Alison Shirley
DR: Have you lived around
Central Regional Victoria for a while?
AS: Yeah, I’ve been here about 5 years. Prior to that I was in Ballarat for 6 years, and Melbourne before that.
DR: Did you have family in the area or was that the first time you moved to the country?
AS: It was very much a case of wanting to buy a home, not being able to afford anything in Melbourne, and looking out regionally for quite a long time. At the time Ballarat was extraordinary in terms of what you could get price-wise and we were really willing to just give it a go. So, we just rocked on into Ballarat, had a look at a place, made an offer, left town 20 minutes later, and thought, wow we don't really know anything about Ballarat. I guess we were just open to living in different places and discovering what was there and just having faith that there'd always be something amazing to find.
DR: And then you moved to Castlemaine from Ballarat?
AS: Yeah. When we were first looking for a place, I got quite addicted to looking at all the places on real estate.com. You can get quite obsessive about it. So even after we got the place in Ballarat, I was interested in looking at places and seeing what was around. And I was on an email list that fed me information on any churches available throughout Australia. Then in 2017, I think it was the Age Domain wrote an article about this place. There was a picture and a small article about it as it was for sale. I cut it out and put it on the wall in my study. It was just like, this is way too much, but that's the dream, you know, something like that. And then 3 years later, I was scrolling through realestate.com and saw it, and went, oh my goodness, this is that place! We felt compelled to go and have a look. I didn’t have any idea where it was. I'd never really found out where Fryerstown was. We came out and it was lush green at the time which often it isn't, so it must have been winter. We drove through from the Guildford direction from Ballarat, and it was super sweet, and quiet and just lovely. I couldn't believe that it was the place …
DR: It sounds like a dream.
AS: Yeah, that's right. Then we moved here, and again, didn't know anything about this area. Didn't know anybody. We just kind of landed and went, gosh we really hope we’ve done the right thing. Being part of the queer community, feeling safe is a massive thing. We'd heard some horror stories from other friends who’d moved out in different directions.
As it turned out it's just like same-sex central here, and it's like, wow, that couldn't have been easier in a way. We got so lucky. Part of the joy of being here is the sense of community.
DR: How was that developed – your connection and relationship to community and your place within it?
AS: It's been very organic. I'm a bit of an introvert when it comes to things like being part of groups. Seeking out a queer group is not usually the approach I've taken to getting connected to my community. So, I guess it was just really organic in terms of discovering that our neighbours are a gay couple and having a really nice connection.
And just the flow on from there. When people met Maggie it's just like, oh you've got a dog, come to the dog walking group on Sunday. Just getting to know each other and then going into each other's homes. It grows like any other community might, but it just so happens that we have a lot of LGBTQIA+ people here.
DR: Is there a Fryerstown city centre? Are there shops, or do you go Castlemaine?
AS: There's no shop of any description. The closest thing we have to a centre is the Old Fryerstown school building. There's actually quite a lot that goes on for such a little town. And I feel like it's pretty special. So there's Friday night drinks if anyone wants to go up to the school and sit and chat together. And then pre-COVID there was a once-a-month lunch at the school where a family would create a meal for everyone else. And that would be a different person each time. And the CFA are quite active, putting on information sessions and collecting people together – a Christmas bash and things like that. There's a pretty strong sense of community. You can’t see your neighbours a lot – people that are a few streets back you might not ever know exist – so it is quite important to createthose situations. And with the neighbours that are close that we do interact with it’s been a really beautiful experience as well.
DR: So, what proportion of queer people would form that community?
AS: I don't know. It's high in terms of the people that I know. And I guess that's part of the flow and effect of finding your community within a community. Of the people that I know from this town more than half would be queer I think. I don't think that would be the case for the overall community, but there's like a third or something – maybe not that much. I don't know if I inflate that because that's the group that I know …
DR: What about Castlemaine, do you spend much time there?
AS: I do. I go roller skating in Castlemaine and dancing and drumming, catch ups and shopping.
DR: Oh, I’ve got to say Castlemaine ... not Castlemaine [pronunciation]. Otherwise, people just write you off.
