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SBS Australia
2 days ago
- Health
- SBS Australia
Jeremy says he's lived 'a terrific life'. He almost missed out on it
LGBTIQ+ Australians tell their funny, heartfelt stories of 50+ years of pride and protest. Source: SBS News / Caroline Huang This article contains references to suicide. Jeremy Fisher had to walk past the door of his university's Gay Liberation Club several times before he had the courage to knock and enter. Back in 1973, he was scared of being 'outed' for his sexuality but brave enough to seek out people like him within Sydney's gay community, who largely kept their identities private. The then 18-year-old had been excited to move from his small NSW northern rivers town of Kyogle to the big smoke and explore what college life had to offer. He was also excited and curious to meet men. But things became "grim" for him that year. Now in his 80s, Fisher recalls how he recovered from a horrific assault and suicide attempt as a young man to live a life of "quiet" activism — always out, visible and true to himself. As SBS marks 50 years of storytelling , here are five stories of LGBTIQ+ Australians who have lived through historic changes in that time. Australia: An Unofficial History Recounting his first year of study at Sydney's Macquarie University, Fisher tells SBS News how his excitement for city life quickly dissipated. "I'd been going into the city to different gay bars and stuff, and I'd met a guy there who essentially sexually assaulted me. Well, not essentially — he did," he says. "And this left me feeling depressed, thinking that things were wrong and I shouldn't be living this sort of life. I attempted to take my own life in that room. Fisher was found alone in his dorm room by a cleaner and taken to hospital where he was nursed back to health. But the Anglican-run Robert Menzies College at Macquarie University wouldn't allow him to return unless he agreed to be celibate and renounce homosexuality. "I didn't see that as being particularly what I wanted to do," Fisher says. Instead, he formed an unlikely alliance with tradies working on the college's construction site, who voted to protest Fisher's treatment by stopping work. "When it was put to them that there was a guy who's been unfairly kicked out of the college just because of his sexuality they went 'well, that's not fair. That's not a good idea'. "And so they supported it, which was remarkable." But Fisher says the pink ban in some ways "wasn't really a win" because the college's administration still refused to let him return and would not refund his rental bond. Nevertheless, he's proud that "an awful lot of fuss was kicked up in terms of this being the first industrial action in support of gay rights". During his time at uni, Fisher and the 10 or so other members of the Macquarie University Gay Liberation Club would also engage in public acts of defiance and gay pride, known as 'zaps'. "We'd go on a bus and kiss and cuddle, which would provoke various reactions from people, but the point was to try and make ourselves visible and make people realise that we were there," he explains. "There were other groups that were more, let's say, respectable. And we were not respectable at all." After university, Fisher became more settled and focused on work. He graduated in 1976 with an education degree but the state had too many teachers and instead he landed a job at the Medical Journal of Australia. It launched his near-five-decade career in publishing and editing, for which he won an Order of Australia medal in 2017. He jokes he hasn't won an Order of Australia medal for being gay yet. But life became dark again for a time in the 1980s when Australia and the world were in the grip of the AIDS crisis. Gay men were dying in the thousands from the brutal sexually-transmitted disease. At the time, homosexuality was still illegal in NSW, where Fisher lived, as it was in Queensland, WA and Tasmania. "There were many, many, many friends who were just gone. You were going to funerals constantly," he recalls. "I'll look at some photos and I'll go: 'oh, all of those people are dead.'" He says living through that experience is "just one of those things that you don't quite get over". Having lost so many close friends over the years, Fisher counts himself lucky, adding that he would have missed out on "a terrific life doing lots of things", had he not been given a second chance. "At one point I tried to take my own life. But I don't feel bad about myself at all because of my sexuality. And if people do then they've got to get some help to be able to see that they're worthy of just being." Sallie Colechin realised she was a lesbian around 50 years ago when she fell in with a group of feminists. The photographer says her teenage years were pretty typical but attending her first International Women's Day March in Sydney in 1975 opened her up to an exciting new world. "We then went to a dinner that night with a bunch of feminist women in Annandale [in Sydney's inner-west] and we heard about the Amazon Acres Women's Mountain Farm. "We thought, oh, we have to go and visit there, which we did in my Mini Cooper about three times that year, and I started to realise that I was attracted to women," she says. The female-only farm in northern NSW, with its policy of "no men, no meat and no machines", exposed Colechin to ideas that were much more radical than she was