any time soon unless it’s for work or for a big car race every year.
DOUG: M’mm – and the other thing that struck me was you made the point there’s a divide in the town, too. Between the men who identify gay and the men who have sex with men but don’t identify as gay.
DANIEL: Yes. Certainly – I mean, talking to some of the workers who work around sexual health and they work with men who have sex with men and who don’t identify as gay – m’mm, they were saying there had been some problems and incidents in the past where you’ve got closeted men who will use places like beats and toilets and parks and things and – but there have been a few incidents, a few flare-ups. Between the closeted men and the openly-gay men where there have been some physical altercations and some of the feedback that these workers have been getting when they talk to these closeted men who are – m’mm, who at times are bashing the openly-gay men are saying: ‘they’re giving us a bad name’ and ‘they need to be discreet’. So, what they’re trying to do is – like, to pass in their community and not be seen to be gay, themselves. Or bisexual, as it were; so - - -
DOUG: Well, that’s a concept you’ve mentioned several times in the Blog. The whole thing about passing for straight.
DANIEL: Yes.
DOUG: M’mm, I forget who it was you spoke to who said he didn’t have too much problem around town because he could pass for straight but if you couldn’t pass for straight it could be very problematic.
DANIEL: Yeah, that was Wade. Who’s part of the Queer Collective at Bathurst University and I was really impressed by his self awareness. He said: ‘I haven’t had really, any problems but that’s for one reason and one reason only in Bathurst I pass’ and ‘heterosexual people just assume I am’. He said – like, I’m very – I’m – you know, ‘I tend to dress’ – m’mm, he was almost calling himself boring and he was almost wanting to be more interesting and self-expressive and he said: ‘at this stage that’s not me’. M’mm: ‘I don’t feel I can do that’ but because he has the work that he has which they call “in town”, in Bathurst - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
DANIEL: - - - he had this work where he had to dress a particular way and he had to have his hair a certain way and he said that if he didn’t pass, that would have a lot of problems. Because they were also talking about the university being a haven for employment for people who fit into that “passing” category.
DOUG: Well, talking about people passing and people being straight you seem to have met a remarkable number of what you’ve described, guys who could be lumberjacks while you were up there - - -
DANIEL: [laughs]
DOUG: - - - and I don’t know whether it’s frustration or whatever else setting in but there were a lot of lumberjacks and future husbands in your Blog this week. But particularly you mentioned one who is a youth worker, Steve. I thought his story was very interesting.
DANIEL: Yeah. Look, Steve is a perfect example of – if I think about how I see Steve and how a whole lot of other people would view him is that – you know, he’s this big lumberjack and he says himself: “I’m from Tassie”, “I’m ex-army”, ‘I walk around and I think a lot of people are scared of me without even speaking with me’ so he’s got lots of judgments that are being made before he even opens his mouth. But he really wanted to talk to me after a youth meeting that I went and spoke at and he really wanted to talk about a – m’mm, a young man that he was helping support and he found out that he wasn’t doing that well in supporting this young man who was caught sitting on a lap and kissing another boy at school. The principal said: “We don’t have a problem with him doing that, we’re worried he needs some support around that” and “we’re worried about whether or not he’ll be victimised and harassed”.
Basically, what happened is that Steve tried to talk to this young man and having no concept, having never spoken to gay people before and really not had a chance to talk to other people about his own homophobia – m’mm, said to me “what can I do”, “what am I doing wrong” – you know, ‘how can I better support this man’. Then over the course, I think it was probably about half-an-hour, by the end of it I’d tried to get him to – you know, be more himself when he was talking with this young man and being more transparent in saying: this is how I feel, I want to support you but I’m not necessarily good at it but what can we do about it. By the end of it he said: ‘I feel like I’ve got a weight lifted off my shoulders’ and he was glassy-eyed and leaning forward and thanking me so much and I thought – this man-mountain, was actually this big, soft marshmallow - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
DANIEL: Which we know happens in the movies - - -
DOUG: Yeah.
DANIEL: But this was right before my eyes, it was something I didn’t really expect and it gives me hope that – you know, these are the kinds of people that we need to be talking about. ‘Cause Steve can do – Steve said at the end of it, he goes: ‘I’ve got to see this young man tomorrow but want to ring him up – like, today. I want to shift it forward, I really want to go and talk to him and be open - - -’
DOUG: M’mm.
DANIEL: Be a better support to him because ‘this guy really needs it’.
DOUG: Yeah. Well, it’s great when someone like that takes it all on board and suddenly sees a way forward and the fact that he actually wanted to make the move but just didn’t know how.
DANIEL: Yeah. Yeah – and he said – like, he goes: ‘I’m just really worried about … this industry of youth workers and health professionals that if I open my mouth and say the wrong thing I’m going to get in trouble’ and he said that – you know, like – “I’m really scared of doing the wrong thing” and he doesn’t want to upset his colleagues. He doesn’t want to upset the young person that he’s supporting so he tends not to say anything and he made the point of he thought he’d stuffed-up with this young person. He tried to broach the subject with him, once – it didn’t work out so, he retreated and said: ‘I’m not going to talk about it with him again because I’m just going to upset him’. Not because he didn’t want to but just ‘cause he thought he was exacerbating the situation. Once he had a chance to talk with someone he felt – like, as I said the world had come off his shoulders.
DOUG: Yeah; well, that’s a really good story and a great ad for what you’re doing out there. Where’s your next port of call?
DANIEL: Canberra. For the – of all things, federal election - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
DANIEL: - - - all those wondrous things that are happening in the Nation’s capital at the moment.
DOUG: Oh, well, perhaps you can have a nice chat with Bob Katter. See if you can change his mind?
DANIEL: M’mm, m’mm – yeah, look - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
DANIEL: - - - the independents are meeting with me tomorrow. M’mm - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
DANIEL: - - - scheduling me ahead of Julia and Tony.
DOUG: Good. Great to hear it - - -
DANIEL: [laughs]
DOUG: We’ll speak to you next week, thanks Daniel.
DANIEL: Thanks, everyone. Take care. ‘Bye.
DOUG: That was Daniel Witthaus, there. Currently in Bathurst heading for Canberra. Even in redneck country there are people who look like rednecks but aren’t really, that’s very nice to find out.
