 Today, I'm in Sydney, Australia, hosting a whole series of chats in cooperation with Not Bound, an Australian charity that's working with the chats enabling this to happen. Today, I welcome Gary Kennedy to the Fireside Chat series. Gary, welcome and thank you. Good day as we say down here. Yes, I'd also like to extend sincere thanks to our host facility here, which is the iconic Stonewall Hotel on Oxford Street in Sydney. So let's start right at the very beginning. Gary, please tell me about your growing up, where you're from, a bit about your family. I'm one of the few people from Sydney who actually grew up in Sydney. I go up a few kilometres from here in a place called Maruba, which is a surfside suburb. Sydney has some beachside suburbs. My parents met while surfing. Oh my gosh. So they were very cool, like a net funer, cello, Frankie Avalon. Cool. They went surfing in their leathers on their motorbike. So we moved around a lot when I was a kid. My father was in the army. Oh, okay. And so life was moving about a lot. New schools every three years. So it wasn't to lowers in my teens that we sort of settled down, lived in my house. Where old did you live? In various army camps around Australia. Also two years in Malaysia, in an army camp in Malaysia. Where in Malaysia? A place called Malacca, in fact a base called Terendak, just outside Malacca. Huh, okay. I'm not familiar with it. Somewhere around Kuala Lumpur or Johor? No, it's two thirds of the way down the bottom on the west coast. Oh, okay. I've only been to basically that one part of Malaysia. I haven't been to the rest of the country. It was my opening for someone who came out of, you know, white, poor, and we were poor. My father was in the army. So areas and going out and experiencing foreign cultures. First time I'd ever seen people who were Chinese or Indian background. How do you feel that impacted you in life? A couple of things, one of them looking back. There's certainly the army thing brings the military discipline uniform thing in fairly quickly. Once in army schools, we did marching practice. Oh, wow. We used to wear full uniform. There were full military ceremonies held for British and Australian military things. So I had a sort of a military upbringing. Wearing a full uniform was not unusual. We had Christmas parties in military camps where you went riding in armored personnel carriers or flew in helicopters. That was just what happened. I think the American situation is an army brat. So who was Captain Scarlett? Captain Scarlett was my childhood hero. I was asked a question, where did you first get an interest in leather and uniforms? And I sort of came into the leather scene via the uniform thing. Partly because it was cheaper. The uniform was a way of both fitting in and standing out at the same time. In a room where everyone was in black leather, you walked in and you're wearing the fireman shirt I have on now. You fit in, but at the same time you're different. But when I was asked where did this first come from, I remember, what was my earliest childhood fondness? It was what you would now call anime. This is a group, if people know the Thunderbirds, this is from the same studio that did the Thunderbirds and there was a guy called Captain Scarlett who was indestructible. And he had a five o'clock shadow. And looking back at how he's dressed now, and this is a puppet, but he's wearing knee-high black leather boots. He's wearing joggers, he's wearing a red vest with zips, and he's wearing a peaked hat with a microphone and a five o'clock shadow. And looking back at it now, I thought, hmm, I can see where part of this may have come from. In fact, I've actually had that outfit made and worn that outfit out. Why, aren't you wearing it today? To the cup and something with all the other outfits. Wow. So going way back, I suppose my first childhood hero, if you can think back from TV, could have walked straight into a leather bar without a problem with it all. Or straight into the Mardi Gras party here. It's sort of, you know, full fetish outfit, except it happened to be on the childhood puppet on the TV show. You mentioned though a moment ago that you really came out first through the uniform fetish issues. Is there anything in that arena that was particularly enlightening to you, something that particularly turned you on? Well, partly yes. For one of the people doing it while the clothes are still on has always appealed to me. And it still does. So that's got a certain appeal. I suppose it could be going back to the military thing, going up to the Army brat that certainly had an effect. I suppose the other thing about the uniform thing was it was available and was able to be individualised, quite simply. I do travel as part of my job, and you could pick up, you know, the fireman shirt, the interstate or the security guard's outfit, and you could very quickly, individually tailor. I know when I went to IML, I made sure I took the obviously Australian shirts, so it was instantly obvious that I was a tourist. And it worked quite well. But when you were young, when you were travelling around and you were living in these various places, did this fetish begin to evolve for you at all then? No, no, I was a late bloomer. In fact, one of those people who was so unsure of everything, I mean the military camp, you're not out in the military camp, I was so unsure, I knew there was something different, didn't know what that was, so there was nothing for a while. And then when it did come out, it all came out, so to speak. I do remember a famous party in Sydney called Inquisition, which I ended up running that party many years later, and I remember walking into that party when it was number two and having an epiphany and thinking, this is it, this is my group. I remember thinking at the time, I mean with the weird freaky people, but I thought, ah, that makes me one of the weird freaky people. I