learning at school. After she graduated in 1976, Colechin and her first girlfriend joined the organising collective for the fourth National Homosexual Conference in Sydney and the Gay Solidarity Group, which organised Australia's first Mardi Gras on 24 June 1978. They had no idea the day would turn into a riot. "We organised a morning march through the streets of Sydney to talk about the fact that we didn't have a right at work to be out and an afternoon talking forum at Paddington Town Hall, where we could have politicians and lawyers talk about the fact that it was still illegal for men to be open about their sexuality." In the evening, they planned to have a celebratory dance down the street and encourage people to join them. With a little trepidation, the group started walking down Oxford Street and calling for people to come "out of the bars and onto the streets" — and many did. The parade numbered around 1,000 LGBTIQ+ people and allies. Colechin says they had a permit to march through Hyde Park, but when they got there, police wouldn't allow the demonstration to continue and started arresting and beating people. "If my girlfriend hadn't kept me in a shop window alcove, I'm sure I would've been arrested because I felt very angry and very concerned about the way people were being arrested — there was no way to identify the police involved. "People being thrown against paddy wagons was absolutely frightening." That night 53 people were arrested. Many had their names, addresses and professions published by the media over the following days. Many lost their jobs as a result, while others, heavy with the shame and terror of being outed, took their own lives. Colechin and a group of others collected money to bail out their friends. "In those days, there were no mobile phones, no [ATMs] to take money out. So we had to collect money from people's houses — from kitty money, from rent money — to make everyone's bail," she says. Reflecting nearly 50 years later, Colechin says in some ways the experience was "incredibly unifying". "We'd come as a community. Lesbians and gay men didn't necessarily interact a lot, maybe occasionally in the bars, but because of that riot, we really came together and supported each other for those next few months. It was an incredible period of time, and I feel incredibly proud to have been part of it. But the community feeling didn't necessarily last for Colechin, who began to distance herself from the annual Mardi Gras parade because she felt it was becoming commercialised. "When I became involved again and organised a protest for the 20th anniversary, a lot of people said to us that we brought the politics back into the parade. Katherine Wolfgramme says she was an extremely effeminate child. When she announced to her family that she was transitioning from a man to a woman, they weren't surprised, but they were shocked she looked pretty as a girl. Born in Fiji in 1972, Wolfgramme moved to Australia with her family when she was two years old. As a child, she was punished for expressing her true gender identity. "Every fibre of my body believed I was a girl," she says. "I was told if I transitioned, I would be ugly, I would end up [on] the streets, I would always be alone, no one would love me. "But the need to transition was so great that it would not have mattered to me what I Iooked like. I wouldn't have cared if I looked like a truck driver." She started to live as Katherine from the age of 18 and moved from the family home into a squat in the centre of Melbourne. In 1990, a trip to Sydney for the annual Sleaze Ball — an elaborate queer party that was one of the main fundraisers for the Mardi Gras parade — would prove formative and encourage her to become involved in transgender advocacy and visibility, which she has spent the last 35 years active in. "It was the first time I'd actually seen transgender women dining openly and feeling safe and comfortable to be able to shop and everything else. I knew Sydney had to be my home." But safety was a key concern for the transgender community, who weren't protected under federal anti-discrimination laws until 2013. Wolfgramme says the community faced "not being allowed to go to school, not being allowed a roof over our heads, being bashed [and] not getting work". Many people also weren't able to legally change their names, which, as well as feeling dehumanising, made it risky to travel abroad with a passport that didn't match one's gender presentation. Wolfgramme made history in 1997 as the first transgender person to legally change their name in Fiji, but she says she was motivated partly by love. " After several years on hormones, I developed into a beautiful young woman and I landed myself a very nice eligible man. He wanted me to travel with him, but I couldn't travel under a male name because I didn't want to embarrass him." Deciding to contact the Fijian government to change her identity documents, she first started ringing its embassy in Canberra but they stopped answering her daily phone calls. She flew to Fiji but the government refused to see her and she was stuck in a hotel for weeks. A call to Wolfgramme's uncle in Fiji was a turning point: he used his connections to secure an appointment for her with a government contact, and she was eventually allowed her to change her name. She says having the support of her Fijian family not only helped her secure a new legal name but has been a great