This is my article that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age (state newspapers for Sydney and Melbourne respectively) on Friday 27 Feb:

Straight and Narrow

My name is Katrina Fox and I am a homosexual. As is the case with Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous, that admission is apparently the first step in my journey to become straight - according to Living Waters, an international ministry that offers courses to help people who suffer from a range of sexual problems or "brokenness", including same-sex attraction.

It's 9.30am on Saturday morning and I'm waiting for Living Waters' one-day Grace and Sexuality Conference at the Wesley Mission in Sydney to start. There's around 60 of us in attendance, old and young, from a range of ethnic backgrounds and my gaydar has honed in on a few fellow queers.

Boxes of tissues have been set out around the room by the organisers, presumably in anticipation of an outpouring of emotion. They're not disappointed as the band takes its place on stage and the head of the ministry, Ron Brookman, leads the audience in song and prayer. Smiles turn to tears as it gets too much for several people and they break down sobbing. It's not unlike a Kylie or k.d. lang concert.

Brookman, according to the conference brochure, has been "transformed from homosexuality" and leads the Living Waters ministry from its headquarters in Ramsgate with his wife Ruth. "I was living a double life as a pastor and immersed in the homosexual scene in Darlinghurst," he tells us. "I know what it is to live in utter brokenness and shame."
Brookman goes on to explain that God's image can only be displayed on earth when male and female come together in sexual union within the context of monogamous heterosexual marriage. Anything outside is a sin.

"Desire is powerful, which is why God has given boundaries," he asserts. "If boundaries were kept there would be no such thing as sexually transmitted diseases … there is no such thing as casual sex … the power of intimacy and sex is a foreshadow of what awaits us in heaven."

Homosexuality is a "handicap" but healing our "brokenness" is as simple as "yielding our lives to Jesus", he adds. Although it wasn't easy, Brookman says he has turned his back on the "homosexual lifestyle", but admits it is a struggle every day.

After a talk by Ruth Brookman on how she forgave her husband's sexual indiscretions with other men and they now live happily as a heterosexual couple, it's lunchtime. And I'm still gay.

After lunch the conference delegates break off to take part in a workshop of their choice. Naturally I pick the one on homosexuality, led by Ian Lind, who founded Living Waters in Australia 30 years ago. Before becoming a Christian, Lind was part of the gay scene in Sydney for 10 years. For him, the two are mutually exclusive. "There is no such thing as a gay Christian," he proclaims.

"I don't believe you can sit in church as a gay person. I chose homosexuality like others choose drugs or alcohol. When I gave myself to the Lord, I turned my back on my lifestyle so I was no longer gay. I am still attracted to men, but I never went back to that lifestyle or gave in to my feelings."

The workshop has drawn around 20 people. One couple is concerned about their son who came out as gay a year ago. "It's there in your upbringing," Lind asserts. "If our mothers nurtured us and our fathers spent time with us, we wouldn't have those issues."

Discussion ensues about whether a person is "born gay".
While Lind is adamant this is not the case - despite various research studies identifying biological factors such as prenatal hormones and brain structure that may be related to sexual orientation - others in the room argue it doesn't matter if people are born gay. "As Christians we shouldn't be worried about this," says one participant. "You can still be redeemed and choose to live a pure life."

You've probably realised by now I have no intention of yielding my life to Jesus or repenting my "sin". Unlike many people who come to organisations such as Living Waters, I don't struggle with being a dyke. I live with my girlfriend of 15 years, a gorgeous, passionate and talented therapist who's blessed with amazing cheekbones, and when I stare at a photo of Debbie Harry, shame is the last thing I'm feeling.

But for those who leave ex-gay programs, unsuccessful in their quest to become straight, depression and suicide are common, according to Anthony Venn-Brown, a former Assemblies of God preacher, author of A Life of Unlearning and leader of the Freedom 2 B[e] organisation that offers support to gay and lesbian Christians. Venn-Brown went through several ex-gay programs before embracing his homosexuality and is adamant such programs don't work.

