That, fortunately, is so. Society is facing the undeniable physical fact that not all people are born fully male or female and even that differences in gender identity can be very real. Despite that, those who are different will always face extra problems.

It doesn't matter whether it's a club foot, albinism, a cleft palate, no balls, no breasts, deafness or a genius IQ, there will always be problems.

Ms Le Lievre's four intreviewees spoke without bitterness of the problems they had faced and with no mention of same-sex marriage.

Changing the legal meaning of a word will not remove problems, bigotry or homophobia. For instance, would a girl be obliged to disclose the lack of ovaries before marriage? Would it be homophobic to collect demographic, social, legal and medical matters statistics on the sexually diverse?

Not even the sexually diverse can agree on the difference. Is it LGBTI or LGBTIQ? Does T stand for trans-sexual or transvestite? Is bisexual used in the medical or the lay sense? As the French say, "Viva la difference", be it of fact, taste or opinion.

Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor

The availability of the contraceptive pill in the late 1960s and 1970s allowed heterosexual baby boomers to throw off the religious-inspired sexual repression that had shackled their parents' generation. Most of us flouted the religious constraint against "sex out of wedlock" (even Tony Abbott), many of us "lived in sin" and some of us even "committed adultery".

Yet gay men continued to be persecuted in Australia just for being gay. On June 24, 1978, participants in the first Sydney Gay Mardi Gras parade were arrested and bashed by NSW police officers. And up until the early '90s gay men risked being prosecuted and imprisoned for "unnatural sexual acts" simply for engaging in consensual sex. Although most baby boomers adopted a "live and let live" philosophy in relation to consensual heterosexual practices, it has taken us longer than it should have to become politically attuned to the injustices that the LGBTI community has suffered. Conservative members of the Coalition government are hoping that a significant proportion of baby boomers have morphed into clones of their straitlaced parents and, therefore, won't support marriage equality in the voluntary postal survey. Given that many baby boomers would know (and have some feelings of empathy and compassion) for at least one LGBTI relative, friend, work colleague or acquaintance who deserves marriage equality, i.e. exactly the same statutory right to marry under the Marriage Act as heterosexual couples, I'm hoping that conservative government members have badly misread my generation.

Bruce Taggart, Aranda

Anti-rally people at the "safe" schools protest in Canberra City last Saturday had the choice of joining a peaceful, respectful rally, or remaining as spectators. Instead they chose to attempt to control an event for which they had no permit. Despite this, the rally program proceeded, and because of the forbearance of the rally supporters, no one was hurt, despite a minimal police presence.

Elliot William's report on the rally ("Supporters of Safe Schools program drown out conservative group rally", Canberra Times, August 13, p2) was an advertisement for discourtesy, and does a disservice to LGBT people.

Arthur Connor, Weston

Of course Obama opposed our asylum policy! ["Obama opposed asylum policy", Sunday CT, August 13, p8]. The policy has developed into a crime against humanity and the government should be prosecuted for perpetuating a bad policy.

We are all guilty for allowing it to continue. Read page 10 of last Sunday's paper ("They are going to dump us here and walk away") and agree with the government's policy that we close our borders, hearts and minds to all refugees. Shame on us.

W.Book, Hackett

Solar experience

I am sympathetic to William Holdsworth's problems with his solar panel installation (Canberra Times, Sunday CT, August 13). However, to balance the record, I would like to say that I had an excellent experience with Solargain, particularly in meeting their commitments as regards installation time. Since I chose them on the recommendation of colleagues, I expect other people have had positive experiences. However, solar panels do require regular monitoring.

Helmut Simon, Watson

Jean Main (Letters, August 18) rightly raises rates gouging of Canberra residents, particularly those on relatively fixed and/or lower incomes. With significant rises in rates, electricity, gas and water, where are these people supposed to find the additional funds? More is on the way to pay for the tram as well. All this was foreshadowed at the last ACT election. A number of ALP voters I know were voting for the Liberals for the first time ever, so dire were the circumstances.

Apparently not enough people did so. Seems like it really needs to hit the hip pocket nerve before the lights go on.

Murray May, Cook

City councils are not agencies of the federal government. It was sheer bloody-mindedness to ban the Yarra City Council from holding citizenship ceremonies.

Over 50 years my family and I spent all our time in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia and the ACT and those places had nothing to do with Port Jackson in 1788.

In South Australia we called January 26 "Prison Opening Day" or "Prison Foundation Day" and our state had its own foundation ceremonies on Proclamation Day in December. We have never lived in NSW, let alone in Sydney.

I can assure the federal government that there is an Australia outside that city. It is arrogant of it to claim that the opening of the penal station at "Botany Bay"/Port Jackson defines Australia's identity.

January 26, 1788, had nothing to do with citizenship. Most of the new settlers landed in chains as enslaved convicts. The rest were soldiers and marines. What has that to do with citizenship?

A much better day would be Referendum Day on May 27, 1967, when the new Australian settler people voted to give the original Australians citizenship of this nation.

Aidan Moore, Melba

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