comfort throughout her life, with many relatives commenting on how much she looks like her mother. "Transgender people are a part of life in most Pacific cultures. It's not encouraged, but it's not treated as if they don't exist and it differs between cultures as well," Wolgramme says, adding that discrimination against transgender people can often be attributed to colonisation. "Colonial cultures sexualise anything that is outside of their norms." Yet Wolfgramme says she feels optimistic about the progress that's been made, particularly in Australia. She says in her 53 years, she has seen the "pendulum of politics swing two steps forward and one step back" enough times to feel assured that any attempts to erode transgender rights won't be supported by Australians. "We have a way to go, of course, but the way to go is far closer than going back. I'm constantly amazed at what we've achieved." KL Joy says a conversation with one of their sibling's children seven years ago completely changed their life. The 55-year-old is an archivist, historian, person with disabilities and student living in Ballarat, Victoria. "I always knew I was queer; I went through all the labels. I think I've got the L, the G, the B, the T but 'genderqueer' is what I'm connecting with at the moment," they say of their identity. At 47, Joy became the first Australian to enter the International Miss Bootblack competition: a competition that celebrates queer leather culture and the practice of bootblacking, which Joy describes as "shoe-shining with soul". This led to "some feelings around gender" for Joy and not long after that, they had a conversation with their nibling (a gender-neutral term for the child of one's sibling). "They mentioned the term gender non-conforming and I was like 'ooh what's that?' It was like a crucible. It cracked me open to change me in ways that I couldn't have expected at that time. Growing up, Joy had always been drawn to androgynous figures like UK singers David Bowie and Annie Lennox, but didn't think they could ever present their gender in that way because they weren't "stick-thin like Bowie". "I wanted people to be unsure if I was a boy or a girl when walking down the street. That was what I needed. And it wasn't until I was 47 that I started to think more about that." Seeking hormone-replacement treatment for menopause, Joy opted to take a dose of testosterone which they say has put them "in a really good frame of mind". Joy is also a parent to a now 18-year-old son, who has been raised as an activist his whole life. The two started campaigning for marriage equality in 2004 when Australia's parliament voted to change the Marriage Act to reinforce the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman. Joy says that as they again ramped up campaigning efforts in 2017 ahead of Australia's postal survey, they "copped a lot of flak" and regularly felt they were in "fight or flight" mode, uncertain whether stickers on their car would attract violence or support. "I called that campaign my 100 days of hell," Joy says. "But as hard as it was and as hard as the PTSD about it is, that's probably one of my most positive achievements." Ballarat returned a 70.1 per cent Yes vote. When it was revealed Australia had voted Yes , Joy burst into tears, a bodily reaction that resurfaces when they recall the physical toll of that period. "There was the joy, but it was also the anger at having to go through something like that, the whole country debate and vote on whether or not we were valid citizens." Joy says they're proud that marriage equality campaigning changed Australia for the better. "At 21, queer youth are talking to a complete stranger about their partner and it's normalised. "I think that is one of the things that marriage equality was able to do in a good way." Ross Rahman says a 30-year internal struggle over his sexuality is just starting to ease, thanks to a social group that's "opened his eyes". The 48-year-old finance professional was born in Singapore and raised as a Muslim. It wasn't until he came to Australia to study as an international student at Canberra's Australian National University in 1999 that he started to come to terms with the fact he is gay. "When all my peers at school were pairing off, I was not interested and I was confused because at that point I wasn't interested in boys or girls," he says. Rahman compares Canberra's gay scene at the start of the millennium to a "kiddie pool": It offered a gentle introduction to a new world for him after visiting Sydney and finding its brand of Oxford-Street-centric queer culture "too intense". He moved to Sydney after he graduated but says this was when "his struggles began" with balancing his sexuality and Muslim faith. "A lot of people I spoke to have always chosen one or the other," he says. "Something about me was not willing to give up that faith. I still held on and it was to my own detriment." Rahman experienced a lot of guilt over being gay and felt the only path he had was to face condemnation. "The impression that I had is if I dare bring this up [with family and other Muslims], I might get stoned to death." He says he became very cautious with who he let into his inner circle and created a small "chosen family". "I can count on one hand the number of people I call friends or my family here, but small as they are, they are so precious, they give so much to me," he says. Around 12 months ago, Rahman was