"You can't recover from your sexual orientation," he says.
"You can deny and suppress it but you can't change it. Trying to be someone I wasn't caused great stress, a sense of failure and shame that eventually led to depression."

Brookman and Lind say they are now heterosexual, despite still finding men sexually attractive, and couldn't be happier. Living Waters runs a 30-week course for people "struggling with same-sex attraction" although both men admit it's often necessary for a person to complete the course three or four times to really "get it".

In an interview a few days after the conference, Brookman was keen to point out that Living Waters "goes to great pains not to condemn people in homosexuality or any other form of sexual brokenness, but seeks to reach out with compassion to those who are ill at ease with their sexuality".

It's true that at that no time during the conference did anyone express outright hatred towards gay or lesbian people, but references to Satan and "the enemy" in the context of discussing the "sin" of homosexuality hardly empower us.

Spending the day with people who continually reinforced the message that a core part of my identity is "broken" or a "handicap" or an addiction to be overcome didn't exactly fill me with joy. The musical parts of the day were the best. I'm partial to a nice uplifting singalong but instead of suppressing my sexuality while revering a male deity, I'll take dancing naked at Coogee women's pool with a bunch of hot sheilas chanting "We All Come From The Goddess" any day. Or the Mardi Gras Parade.
Because I'm still gay.

Katrina Fox is a freelance writer and co-editor of Trans People in Love (Routledge).

http://www.smh.com.au/national/straight-and-narrow-20090226-8j9y.html

A friend told me recently that she'd seen an article in a magazine that said in the next five years we would have achieved more technological advancements than in the past 1000 years. Holograms, virtual keyboards, virtual everything almost are on the not-so-distant horizon.

It's kind of exciting and also a bit daunting to try to keep up with it all. It's not that I'm a complete Luddite or anything. Thanks to an electric Golfball typewriter my mum brought home from the company she worked at during my teens, I learned to touch-type at high speeds. Early computers, however, had me flummoxed. A temp job at age 18 in an office at aforementioned company saw my efforts at mastering the art of DOS and its weird codes on an unwelcoming black and white screen, which might as well have been HAL in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, fail miserably. Apparently I deleted a shitload of important files and caused the damn machine to crash.

Fast forward several years to the mid 1990s. My girlfriend and I had the idea for our first book and the thought of typing it on the now rather old Golfball wasn't appealing but neither was the prospect of a repeat performance with the company computer. Enter my friend Mandy's friend Becky's boyfriend Richard, a rocket scientist (I'm not kidding!). Dear, geeky Richard helped me buy my first Windows-based PC. The pretty pictures and a 'mouse' to click on them totally grew on me and I was hooked. I was one of the earlier adopters of the internet, bagging a personal website when only a handful of weird people had them and when you had to load several floppy disks to set up your email and internet connection for a dial-up connection more suited to a tortoise.

Nowadays I communicate more by email with people than any other means, my typing speed has increased even more, I'm on MySpace and Facebook and know how to IM even though I choose not to. I can even convert music files and download them into my MP3 player. Texting until recently was the thorn in my techno side. My well-trained QWERTY typing fingers were loathe to hand over tapping duties to my thumbs, which were having a hard time locating the letters on a standard mobile phone layout. But, not wanting to be left behind in a modern world, I purchased a Dopod mobile which has a little pull-out QWERTY keyboard. It's too small to do touch typing but at least my thumbs know where the letters are and I can now text. Whew.

But technological advancement isn't without its problems. Forget 'tennis elbow'; according to the Brisbane Times, a New Zealand student has been diagnosed with the country's first known case of 'text-messager's thumb' or, to use the posh term, 'texting tenosynovitis', due to sending up to 100 texts a day.

The machines may be getting smarter, but I guess humans are not.