had no problem with it. It was sort of a discovery of where I fitted in. But let's take a step back so we can understand a little bit more about you. You said that you were very nerdy in high school. Yeah, I was. How did you fit in with that? I was in the debating team. I didn't do any sport at all except swimming, which over here is a fairly popular sport. I was not that, both my parents were athletic, both my brothers were athletic. I wasn't. I did Latin. I topped the science class. I was ducks of my year. I was extremely nerdy. And I still know nerdy people. All those stereotypes on the TV program, the Big Bang Theory, I know all those people. Those stereotypes are true. And I still mix with science groups. So I was extremely nerdy. And looking back, the other gay people were nerdy as well. It's sort of, there's a little, without even realizing you're in a clique, we were in our own little clique. But you came out a little later in life. You alluded to that a moment ago. Why did you come out? I suppose literally late bloomer puberty didn't kick him. I didn't shave till I was 18. Oh my gosh. So there's that element. I do remember growing tall when I was at university. Really, I think the thing that did it was, there were two things. I basically finished high school and still was really nerdy and introverted. Then I had two things happen at the same time. Because my school is a surfing school that does rugby unions. I just did not fit in at all. So I had two things happen in my life simultaneously. One is I went to university and instantly I'm mixing with I'm a group of nerdy people. So I've suddenly found a group of people I'm in common with. At the same time I discovered they're going to Rocky Horror on Friday night. So I'm one of the people who did the dress-ups on Friday night. So I simultaneously found two groups of people, both quite different, who fitted those sides of my personality. So almost within a month of finishing high school, I virtually never saw anyone from high school ever again. There's only one person I still know from high school. Effectively, I thought, well, there's a part of my life I didn't like, get rid of it. And instantly found both the Rocky Horror and the university crowd who both sides of my personality match. And even in the nerdy university people, there were people there in cool indie bands. There was an open lesbian. So even amongst the nerdy people, they all assumed I was gay, even if I wasn't out. They just assumed. I've got the mannerisms for it. I had no girlfriend. So I had the facial hair. They just assumed correctly. So there were just two groups of people I instantly fitted in with. That's when I was about 18. But you came out a little bit late. So what finally prompted you to take that step? I suppose I was just over, not being out if that made sense. There was the living in the closet bit where I was just... I didn't ever officially come out where, you know, high world, I'm here. I just... And I wouldn't say I ever denied it. When people used to say, why aren't you married? I used to say it's because I haven't found the woman I want to marry yet, which is still accurate. There was a point at which, if anyone asked, I just said yes. But that wasn't for those about 30. And it was... I suppose the big coming out for me was I entered the Mardi Gras Parade in Sydney, which this is probably known. It's fairly famous around the world, one of the bigger parades. And back then it was still the nerdy apart. So I... First time in the parade, so I put in full articulated semi-trailer, rigged it full of full disco rig, choreographed Abba's Mamma Mia as a rig. So the leather thing hadn't quite kicked in fully, leather on the weekend or Abba at other times, and did the full dance routine. So there was my first official coming out was organizing full Mardi Gras float with camera crew. That's quite an ambitious step for someone who's not otherwise out. Yes, yes. I suppose the two sides of my personality were still full dress up. I was just in white, rather than in black. I was just a bit over-living my life the way I was living it, where I was effectively for one of us living in the closet, but not really. I wasn't denying it or anything, but I thought, oh, I'll just fed up with this. You're this way. Bored this way, like Gaga would say. Basically I was just over not being me. So both sides of the personality both came out, and they were both incredibly over the top versions of me. I have found the uniform thing to be a great way. I'm really quite shy. I mean, I'm really quite nerdy and shy. I still am, at least I think I am. Most people don't, but I think I am. And the uniform thing was a great way like the leather is where you can be you, but you're still someone different. So it was a way of being someone else, and when I'm in the uniform I have extra vert. I have no problem. You know, I quite famously once after one of the dance parties in Sydney, I'm in full New South Wales policeman's outfit. Totally illegal. I fully badged everything. It's arrestable here. And we were coming out of a dance party and they had shut the streets down for the Sydney Olympic Games for the marathon. And here's the whole group of leather people, and I just thought, oh, I'm just over here. There's a marathon in please. We'll just stop. And I thought I could get arrested for that. Oh my God. It's the sort of thing when you're in the uniform you take on a different persona. Well, how were you introduced to sort of the leather king scene? I suppose, look, Rocky Horror didn't hurt. There were certainly people in the leather fetish community I met from Rocky Horror. Okay. The fetish scene is definitely alive there. In fact, I still know quite a few people from Friday nights at Rocky. I met in the line at the movies who were very big in the fetish scene still these days. I suppose it was in terms of there wasn't really high I'm here. It was basically