It’s hard to imagine not knowing another queer person in 2023 but that was the reality for Sam Watson who grew up in a small Tasmanian town.
Watson had many challenges to overcome after coming out in Ulverstone, a town which has a population of just under 12,000 people, on Tasmania’s North-West Coast.
As part of Pride Month, which is being celebrated around the world in June, he wants anyone else who feels isolated to know they’re not alone.
“There is a real fear that you are the only one because when I came out, I don’t think I knew another gay person,” Watson told 9news.com.au.
“I was quite lucky to have very good friends and family around me… but I certainly had instances of being called names or being treated differently.”
Watson said he found it “quite traumatic” to lose some of his straight male friends after he came out.
“Nothing had changed between us but they were afraid of being gay for hanging out with me, which was anything but truth.”
Watson was attending a catholic school when he started identifying as gay in his early teenage years, during the same time the same sex marriage plebiscite was being debated.
Two weeks after he came out, the Archdiocese sent out a booklet to every student about why marriage equality was wrong.
Watson’s mum threw away the booklet but he found a copy to read.
”It is pretty awful. While they are not saying they are openly anti-gay, when you are 15-years-old and are just coming out, it feels like it is you against them,” Watson said.
“It certainly does not feel like they are trying to create a welcoming, supportive educational environment.”
In Australia 72.3 per cent of students aged between 7-years-old and 15-years-old have been bullied, according to research from Bully Zero in 2022.
A survey of 263,075 NSW public school students last year found 27 per cent of primary children and 24 per cent of high school students said they had been bullied in the previous four weeks, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
For LGBTQI+ students the figure is higher.
Watson said visibility of the queer community was one of the most important things in helping vulnerable young people to overcome bullying.
“If you grew up living in Sydney you see Mardi Gras, you see that’s a normal fun event.
“If you grew up in Ulverstone, especially up until recently, you don’t see that as normalised.”
Tasmania has a history of anti-gay rallies and members of parliament making homophobic statements.
It only became legal to be gay in the state in 1997, jut three years before Watson was born.
Watson said there wasn’t any visible support for queer people in the community when he was in school but now the town flies a rainbow flag at council chambers and hosts events in pride week.
“The most important thing at that early stage is visibility, so they know they are not alone, there is nothing wrong with them and that people support them.
“By doing this the council also shows people who aren’t curious (about their sexuality) this is a normal part of life, that we’re not aliens, and this is not something that’s okay to discriminate against people for.”
He wants people in any part of Australia to know it is ok to be gay and they are not alone.
“I think people don’t realise that today, in this day and age, people are still getting kicked out of home and people still will delay coming out because they don’t feel that they have the resources and the support to do so.
“It is really easy to fall into a place where you think you are alone and you are the only one but that is so far from the case.”
He encouraged anyone who is struggling to find other people and services in the queer community to connect with.
“The majority of people will love you for who you are and that is what we saw in the same sex marriage postal survey.”
He said he would advise parents not to “assume” their child’s sexual orientation.
“The thing that makes is hardest to come out is this assumption that as a man, you’ll have a girlfriend or as a girl you’ll have a boyfriend, or if you are transitioning that you are the sex that you were born.
“So if and when your child does come out, I think the most important thing to say is I love you no matter what.”