So a couple of queens from Melbourne went to the US and allegedly spent around $130,000 to buy "designer twin boys", according to various reports from News Limited publications. Apparently Brian Sheldon and Matthew Shaffer are one of several gay couples taking advantage of California's liberal IVF laws. Prospective parents with enough cash can choose the sex of their baby, as well as specify a number of physical characteristics and the education level of egg donors. The Australian Family Association has complained that the move is nothing short of 'trafficking in children' while the gay dads have defended their right to start a family.

Should queer couples have the right to buy made-to-order babies? Well, hell yeah – provided they adhere to strict guidelines. Only egg donors with the fashion sense of Björk, musical inclinations of Liza Minnelli and politics of Peter Tatchell should be considered. It goes without saying that they should be vegan (or at the very least, vegetarian), outspoken, passionate, no-nonsense sort of chicks, preferably with some kind of creative body art. A penchant for mind-expanding recreational drugs without the addictive personality is an optional but definite bonus. Radical free-thinkers who believe conformity is one of the roots of all evil get a big tick, while any donor exhibiting even the slightest sign of mediocrity or normalcy should be avoided at all costs.

Well someone has to start a revolution, so it might as well be the queers. Forget all this 'we're just like everyone else' crap. They don't want us to get married and have babies, so if you're intent on doing it, do it with style. Stand out, be different, be defiant. Refuse to bring another boring brat into the world who'll end up as a 'suit' in middle-management for some pharmaceutical giant or oil company, afraid to speak out against the destruction of the planet or the oppression of minority groups in case it compromises their career or cosy suburban lifestyle. Aim higher – do your utmost to produce a little Leigh Bowery or Emma Goldman. The world needs more Lydia Lunches and Boy Georges. It's time for GLBTIQs who want kids to step up and turn the concept of family and child-rearing on its head. We need an army of freaks – proud, individual, ethical and of course totally fabulous human beings to hand this crazy world over to in the hope they'll rediscover and implement the concepts of democracy and equality for all.

All well and good, you may say, but not everyone can afford $130,000 on high-tech reproductive systems. Fear not, a solution is at hand for the financially challenged: Ebaby. Visit www.discountbabies.com to bid for a kid online. Choose from a large range of bubs including Smelly Babies, Automotive Babies, Sporty Babies or Babies That Sew. Celebrity Clone Babies are available for the shallower queer, while Satanic Babies are suited to those drawn to the dark. My personal favourite is the Bio-Engineered Government Destruction Machine Babies.

Now that's what I call progress.

Last week saw the beautiful city of Sydney transformed into a military zone that could have come straight out of George Orwell's 1984. Fences were erected and streets were cordoned off for the APEC summit. Big Brother was watching all (although apparently not looking too closely at the Chaser guys who pulled off a spectacular coup and made the Police Commissioner and his cronies look like the plonkers they are). In a stunning display of propaganda, John Howard and the boys in blue told the public not to blame the federal government or police for the inconvenient 'security' measures enforced to protect Bush and his 800-strong entourage from dissenting voices, but the 'violent' protestors who were expected to cause havoc on the streets. While this rhetoric has been exposed as the rubbish that it is, it still had the effect of terrorising a lot of people into not attending the big demonstration last Saturday.

"Oooh, be careful" and "Don't get arrested!" were among the responses I received when I said I was going to the APEC protest. "You're going on the protest?" said one otherwise intelligent colleague, in an incredulous tone. I should have replied, "There are 21 world leaders in the CBD looking to exploit poorer countries and line their own coffers under the guise of 'free trade' – not 'fair' trade note – led by a man who invades countries for oil, who prizes profits over human lives and who, along with our own Prime Minister, refuses to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, instead coming up with an alternative agreement that has been slammed by environmental experts as 'an empty gesture that may actually undermine efforts to halt global warming'. How come you're not going to the protest?" – in an equally shocked manner.