going to the bars and meeting people and running across other people who were in the same scene. You meet one or two people and go with them to other things. It was a gradual thing. Well, tell us about the Sydney leather scene that you discovered at that time. It was not quite underground but it certainly wasn't as public as it became. It was still well, this is pre-internet. This is pre-mobile phone. This is pre-grinder. Well, back then we still looked at personal ads in the back of newspaper to find trade. That sort of thing. So it was I suppose going back then it was finding your way through and finding various other people in the scene was how initially I got involved. Well, what bars were available then that are gone now that would be nostalgic for people to remember? Look, I remember the very first time I ever went to a leather bar which is a bar called back then it would be called The Keep Underneath the bar in Surrey Hills called The Clock Hotel and I took a friend of mine, almost the only other gay person I knew and he was a long-haired Greek motorcycle rider and I said, we're going to a leather bar because he always wanted to go and he was quite scared and he said, what were they wearing? I said, but dear for God's sake I went along in the Queensland policemen's outfit and we just blended in but I remember thinking, it's just like the Al Pacino movie when we saw it just like bruising I suppose that was my first ever time to a leather bar and after that it was just back then you just wait regularly, so semi-regularly we just go out. Now was there anything in the bar that was surprising to you, shocking to you? Can I say no? Okay, okay. Because unlike places overseas back rooms didn't really exist in Australia. That was all illegal back then. In fact being gay was illegal when I first started if you like. It was still 14 years in prison here until the 1980s so we didn't really have the back room scene that you sometimes get in, particularly in Europe but sometimes in America as well certainly coming to Europe was enlightening in terms of what you saw happen in the bars there. But seeing what we saw in the bars, I suppose I was going to, I knew a bit about it because of my background with friends and had been to bars but going in and seeing that, I suppose it was what I expected if rather than surprising me it ticked the boxes as to what I thought it should be. Now if I'd gone in there had been 40 men in board shorts and singlets I thought it would have been very disappointing or similarly not that there's anything wrong with that but if it had been men in drag, I equally would have been disappointed walking into a leather bar and it was a leather bar was exactly what I wanted and exactly what I expected. So where did the people play? Were there private play parties and homes? Private play parties small parties a couple of motorbike clubs around at the time and certainly a couple of them organized play parties as well. Which clubs were there? Do you remember? South Pacific Motorcycle Club which is probably the first one the Dolphins Motorcycle Club we sought or formed out of that they both had parties the Hellfire Club started up while this was going on we feel like the more straight fetish queer group were there rather than the gay group that worked on bikes had started up for the girls so there were a number of organizations who sort of started up around the same time. Are those particularly you said the South Pacific Motorcycle Club and the Dolphins are those groups even still in existence? South Pacific Motorcycle Club is long gone I believe the Dolphins are also gone as well. That's a shame. One of the problems that I suppose happened with the lethacy in a lot of places in the world is it became popular and so and when I say popular it became a place for muslim boys to buy a harness and say they were into leather and because the lethafetish scene was so perceived as interesting is not the word naughty for want of a better term there were people who went you know people who went along having no indication in any play at all who went to make up the numbers so for a while they got quite a big scene parties in Sydney would have 2000-3000 people in a party at a leather party of which probably one third of them were the lethacy and the rest were people who boarded to go see the weird leather people and wear a harness for the night to look pretty. So Gary tell us you mentioned earlier the Inquisition parties what were those or what are those tell us about that Inquisition party was one of five big you know community Lesbian dance parties here which probably the most famous is Mardi Gras there was a Pride New Year's Eve party another good party called Sleaze Ball I did enjoy Inquisition was one of those basically we could get 2000 people to a leather party and in the early days it used to sell out very quickly so you had to know where to buy the tickets because of course no one mind back there so there were certain venues where there would be huge queues outside to buy the tickets but if you really knew and in the scene you knew the leather shops that were selling them that only sold to the leather community so you could always get a ticket and we'd get 1500 2000 people to a leather party Inquisition 2 was the one that I sort of realised where I was in amongst my right element. You had your epiphany I had my epiphany at Inquisition 2 but eventually when I joined the leather pride committee around Inquisition 10 I volunteered for Inquisition 10 but then this is a bigger party but he were now talking 3,500 people what time frame were these happening? I believe it used to happen around Mother's Day in Australia so it used to happen in May but what years was this? Oh, we're talking 1980s, 1990s so late 80s, all of 1990s they finished all that 10 years ago but you mentioned the Sydney Leather Pride Association take us to that. How did you come to be part