Altman was born in Sydney, the only son of Jewish émigré parents. In 1950 the family moved to Hobart and a middle-class, provincial environment. An inellectually precocious child who disliked sports, Altman attended a Quaker school before taking an honours degree at the University of Tasmania, where he immersed himself in student politics.

He won a scholarship to Cornell University, wrote e master's thesis and was active in the anti.Vietnam War movement. In 1967 Altman took up a lectureship at Monash University, Melbourne, later teaching at at the University of Sydney. While on leave in New York in 1970, he joined the emergent gay liberation movement and conceived his first book to describe and theorize it - Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation.

With this book Altman was launched into a career as a public homosexual" and spokesman, he addressed the launch of Sidney Gay Liberation in 1972, took part in the first gay demonstrations, and later Mardi Gras, in Sidney.

After five years at a number of American academic institutions, Altman returned in 1985 to teach at La Trobe University, melbourne, where he is now professor of Politics. His most recent work has focused on the internationalization of gay and lesbian identities,