Queers of the Desert

Anwernekenhe: Us Mob

The idea of a national conference for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander queer men was born out of the interest groups at the Central Australian AIDS Conference held in Alice Springs in 1990. It was here that many of the organisers first met and, withdrawing from both the Aboriginal discussion groups dominated by heterosexuals and the gay men's group dominated by non-Indigenous Australians, determined to take some action for themselves.

After many conversations and meetings a national organising committee was formed that together with people on the ground in Alice Springs, such as John Cross, brought Anwernekenhe into being at Hamilton Downs in 1994. The conference coordinator was local counsellor and activist Phil Walcott who provided the following description of the event in the introduction to the Anwernekenhe Report (300kb pdf).

anwernekenhe

This historic conference was held at Hamilton Downs, 75km north-west of Alice Springs in Australia’s Northern Territory from Sunday 31st October to Friday 4th November, 1994. It is believed to be the first forum of its kind to be held anywhere in the world. A total of 66 Aboriginal and Islander gay men and transgenders nationally attended to be part of this initiative. The conference represented a long term ambition by a group of particularly dedicated young Aboriginal men who believed strongly enough in a dream to be able to bring it to fruition.

Following a meeting of national HIV/AIDS educators in Sydney in April 1994, John Cross, the Gay Men’s Peer Educator from Central Australian Aboriginal Congress (Alice Springs) with the assistance of the writer, (men’s educator/counsellor from the AIDS Council of Central Australia, Alice Springs) collaborated on a submission to the Commonwealth Department of Human Services & Health for funding. This submission outlined their aims, objectives, rationale and projected outcomes from the conference. They were successful in their submission with the Department supplying $35 000 towards costs. John also managed to successfully negotiate with some of the state and territory governments to allocate a portion of their Aboriginal dedicated health department funding to assist with transporting participants from their state or territory to the Alice Springs area. A list of the participants and support team appears elsewhere in this report along with some demographic data which assisted in the evaluation.

A National Steering Committee was established during June 1994 to discuss the proposal and begin to develop an agenda to be ratified at the conference should the original submission be accepted. Significant Aboriginal men in each state/territory/ area were approached by John to establish lines of communication and national networking. A series of national teleconferences linked those involved and a great deal of organisational work (proposed program, venue, travel and accommodation details etc) was coordinated. Following a dedication of funds from the Commonwealth, I was appointed as coordinator on Monday 10th October to facilitate the processes involved in arranging the conference. I sought and was granted leave without pay from the AIDS Council to accommodate this appointment. In hindsight, if the actual funds had been received earlier, it would have been more beneficial from an organisational viewpoint given that the task of arranging air travel would have proceeded more efficiently.

The chosen venue was most appropriate at significant levels even though some service restrictions (eg power only available from 7am to 11pm, limited drinking water and ablution facilities etc) required some negotiation. This venue, in Arrente (sic) country provided the participants with an opportunity to encounter some physical and spiritual experiences associated with their indigenous backgrounds. This feature of the forum could not have been achieved in either a city or town location. The nature of the conference also encouraged a celebration of participant’s sexual orientation and lifestyle. Given that many in attendance are often dually marginalised by contemporary society because of their sexuality and indigenous heritage, the venue and conference itself provided an opportunity to be proud of both.

The conference was originally promoted as a gay men’s forum, but this was changed to accommodate the transgender representation and to give credibility to their orientation and lifestyle with reference to sexual health needs. The forum immediately endorsed the needs of transgenders to be recognised for who they are and demanded that their needs in the sexual health field be immediately negotiated and addressed.

The program and agenda included aspects such as gay and transgender identity, adoption and fostering issues, HIV/AIDS and hepatitis, health care, alcohol and sexual behaviour and safer sex practices. Workshops were held in whole group and small group formats with many of them being conducted well into the evening. The proposed free afternoon scheduled for Wednesday in the original program was unanimously forfeited in favour of continuing workshops and developing further recommendations. The groups often worked beyond the time allocation to ensure that recommendations pursued at workshop levels were ratified by the whole group.

The degree of interaction between and amongst participants was a tremendous feature of the conference. Many new unions were formed and national networking became a common feature of the forum. It is difficult to describe in words the feeling that the week produced in all the people in attendance. Alice Springs and the surrounding country has a ‘specialness’ about it that has to be experienced rather than talked about. So many of the group felt the power and significance of this very special ‘healing place’ and described feelings of empowerment, encouragement and enlightenment.

The recommendations from the forum highlighted the fact that Aboriginal organisations nationally have been less than effective in addressing the needs of their gay, bisexual, transgender and HIV positive populations. The thrust of the recommendations are aimed at these groups (eg Aboriginal Medical Services, ATSIC etc) which are targeted as primary resource contacts which need desperately to be overhauled and restructured to allow for effective representation of gay and transgender populations. AIDS Councils around the country have also been targeted to ensure that they more adequately represent the needs of Aboriginal and Islander gay men and transgender people. Many representatives left the conference feeling more confident about approaching their regional services and will report back to next year’s forum as to the effectiveness of their respective approaches and the outcomes they achieved.

John Cross, Ronnie White, Matthew Cook, the national steering committee and the subsequent ongoing work party are to be congratulated for their dedication and efforts in organising the initial conference to be the absolute succuss that it was. They yet again demonstrated that what was once a dream could become a reality.

Phil Walcott
Conference Coordinator
18.11.94

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