The day Stuart Milk decided to come out as gay was the day his uncle was shot dead.
“He knew he was going to be killed, he didn’t know who and he didn’t know when, but he wanted there to be a message,” he tells SBS News on Sydney's Oxford Street, in the heart of the city's gay district.
“So for me, it was just kind of natural; ‘Okay I'm going to come out now, why wouldn't I?'"
Stuart was 17 when his uncle, Harvey Milk, gay rights pioneer and the first openly gay elected official in the United States, was killed by a former colleague in 1978.
Harvey Milk was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1978 in San Francisco. Source: Getty
His death was a devastating blow to the gay rights movement that was gaining momentum in San Francisco, and it raised more questions about how people from minority groups were treated by police and the court system.
But it also inspired hundreds of thousands more people to continue his legacy, fighting for equal rights in the US and around the world.
His story was immortalised in the 2008 film Milk, starring Sean Penn.
Stuart, now 59, said his uncle had apparently known he too was gay but never told him. Instead, he instilled in him from a young age that being different was powerful.
Demonstrators remembered Harvey Milk by marching in the street. Source: Getty
“He was the one who told me that my difference was a gift.”
“He said those who are different are the ones that have the power. He started that dialogue with me, and that continued to the day he was assassinated.”
Life was not easy for Stuart in the weeks after his uncle’s death, grappling with loss and coming out as gay in a society that still deemed it illegal.
Just three weeks later, the dean of the university Stuart attended pulled him aside to tell him he would never get a job in the foreign service because of his coming out.
“That’s when it struck me just how limiting, not just societal non-acceptance is, but the legal non-acceptance too.”
It was that realisation that drove him to continue his uncle’s mission, firstly working in the women’s rights sector before co-founding the Harvey Milk Foundation in 2009. The not-for-profit aims to increase diverse participation in society through the legacy of its namesake.
Stuart's work has taken him to every corner of the globe, including to Australia ahead of this weekend's Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
It’s the first time the Harvey Milk Foundation will have a float in the parade, upon which Stuart will proudly stand this Saturday.
Such symbols of hope and positivity are just as integral to creating change as protesting is, he says. It’s a belief his uncle instilled in him.
Stuart Milk is in Sydney for the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Source: SBS News
“I guarantee you there are people in that crowd that had no hope to the point where they may have planned their own suicide, that will go to the Pride [Mardi Gras] and will put apart those plans and realise that they have a future.”
“[Harvey's] message gives people the freedom to be authentic and not just LGBT people … but for anyone who has had to hide who they authentically are because they don’t fit the norm of society.”
Stuart is also set to meet with other activists and leaders in the LGBTIQ+ space in Australia this week to discuss issues facing the community.
He says while Australia has a high acceptance rate of LGBTIQ+ people compared to many countries in the world, and voted in favour of marriage equality, issues facing intersex, and transgender people are the next battle for campaigners and advocates.
As co-founder and president of the Harvey Milk Foundation, Stuart has followed in his uncle's footsteps. Source: Getty
“I think that this whole [transgender] issue, the way it's portrayed in the US, and I've seen here in Australia, is that it's a man who wants to go into a bathroom, to look at women,” he scoffs.
“I mean that's the last thing transgender people want to do.”
“It's just painted purely to get at the fear. It's almost as if they want to box up and package fear, and this is the way they seek to do it.”
Last year Victoria joined four other Australian states in passing laws to on their birth certificates without undergoing gender reassignment surgery.
Preparations have begun on the Harvey Milk Foundation float for this weekend's celebrations. Source: SBS News
But Prime Minister for saying transgender teenagers are contending with "the pressures of identity politics".
The complexity, and often harm caused by such debates is why Stuart believes listening to the voices of transgender people and making them visible is imperative.
“We just have to put forth our trans people, our transwomen and men and gender-nonconforming people and let them talk and be visible.”
“It's the same thing that my uncle fought for, it's visibility.”
Stuart says 75 per cent of the Harvey Milk Foundation's work is outside of North America and it goes “where we’re most in need, and most likely to succeed”.
“We don’t go anywhere without the support of the local community and we don’t go where we’re not invited.”
He says the foundation is painfully aware that for many developing nations homosexuality is still illegal, and in some cases, punishable by death, and wants to bring a message of hope, that change is coming.
“We’ve got to get to a point in the world where we are no longer calling people out because they are different to the majority.”
The foundation has also successfully campaigned to have a US Navy vessel named after Harvey, a gesture particularly “important” to Stuart.
Harvey had been an officer in the Navy, but when his superiors spotted him in a park that was popular with gay men, they questioned him about his sexuality.
Stuart Milk at the US Navy Ship Naming Honours. Source: Getty
Being gay in the military was banned at the time, and Harvey was forced to resign.
Now the Navy has begun construction on the USNS Harvey Milk, a fleet oiler expected to be completed in the next two years.
“Having this ship, the first major ship in the world named after an LGBT person, sends the message that we celebrate everyone,” Stuart said.
As the ship travels the world, Stuart hopes it will act as a symbol of change, very much like Mardi Gras.
The Sydney Gay And Lesbian Mardi Gras 2020: Live Stream will be from 7.30pm AEDT on Saturday 29 February.
LGBTIQ+ Australians seeking support with mental health can contact QLife on 1800 184 527 or visit
