Each year as part of the annual Feast Festival, the South Australian Rainbow Advocacy Alliance (SARAA) hosts the Ian Purcell Oration to commemorate one of South Australia’s greatest LGBTIQA+ advocates, Ian Purcell AM.
Ian Purcell AM was a founding member of SARAA and a prominent advocate for the LGBTIQA+ community in SA, known as the ‘Godfather of the Gay Community’. He dedicated his life to fight discimination against the LGBTIQ community.
The Ian Purcell Oration provides a platform for respected members of South Australia's LGBTIQA+ community to talk about issues close to their heart and of importance to the LGBTIQA+ community. The Orations will also have a special function of helping us to remember our communities history.
2025 - Anna Brown OAM
Anna Brown OAM is the founder and CEO of Equality Australia, a national advocacy organisation that works towards equality for LGBTIQ+ people.
Watch Anna Brown OAM (Founder and CEO of Equality Australia) and Varo (CEO of SARAA) to chat about critical issue affecting South Australia's LGBTIQA+ community and help us remember our communities history.
Video Comming soon!
Photos by Jazz Fechner-Lante (@threads.of.jazz)
2024 - CJ Hannaford
Were There Intersex Dinosaurs?
Long-time Intersex advocate and elder CJ playfully insists there must have been dinosaurs like her—because Intersex people have always existed. Born in 1952, CJ grew up in secrecy and shame, only meeting other Intersex “dinosaurs” in the mid-1990s. That discovery marked her “coming out,” and she has since become one of South Australia’s leading Rainbow voices.
A participant in the landmark 2017 Darlington Statement, CJ highlights that Intersex people—born with diverse genetic variations beyond male/female definitions—make up nearly 2% of the population, as common as redheads but as rare as dinosaurs. Watch the 2024 Ian Purcell Oration to hear CJ’s witty take on Intersex history, and learn more or support Intersex rights here.
2023 - Will Sergeant OAM
Delivered by 2023 Order Of Australia for services to the LGBTIQA+ community, 78er, LGBTIQA+ activist and Gay Adelaide Historian, and the persona of Dr Gertrude Glossip, Will Sergeant OAM.
Photography by Skye Photographica
2022 - Sonny Jane Wise
The Oration was delivered by Sonny Jane Wise, a queer, physically disabled, autistic ADHDer and founder of the non-profit Drop In Care Space Inc. An internationally recognised educator, consultant, and speaker, Sonny Jane provides workshops and resources on lived experience and neurodiversity.
Founded in 2020, Drop In Care Space has grown into a registered charity in Sturt Street, offering a wheelchair-accessible venue run by a volunteer board of peers who identify as LGBTQIA+, neurodivergent, disabled, or with lived experience of mental illness. It provides a safe, welcoming place to connect, access resources, and engage in activities that ease distress and isolation.
Photography by Victoria Paterson
2021 - Aud Mason-Hyde
Our Orator for 2021 is Audrey Mason-Hyde, an extraordinary 16-year-old non-binary actor, activist, spoken word poet, and public speaker.
Aud gained wide recognition in 2017 with their TEDX talk "Toilets, Bow-ties, Gender and me" about their experience of gender. They went on to win Spoken Word SA’s inaugural Youth Slam Rumble in 2018 and have appeared in acclaimed films and TV shows including Fcking Adelaide*, 52 Tuesdays, A Field Guide to Being a 12 Year Old Girl, Rapture, and Right Here. Beyond performance, Aud has contributed as a consultant and speaker on Channel Nine’s Cultural Conversations: The Evolution of Gender, facilitated youth projects with Carclew Futures, and opened major events such as the DreamBig Children’s Festival and MOD’s It’s Complicated exhibition. They are also a committed climate activist, helping to organise large-scale strikes with Adelaide’s School Strike 4 Climate group.
2020 - Dr Nikki Sullivan
Pride as protest
From the Stonewall Riots and first Pride Marches through to Marriage Equality rallies, protests have been a fundamental part of pursuing and protecting LGBTIQA+ rights for generations.
For 2020, Dr Nikki Sullivan, Manager of the History Trust of South Australia’s Centre of Democracy and Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Humanities at the University of Adelaide, delivered an oration on the importance of protest for our community.
2019 - Damien Ralphs
On 21 November 2019, Damien Ralphs presented the 3rd annual Ian Purcell Oration.
Damien shared with us the history and creation stories of his people, including the Gunnai/Kurnai people from Victoria, before delivering two important messages: genuine reconciliation must be grounded in truth and treaty, and Aboriginal people are exhausted by the ongoing right for racial justice.
2018 - Jenny Scott
The Importance of Being Remembered
In an era of mass media we are regularly reminded that everything we put on social media is forever, that we will not be forgotten. But will we be remembered or will a fake news fiction of our lives be created, preserved and promoted as reality? As LGBTIQA+ community members we can choose to be forgotten and for the most part the dominant culture will oblige us, but in so doing are we condemning those who come after us to a life subject to ongoing bigotry? For the 2nd Ian Purcell Oration archivist and friend of Ian Purcell, Jenny Scott, explored our LGBTIQA+ community memory, how it has been lost, how it can in part be recovered, and the importance of being remembered.
A Trans Lesbian Archivist, Jenny is an accredited professional member of the Australian Society of Archivists. She has been an advocate for the rights of Transgender people since coming out in 1993, serving on numerous state based LGBTIQA+ committees and organisations. From 1993 to 2006 Jenny volunteered and worked with Ian Purcell and his husband Stephen Leahy at the Darling House Community Library. In 1997 she joined the staff of State Records and in 2000 the State Library of South Australia. In 2017 Jenny’s name was added to the South Australian Women’s Honour Roll in recognition of her work as a “passionate activist for the LGBTIQ community”.
2017 - Kenton Penley-Miller
Brighten up the corner where you are
On 15 November 2017, SARAA hosted the inaugural Ian Purcell Oration, Brighten up the corner where you are, named after one of Ian’s favourite songs.
The oration was delivered by Ian’s long-time friend and activist Kenton Penley-Miller, known as the cartoonist for Outrage magazine and creator of Bent at the Knees. Kenton also worked for many years at the AIDS Council of South Australia as Information and Training Officer for Gay Men’s Health.
His engaging speech reflected on Ian’s political and cultural legacy, South Australian advocacy in the 1970s–80s, and the contributions of Ian’s many collaborators present that evening.
Proudly supported by