feeling very distressed about Israel's war on Gaza and wanted to connect with other Muslims who might also be feeling a sense of solidarity with Palestinians. I didn't have anyone else that I could talk to but I was thinking 'I can't be the only one going through this'. "I did a quick Google search and found Sydney Queer Muslim Network. I don't know why, but it had never occurred to me that an organisation like this existed." He says that although he had his chosen family, when he joined the group, he finally found his "home". "It feels like home, first and foremost, because of the shared experience. "I've met other queer community members who have struggled with their faith, but I have never come across another queer Muslim, so that's a different level of connection because it's so raw." Rahman says meeting other queer Muslims has shifted the rigidity he felt around his faith, "opening his eyes" on ways to navigate two identities. "Everyone has one basic need. Everyone has a story to tell and they just need to know: 'Do you see me? Do you hear me?' That's it." LGBTIQ+ Australians seeking support with mental health can contact QLife on 1800 184 527 or visit . also has a list of support services. Readers seeking crisis support can ring Lifeline on 13 11 14 or text 0477 13 11 14, the Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467 and Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 (for young people aged up to 25). More information and support with mental health is available at and on 1300 22 4636. LGBTIQ+ Mardi Gras Australia Share this with family and friends
SBS Australia
4 days ago
- General
- SBS Australia
Australia records first case of clade 1b mpox, joining six other non-African countries
Australia has recorded at least 1,726 cases of mpox since 2022. Source: Getty / Nih-Niaid/BSIP/Universal Images Group Australia has recorded its first case of the mpox variant that typically causes more serious illness. The Australian Centre for Disease Control (CDC) confirmed a case of mpox clade 1b in NSW earlier this month — the first, and so far only, case of this variant in Australia. The case was a returned traveller, and the risk of further transmission was low, a spokesperson for the Department of Health said. SBS News has contacted the NSW Department of Health for comment. Mpox is a viral zoonotic disease, and comes from the same family as the one responsible for smallpox. It is divided into two clades, clade 1 and clade 2, and further into two subclades: 1a and 1b, and 2a and 2b. Historically, clade 1 is more likely to cause severe illness and death than clade 2. Mpox is endemic to parts of central and West Africa, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But in 2022, a global outbreak of clade 2 occurred, which is ongoing. There have been 1,726 confirmed cases of mpx across Australia since 2022, according to the Department of Health's National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System. The majority of these (1,409) were recorded in 2024, and there have been 147 cases so far this year. Until the recent clade 1b case, reported infections in Australia have been caused by mpox clade 2b, the CDC states. It says most of these infections were locally acquired. It says mpox clade 1b infections were previously isolated to Central Africa but have since been recorded elsewhere. The World Health Organization (WHO) lists a small number of countries outside Africa where clade 1b cases have been recorded, including, along with Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Thailand, France, the United Arab Emirates, and Switzerland. It says reported cases in these countries are linked to travel and not local transmission. More than half of the 32,953 reported clade 1b cases recorded in parts of Africa since January 2024 have been recorded in Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to the WHO. The CDC acknowledges clade 1 has generally been considered to cause more severe disease, but recent data suggested clade 1b — first discovered in 2023 — has a fatality rate similar to clade 2b. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also notes recent outbreaks have seen "much lower death rates". Signs and symptoms can include a distinctive rash or lesions, swollen lymph nodes, headache or fever, muscle aches, joint pain, back pain, chills and exhaustion. The virus can be transmitted through intimate or prolonged physical contact, close contact with rashes on the skin, body fluids (including droplets from coughing or sneezing) and contaminated objects such as linen and towels. Symptoms typically clear after two to four weeks for most people, but some can become seriously ill. The Department of Health says most cases in Australia have been identified in gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, but anyone can be affected. It says that most infections are mild. Eligible groups can receive free vaccinations against mpox, with no Medicare card required. Vaccination is recommended for men who have sex with men, sex workers, and healthcare and laboratory staff at risk of exposure. Those who have close physical contact with an infected person or are immunocompromised are also considered high risk. Anyone at risk who plans to travel to a country experiencing a significant outbreak should be vaccinated four to six weeks before travelling. The best time for people to receive the vaccine is before they are exposed to mpox.
