Hannah Spyksma, right, and her partner Chloe Fill moved from New Zealand to live in Brisbane last February.

I was home alone the December evening that Malcolm Turnbull announced marriage equality was "a win for Australian values".

It was such an exciting moment that I took a photo of the TV news for posterity, then ran out to the balcony to see if the rest of the world on the street below was also cheering for the bill passing.

They weren't.

CHLOE FILL Hannah Spyksma (pictured): ‘...the discrimination I’ve faced at home [NZ] has seemed the result of a minority of ignorant individuals, not part of a nationwide, state-sanctioned campaign.’’

Well, it's not that nobody was celebrating – there were huge parties around the country, and had been earlier when the postal vote was announced too. But it's just that where I was, in inner-city Brisbane, the leaves were still blowing in the wind and that roaming cat was still wandering the street with her bell tinkling.

Life seemed to be continuing pretty much as it had a few moments earlier. It was, in all, a bit of an anti-climax. Which was, an absolute contrast to the intensity of the past several months since I moved to Australia.

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My partner, Chloe Fill, and I moved from Auckland to Brisbane in February 2017 – in love and gleeful at having made our first big move as a couple. Our arrival was almost in unison with the debate in Australia's Parliament heating up about whether people like us should be able to legally marry here.



We were still in the honeymoon phase of our relationship, having met mid-2015. I hadn't given the topic of marriage, or even my sexuality, for that matter, much thought in a while.



But I tweeted "Moved countries, became a second-class citizen" later in the year when it was announced the postal vote was going ahead. Because that's how it felt.

Louise Kennerley Celebrating the “yes” vote on Sydney’s Oxford Street. But the anti-gay rhetoric in the lead-up to Australia’s same-sex marriage referendum came as a shock to the writer.

Despite being lucky enough to secure a scholarship to move from Auckland to study my PhD here, arriving in Australia wasn't all positive.

The discussion about same-sex marriage was a shock.

I had campaigned fiercely for marriage equality in New Zealand, both through my writing and community work, and was so proud when waiata broke out in our Parliament.



I watched the third reading from Rainbow Youth's headquarters on Auckland's K Rd, surrounded by my queer family.



Somehow though, in the four years since New Zealand passed its amendments to the marriage law, I had got used to taking my right to marry as a given. How naive and privileged that now seemed.



Due to politicking, the Australian Government spent $122 million on a non-binding vote that essentially asked the public if they were OK with my sex life, and I was not ready for this.



A CLIMATE OF HATE



Just after the bill was passed, Chloe rushed in the door.

JAMES ALCOCK The message in Sydney skies amid the debate on same-sex marriage last September.

She'd left work early to try and make it home in time to see the results. When she arrived, we danced around the house cheering, then walked to our favourite bar to celebrate. We held hands the whole way down the street.

I gripped hers extra tightly as we passed a swastika sign stickered to a lamp post on the corner of our street.

This has been our reality in Australia since we arrived.

ecarter6 A train in Sydney vandalised with the "Vote no" message.

There has been a sharp contrast between the majority of people who support same-sex marriage, so much so that they never saw it as being an issue in the first place, and a small conservative minority who seemed irrationally intent on making life difficult for the LGBTIQ+ community.

It was in the intrusive way many "vote no" campaigners spread their rhetoric.

It seemed like night after night there were debates across the television with outspoken lobbyists given equal airtime to broadcast views bordering on discriminatory.

Supplied Spyksma stayed at Donna Harris’ Airbnb in Sydney - Donna is pictured here with her gay son Jeffrey Harris.

As soon as I switched on any media, they were there – on the TV, on social media, clogging ad channels – trying to convince everyone that people like me are a threat to society.

For a large chunk of the year it felt like I was enveloped in a climate of hate; from swastika signs to vandalism of rainbow flags and propaganda about how marriage equality would feminise children.

Like the weather on a muggy day, its sticky, unseen presence was constant, unescapable and exhausting.



Anti-gay rhetoric even clouded the sky. The weekend before I first saw that swastika, I had been away in Sydney. It was there in one of the city's most gay-friendly neighbourhoods, Newtown, on a quiet Sunday morning while out getting coffee, that the words "Vote NO" appeared, skywritten, above us.



At the time, Chloe and I were staying with Australian Airbnb host Donna Harris, ally and proud mother of a gay son. She helped organise some of the big equality rallies in Sydney and has been involved in organising Mardi Gras floats for several years now.



We chatted about the No campaign with her.



"The Vote No skywriting disgusted me," says Donna."I felt that the No voters were so completely uneducated about the whole point of the survey and that skywriting made it feel as if they were the majority view."

Anna Kucera A couple embraces in Newtown, Sydney, to celebrate the yes verdict of Australia’s postal vote on same sex marriage.

To see someone so passionate about equality admit that returning a strong "Yes" vote was unlikely because of the pervasiveness of the No campaigners' propaganda was a low point.

When I got back to Brisbane I talked to local Jay Haurat. He was running his own rainbow flag campaign in response to the skywriting. Seeing those words "really was quite upsetting", he says.

"I think the 'Vote No' campaigners really are playing politics with people's lives."

Supplied The writer Hannah Spyksma with her partner Chloe Fill at a marriage equality rally in Brisbane, last September.

While watching news of the bill passing I messaged my ex-girlfriend, Shanara Hemi, a Kiwi from Kaeo who now lives in Melbourne with her Australian partner Shellie Curran and Shellie's son.