Many people I spoke with had expressed disdain, even outrage, at the extreme security measures inflicted on the city – but few of them actually bothered to put their money where their mouths were and turn up to a rally whose issues stretch far beyond equal rights for same-sex couples. After all, what's the point of tax breaks and other fiscal benefits if we're bombed to smithereens by insurgents pissed off at our troops taking over their lands, or if the planet, under constant destruction by multi-national corporations possessed with the spirit of greed, stops sustaining and instead kills us?

I can understand people being concerned about their safety, but one of my favourite sayings is 'Feel the fear and do it anyway'. Kudos to the several thousand people who did bother to turn up on Saturday and march through the streets in support of peace and equality, despite the oppressive presence of 3,500 NSW police officers and 450 federal police, including snipers on rooftops (funny how 'resources' can stretch to this, but not a few extra coppers on Oxford Street at the weekends, eh?). For those of you who weren't there, I have another saying: 'All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing'. Mission accomplished.

The thing about opinion pieces is they will often induce a strong reaction in readers. Whether it's Germaine Greer lambasting Steve Irwin in The Guardian or Jason Foster proffering his views on butch-femme gender roles in SX, some people are likely to take offence, even becoming incensed enough to contact as many magazines, newspapers, online media and other public forums as they possibly can to refute the writer's comments.

I've done this myself, especially on Fairfax or News.com blogs where the original blogger has waffled on about how they believe humans need to eat meat and why vivisection is nothing to get excited about. I've gone through the gamut of emotions from extremely upset, deeply disappointed, to utterly furious. I've forwarded the articles to my friends and networks so they can experience the same flood of strong feelings and add their own comments. But while I may disagree vehemently with the writer of the original article, I don't dispute their right to publish their views.

Now before anyone thinks this is a precursor to me wading into the butch-femme debate that has now made it into every GLBTIQ magazine in Sydney and beyond, thanks to Jason Foster, it's not. I'm going to take up the perhaps equally controversial fat/thin dichotomy and ask: Why is rock chick Beth Ditto being held up to be such a role model for lesbians and even women in general, simply because of her body size?

The Gossip frontwoman was named the coolest woman on the planet by British music magazine NME; dyke magazines across the world have either featured her on their cover or are chasing her for that purpose; even Greer praised Ditto: "Her intention is to force acceptance of her body type, 5ft tall and 15 stone, and by this strategy to challenge the conventional imagery of women," Greer said.

It all sounds well and good, but quite frankly it stinks of hypocrisy. On the one hand, we denounce the media's and society's pushing of thin as the ideal body shape for a woman to be, on the grounds that it's 'unhealthy'. Fair enough. So why go to the other extreme and champion fat? Because fat is just as unhealthy as thin. And before the Fat Pride people take aim at me, I'm not saying anyone shouldn't be fat and proud of it.

But it's nothing short of hypocritical to wave the political-correctness banner around by denigrating thinness as a 'dangerous' model for women to aspire to, inducing all manner of eating disorders, while celebrating fat and claiming it as a feminist issue, when both extremes pose health risks. Ditto may be cool for many reasons – a great voice, an awareness of queer theory and gender roles – but watching clips of her perform, she looks like she's about to have a heart attack on stage. Good on her for wanting to break the conventional imagery of women. But 5ft and 15 stone is no more cause for celebration than 5ft and 4 stone. Well, someone had to say it.

I just love it when women cause trouble. Growing up I never understood all that 'sugar and spice and all things nice' that girls were supposed to aspire to. So I couldn't help being a bit pleased when I read that female authors and especially lesbian ones are far more bloodthirsty than men – according to popular crime writer Ian Rankin. Speaking to an audience at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Rankin said, "The people writing the most graphic novels today are women. They are mostly lesbians as well, which I find interesting."

