Stories of progress make us feel good but don’t reflect the history of LGBTQIA+ and feminist activism

When feminist and homosexual activists in the 1970s asserted that “the personal is political”, experiences and identities once excluded from public life by ideas of privacy and shame became features in Australian national culture. A set of campaigns arguing for profound legal reforms and government protections produced an array of new political battlefronts. In the 1970s this was a radical change. As we regularly witness now, storytelling about intimate lives and identities and the political contests that follow have become a regular part of our national debate.