today i was part of making history.

last night and today the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Choir made history along with the Sydney detachment of the Royal Australian Navy Band. We did a joint concert. it is the first time the navy band has performed with a gay and lesbian community organisation, the first time any defense in Australia have had a collaboration like this. possibly even the first time in the world.

i have a few different trains of thought about this. in no particular order...

everything we do every day is "making history". yeah some of it is really boring history, like going to the shops, or looking for employment, or feeding the cat. i'm sure no-one much cares about these parts of my life, but maybe one day in the very distant future someone will look back on this, and the (current day) very ordinary fact that i am writing a blog about it, and say "wow, is that how they did things in 2010" we can never know this for sure. i know i love social history, not about dates and facts and wars and treaties, but about dances and letter writing, and courting, and dress making. the every day stuff that we don't think of as making history...

thought 2. i'm really glad to have been part of something that comes under the heading of "slightly more interesting history". I'm glad that we have had the opportunity to break down some of the perceived barriers between the military, and the GLBTIQ community. and it was a great show too....

final thought...now, one fact i must point out is that i am in australia. we don't have any policy about gay people serving in the defense forces. if you want to serve your country, you can, no matter ur sexual preferences. this is as it should be. why should it matter who i sleep with if i was fighting to defend my country, my people, my nations ideals etc.
my thought is that i am a little saddened that we need to do concerts like this to break down people's perceptions of the military, and the gay community. this concert was born of the choirs desire to perform with a military band. our musical director contacted the defense gay and lesbian information service (DEFGLIS), and it all came together really well. admittedly, the band is comprised of soldiers, people who follow orders for a living, and people who were told that this is the show they are going to do next and that's just the way it is. But they were all really great people. the tenor sax player is in fact a lesbian, so i'm sure she was really glad to be a part of it. the only comment she made to me was when she was carting stuff past me for about the 5th time, and her comment was that being a pack horse came with the job. The bass trombone player asked me halfway through the first show if he could get tickets for the next day so his sister could come. they are just a band (who looked and sounded fantastic) and we are just a community choir. that's how i wish the world viewed us all, not as the gay and lesbian choir, and the band made up of soldiers who by definition must be a little stand offish with us because we are gay. we have come so far in recent decades, but there is still so far to come.

on a slightly different note, this evening (and by this evening, i mean the hours between 11:30pm and 1am) i was having a conversation with a friend in the USA which started out being about "lesbianisms" (like u-hauls and toaster ovens) and ended up being about what we face each day, having to come out regularly, and her trying to get an understanding about what it's like to be in our shoes. It was a really great conversation, and one i will never get tired of having, because every person who wants to know these things is a person on our side. it also added a whole new level of appreciation for this friend, that she wants to spend time asking questions and watching movies, and reading books and just getting to know what it feels like from the other perspective.

that is all (i think...)