of that? I suppose I came to it by accident I originally volunteered for something myself and my other half at the time volunteered for one of the Inquisition dance parties because my background I own my own business and I've run conferences and conventions and so some people on the committee recognised that I had organisational skills simply because that's what I did for a living and there's as it happens on a lot of volunteer committees there was an implosion and most of the people on the Leather Pride committee left and so there are only a couple of people left so I was asked to come on to the committee and by Inquisition 12 were there only 4 people on the committee you actually ran the dance party but I volunteered at 2 years earlier so it was a rather steep learning curve Wow, what did you learn from doing that? From the start it's the first time because it's the first thing I learnt is a dance party is a lot of organisation beforehand Such as? Such as I'm having to deal with insurance companies recording royalty organisations the police I'm dealing with security guards I'm hiring portable toilets I'm talking with acrobats I'm organising catering as well as running the party we're talking full production this is not just hiring a room for a backroom party this is full, I've got concurrent DJs going for 10 hours in two and a half hour shifts and so on so it's full organisation full running of a full event But if you did this with only what 2 years experience how in the world were you able to achieve that? There's an expression if you want to get something done you give it to someone who's already too busy Okay, well I suppose there was an element of that there were only four of us organising this in and one of those was the treasurer and one was a volunteer coordinator and I'm given the job of organising the party so it was either I did it or it didn't happen and at that point I'm on the committee and you know it's like you're on the committee you don't want a personal failure in the leather seat and so we worked to get it done Any problems or surprises disappointments that came from any of this? Yeah, the venue wasn't the venue didn't work very well so in terms of that it was a little overcrowded we did have one interesting event we're in a new place because the old place were in shut down and there were supposedly fire alarms and the idea is fire alarms come on, lights are supposed to come out doors are supposed to open and all of that smoke machines set off the fire alarms Oh my gosh so except there was a failure of the system so no lights came on and no doors open, which is good so in the middle of this dance set with lights you suddenly hear you evacuate the building it's a sample and then we had a fire crew come through the dance party and they thought what a great show so it's one of the best accidental shows I've ever had What did the fire crew have to say about it? I think they were pretty freaked out because they were in the middle of a leather dance party but they were okay with it they just went out and checked the systems and realized it's a false alarm it's a smoke machine but we got a free show there it was amazing but you've mentioned now several times in our discussion Mardi Gras how did that begin and how are you involved with it? Partly because I'm not out and partly because I'm still young and living at home I'm not involved in the very first outbreak with the very first riot I'm still there at high school here and I'm not exactly sure where my bread's buttered to use an Australian expression at that stage but my friends who are in the first ever riot Mardi Gras was still illegal in Australia to be gay it was 14 years in prison for consensual gay sex even in your own home so it was still full illegal let alone leather or fetish and so in 1978 they decided to have a parade down Oxford Street right out here where we are now where the Mardi Gras parade is still run and at the end of the parade the police bashed a whole lot of people and their names were published in the paper their names and occupations and so people who were school teachers or in government version lost their jobs as a result and that was the first ever so the first parade was basically a bunch of people walking down the street with a truck with a south system up in the middle in the late afternoon and from that there were riots and then that's where the parade came from so the parade over here I suppose like the Stonewall riots the first gay riots came out of a riot in Sydney as well this was the late 70's yes the late 70's so a little later than in some other places and it was still illegal to be gay in my home state in Sydney until 1984 so they only repealed that law in 1984 well when we prepared for this chat you mentioned that today's leather kink scene has reverted to circumstances from years ago it's gone back again tell us about that what's going on and because even I notice it coming here as a leather man what's going on with the leather scene here it basically has gone back underground again if you like the people who joined the leather scene because it was cool or naughty have been there done that and left a lot of people who got into leather because there was no other option effectively if you go back to the 80's there were only two gay people drag and leather so we've also seen people who really have the leather mindset that they're now into fetish or kink or they're in the bears a lot of them you go to see the Mardi Gras parade with the bears and half of them are in chaps and harness so I suppose we've seen people become more confident that leather doesn't have to be leather that old leather is a mindset, leather's not a look and so a number of people who are still in the scene and if there was a leather bar will be there you now see in other parts of the community as well so where are they going though are people doing private things in their homes still