Mahamati

Mahamati has worked in Community Services with HIV+ people and GLBT community for over twenty years in three states. In 1990 she returned from India and began work at ACSA undertaking the Women Partners of Bisexual men project. She continued this work part time while working at Second Story Youth Health Service facilitating the young lesbian coming out programme, then called LBW.

In 1995 she was the initial Coordinator of Bfriend, a innovative programme of Uniting Care Wesley which supports people of all ages questioning their sexuality. At one time there were 150 volunteers assisting people from 14 – 70 in a structured link up buddy system. Parents of GLBT were also assisted through Bfriend. With Kenton Miller she co-authored two training manuals challenging homophobia, called Blockout, and Not Round Here.

In 1998 she moved to Cairns to be Coordinator of the Queensland AIDS Council’s branch in Far North Queensland, and then to Sydney in 2006 to work on the Lesbian Health project at ACON. In 2008 she returned home to Adelaide, initially to work in client support at PLWHA SA, and more recently at AIDS Council of SA.

Mahamati has four children, six grandchildren and one great granddaughter.

Why have you chosen to represent this same-sex law reform campaign?

Having worked in the GLBT and HIV+ field for a long time I have seen many people’s lives badly affected by discrimination and hurtful actions, both physically and emotionally. No one deserves to be treated badly because of their sexuality or judged to be inferior

What sorts of same-sex discrimination have you as / anyone you know experienced?

I have worked with many young people who have been rejected by their parents and they have had to fend for themselves and create new families of choice. Their hurt has been hard to witness. Often they tried to hide their sexuality for a long time because they just didn’t want to lose their parents love and support. It is so hard to lose parents in that way and many have never been able to repair the damage

How do you think these reforms will make a difference to your life, or to the lives of those close to you?

There are a lot of reforms and it will be great that newly coming out people will not have to put up with what the older generations have had to do. More GLBT are becoming parents and having better and fairer laws is going to make their child raising much easier. I do regret that some of our elders are hurting through the financial consequences of Social Security cuts and difficulties disclosing their sexuality after maturing in a very different era.

Why do you think people should wear these 85 law reforms with pride?

A lot of people have worked very hard to achieve these 85 reforms, it is a lot of legislation and has been a long time coming so certainly should be celebrated

Why do you think this is a huge step forward for Australia?

Australia pitches itself as a multicultural country where there is freedom of speech and religion. It has tackled sexism, racism and now is addressing discrimination based on sexuality. Without the legal changes we would not see the behaviour and attitude changes

What do you like about your T-Shirt design?

The colour! Hunmi Yi’s design to reflect parenting also fits my areas of interest in the legal changes.

MAHAMATI