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On my fb page I’m friends with or like a lot of glbt pages.  Subsequently I get a lot of updates from the community.  I also follow a couple of other lesbian blogs.  There has been a lot of talk lately about attacks on gay people.  It’s not I think that the attacks have increased it is that we are using the media better to publicise these actions and that they haven’t stopped because we haven’t heard about them.  They are still ongoing and something as a community, the wider community, not just the glbt community, should be so ashamed about that in the 21st century these sort of actions are condoned and even encouraged by our bogan straights.

Anyway this lead me to thinking about my reaction the first time I took a small trip into country Victoria a few months after I had come out.  I was driving down the highway with a couple of pre rolled spliffs in my smoke packet when it dawned on me that I was out in the country and that the attitude of the police in the country can reflect that of the bogan communities  they serve.  I used to work in the country travelling, but was usually in business suits and so felt quite  safe.  This was on a weekend and I was dressed in my casual gear and was quite recognisable by the way I was dressed as an out lesbian.  Having spent an unfortunate number of years with a country policeman and knowing their attitudes, I realised that having something as small as a couple of joints on me could end me up in a lot of trouble.  Just by the way I was dressed they would be likely to search me.  This was only a couple of years after the Tasty nightclub raid and city cops were only just starting to be reasonable.  So at a 100kms an hour I did the royal panic and hid the joints on my body were they would have to be doing a strip search to find them and I didn’t think they would go that far, especially as I knew my rights and would voice them.  This was only 13 years ago.

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