private parties there's still some small clubs that aren't licensed bars so we really don't have a leather bar in Sydney anymore there are leather knights some people in the leather scene have Facebook type groups and so they'll contact people and say we're all meeting for drinks in this pub and so 40 or 50 people in full leather will turn up to a pub or they're still you know the social networks are still there you still there's a leather group still in the Mardi Gras parade there's still leather parties run but they're now smaller and like the old days you really have to know some you really have to be you need to get into the scene and be part of the scene to know where everything's happening obviously these days will be internet and Facebook that it used to be but it's almost gone back to where it was where you need to know find your way in and once you're in there it's all more discreet I wouldn't say discreet because leather is nearly discreet but there's you have to find your way in and find your way through it a little harder than when it was really out there in the 1990s when there were leather bars and bare bars coming in Sydney what would you say is the number of people participating in the Mardi Gras parade from the leather contingent you get about 50 a year who are in the leather group but there's another 100 people riding motorbikes in full leathers the bears will march 100 people and half the bears will be in leather but when you say leather is that all-encompassing are you counting the fetish people like the puppies strictly the leather people yeah the puppies will be another group there will be a kink the queer group rather than strict gay male leather will be there dykes on bikes will have 200 bikes ride in the parade if you looked at the people who are wearing leather who you think oh yeah they're in the leather scene there would still be several hundred people and even when you're looking at marching entries you know the Asian marching there will be a couple wearing harnesses and some of them will not be there not wearing the harness because it's pretty they wear the harness because they believe in the harness and when you see the gay dads some of them will be in leather so I suppose if you like it's moved out of being the leather scene where I would say it's more mainstream but people are more in showing they're kinky in that parade than they used to be the fact that they're more open now being you know indigenous or a father or working for the fire brigade and being kinky means you don't have to march with the leather group anymore because you can march in your own occupation or family group and still express the fact that you're a kinky fucker well tell us a bit about the Australian contest circuit how different do you see that from other places well we don't always have one I suppose it isn't often we have the Sydney Mr. Leather here it has happened in fact it's happened on several times it's been launched for a few years and dies again if there's one thing I suppose that's different about Australia from being in Europe and America I've been to England and Paris and I've been in America we're a little more casual down here in terms of the seriousness that you take being president or a mystic community so I know for example I was in Nashville I had a conference and we went to the only leather bear bar there and I was having a night and I was there with the other half and we were just chatting and I'm in gear and my other half mentioned to someone that I was the president of Leather Pride in Sydney and it was something oh my god we have a president from another club here yeah that tends not to happen here we go over have a chat sort of thing where it's at a higher level it's a bit more casual here we like to think Australia a bit more casual and I suppose that goes in the the president Mr Leather thing people who compete are quite serious about it sure it's not something where everyone thinks right I want to be Mr Leather in a couple of years time or I will be president of an organization we take a little more casually here it's probably your president people will come up and talk to you where president of the Leather Club in America won't get spoken to unless someone asks permission to speak to them well I think that depends certainly that's been my experience so over here it's a little more casual if you like I suppose it's a more casual lifestyle then okay we don't take things quite seriously here at least we don't think we do well one thing I have heard about the scene here in Australia and of course this is all over drug use in the community how do you see that issue yeah that's there when it's I suppose one thing when we organized the dance parties we all did senior first aid certificates where simply because of I suppose the duty of care for members of our community we ran full first aid crews not just first aid we had doctors and nurses we had full medical crews so because it's going to happen at the dance parties and in fact in the straight scene here some laws are being changed at the moment because we had six deaths from drugs and dance parties in Sydney in the last couple of years not the gay ones it's definitely there and you know not I lost a friend to Crystal to Ice so it definitely is there it's definitely an element of our group of people who believe the only way to have sex is why you're high there's a group of people who believe the only way to go to a dance party is to be high yeah and high is not amul and pot these days it would be you know Crystal and G yeah the heavier things but do you think that that is something that has decimated your community how do you see it in as far as the success of the entire gay community here I think it's a small fraction of people who the one thing can I say having you know gone to straight dance parties one thing the gays get better is they know what a recreational drug is if