There’s a lot about Stevie Clayton that you don’t know. The popular CEO of ACON (formerly the AIDS Council of NSW) is often in the firing line as the head of the largest gay and lesbian community organisation in the country. But after almost two decades of community work, Clayton continues to stand tall and deflect her influence.

“When I think of influential people I always think of politicians and people who are high up in business, and people who are rich and I tend not to expect people to think of community workers like me,” she says. “I think probably one of my greatest talents in the community is being able to find people who are powerful and influential, and convincing them to want to do things for our community.”

It’s this tireless work for the community that gives Clayton a huge amount of respect. That and her slightly rebellious nature that’s been with her from the very start.

When Clayton was a teenager, she decided she didn’t like the name her parents had given her, so she put half a dozen names in a hat and drew out Stevie. And so simply Stevie it was. No surname, just Stevie.

“It was a nightmare from that minute on. Computer systems weren’t set up to deal with one name, you couldn’t open bank accounts,” she laughs. The RTA denied that she even existed (she was eventually found in the system, three months later, as “three blank spaces and just Stevie as the surname”).

But the final straw of the single moniker was when Stevie, as the co-convenor of the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, wrote a letter to every member of Federal Parliament. “Some of the more homophobic ones wrote back,” says Clayton, “and said that if I had the courage to use my surname then they might be pay more attention to me. I thought, if not having a surname was going to get in the way of achieving the things I want to achieve, then it’s time to give up on that little rebellion and have a surname.” And so she was christened Clayton - the surname you have when you’re not having a surname.

Clayton has always worked within the gay and lesbian community, starting out with Lesbians On The Loose (now LOTL), which was born out of her lounge room. “If you ever look back at some of the early days, you’ll see some of the worst theatre reviews ever written in recorded history. They were done by me.”

Thankfully Clayton gave up the journalism and joined the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby in 1992, and was co-convenor from 1993 to 1998, was on the Parade Committee of Mardi Gras, President of Out FM, joined ACON in 1997 and has been CEO of ACON for the past seven years. In 2002 she also helped resurrect the Mardi Gras organisation into New Mardi Gras.

She may have achieved a lot, but she’s stepping in large footprints. “I’ve learnt heaps from all of the people who have gone before me in community organisations,” she says. “People who did the hard slog in the really early days. Community organisations really build on the work of people who have gone before them and I never forget that.”

By Tim Duggan