Thank you for visiting Sydney. Better fine-tune your own gaydar.

W

hen reporter Josephine Sargent moved to Sydney for an editing job, she had been cast during the deep end of sexual range.

THE PHONE rang. It was my mum.

Mum: Hello darling. Your aunty merely rang. She saw you on the news.

Josephine: Actually? Yay!

Mum: In a bikini. Rehearsing for the lgbt procession on Bondi coastline.

Josephine: Yep. Mardi Gras.

Mum: She questioned if you find yourself gay…

These people were baffled. Precisely why would I end up being marching in Mardi Gras if I was not a lesbian? I found myself baffled. Basically happened to be, precisely why would We let them discover through the 6 o’clock development?

It isn’t really that my family is actually homophobic. It’s not that they’re hateful. These are typically only ignorant. As I used to be.

Before we relocated from Brisbane to Sydney in 2008, I’d never really had any homosexual friends. In reality, I really don’t believe I actually found anyone who ended up being gay. Or that we realized was homosexual, anyhow. My familiarity with gay men and women originated from television: that passionate and frantic gang from

Queer Eye for any Directly Guy

just who loved to throw out clothes and tut over bad tresses; that irritating buddy of Carrie’s in

Sex together with City

; George Michael asking you to wake him up before we get, go as he danced around in his little, rather sidetracking, white shorts. These were outrageous and brash and deafening and extremely, extremely camp.

This is exactly why I became confused once I relocated to Sydney and quizzed my personal brand new associate, who was simply nothing of these situations, about their relocation from European countries.

Josephine: therefore will be your spouse Australian?

Him: Err, no. I am not married.

Josephine: Oh, appropriate. Are you experiencing kids here?

Him: Err, no. No kids.

It wasn’t until a few weeks later on, and after a lot of schooners, your cent dropped. He had been waxing lyrical about a unique online dating app he would began using, which revealed the distance of qualified partners. Previously curious, we snatched his cellphone for a closer look. All i really could see happened to be thumbnails of six bags and half-naked male systems stretched across beach bathroom towels.

Josephine: This looks quite… homosexual.

Him: Yes.

Josephine: Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh…

Afterwards, it actually was an avalanche. I became tucked in gays. We caused them. We exercised with them. We drank together in Surry Hills. We grinded against both in Midnight Shift.

Nonetheless, I had difficulty determining somebody’s sexuality. One night, I was having a beer with Amy, the founding publisher of

Archer –

long before she was editor of an intimate range diary, and shacked up with a pleasant lady. Amy cannot stay late, she mentioned, because she was operating an ex towards airport.

Josephine: Oh, where’s the guy going?

Amy: She’s moving to London.

Josephine: that is?

Amy: My personal ex.

Josephine: She?

Amy: Yes.

Josephine: However you’ve got a boyfriend.

Amy: Yes.

Josephine: Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh…

I could never truly pin the blame on my personal poor aunty for leaping to results. I got gay buddies nonetheless could not find it. And, becoming fair, I found myself marching in Mardi Gras and obtaining around on a Honda 400cc, and I had not had a sweetheart within 22 several months (although the finally had more related to Sydney’s well known single-man shortage, much less related to any newfound lesbianism).

But given what I learn now – and that I’ve learnt a large amount – absolutely just one way of preventing distress. Think everybody is homosexual until shown or else.

Text by Josephine Sargent

Image by Amy Middleton