you understand where you can go out and if you want to you want to you know do a cone or a pipe or snorke you'll do it for the party and then you'll come down again and you won't touch it again the next time you want to party in six months to a year and the gays get that better than the straights hmm okay what are your thoughts though on mentoring in the community how is mentoring seen here in Australia there's not a huge amount of it to be honest it doesn't really happen as happens in Europe and America when from travelling overseas and going overseas certainly you know and it's not just daddy boy relationships either there are elder members of the community who take younger members of the community under their wing tends not to happen here interesting and I don't know that's because we're smaller I think that's an element of it I also think it's part of this casual attitude we have where we don't take it seriously I suppose when I was in the scene I couldn't say there's anyone who really mentored me through it I sort of stumbled my way through it with other people who are stumbling at the same time is there a mentorship over here yeah there are people who do it is it typical no I'd say it's not typical there are certainly people who are said to me you don't know what effect you had on me when I was new to the scene simply because you know you just talk to them and I never took that as formal mentoring where mentoring I see Laura is taking someone under your wing and almost like a child I've never done that but certainly anyone wanted to know about something I think quite happy to talk to them about it what if someone were to approach you and say Gary I would really love for you to mentor me in the community what would you do look can I say I'd do it I actually signed up to there's a game mentoring which is not the leather scene a group here where young people want to be formally mentored and that has scholarships I actually signed up to that as one of the mentors because it's all very vanilla and white collar all the people involved in that you need some filthy pity involved and they're all with all respect they were IT professional banking and I'm not from that profession so I thought they need someone so far though they've not mentored me with anybody huh interesting so there is a mentor program here formal one with scholarships and everything but it tends to be very vanilla it's okay if someone said to me would you mentor me first let's find out what they wanted is that professionally is that in life or is it in the scene and ask what they wanted but there have been people who have said to me oh you don't know how you helped me within the scene when I didn't realize I was going there because someone young comes up to you and say can you teach me how to you just do but that's quite a compliment for someone to say that to you but the nicest compliment I ever had was someone from the trans community who transitioned and said um I want your moustache yours is the when I think of moustaches I want yours is the moustache I want that's a lovely compliment absolutely and so that person that's one of the people who said to me you don't realize what an effect you had on me simply because you talked me through the transition so this is someone who not only transitioned when but also transitioned vanilla to leather okay at the same time so I said oh you don't realize just sitting down having a chat to me what an effect you have so in that sense is there a mentoring scene yeah I would say this the senior people in the committee are quite happy in the community are happy to sit down and chat to people but it's not as if I've ever formally taken someone on my winning mentor let's let's go to the topic that you've brought up now a couple of times and that I think is absolutely vital for you to discuss with us today and that is the fact that being gay used to be illegal and it wasn't very long ago well we've only passed marriage here two years ago well the state's only a couple of years more yeah you just beat us yeah look being coming out of an army family and you know Catholic army people to come out eventually and officially I never did I've never had the discussion with my father oh my gosh we both know and we both know we never want to have that discussion so we're both cool with that but in terms of of formally coming out and all of that I've never really done it okay but how you mentioned it was 14 years imprisonment yes for being gay for being gay was illegal right you know I wasn't celibate to they made it legal it was it was always a fear back in the you know I suppose I'm being flippant but I remember in the 80s because being gay was such a stereo you know such a bad stereotype if you got bashed around here pufters deserve to be bashed okay and so you live with the fact especially if you dressed up you know you in drag or leather you came out of a club and got bashed you were left in the street because pufters deserve that we had a number of unsolved murders here of young gay people including being pushed off cliffs and beets that were never investigated because that's what pufters deserve and by the time we got to the 80s when the riots were starting to happen the AIDS epidemic kicked in so if you got bashed here you deserve to be bashed because you're spreading AIDS and you probably they won't touch you when you're leading because you could have AIDS but what how did it impact the community here regarding the it was underground basically it was underground I mean there were bars what I'm asking is it was illegal until just relatively recently it was illegal until 1984 okay so we're looking for 30 years or so how did the community change once it became legal? legal I suppose in many ways it didn't they just did what they normally did I suppose what changed was some of the stuff that was underground was no longer had to be underground okay but did it