AS: That's right, they just reject you entirely. I have always said ‘Castle’ in the past, but I've had to adjust. So, if we can access something in Castlemaine we will because it's so close – all our shopping and practitioners and health practitioners and stuff like that.
DR: Where do you do the roller skating?
AS: There's a basketball stadium in Castlemaine where there's classes every Friday, and there's a lot of women in the class, mostly around my age. They’re just a great group of people.
DR: Are there queer people in the group?
AS: Again, there's queer people in amongst it. What I'm finding is everywhere I go, there's queer people. So, I haven't had to seek out, or build a queer community for myself. I have that support network in everything.
DR: I'm also asking people about language and how that impacts their experience of being part of the LGBTQIA+ community. Is there particular language or shifts in language that feels important to you?
AS: I haven't changed my pronouns, yet a lot of people around me have already made a certain decision about that, or are making decisions about it. I'm going along with that process and that journey of discovery, learning as I go what that means to different people and having conversations about it. It's interesting because when I talk to people about what they do and don't relate to around certain pronouns, I really resonate with it all. But making that decision or deciding that is what you want to identify as is a really personal journey. I've just been interested to watch people make those choices and decisions. It's made me look at things, but I haven't come to any particular resolution for myself. I'm open to it, and I'm still learning, because when you have called somebody a certain thing for a long time, and then that changes, it does take some adjustment. Just because language rolls off the tongue in so many ways. It's so habitual. It is like a neural pathway that's just set. To make that change takes practice. So, I'm in practice at the moment and wanting to be really good at that practice. But it does take practice.
DR: What are your thoughts on the idea of gender?
AS: When I look back, I feel like I've had a problem accepting my gender for a really long time, or accepting what is placed on me because of my gender. So, for me right now, it's quite empowering to be around people who are making really strong decisions and choices about their identity, and claiming what feels right for them. It has made me start to think about what feels right for me – you know – am I sitting in something that I'm actually comfortable with or am I there out of habit and expectation? So, other people's journeys again have been quite an education for me. It hasn't been as urgent a matter for me personally, but I get that it's really urgent for others. So, I really want to meet people with that and honour what they’re discovering about themselves.
DR: It was interesting what you said about the expectations related to a particular gender and how you sit with that. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
AS: I can just remember, childhood things, like a little boy's mum discovering that he'd written ‘I love Ali’ on his football. The two mums got a bit excited by this little crush, but it was devastating for me. I was put in a dress to go to his birthday party, and I can still feel myself going red in the face, feeling humiliated by it. I think I wore dresses quite happily then, but then my friend and her mum turned up on our doorstep and I was mortified. I felt especially frustrated and embarrassed about the expectation to be nice, even when people were pushing themselves on me. I think that caused a lot of internal stuff that I wasn't really allowed to express. So, I'm sure there's some sort of anger that burns under there about being made to behave in a certain way, even if somebody else's behaviour towards me wasn't appropriate or didn’t match what I felt ok with. There were many occasions like that. These days I don't feel comfortable in dresses. Occasionally I'll put one on and I can't come to terms with it. I think that I might enjoy it and then I just don't. It's like I keep trying to repeat something that is lost on me now. I've come to a point where it's just like, no, I've tried again, and I really, really can’t be myself in that item of clothing. It's almost like I haven't quite come to terms with that. When it comes to things like costume and dressing up and performing and stuff like that, that's entirely different because that's embodying something rather than representing me.
DR: What other activities do you do?
I've got a Saturday morning dance class in Castlemaine at the Anglican Church Hall.
Julia Robinson teaches it. It is all women and it's contemporary dance and I feel lucky to have that, and to have Jules there to teach it. I went to a few of her classes back in the day at Chunky Move. Dancing with her and the rest of the crew that come along is really lovely. So, I've got a couple of things that are really gold for me here which aren't wrapped up in the queer community but are things that nourish me.
If I wasn't finding that queer connection everywhere else, then I might go looking for it a bit more, but it is really present. And there's Chillout at Daylesford which we've been going to for a long time.
DR: What’s it like?
