Julie Mooney-Somers was a member of ACON’s Board from 2011 to 2024. These are her reflections, as told to John Burfitt.
Earliest memories of ACON
I moved here from London in 2000 and Sydney’s queer community had an incredible reputation. I don’t recall ACON having a major profile for women’s health then. My first encounter with ACON was as a university researcher – I came to ACON’s old offices and remember seeing all the campaign promotion posters. They were sexy and edgy. Not like anything I had seen before from a health organisation. ACON felt like a place with great confidence connecting to its community.
Joining the ACON Board
Before I joined that board in 2011, I had been involved for a few years with ACON’s Lesbian Health Project, led by the incredible Siri May, and then on SWASH – The Sydney Women and Sexual Health Survey. In terms of LBQ Women’s Health, ACON was really where it was happening at that time.
ACON’s evolution in a broader LGBTQ+ health and wellbeing organisation
I was involved in women’s health and mental health so ACON making the change to be more inclusive made sense. It was exciting. We spent a lot of time on the board working out the boundaries of this new work. I think the board and management were very thoughtful about how they proceeded. I never felt people in the community were against that expansion, but we knew the expansion shouldn’t be experienced as a loss for anybody. As a community organisation, there is a knowledge that if you lose the community, you’re done.
ACON adopting a stronger focus on women’s health
I didn’t always realise the significance of things that were happening. But making a bigger space for women and for LBQ health was a big deal. A few years into my time at ACON, Garrett Prestage spoke at a Big Day In event. He talked about the importance of women in ACON’s work historically, they had been part of the HIV response all along. It was a powerful moment. It was time to also look after women’s health. It meant a lot to the women there.
The impact of the SWASH survey on the new directions
The SWASH survey started in 1996. When I took it over in 2009 we realised the data held many important stories. One was that LBQ women’s smoking rates were higher than other women’s and had barely changed over time. ACON acted – the Board put smoking into the next strategic plan, and Veronica Eulate and Alan Brotherton secured funding from the NSW Cancer Institute for research and a campaign called Smoke Free Still Fierce. Samar Haidar developed a funny, irreverent, sexy campaign – typical ACON and the absolute opposite of every smoking campaign we’d ever seen. This provide a platform for Karen Price to have conversations with organisations across the country who were responsible for smoking cessation but who had not been addressing LBQ women. Lots of things happened as a result of that smoking project, including an expansion of work around women’s substance use mor generally. That was 100 per cent because of ACON’s work and advocacy.
ACON taking a greater focus in addressing women’s health
I found it very interesting to see the different women’s sexual health programs and how they matured to be more nuanced, expansive, inclusive and incredibly engaging. Only last year, ACON received a grant to build Word on the Sheets, a national sexual health portal for women’s information and education. The fact ACON has launched this as a national campaign is phenomenal. ACON has incredible expertise built up over many years in how to run health promotion campaigns in ways that are inclusive, enticing and interesting.
Why ACON is still relevant today
ACON’s values run deep. I’ve witnessed this firsthand – as a board member, research partner, expert advisor, and community member. ACON is committed to the communities it serves and that’s evident in everything it does. Over 40 years ACON has developed expertise in building things from and with community. It is phenomenal and widely recognised. It’s what makes ACON a valued partner to governments, health departments, and NGOs alike.
The importance of marking ACON’s 40th anniversary
It creates moments of reflection to consider where ACON has come from, what it has achieved and how it has changed. It allows other people to recognize all that ACON has achieved and how far it has come. As a board member I was often amazed at just how many different activities ACON had going on at any one time, and how many lives it was impacting. The anniversary is an opportunity to shine a light on all of those individual stories, and how they all come together as part of one big organisation.
