Milestone for Pride parade
The classic Monty Python sketch Four Yorkshiremen features four men competitively reminiscing about their deprived childhoods.
At the end of each increasingly unbelievable claim, the men conclude with the refrain: "If you tell that to the young people today, they won't believe you."
Maxine Drake and Gavin McGuren are not exaggerating when they talk about what it was like growing up gay in Australia decades ago.
But there is a hint of the Monty Python refrain when they concede younger gay people cannot understand what it was like.
"There's so much progress now, we can forget how far we've come," Ms Drake said.
Mr McGuren said it was an "enormous achievement" that some young gay people took it for granted that they should have the right to marry.
"When I was growing up, the idea that you could ever have a life where you could be gay was unimaginable," he said.
Perth will hold its 25th Pride parade on Saturday night and Ms Drake and Mr McGuren will be among the few in the crowd who know what it was like to take part in the first march in 1990, feeling intimidated by police and facing verbal abuse from onlookers.
Mr McGuren recalled the day as "nerve-racking". "Some people I knew were against it, they thought it would attract negative attention, other people were terrified about the whole idea," he said.
"It was a real protest march when the first one was held and it was a time when AIDS was really affecting the community."
Ms Drake said she walked at the front when others hesitated, in part because she was from NSW and knew her family would not see her on the TV news that night.
"I remember stepping up because there was a reluctance from others to do so and I now realise that it was a big thing to step up and front up," she said.
Both said the parade was a rare chance for a minority group to feel part of the majority.