Time of India
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Shocking new details revealed about Kim Sae Ron, who allegedly borrowed 300 million KRW from 'idol friends' after financial drought following DUI scandal
As police do further investigations about the late Kim Sae Ron and actor Kim Soo Hyun's legal case, new information has come to light. In recent news, it has been revealed that the actress was allegedly borrowing money from her idol friends. The actress had allegedly been borrowing money from her idol friends and had taken 100 million KRW each from three people. Kim Sae Ron borrowed money during a financial crunch The late actress Kim Sae Ron had allegedly been borrowing money from multiple acquaintances in the past years or so. Her financial drought had been brought upon her by her drunk driving scandal in 2022, after which the actress was dropped from several projects and was left completely out of work. According to reports from popular K-media news outlet SBS News, the actress had allegedly borrowed money from three 'friends', two of whom were popular K-pop idols and the third one who was a singer. She had taken 100 million KRW from each of them, allegedly. According to reports, the third person not only had lent money to the late actress Kim Sae Ron but had also sent money to her family members last year in May to provide financial assistance. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Trade Bitcoin & Ethereum – No Wallet Needed! IC Markets Start Now Undo Kim Sae Ron also borrowed money from non-celebrity friends as well The actress had also apparently taken 50 million KRW from a friend of hers, and had also borrowed another 60 million KRW from her agency in order to pay off some hospitalisation and surgery costs at well around the time of the DUI scandal . She had been under a lot of financial turmoil and had also been hit with a 700 million KRW penalty from the creators of 'Bloodhounds' and the streaming platform where the show was hosted as well. The actress also posted a cryptic post in September 2024 The actress had also posted a cryptic post on her social media platforms with an odd caption which had worried fans. The post read, "If I'm dead, take a screenshot of this and make it public. XXXX XX XXXX. These are the people who saved me. And to the people who left me when I was at the lowest point in my life. Think back on all that you received from me. My blood alcohol level was 0 from the breathalyser test. It was only the blood test that produced high results. But it was still the day before, there was no power outage, and I still compensated the merchants who were affected. Well, I will not suffer any longer." Allegedly according to reports, the names that were shared by Kim Sae Ron in her post were the same people who had lent her money. Their identity has not yet been revealed to the public.
Pink Villa
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Pink Villa
Did Kim Sae Ron borrow 100 million KRW from 3 celebrity friends post DUI case? New claims surface amid Kim Soo Hyun scandal
The tragic death of Kim Sae Ron continues to stir controversy and speculation both at home and abroad. As fresh details surface, the mystery deepens, raising more questions than answers about her final months and the support systems that surrounded her and Kim Soo Hyun. On May 23, a report from SBS News revealed that Kim Sae Ron had shared a poignant and private message via her personal SNS account in the early hours of September 8, 2024—just months before her death on February 16, 2025. According to SNS News, three high-profile entertainers provided monetary assistance to Kim during this difficult period. Among them were two K-pop idols and one singer, each reportedly lending her 100 million KRW. These acts of generosity came after her DUI incident in May 2022. Additionally, two personal acquaintances also stepped forward: one identified only as A (an actor) and B (a singer and actor). Both are said to have provided financial help during her time of need. Another figure, referred to as C, a singer, reportedly extended support in 2023 and again in May 2024—this time assisting her grieving family after her death. Beyond celebrity aid, Kim also borrowed 50 million KRW from a non-famous acquaintance known as D. Furthermore, Run Entertainment, the agency she had been affiliated with for a year, contributed 60 million KRW to help cover her surgery and hospitalization expenses. The post reportedly read, as per AllKpop. 'If I'm dead, take a screen shot of this and make it public. XXXX XX XXXX. These are the people who saved me. And to the people who left me when I was at the lowest point in my life. Think back on all that you received from me. My blood alcohol level was 0 from the breathalyzer test. It was only the blood test that produced high results. But it was still the day before, there was no power outage, and I still compensated the merchants who were affected. Well, I will not suffer any longer.' According to reports, approximately ten minutes after Kim Sae Ron posted the message, two acquaintances arrived at her home in Seongdong-gu, Seoul. This deeply personal note has become a pivotal piece in understanding the struggles Kim Sae Ron faced, especially in the wake of her DUI case in 2022. After the DUI incident, Kim Sae Ron was reportedly served a penalty notification from her former agency, GOLDMEDALIST. Following this, she seemed to experience severe financial strain, leading her to seek help from people within and outside the entertainment industry.