It seemed like an innocent enough comment, but the shit subsequently hit the proverbial. Val McDermid – one of a number of lesbian crime writers and famous for her Wire in the Blood novels which have been made into a TV series – slammed Rankin's comments as "so offensive". Yet according to the Sydney Morning Herald, McDermid's The Last Temptation features a killer whose signature is to take a pubic "scalp" from his victims, The Treatment by Mo Hayder has a crazed killer who forces a man to rape his own child and Heartsick by Chelsea Cain features a beautiful serial killer who tortures the detective hunting her by hammering nails into his ribs, pouring bleach down his throat and removing his spleen without anaesthetic.

So does Rankin have a point, and does it really matter? If men write about women being cut up, tortured and raped, it's often seen as misogynistic, so what happens when a lesbian writes these kinds of scenes involving women? Obviously it pushes some people's buttons: on the Girls' Wall on gay message board Pinkboard, one poster said she was so disturbed by the "gratuitous" and "sick" sexual violence portrayed in one of McDermid's books that she vowed never to read her again. But some female writers argue that what they write is less gratuitous than men because they highlight the consequences of the violence because they have a keener appreciation of what it means to be a victim of it.

McDermid may have taken offence at Rankin's comments, but, political correctness aside, the truth is, some of us are a bit bloodthirsty. We much prefer to immerse ourselves in crime novels such as McDermid's Wire in the Blood, with their depictions of axes slicing through human flesh and other horrific scenarios, than succumbing to the ancient art of lesbian poetry, for example. Call me trash if you like, but the only sort of poetry I have any affinity for is silly ditties you can clap along to with lines such as 'Four and twenty virgins came down from Inverness and when the ball was over, there were four and twenty less …The mayor's daughter she was there and having forty fits, jumping off the mantelpiece and landing on her ….' (You get the picture). As a young teenager my creative stories consisted of epic disasters in the vein of The Poseidon Adventure but in which there were no heroes and everyone died horrible deaths. I think Rankin may have a point.

Why waste money on basic civil, human rights and protecting minority groups when you can spend it on giving internet service providers (ISPs) a hard time? That must have surely been the logic running through John Howard's head recently. Last week the PM announced a $189 million "crackdown" on "online bad language, pornography and child sex predators", including $90 million to provide every household that wants it with software to filter out porn. Fair enough. Porn's not everyone's cup of tea; while I may chuckle at sex sites struggling to gain my attention by an ever-increasingly creative set of subject headers ('My cock is really huge, but my girlfriend's mouth is so small'), others may burst a blood vessel. But Howard's new policy also includes plans to force ISPs to filter web content at the request of users – something the ISPs have branded 'unworkable'. Steve Dalby, chief regulatory officer at iiNet, told the Sydney Morning Herald that such a move would "affect the performance of the network quite significantly" and that "it's hard to understand ... how people will make decisions at the network about what Mr and Mrs Average ought to see, and you're talking about a censoring service provided by the private sector". Quite. Especially since Mr and Mrs Average are just as likely to be tugging and fingering themselves to porn as a pierced, tattooed dyke or horny scene queen.

And if you think this is political correctness gone mad, be glad you don't live in New York City. The NY Times reported last week that a bill has been proposed to outlaw the use of the word 'bitch'. The city drew headlines earlier this year after it introduced a citywide ban on the word 'nigger', and now Councilwoman Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn wants to do the same with what she terms the 'b' word. 'Bitch' is "hateful and deeply sexist" according to Mealy, and creates a "paradigm of shame and indignity" for all women. Does that mean that the popular feminist magazine, Bitch, which has been running for eleven years, will be banned from newsagents in NYC? BANG! That was the irony of the situation making its presence felt, in case anyone missed it.