AS: It’s great. It’s really great.
DR: I haven’t been there. I mean, I am gay, but I am not a good gay.
AS: That's the way I feel a lot of the time. It's just like I'm not really a community gay. But that's really a carnival day kind of thing. It’s just a lot of joy and often Melbourne people will come up and take part in it with us. It's also a way to have friends come out to the country, and I guess a reminder that there is plenty of community out here if you need to get more of that in your life.
DR: What's it feel like walking around as a couple here?
AS: Comfortable. I mean, I don't ever question our safety and whether we can be in contact or anything like that. It's remarkably easy.
DR: I guess I'm thinking from my experience, walking around as a gay couple. Sometimes you feel self-conscious, or not safe, particularly if you’re in an unknown place, you’re a bit more wary, and maybe you hold yourself differently.
AS: Yeah, absolutely, I totally get what you're saying. And when we first got here that was the thing of like, Oh my god, what have we done? We could have just landed in one of those places where people throw notes over the fence, like happened to friends. There was this holding our breath to find out, and then it was just like, Oh my god this is great. I think maybe it's a false sense of security, but it does feel very safe here. We did have moments in Ballarat that didn't feel safe. Moments of, O oh, we could actually be in danger here, and needing to be really wary of our behaviour and the responses we might be getting. I mean we've travelled to different countries where we've had to be super careful and play straight. Here it's a marked difference to that kind of experience. I don't feel like I have to hold myself differently or be a little bit scared of just being who I am. And that's a relief because the way that I hold myself is really impactful in my world of movement.
It's something that I notice in other people when they come to my Pilates studio and I can see that there's tension in certain places in their body. I might not necessarily know why it's there, but I see the result of how people hold themselves and their habits. I try to unwind that and bring them back to more of an equilibrium. So I have an awareness around the impact of emotions and how they play a part in your whole system and how things can be held in your body. I did my honours project on the body as an archive and the histories that we hold in place in our physical beings. So, that's something that is really interesting to me – learning about the kinds of things that are held in my body, and realizing that in this place that's not something that I have to do. It can be high on my radar of concern when I go to other places, but this is my home zone.
DR: Can you describe that difference? How you hold your body here and how you have to adjust? Can you explain those shifts?
AS: Yeah. I guess when it’s two people it's just about needing to disconnect signs of intimacy. So, it's about being a lot more, maybe rigid, just having a real sense of separateness. Like there's a zone that you probably stand in with friends unless you're being physically affectionate, and unless you're a person that uses a lot of touch and stuff like that. COVID's had a big impact on all of that as well. But I guess there’s just that defined separateness that is almost felt as much as seen when two people are close together. And so … if somebody walks into a room … those things are so intuitive that they will be felt and noticed. It's almost like the ancient part of your brain will probably trigger all of that information. I think it's to do with the facings – like how much you turn towards someone, sometimes, or your physical closeness, even if you're not touching. The kind of energy that you have around another person is seen in small ways, in the way that you move. Maybe it's about relaxing into somebody rather than really being clear about your individual space, maybe some of those lines blur a little bit more … I'm not explaining it very articulately.
DR: No, you are. Can you relate it more directly to that adjustment? Like you said if you feel comfortable you don't have to adjust.
AS: Yeah.
DR: So, what's that like? If you don't mind me asking. It’s really fascinating to hear it explained in such an articulate way by someone who’s attuned to those things.
AS: Well, I think the first thing that comes to mind is the dropping of holding hands and then you pull away, you just drop that. It's just like, uh-uh, if there's a sign that things might be unsafe, you immediately disconnect. So, from literally having contact with each other to disconnecting, that's the really obvious thing. Then from there you might actually … If you do feel unsafe and if you're in a room with other people, you might just move to speak to someone else. Just to make sure you create a little bit more distance. You might turn away from each other and engage in a different way with a different person to make sure that that is not visibly happening.
