The full exorcism how horrific conversion therapy shaped Ro Allen
Aged just 16, Ro Allen was pushed to the ground in a church in Melbourneâs eastern suburbs, held down and had âthe full exorcismâ performed on them in an attempt to rid them of their queerness.
âFour men laying their hands on me, speaking in tongues, doing an exorcism. It was horrific,â says Victoriaâs new Equal Opportunity and Human Rights commissioner. âI remember it being hours, but Iâm sure it wasnât that long.â
Victoriaâs new Equal Opportunity and Human Rights commissioner, Ro Allen, was inspired to activism by experiencing of identity-based discrimination.Credit:Wayne Taylor
If you had told Allen then that they would one day help shape laws to protect the rights of 16-year-olds like their younger self â" and now be a protector of other groups who continue to experience rights violations â" âI would have said you were madâ.
To have helped develop the 2021 legislation outlawing change or suppression (otherwise known as âgay conversionâ) practises, in their previous role as Victoriaâs first Gender and Sexuality commissioner, âfeels fantasticâ, Allen said.
âI can feel it in the back of my throat talking about it; there are so many LGBTIQ+ people who arenât here any more because of conversion practices,â says Allen, who has known people lost to suicide after experiencing such âtherapyâ.
Their religious ordeal was far from the only time Allen, who is non-binary and the first high-profile public appointee to use they/them pronouns, has experienced first-hand what it can be like to be marginalised in Victoria.
After moving to Shepparton as a youth worker in their 20s and starting a group for same-sex attracted young people, Allen was physically abused and taunted. âI was beaten up, my car was graffitied, I had lemons thrown on my roof,â said Allen, 49.
Following an appearance on regional TV as the new youth worker in town: âFive queer kids came to see me the next week, it was like a had a tattoo on my head. They said âcan you start a group?ââ
Having done so, the backlash was fierce. It included receiving a card at the Violet Town home she shares with partner, Kaye Bradshaw, telling them their baby daughter, Alex (now 13) was a âdevil childâ.
That network of regional support centres became the Victorian Youth Affairs council, and the family now splits its time between Violet Town and Melbourne, allowing Allen to pursue the advocacy career that put them in the stateâs top human rights role earlier this year.
Ro Allenâs daughter, Alex, speaks out in support of the âYesâ vote at an Equal Love rally in 2017.Credit:Chris Hopkins
Allen says the jobâs appeal was enhanced because human rights had become a flashpoint during the pandemic, with Indigenous, trans and disabled peopleâs rights pushed to the top of public consciousness â" in part through debate about access and inclusion to vaccination among other services.
âWhy wouldnât you want this job right now? Itâs the perfect storm: people are talking about their human rights, which gives you leverage to make change. What attracted me was the intersectionality â" we have a lot of commissioners, seniors, gender equality, LGBTIQ. I saw this role as the kind of glue.
âYou can be Aboriginal and have a disability, or be queer, we can look at a lot of these things at the same time, itâs not a choice. I came out of the LGBTIQ space, and that is an attribute that is in all those communities, weâre Aboriginal, multicultural, people with disabilities, rural and regional.
âThe next step for me was how do I take that [intersection of factors] to a bigger platform,â Allen said.
I donât know why toilets [and who is allowed in female ones] send people into hysterics. Every toilet at home is a gender-shared toilet.
Equal Opportunity and Human Rights commissioner, Ro AllenEmploying more women of colour at the commission is already a priority for Allen, who acknowledges that coloured women, Aboriginal women and women with disabilities still do not enjoy the same privileges as white women.
âThereâs [ongoing] white privilege. Until we acknowledge that, we donât have equality; thereâs the bamboo ceiling all these other ceilings. We need to check ourselves,â they said.
âItâs the same as men having to make room for women at the board table; we have to make room for women of colour and people with disabilities, thereâs some movement around people with disabilities but not enough.â
It bothers Allen that human rights complaints from Aboriginal people are âreally lowâ, because it might indicate a perception the system does not deliver tangible results for them. Allen, wants to be as engaged as possible in the development of a treaty with Indigenous Victorians.
They also want to reduce continuing âdemonisationâ of transgender people. Having spent six years in their previous role trying to answer the question of why trans people still experience so much stigma, âI didnât come up with an adequate answerâ.
âIt is very similar to the way gay and lesbian people were demonised 40 or 50 years ago; until you met one or had a relative or someone in the family come out as gay or lesbian,â Allen said.
Stereotypes, especially around bathroom use, remain a problem.
âI donât know why toilets [and who is allowed in female ones] send people into hysterics,â Allen said.
âEvery toilet at home is a gender-shared toilet ... [but discrimination about using them] is something you confront every day as a non-binary person.â
Allen was once hit with a handbag by an older woman in a ladiesâ toilet who assumed they were a man. They were born biologically female, but do not correct those who mis-pronoun them and are sometimes called âheâ or âsheâ right through meetings â" âpeople can pronoun me as they see meâ.
Allen is in favour of âsingle-cell, all-gender, all-abilityâ toilets to which anyone can have access. They want them closed in, wall-to-floor, to stop cameras being stuck under cubicles, which is a problem for trans people.
âPeople say, âOh trans people are going to attack me in the toiletsâ, [but] often itâs trans people getting attacked,â said Allen. Single-cell, all outward-facing toilets would suit everyone, though some men may not like them âbecause they may have to queue in a way they havenât had to â" there probably will be pushback.
âBut this is a human need, we just need to get it done.â
As Victoria continues its nation-leading progress in the field of universal human rights, Allenâs early experience remains a driver.
âIâve come to this job through lived experiences of discrimination; you experience it, and you go one way or another,â they said.
âEither you suppress and it forget about it, or you turn into an activist, and look where I ended up.â
Wendy Tuohy is a senior writer focusing on social issues and those impacting women and girls.Connect via Twitter or email.
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