Friday 13 December 2013

Part 6 - The Truth About Being Gay in Sydney Australia

Try to understand gay people have less rights and are the most discriminated in Australia.

When my partner of 14 years threw me out having met a younger guy 20 years his junior I was left with nothing apart from the clothes on my back. He kept everything. There was not much I could do because unless I could afford a lengthy court hearing for which I would have to pay for a lawyer there are no laws in place that recognise my rights as a gay human being. Yes I know some people believe there is the "de-facto loophole" which basically states a couple who have lived together after a certain period of time are recognised as a partnership, but having tried putting that into practice I was up against a bigoted system for which I was at the mercy of people who didn't approve of gay relationships.

After the first 3 years we were living together I left my full time job to become a professional makeup artist, and I was quite successful too earning in two days what the average person at that time would earn in a fortnight. It all went fine for many years until (because it's an unregulated industry in Australia) every cosmetic consultant, avon lady and anyone else who cared to "give it a try" calls themselves a makeup artist, the value of a makeup artist dropped dramatically and I found myself being expected to work for free or at best for around $9 an hour. This didn't phase Choi who encouraged me to throw the business in as it was no longer profitable. So I searched for work and all I could get was retail, long thankless hours standing on my feet for up to 9 hours a day at minimum wages. Eventually Choi told me to stop working in that industry as he considered me to be better than that and besides at this stage he was earning $100K a year and according to him I didn't need to work.

Yes Choi was doing fine. I encouraged him to pursue his Masters degree. I cooked, cleaned and kept the house quiet while he studied. I drove him to Uni and would pick him up afterwards. I became a regular housewife much to my dismay.

I did everything for Choi. When he went through a confrontation at work I coached him on what he needed to say and how to avoid the consequences of an action he claimed were trumped up charges (He told me it was a computer problem he'd been having but later I was to discover the incident actually involved him being caught on a security camera in his office having sex with some guy).

I trusted him implicitly all the years we were together. In those final years when he'd work back late until around 11pm I believed his excuses when I asked why I could never reach him at his office after 6pm.

When he told me about his mother's Will I believed that too.

(to be continued...) 


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