I'm trying to think of a particular instance … In Ballarat one night, we were walking home, probably holding hands, or maybe not even, but someone yelled out something from a car. And there's that thing of – OK, what if they turn around and come back? What if? What if? What if? And so, immediately you break contact, definitely your body goes a lot stiffer and you’re almost ready for fight or flight, that's the kind of reaction that's going on. Your heart rate will increase. You might have a little bit more tension in your body, ready to get out of there. Your eyes are a little wider, taking in more information. You're pricking up your ears, like there's all these things happening that probably don't look like a lotfrom the outside other than a shift in posture. You might be a bit more upright, and attuned, and a little bit more rigid-looking, and your gait might be a little bit more focused.
DR: Interesting. What about Pride? You mentioned you went to Chillout but you don’t otherwise go to a lot of organised community events. What does Pride mean for you?
AS: I'm really aware of the fact that Pride has become a celebration, and it didn't start that way – in terms of Mardi Gras being a protest. I'm really lucky that things have come as far as they have, even though they're not perfect, and for some people they're not great at all. Maybe living in a different area might be really bad. I feel really fortunate that I can be somewhere that I feel safe enough to express Pride. There are situations where I still have to fight for things but in general I'm surrounded by lots of support for me to be who I am unashamedly. There's lots of people in my community who’ve been through similar things. So Pride is a celebration of having that community and of having a bit more understanding in the community at large. And having a little bit more freedom, and the right to marry. Having those things that people have been fighting for over a really long time. So I don't take that long fight for granted.
There's a little Pride celebration in Castlemaine. We went along and took Maggie, and she loved meeting everybody. And it was lovely and fun. And then the next time, one of my neighbours invited me to come to their Pride choir and teach them a little bit of choreography. So, that was really lovely. I had a very short time with them so, I gave them everything that I could while trying not to overwhelm them. And I used videos so that they could practice and learn more when I was gone. It was really wonderful to see this group and the different range of personalities and ages all coming together and doing this thing. It wasn't something that I wanted to do, but I was so happy to be able to bring my skill and share that with them, and give them something else to play with. I felt really grateful for that opportunity to take part, and help elevate their performance by adding a sense of movement to their sense of celebration and song. That was really wonderful. It was great to have a way to inject some of my movement ideas into a Pride celebration.
AS: Yeah, I’ve been here about 5 years. Prior to that I was in Ballarat for 6 years, and Melbourne before that.
DR: Did you have family in the area or was that the first time you moved to the country?
AS: It was very much a case of wanting to buy a home, not being able to afford anything in Melbourne, and looking out regionally for quite a long time. At the time Ballarat was extraordinary in terms of what you could get price-wise and we were really willing to just give it a go. So, we just rocked on into Ballarat, had a look at a place, made an offer, left town 20 minutes later, and thought, wow we don't really know anything about Ballarat. I guess we were just open to living in different places and discovering what was there and just having faith that there'd always be something amazing to find.
DR: And then you moved to Castlemaine from Ballarat?
AS: Yeah. When we were first looking for a place, I got quite addicted to looking at all the places on real estate.com. You can get quite obsessive about it. So even after we got the place in Ballarat, I was interested in looking at places and seeing what was around. And I was on an email list that fed me information on any churches available throughout Australia. Then in 2017, I think it was the Age Domain wrote an article about this place. There was a picture and a small article about it as it was for sale. I cut it out and put it on the wall in my study. It was just like, this is way too much, but that's the dream, you know, something like that. And then 3 years later, I was scrolling through realestate.com and saw it, and went, oh my goodness, this is that place! We felt compelled to go and have a look. I didn’t have any idea where it was. I'd never really found out where Fryerstown was. We came out and it was lush green at the time which often it isn't, so it must have been winter. We drove through from the Guildford direction from Ballarat, and it was super sweet, and quiet and just lovely. I couldn't believe that it was the place …
DR: It sounds like a dream.
AS: Yeah, that's right. Then we moved here, and again, didn't know anything about this area. Didn't know anybody. We just kind of landed and went, gosh we really hope we’ve done the right thing. Being part of the queer community, feeling safe is a massive thing. We'd heard some horror stories from other friends who’d moved out in different directions.
As it turned out it's just like same-sex central here, and it's like, wow, that couldn't have been easier in a way. We got so lucky. Part of the joy of being here is the sense of community.