Then there's the gays and drag queens to consider. "Half my conversation would be gone," said Michael Musto, the Village Voice columnist renowned for his celebrity gossip. Whether a flat-out ban on the word is on the cards, or simply the context in which it's used, is unclear. If I shout 'Hey bitch!' to my girlfriend while on a trip to NYC, how will they know if I'm being friendly or not? Extending the pronunciation to 'Beeeeeeeaaaaatch!' won't necessarily make its intended effect on said girlfriend any clearer, so will it come down to voice tone and body language? And if so, who will police this? Even kennel-club owners and those who live with female dogs won't be immune from penalty. Expect to hear the phrase 'This is my doggess' some time soon. Rap and hip hop just won't be the same.

Evidence of the rise of right-wing fundamentalism is abundant: a concrete wall will be erected around the CBD next month to prevent anti-war and other protestors from getting near the APEC summit; police have bought a water canon to use on anyone who tries to assert their right to make their opinions known (yes, we blinked and missed it – the 'it' being the moment democracy as we once knew it was annihilated); the two major political parties in the country are united in their stance against same-sex marriage; and the Foreign Minister has signed a nasty piece of legislation, without any community consultation, that puts trans people at risk (see my story in SX magazine at http://evolutionpublishing.com.au/sxnews/features/danger-zone.aspx.

But it's not just the right-wing politicians trannies have to watch out for. Beware the return of the radical lesbian feminists into the mainstream media arena – this time with new tactics. Instead of the histrionic, belligerent and blatant anti-trans sentiments of yesteryear, the Sisters of Womyn-Born-Womyn Indulgence are attempting to disguise their transphobia by appearing to play nice. A friend of mine attended the International Feminist Summit in Queensland recently whose guest speakers included Sheila Jeffreys and Catharine McKinnon. She reported that angry outbursts in which women referred to male-to-female (MTF) trans people as men and were aggressively anti-trans had been replaced with calm, relaxed tones that advocated being pro-womyn-born-womyn rather than anti-anything.

It's an interesting tactic, but smacks of NIMBYism: 'I have nothing against transgenders, I just don't want them anywhere near me'. Replace the word 'transgenders' with 'blacks', 'Aboriginals', 'Jews' or 'Muslims' and the 'pro' argument is shown up clearly for the prejudiced rhetoric it is: 'I'm not anti-black, I'm just pro-white'. And the rad feminists wonder why they were nicknamed 'Feminazis'.

The co-option of porno chic into mainstream culture over the past decade appears to have opened the door to a backlash against sexuality and sex and gender diversity. Gender Centre founder Roberta Perkins was vilified in the Australian press a few months ago by feminazis who disliked any suggestion in her new book on prostitution that not all sex workers were screwed up by their jobs. Now British writer Julie Bindel – who in 2004 said that a world inhabited only by transsexuals would look like the set of Grease – is claiming that gender reassignment surgery for trans people is like aversion therapy for gays and that trans people have a 'psychological problem' that shouldn't be fixed by surgery. In the same breath, she calls for an end to discrimination for 'this community'. Um, yeah, Julie, that would be nice.

Bindel likes to think of herself as 'controversial' which is possibly why she contradicts herself on many occasions. In her regular column in The Guardian, she publicly unleashes her hatred towards men who commit violent crimes and rape against women one minute, while supporting and condoning rape and murder the next when she reveals that she eats meat and dairy.

It's not that I have anything against hypocritical feminazis, of course. I don't even care if they live next door to me...

The phrase 'Be careful what you wish for' springs to mind this week. A couple of weeks ago I read my opposite-page counterpart Mitzi's column in SX magazine on how fast life has become nowadays and how we're so busy 'doing' that we have little time to 'be' and enjoy the simple things. 'How true', I muttered to myself, thinking that it would be nice to have a week off work before embarking full-throttle with the new girlie mag I'm editing. I envisaged a cosy cottage, perhaps with a log fire, in the mountains or by the coast, tucked away in a relaxing retreat with my girlfriend and a couple of books. Well, I got my week off – but not in the manner I would have hoped for.