SBS Australia
17-05-2025
- Health
- SBS Australia
Michelle's condition 'ruined' her. Treatment was life-changing, but it has a concerning label
Michelle Watts, 60, once suffered from heavy menstrual bleeding that made everything seem "impossible to do". Source: SBS News A $793 million investment into women's health has been celebrated, but there are concerns over a lack of specific reference to a condition affecting many women. is often excluded from discussions around women's health despite it being a disruptive, and sometimes crippling, condition. "I'd get out the door and I would flood to the point where I'd have to come back and change again," said Michelle Watts, as she recounted a ski trip — one of many occasions where she bled through layers of clothing. "And I'd literally just sit down and cry and think, 'I can't do this anymore', because it was ruining every aspect of my life," the 60-year-old said. For 18 months from 2021, Watts suffered from heavy menstrual bleeding, which the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC ) defines as excessive menstrual blood loss that interferes with a woman's quality of life. "I was about as sad as I could ever be because everything was impossible to do in my eyes by the end. I couldn't go swimming with my friends anymore, swimming became challenging, going to the gym became challenging," Watts said. "All those things that I loved to do, I just couldn't do." After many failed treatments, Michelle finally underwent a uterectomy, traditionally known as a hysterectomy. Dr Talat Uppal is a gynaecologist and director at Women's Health Road and is in the process of changing the language, which she says was inaccurately used to explain women's emotional and physical concerns. "Often when I'm using the word hysteroscopy or hysterectomy it brings back that association of centuries-old myth which is something that is important to defuse and re-word to a more anatomical one", Dr Talat said. Also in the push to change the medical language is the CSIRO, Australia's national science agency, which is responsible for updating global standards for clinical terminology. Katrina Ebril is the Interoperability Lead with the Australian e-Health research centre at the CSIRO and says this change is a first when it comes to women's bodies. "It's definitely time to change ... and we do this for other procedures," Ebril said. "It is a uterectomy, let's call it what it is, and start to use that much more positive language and much more language that aligns to what the actual procedure is." For women like Watts, removing taboos around menstruation is key to making treatment more accessible, and encouraging others to seek help. One in four people who menstruate suffer from heavy menstrual bleeding, according to the ACSQHC, and two thirds of those experience iron deficiency. Yet the commission notes less than half of women suffering from the condition visit a doctor. "Traditionally or historically, women have been left out of research, and sometimes even the animals in the labs were male animals," Uppal said. "And so this is a long historical background of disadvantage of not including women, and we really want to change that narrative when it comes to heavy bleeding." "I think it's just part of that silence around heavy menstrual bleeding ... and I don't think it's deliberate, I feel it's just a culture where it's not front of mind," she said. Watt believes a lack of awareness is why she struggled to receive adequate care for months. "It's just been so normalised ... and I don't think it should be, I don't think it's normal," Watt said. "And it's really hard to get any information because it's just taken as: 'Well, you're a woman, this is what happens.'" She can't imagine what her life would have looked like without undergoing the procedure, now relishing the active lifestyle she was once forced to sacrifice. "My ability to participate in skiing, running, swimming ... all of the things that I wanted to enjoy, that's all possible again, I never have to worry about that ever again, it's like an absolute new lease of life," she said.