DR: How was that developed – your connection and relationship to community and your place within it?
AS: It's been very organic. I'm a bit of an introvert when it comes to things like being part of groups. Seeking out a queer group is not usually the approach I've taken to getting connected to my community. So, I guess it was just really organic in terms of discovering that our neighbours are a gay couple and having a really nice connection.
And just the flow on from there. When people met Maggie it's just like, oh you've got a dog, come to the dog walking group on Sunday. Just getting to know each other and then going into each other's homes. It grows like any other community might, but it just so happens that we have a lot of LGBTQIA+ people here.
DR: Is there a Fryerstown city centre? Are there shops, or do you go Castlemaine?
AS: There's no shop of any description. The closest thing we have to a centre is the Old Fryerstown school building. There's actually quite a lot that goes on for such a little town. And I feel like it's pretty special. So there's Friday night drinks if anyone wants to go up to the school and sit and chat together. And then pre-COVID there was a once-a-month lunch at the school where a family would create a meal for everyone else. And that would be a different person each time. And the CFA are quite active, putting on information sessions and collecting people together – a Christmas bash and things like that. There's a pretty strong sense of community. You can’t see your neighbours a lot – people that are a few streets back you might not ever know exist – so it is quite important to createthose situations. And with the neighbours that are close that we do interact with it’s been a really beautiful experience as well.
DR: So, what proportion of queer people would form that community?
AS: I don't know. It's high in terms of the people that I know. And I guess that's part of the flow and effect of finding your community within a community. Of the people that I know from this town more than half would be queer I think. I don't think that would be the case for the overall community, but there's like a third or something – maybe not that much. I don't know if I inflate that because that's the group that I know …
DR: What about Castlemaine, do you spend much time there?
AS: I do. I go roller skating in Castlemaine and dancing and drumming, catch ups and shopping.
DR: Oh, I’ve got to say Castlemaine ... not Castlemaine [pronunciation]. Otherwise, people just write you off.
AS: That's right, they just reject you entirely. I have always said ‘Castle’ in the past, but I've had to adjust. So, if we can access something in Castlemaine we will because it's so close – all our shopping and practitioners and health practitioners and stuff like that.
DR: Where do you do the roller skating?
AS: There's a basketball stadium in Castlemaine where there's classes every Friday, and there's a lot of women in the class, mostly around my age. They’re just a great group of people.
DR: Are there queer people in the group?
AS: Again, there's queer people in amongst it. What I'm finding is everywhere I go, there's queer people. So, I haven't had to seek out, or build a queer community for myself. I have that support network in everything.
DR: I'm also asking people about language and how that impacts their experience of being part of the LGBTQIA+ community. Is there particular language or shifts in language that feels important to you?
AS: I haven't changed my pronouns, yet a lot of people around me have already made a certain decision about that, or are making decisions about it. I'm going along with that process and that journey of discovery, learning as I go what that means to different people and having conversations about it. It's interesting because when I talk to people about what they do and don't relate to around certain pronouns, I really resonate with it all. But making that decision or deciding that is what you want to identify as is a really personal journey. I've just been interested to watch people make those choices and decisions. It's made me look at things, but I haven't come to any particular resolution for myself. I'm open to it, and I'm still learning, because when you have called somebody a certain thing for a long time, and then that changes, it does take some adjustment. Just because language rolls off the tongue in so many ways. It's so habitual. It is like a neural pathway that's just set. To make that change takes practice. So, I'm in practice at the moment and wanting to be really good at that practice. But it does take practice.
DR: What are your thoughts on the idea of gender?
AS: When I look back, I feel like I've had a problem accepting my gender for a really long time, or accepting what is placed on me because of my gender. So, for me right now, it's quite empowering to be around people who are making really strong decisions and choices about their identity, and claiming what feels right for them. It has made me start to think about what feels right for me – you know – am I sitting in something that I'm actually comfortable with or am I there out of habit and expectation? So, other people's journeys again have been quite an education for me. It hasn't been as urgent a matter for me personally, but I get that it's really urgent for others. So, I really want to meet people with that and honour what they’re discovering about themselves.