"I'M SO EXCITED FOR YOU AND SHELLIE!!!" I wrote, knowing they wanted to get married. Passing the law was absolutely a moment to celebrate, but it has come at a price because the convoluted process of the plebiscite did mess with people's lives.

MENTAL HEALTH REPORT



A preliminary report of more than 9500 LGBTIQ+ Australians in the lead-up to the postal survey results being announced shows that more than 90 per cent of respondents were negatively affected by the debate.



Additionally, the report, by the Australian Institute and National LGBTI Health Alliance, found that depression, anxiety or stress among LGBTIQ+ respondents increased by more than a third after the announcement of the vote, compared to the six months before the announcement.



Memory is a funny thing. Maybe I was wrapped up in a happy gay bubble on K Rd during NZ's debate, but I don't remember feeling so upset then. I remember feeling nervous but optimistic, sure that the likes of Colin Craig [founder and former leader of NZ's Conservative party] didn't have power to influence rational debate in Parliament.



Sure, there were moments when I experienced bigotry in New Zealand. Like the time some guys at Eden Park heckled me after I pointed out that calling the ref a "fag" was not cool.



I grew up in Mangawhai Heads, Northland; Chloe in Thames, Coromandel. Both of us have certainly had to go on our own journeys to accept our sexualities – especially coming from smaller towns.



But most of the discrimination I've faced at home has seemed as the result of a minority of ignorant individuals...not part of a nationwide, state-sanctioned – and ironically, technically democratic – campaign. And one where both sides are put in a position where it's necessary to vote and publicly debate whether a minority group is worthy, because of who we are, of being equal to other citizens.

Supplied Shanara Hemi (right), from Kaeo, Northland plans to marry her Australian partner Shellie Curran soon.

It was like election time, everywhere people were trying to convince you to align with their position.

It felt like the debate had somehow dehumanised us queers, and I personally felt like my life was being unfairly torn apart and questioned by people who didn't even know me.

Later, Shanara and Shellie told me of the trauma the plebiscite caused to them and their family. It compounded the lack of safety they already felt as a gay family in Australia.



Says Shellie: "Right around the time I met Shanara in 2013 we had just had a federal election. While going to vote with my young son, I had a run-in with a Family First volunteer who took it upon herself to publicly shame and humiliate me by spitting on me and spewing hatred towards my sexuality as a parent.



"This was a major turning point for me, where I found myself recoiling from the once gay and proud stance I had in a conscious effort to protect my son."



The voting campaign not only brought that previous trauma to the surface for Shellie. But it was also difficult because of the confrontation it brought to the surface with various people they interacted with.



"The sheer stupidity, scare tactics and conspiracy theories that I've had to listen to, see, read and argue against have been astounding," Shellie says."From false statistics on flyers put in our letterbox to a verse my uncle quoted from the 1990 'new world order' by A. Ralph Epperson. "We should all be embarrassed by Australia's leaders. Firstly, because it has taken this long to legalise same-sex marriage and secondly, that they've put a vulnerable minority front and centre – open to be flooded with so much hate and criticism."



"I went into this plebiscite confident, only to be rudely awakened to the hateful homophobic underbelly of Australia."



I honestly am so thankful we didn't have to vote on this in New Zealand.



A YEAR OF RECOVERY



When Chloe and I arrived at the bar up the road to celebrate the law change that evening, there were no rainbow flags in sight.

Matt Davidson Matt Davidson’s illustration depicts the Australian coat of arms, an emu and a kangaroo celebrating the ‘‘Yes’’ vote.

We ordered mojitos and drank them in between huge, dreamy grins. We're still not planning on getting married any time soon, but just knowing that love had won in the end, that was a huge relief.

I kept looking around to look for a nod, a smile, some recognition of why I was grinning so much.

People were just going about their evening though.

I had suggested that we celebrate at the gay bars I knew would be pumping that evening. But Chloe said she was more than happy to hang out at our local and celebrate equality in the most egalitarian way – by just fitting in.

Part of me wanted to yell and scream and be as flamboyant as my queer heart could be. But I do get where she was coming from.

For a majority of Australians, their gay and queer friends and family were accepted a long time ago. And after months of having our identities debated across media, there was something quite comforting about celebrating in anonymity.

"I'm overjoyed that the vote to allow same-sex marriage was passed so equivocally in Parliament," says Donna, who celebrated with her son and some close friends in Sydney, "dancing down Oxford St in the most joyous parade I have seen".

"But it should never have even been a question in the first place," she adds.

"I definitely wanted to feel proud again to be Australian, but we had the vote and I'm ashamed of that for the whole country."

Both queers and allies, we all have to learn how to move forward.

As Jay told me on a more positive note: "I really felt that this campaign is an empowering thing just to say that 'yes', love wins, we're all going to be OK." I hope we are.

After all, history has proved again and again that LGBTIQ+ folk are a resilient bunch.

So, 2018 is looking to be a year of recovery.

These are moments now where we breathe fresh air and wonder how we survived the mugginess of plebiscite hate.

However, I'm not really sure that this makes it a straight out win for "Australian values" as Malcolm Turnbull proclaimed on the night. This was more of a plain, old-fashioned win for right over wrong.

Says Shellie, who spent Christmas in Northland with Shanara, visiting her future in-laws: "The moment I saw 'Yes' overwhelming my Facebook page, I was lost for words. It was exactly what I needed to start recovering from the psychological damage this plebiscite had caused."

And there is reason to look forward now: "I have always been a strong believer in not wanting to be engaged if it had no legal standing. Yet due to this debate I think Shanara and I have talked about marriage so much that we bypassed this tradition of engagement and have moved straight into planning.

"2020 here we come."