alleviate the fears of people were people more confident I do remember the first time saying to me you realize that's the first legal one I think oh yeah it is so yes it suddenly you couldn't go to prison for it anymore okay still frowned on you know how did it impact people that had previously been victimized by that law I suppose it was a sense of relief I know retrospectively various governments have dropped charges against people because some people were given suspended sentences in case they were ever caught again and those suspended sentences were still on their records and they still had police records for a crime that was now not illegal it was not illegal anymore so a lot of those suspended sentences were dropped eventually we're talking probably not to the year 2000 but some of those people still had that sitting on police records that they were being caught having gay sex it was still on their records incredible you mentioned HIV how did HIV impact your local community let's face the leather part the leather group did like to play it had significant impact I mean I lost I lost a number of friends in that I know the television program pose is on TV at the moment and I watched that with my other half younger than me he's a decade younger and he sees things that he sees and then I see other things in it the scene where people are waiting in the war to get their test results where they know that if it comes back positive they're going to die I've done that sitting there waiting for the test result where they go to the cemetery and they're buried and no one goes to the cemetery because you can get aids from the air around a dead person I've done that I've done the candlelight rallies I've done all of that it really I lost a number of good friends for that my only say is my background I'm a scientist and part of my degree is microbiology thank god my basic knowledge of virology meant that I played safe still filthy but safe and I think that possibly saved my life simply because there were things I did slightly differently and I lost a number of really good friends it really decimated the community over here what were you doing differently I suppose I was an earlier doctor of condoms but simply there were things involving bodily fluids I no longer did for a while if that made sense but at the time I was working for a public hospital which is handy I went to the we just had the first person die in Sydney of HIV and so I went to the in-house service for this and the person talking about it said there is no cure if you get it you will die here are the infection control procedures you will basically isolate them you will burn everything you will allow no visitors and here I am I'm in my young 20s in the lead that's just experimenting and here are clinic senior clinicians with all of this it scared me absolutely out of me and so for a while I played quite safe tell us how Priscilla Queen of the Desert and the number 96 impact the community and for the viewing audience maybe you will explain number 96 well number 96 is a fairly groundbreaking of all things a soap opera lifetime soap opera and we're talking the 1970s here so Australia is still quite conservative here I've been gay is illegal abortion is still illegal wow it's still a relative and they launched a soap opera and this is we believe the first soap opera in a woman ever exposed to breasts is on here this is a prime time television program they had a gay couple of it who were living together and it was just they were a gay couple it was just normal normal and groundbreaking a revolutionary at the time in terms of normalizing this and they were never shown having sex in fact they would never make it because they would be too far but one of them was a lawyer and so not only did it normalize it this is the first time I can remember seeing a normal homosexual prior to that you know their sexual deviants their pedophiles their drag but they're put into movies you know I'm talking British comedy Danny LaRue you know those John Inman on Are You Being Safe we're talking either the extremely effeminate gay man or the obviously feral pig leather type person the typical stereotypes and so number 96 for the first time we believe the first showed a normal gay couple one of them was a respected lawyer a profession just fitting in and it's the first time I thought I remember thinking it's the first time gay is normal if that makes sense and I'm in my teens and I still don't know what's happening it was normal it was how that came along and then in the 90s we had a series of films came out of Australia of which Muriel's webbing and Priscilla are probably two most famous of those and Priscilla was shot about not far from where I lived at the time but called the Imperial in Urskineville I lived literally up the road from that and used to go watch the drag shows there because when you're in the suburbs rather than the city and I mean it is the suburbs but it's the inner suburbs which is alluded to in the movie that it's not out in the suburbia when you go there it is a mix of the locals so you do get the lesbians, the bears, the twinks the leather crowd are all in the one bar together which I think the movie alludes to in the opening scene where you see the whole community there watching the drag show and I remember seeing that and thinking he's Australian gay going around the world and in fact I remember I've been in bars in Chicago and Paris and see the bar I drink in on the screen I think oh this is my local pub and here it is on the screen in the Eagle in Chicago which oddly we show in Priscilla that yell you said you're a sausage judge and a meat inspector would you explain that to the viewing audience here I have a bachelor's in food science and technology I'm a food safety consultant I own my own business which is where I go to organizational schools I run my own business and as part of that part of my training