DR: It was interesting what you said about the expectations related to a particular gender and how you sit with that. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
AS: I can just remember, childhood things, like a little boy's mum discovering that he'd written ‘I love Ali’ on his football. The two mums got a bit excited by this little crush, but it was devastating for me. I was put in a dress to go to his birthday party, and I can still feel myself going red in the face, feeling humiliated by it. I think I wore dresses quite happily then, but then my friend and her mum turned up on our doorstep and I was mortified. I felt especially frustrated and embarrassed about the expectation to be nice, even when people were pushing themselves on me. I think that caused a lot of internal stuff that I wasn't really allowed to express. So, I'm sure there's some sort of anger that burns under there about being made to behave in a certain way, even if somebody else's behaviour towards me wasn't appropriate or didn’t match what I felt ok with. There were many occasions like that. These days I don't feel comfortable in dresses. Occasionally I'll put one on and I can't come to terms with it. I think that I might enjoy it and then I just don't. It's like I keep trying to repeat something that is lost on me now. I've come to a point where it's just like, no, I've tried again, and I really, really can’t be myself in that item of clothing. It's almost like I haven't quite come to terms with that. When it comes to things like costume and dressing up and performing and stuff like that, that's entirely different because that's embodying something rather than representing me.
DR: What other activities do you do?
I've got a Saturday morning dance class in Castlemaine at the Anglican Church Hall.
Julia Robinson teaches it. It is all women and it's contemporary dance and I feel lucky to have that, and to have Jules there to teach it. I went to a few of her classes back in the day at Chunky Move. Dancing with her and the rest of the crew that come along is really lovely. So, I've got a couple of things that are really gold for me here which aren't wrapped up in the queer community but are things that nourish me.
If I wasn't finding that queer connection everywhere else, then I might go looking for it a bit more, but it is really present. And there's Chillout at Daylesford which we've been going to for a long time.
DR: What’s it like?
AS: It’s great. It’s really great.
DR: I haven’t been there. I mean, I am gay, but I am not a good gay.
AS: That's the way I feel a lot of the time. It's just like I'm not really a community gay. But that's really a carnival day kind of thing. It’s just a lot of joy and often Melbourne people will come up and take part in it with us. It's also a way to have friends come out to the country, and I guess a reminder that there is plenty of community out here if you need to get more of that in your life.
DR: What's it feel like walking around as a couple here?
AS: Comfortable. I mean, I don't ever question our safety and whether we can be in contact or anything like that. It's remarkably easy.
DR: I guess I'm thinking from my experience, walking around as a gay couple. Sometimes you feel self-conscious, or not safe, particularly if you’re in an unknown place, you’re a bit more wary, and maybe you hold yourself differently.
AS: Yeah, absolutely, I totally get what you're saying. And when we first got here that was the thing of like, Oh my god, what have we done? We could have just landed in one of those places where people throw notes over the fence, like happened to friends. There was this holding our breath to find out, and then it was just like, Oh my god this is great. I think maybe it's a false sense of security, but it does feel very safe here. We did have moments in Ballarat that didn't feel safe. Moments of, O oh, we could actually be in danger here, and needing to be really wary of our behaviour and the responses we might be getting. I mean we've travelled to different countries where we've had to be super careful and play straight. Here it's a marked difference to that kind of experience. I don't feel like I have to hold myself differently or be a little bit scared of just being who I am. And that's a relief because the way that I hold myself is really impactful in my world of movement.
It's something that I notice in other people when they come to my Pilates studio and I can see that there's tension in certain places in their body. I might not necessarily know why it's there, but I see the result of how people hold themselves and their habits. I try to unwind that and bring them back to more of an equilibrium. So I have an awareness around the impact of emotions and how they play a part in your whole system and how things can be held in your body. I did my honours project on the body as an archive and the histories that we hold in place in our physical beings. So, that's something that is really interesting to me – learning about the kinds of things that are held in my body, and realizing that in this place that's not something that I have to do. It can be high on my radar of concern when I go to other places, but this is my home zone.
