I was quite confused about myself, about who I was,
so I was quite, as they say, in the closet at that point.
I just kept that side of my life hidden away.
So in a sense, the ban, it probably kept it,
obviously, even more hidden 'cause also it was illegal
at the time, so it just kept me away.
And in the other sense, I probably didn't think
about it too much, 'cause it was basic training,
it was my trade training, I was going through all of that.
So that was kind of more the main focus of stuff
at the time, and that was, at that time,
probably a little bit,
it was always in the back of the head.
But it was kinda of interesting,
'cause when they put the announcement out in the January,
they called all the trainees in,
so they'd done this big announcement
at the training establishment I was at.
And obviously, they briefed us all about this change
in policy and everything, that it was now obviously legal
and allowed to be LGBT within the military
and the kick-off was quite unbelievable
from quite a few people.
Especially a lot of guys at the time were like,
I don't agree with this, this isn't right,
if I found that someone was, they'd still find
it quite a challenge.
Some of them were quite threatening in this sorta,
I don't agree with it, I'd kick someone out my room,
I don't wanna serve next to someone.
So it was kind of a little bit scary in the sense
of hearing all of that being put out there
and it kinda just kept,
kinda pushed it and still kept it all hidden.
It was like, well, if this is the attitude,
I don't wanna be out.