Last weekend, after throwing up at least ten times and clutching my stomach in pain, I was taken to the emergency room at a local hospital. A day later a doctor finally diagnosed appendicitis, whereupon my appendix was removed that evening. I spent the following few days pumped full of a concoction of drugs (the only fun one being morphine) and having what seemed like pints of blood removed each day for what could only be an impending vampire convention about to hit town, of which my nurse was the organiser. The third night I was transferred from a single room to a four-bed dorm with three others – a woman of 70-ish, a man of similar age and a 95-year-old Scottish woman who'd fallen over and fractured something – all of whom were delirious and spent the night talking in their sleep. Apart from the small pleasure of feeling positively foetal among such geriatric company, being on the ward felt like I was a bit player in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and I wanted out. I can't fault the doctors or nursing staff who were all lovely and took good care of me – except for not giving me Pethidine as a pre-med before my operation.

Back in London, 1994 when I had a nose job (who says lesbians aren't vain?), I enjoyed the euphoric high of this delightful legal substance, which was designed to 'relax' the patient before they are put under anaesthetic. To my delight I found that Pethidine does more than relax – it send you completely off your trolley, makes you cackle with glee and you couldn't give a dog's bollocks what the surgeon does with his or her knife. A little shot of that would have gone down nicely last weekend instead of the panic attack I experienced when an oxygen mask was placed over my face and I was told to 'keep your eyes open'. But apparently Pethidine is no longer politically correct. 'We get a lot of junkies come in and ask for it,' the anaesthetic doctor told me. 'It's very addictive.' Hmmph. A week later and I'm back at work suffering a bit of 'brain fog' but definitely on the mend. Motto of story: If you want something – be very specific.

Last week's Best of Show prize at the BGF Bake Off went to Miss 3-D for his creative interpretation of Paris Hilton in prison: bent over doggie-style on the bed, taking up one of her holes a strap-on sported by a black lesbian. Of course, prison life for the pampered princess isn't likely to be that exciting. Crap food and a cold cell are about as scintillating as it gets. Despite what the camp TV show, Prisoner, portrays, prison's no fun for anyone, but 45 days for driving under the influence of alcohol is hardly comparable with five years on death row followed by another 12 years in the general population for a crime you didn't commit.

This is what Sonia (Sunny) Jacobs endured in Florida, USA. In 1976, 19-year-old Sunny and her husband, Jesse Tafero, were sentenced to death for the murder of two police officers. Sunny spent five years in isolation on death row, before an appeal successfully quashed her death sentence but held up her conviction with a life imprisonment sentence. During the next 12 years, Jesse was killed in the electric chair in a botched execution that sparked national controversy – it took three jolts of electricity to kill him as the headset conducting the current to his body caught fire. Sunny was not allowed to attend the funeral. Also during this time, her parents died in a plane crash on the way home from visiting her and her two children ended up in care. In 1992, Sunny and Jesse (posthumously) were exonerated.

We can only imagine how we might react in similar circumstances – personally I think I'd be one bitter, angry middle-aged woman full of hate and despair at having lost nearly 20 years of my life for something I didn't even do. But Sunny's completely the opposite. A couple of weeks ago, she visited Australia to promote her autobiography, Stolen Time. Amnesty International, in conjunction with the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, arranged for her to speak at a seminar protesting the death penalty. I'm glad I braved the torrential rain on that freezing cold, windy night because to hear her speak was incredibly inspiring. Rather than being consumed with hate and anger, she is filled with love – for life, her children and her new partner, John. During her time inside, she used meditation and a positive attitude to survive. It's hard to believe you could still have a sense of humour after such an ordeal as hers, but at the seminar, she explained her current limp by joking about how after surviving a death sentence she had to something dramatic, so she got hit by a car. She's Sunny by name and sunny by nature; a shining example of the strength of the human spirit and of compassion. The next time Ms Hilton whines about being deprived of her creature comforts for a couple of months, someone should give her a copy of Sunny's book to read.

Stolen Time by Sunny Jacobs is published by Random House.