is I used to work in a meat works a wonderfully named boning room but in a meat works in the outer suburbs of Sydney so where I I was out without realizing because people just assumed you live in the inner city so it's assumed you are there was one time I had every fourth Saturday I had to open the factory on a Saturday morning and there was one night I'd been to Manicall a leather bar and I was dressed as you would be in black boots, jeans flannelette shirt, leather jacket as you do and it was two in the morning I thought I'm not going to go home so I stayed up to three and drove to work and walked in to open the factory at 3.30 in the morning for the four o'clock start and I just said to everyone I'm going to be in my office all day and without realizing my street cred did that but also everyone who didn't think has obviously been out all night so when I eventually came out because someone asked me how did I enjoy the parade and I said well I would see that everyone just expected it so I suppose that wouldn't have happened in the 70s and 80s I suppose by the time it got into the 90s to in fact I'm one of the managers but then it was just expected it was just gay had been normalized to the extent that people weren't in the closet as much anymore so you knew one now everyone knew a gay to use that wonderful expression they're using in little Britain everyone knew a gay somewhere now where my parents' generation they were no gays well none that they saw or knew, yeah they were there so you just no one was out but when you get to 1990s 2000 everyone knows someone there's someone at work or someone you know socially or there's a relative who's now gay so when you're finally out it's obvious he lives in the inner city he goes to dance parties he listens to Madonna it must be obvious he's gay what advice have you for people new to the scene be yourself okay don't think you have to fit in with a norm because there is no norm the one thing I had I always said I can't be shocked then something would happen that I would be shocked there is no normal there is no you do not have to conform you can be yourself and you'll find other people like you there's a group for anybody everyone's out there you might have to search a little hard but let's say you're young you've got the internet for God's sake you can find these people these days I have to look in the back of the classifieds to find these people don't change be yourself be yourself is the best bit of you don't change to what you think other people want you to be to be now I think some people are going to find very entertaining the fact that you were recently on a an Australian TV program called Hard Quiz is that right yes I was and your specialty was the Rocky Horror picture show this is a national quiz program it's on the ABC I suppose the equivalent of PBS in the United States or the BBC in London it's a top rating television program in which you have to go with a specialty topic and of course I went to Rocky Horror I've seen the film over 100 times so I competed on that particular but it's on a national TV and you know I'll wear it I can't wear the leather outfit but I did wear one of those bright Mexican cowboy shirts you know with the scrolls that's electric blue I went on and if you knew what I was watching people go Gary's wearing one of his cowboy shirts on television and I went on national television talking about Rocky Horror answering questions on the picture show how did you do on the program I made it to the final round I lost in a tie breaker oh there's no prize this is a show you go on just to be a smart ass to show that you are the expert in your topic and to lose in a tie breaker there's enough to show I obviously know of unduly so this is a comedy program you go on there and you get insulted oh you go on there knowing that it's one of those programs they film for about an hour and a half and cut it to 25 minutes and the stuff that doesn't make you wear foul I mean my topic is Rocky Horror he went for blood on that but it's all cut it very funny show I enjoy it I mean I applied for a TV quiz program and there have been other contestants who have done Madonna, Kylie Drupal's drag race but someone was on there doing motor car racing somebody called the V8 Supercars here he was obviously gay so it doesn't quite fit all the stereotypes the ABC are a bit like the BBC and PBS because their government really don't care who you are what's the biggest misconception about you oh, biggest misconception about me that's a really hard question look from the leather scene I suppose the biggest conception about me because I became president at the dance party that I must be the most feral hard playing pig on earth I can't say I really was now I was really into the scene I really did enjoy before I was married I really did enjoy that I wouldn't say I played as hard as some other people played hard going the other side professionally there were some people who think I'm more learned or conservative really I'm not I once chaired a conference where my boss made the mistake of saying make a spectacular entrance to the conference dinner which is a mistake she never made again a boss of mine a colleague of mine who worked for the same company he had an ex police BMW motorbike with the badges taken off it still looked like a police bike and so I lent him one of my policemen's outfits and I hopped on the back of this 1000cc BMW in Chapson Harness we're talking a conservative summits dinner and we drove through the dinner and I did a figure 8 through the dinner table and then I got up and hosted the dinner in Chapson Harness so I suppose that it got rid of the theory that I was quite conservative it wasn't obvious that I was gay addressing a dinner in Chapson Harness a scientific conference pretty much outed me for it ha Gary Kennedy thank you for being part of Inside Leather History of Fireside Chat no problem thank you