Recipients Of Thorne Harbour Health Awards 2023 Announced
Image: Thorne Harbour Health Facebook
Thorne Harbour Health announced the recipients of the 2023 Thorne Harbour Health Awards on Sunday, November 12, following the 31st Keith Harbour Address.
The Keith Harbour Address invites a special guest to speak about the ongoing response to HIV, as well as the general health and well-being of LGBTIQ+ communities.
‘We Are People Who Can And Profoundly Wish To Thrive’
This year’s Keith Harbour Address was given by Switchboard CEO Joe Ball. In Ball’s address, he focused and the high rates of suicide in LGBTIQA+ communities.
Drawing a comparison to the ‘Silence Equals Death’ campaign, he said, “In the silence, we obscure the reality that we are not our deaths and that we are not just people who succumb to despair. We are people who can and profoundly wish to thrive.”
He continued, “We have inherited a legacy that calls us to build a broad movement of support, to find and maintain our allies, and to reclaim the narrative surrounding our lives and experiences. If you haven’t joined the struggle for trans rights already – consider this your invitation. Let us stand united just as AIDS activists taught us to do; and together we can create a world where everyone has the right to thrive and to love and to be loved.”
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Flis Marlowe Awarded President’s Award
Following Ball’s speech, Flis Marlowe was awarded the 2023 Thorne Harbour Health President’s Award for their “legacy of work in supporting LGBTIQ+ communities over the years.”
Marlowe is the co-founder of Rainbow Community Angels, a community-led safety initiative. The group has offered its presence to local Councils, libraries, and cafes that plan to organise LGBTQI events, as a way to increase event safety.
Marlowe in their acceptance speech said, “I just want to say it’s an honour to do the Rainbow Community Angels. It’s the most inspiring, ally-inclusive activity I’ve ever done…I can say that it wasn’t only me. There were many, many other people involved every step of the way.”
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Melbourne Grammar’s School Captain Awarded Greig Friday Young Leader Award
The 2023 Greig Friday Young Leader Award was presented to Melbourne Grammar’s school captain Daniel Cash, for calling out the Presbyterian Church in April 2022, after they said students in same-sex relationships would not be eligible for student leadership.
In an April opinion piece for the Age, he wrote, “I write this as captain of Melbourne Grammar School. I write this as someone who is gay, a fact about myself which I cannot change.”
He went on to write, “The Christian faith is built on the example Christ set in his life. His revolutionary compassion, so radical then as it still is now – care for the outcasts, the lepers, the unclean – inform the values of Christianity and direct the moral constitution of the Church.
“His example leads me to wonder what Christ would make of this situation. If he was confronted with a body of young people – all, to remind the Presbyterian leaders, made in the image of God, in the imago dei – would he divide them and cast inequality among their ranks?”
The Thorne Harbour Health Awards and the Keith Harbour Address take place annually at Thorne Harbour Health’s annual general meeting.
