NO KIDDFUKKER HERE

MY STORY ABOUT CAMP BABIRRA

At the camp I was lured to a man's tent by his promise of canabis. When I spoke about my sexuality he threatened me to stop talking to him. In the morning, after my argument with a woman, he told me he had a grudge with me for talking about my sexuality to him. That night at sacred fire he told me off for yelling at the woman, but also told me he would bash me if I acted on my sexuality around him, he used the pretense of defending the woman to make homophobic remarks to me saying I was 'disgusting' for talking about homosexuality. He said he would bash me outside the camp and promised me that he would win the fight. He intimidated me into shaking his hand. I walked away. In hindsight I can see how Andy actively and physically came between me and the other gay men in the camp to stop me from making buddies. He did that twice around the sacred fire. He was trying to control my behavior. If I could go back and do things differently I would have apologised sincerely to the young woman, and punched that evil homophobic Andy in the face.

Friday night I was sitting at the fire. Andy got up from his seat and crossed to the other side of the circle where I was sitting chatting to a young man playing guitar. Andy invited me back to his tent for a chat over our drinks. I went with Andy to his tent and listened to him talk for a while. I left to go to the toilet. In the toilet I voided my bowels and then vomited violently several times. At dinner I had eaten raw cabbage and onion. Recovered, I went back to Andy in his tent. There I asked Andy if he knew that I was gay. He said he hadn’t realised and did not have a problem with gay people but told me not to approach him sexually. He warned me off having sex with fellow protestors while on an action. I went to bed.

Saturday morning I woke up in my tent in Camp Echidna and walked to the kitchen for breakfast. On my way I saw two young women painting a rainbow banner on a strip of cloth. I stopped and asked them what they were doing. She said “We are making patches for different volunteer roles, we are using rainbow colour patches to mark people who don’t want their photo taken”. I said “No, that’s a red arm band”. She said “No, that has been changed, it is rainbow colours now’. I said “Were the LGBTIQ people here consulted about this?”. She said “The decision has already been made’. I was shocked by this and my hands started to shake as I felt ill. I said “My hands are shaking, I’m not making this up” and ‘My WHOLE BODY IS SHAKING!” and “I’M SHAKING!!!”. I was using my self defence training to shout to bring attention to myself from passers by. I walked away to under another marquee, marked the Children’s Tent. A man I will call Dreadlocks approached me and asked me what happened. I said “They are using the Rainbow Flag as a symbol of people who DON’T want to be photographed and that was my reaction, that is not OK”.

At this point the same man named Andy approached and spoke to me angrily saying “You should not shout at people, that is not ok”. I said “Keeping talking man, you’re only making it worse” meaning he is making my situation worse. He heard that as insolence and a personal threat to him. But that was not my intention or meaning. Meanwhile friends of the woman had rallied to her and taken her away saying to me “You have frightened her and she is very upset”. I said “I am upset too”. Andy told me he would speak to me tonight at the fire. I said “I’ll be there”.

Welcome to country started in another tent but I felt shaken and shocked and stayed under the Children’s Tent to smoke and lay on the grass to calm myself. I felt too sick to go to the welcome to country. I went back to my tent and stayed there. Liam came and spoke with me to tell me the decision which was offensive and shocking to me had been changed and a rainbow would no longer be used”. Liam explained that they had simply run out of block colours to use for patches and apologised. I felt really emotionally low and stayed at my tent just sitting for some time.

I recovered enough to go back to the tents and sit in on the day’s workshops., taking notes.

Saturday night I was sitting around Kumali’s camp fire in Camp Echidna. I was sitting between Kumali and Andy, the man I accidently threatened that morning. Andy said to me “You owe some people apologies for your behaviour today. I am surprised you are still here. You can’t just yell at people like that. You should keep your mouth shut and internalise your emotions”. Then he threatened me “Don’t ever threaten me or I will take you outside this camp and break you knee caps and assault you”. He made me shake his hand to promise I would never threaten him again. I shook his hand but I felt frightened that I had just been threatened with a violent assault.

I walked ten meters away from Kumali’s fire to light a cigarette and feeling frightened I walked away to the camp activity tents. By the time I got to the tents I was jogging and my heart was racing. We I got to a tent with some volunteers working on computers I shouted “Can I see someone from welfare please?” Shortly a female voice said “Over here”. I went to the woman and she introduced herself as Laura. I explained to her that Andy had threatened to assault me and I was too afraid to go back to the fire and be at Camp Echidna any longer. This was at approximately 7:30 to 8:00 pm.

Laura listened to me and we talked about what I had done that day. We spoke for about two hours as I very slowly prepared a cup of tea and worked through the emotions I was feeling. Laura stayed with me at a comfortable distance the whole time. I felt she was an impartial person who I could talk to without her judging me. Even though I was upset and angry she stayed with me.

At 11:00 pm I still felt unsafe at Camp Echidna so I called the number for Police Attendance. I explained the situation and requested police attendance. The police arrived at 11:30 pm and I voluntarily left with them.