DR: Can you describe that difference? How you hold your body here and how you have to adjust? Can you explain those shifts?
AS: Yeah. I guess when it’s two people it's just about needing to disconnect signs of intimacy. So, it's about being a lot more, maybe rigid, just having a real sense of separateness. Like there's a zone that you probably stand in with friends unless you're being physically affectionate, and unless you're a person that uses a lot of touch and stuff like that. COVID's had a big impact on all of that as well. But I guess there’s just that defined separateness that is almost felt as much as seen when two people are close together. And so … if somebody walks into a room … those things are so intuitive that they will be felt and noticed. It's almost like the ancient part of your brain will probably trigger all of that information. I think it's to do with the facings – like how much you turn towards someone, sometimes, or your physical closeness, even if you're not touching. The kind of energy that you have around another person is seen in small ways, in the way that you move. Maybe it's about relaxing into somebody rather than really being clear about your individual space, maybe some of those lines blur a little bit more … I'm not explaining it very articulately.
DR: No, you are. Can you relate it more directly to that adjustment? Like you said if you feel comfortable you don't have to adjust.
AS: Yeah.
DR: So, what's that like? If you don't mind me asking. It’s really fascinating to hear it explained in such an articulate way by someone who’s attuned to those things.
AS: Well, I think the first thing that comes to mind is the dropping of holding hands and then you pull away, you just drop that. It's just like, uh-uh, if there's a sign that things might be unsafe, you immediately disconnect. So, from literally having contact with each other to disconnecting, that's the really obvious thing. Then from there you might actually … If you do feel unsafe and if you're in a room with other people, you might just move to speak to someone else. Just to make sure you create a little bit more distance. You might turn away from each other and engage in a different way with a different person to make sure that that is not visibly happening.
I'm trying to think of a particular instance … In Ballarat one night, we were walking home, probably holding hands, or maybe not even, but someone yelled out something from a car. And there's that thing of – OK, what if they turn around and come back? What if? What if? What if? And so, immediately you break contact, definitely your body goes a lot stiffer and you’re almost ready for fight or flight, that's the kind of reaction that's going on. Your heart rate will increase. You might have a little bit more tension in your body, ready to get out of there. Your eyes are a little wider, taking in more information. You're pricking up your ears, like there's all these things happening that probably don't look like a lotfrom the outside other than a shift in posture. You might be a bit more upright, and attuned, and a little bit more rigid-looking, and your gait might be a little bit more focused.
DR: Interesting. What about Pride? You mentioned you went to Chillout but you don’t otherwise go to a lot of organised community events. What does Pride mean for you?
AS: I'm really aware of the fact that Pride has become a celebration, and it didn't start that way – in terms of Mardi Gras being a protest. I'm really lucky that things have come as far as they have, even though they're not perfect, and for some people they're not great at all. Maybe living in a different area might be really bad. I feel really fortunate that I can be somewhere that I feel safe enough to express Pride. There are situations where I still have to fight for things but in general I'm surrounded by lots of support for me to be who I am unashamedly. There's lots of people in my community who’ve been through similar things. So Pride is a celebration of having that community and of having a bit more understanding in the community at large. And having a little bit more freedom, and the right to marry. Having those things that people have been fighting for over a really long time. So I don't take that long fight for granted.
There's a little Pride celebration in Castlemaine. We went along and took Maggie, and she loved meeting everybody. And it was lovely and fun. And then the next time, one of my neighbours invited me to come to their Pride choir and teach them a little bit of choreography. So, that was really lovely. I had a very short time with them so, I gave them everything that I could while trying not to overwhelm them. And I used videos so that they could practice and learn more when I was gone. It was really wonderful to see this group and the different range of personalities and ages all coming together and doing this thing. It wasn't something that I wanted to do, but I was so happy to be able to bring my skill and share that with them, and give them something else to play with. I felt really grateful for that opportunity to take part, and help elevate their performance by adding a sense of movement to their sense of celebration and song. That was really wonderful. It was great to have a way to inject some of my movement ideas into a Pride celebration.