Harley Dunolly-lee
DR: What was it like when you were growing up in Bendigo?
HD: When I was young my aunty and my grandmothers would let me wear high heels and dresses and stuff like that. But my father and his father didn’t really like it. I think there was a soccer player or somebody who was gay, and he was in the media. And my grandfather goes, ‘See that, Harley. They’re sick. They got AIDS.’ He goes, ‘Don’t you be gay like them, you’ll be sick, just like them.’ I didn’t even understand. Back then I couldn’t quite understand who I was in terms of sexuality because I was made to go to Sunday school and people at school would pick on me for being gay or girly, or something like that. But I didn’t quite understand what that meant.
From when I was two years old, I would play with my cousin’s Barbie dolls, and I would line up all the Barbie doll shoes in a row. My aunty used to let me do it, and then my uncle, was like,‘Why are you letting him do that?’ They used to get into arguments about it. I just think that these things should be an option and shouldn’t be a yes or no, you should let your children do whatever they want because boys can play with Barbies and girls can play with boys’ things and they end up being straight. It doesn’t really matter.
Bisexuality was a thing in Year 11 and 12. I was still in denial about being bisexual. I would say I was and then I’d revert back to saying, ‘No I’m not,’ and find a girlfriend. I was doing a lot of drugs to try and block all that stuff. I used to get bashed a lot for being gay. Especially in Year 11 and 12, people would go to these parties and find me and everyone had to hide me in the back somewhere because I’d get bashed. One day when I was about 17 I was set up, and I had 20 guys kicking and punching me. These groups of gangs, people in the suburbs, knew people from high school who would say stuff about me. Even through high school, I had guys flash their dicks at me and say, ‘Are you gay?’ And some of them even had erections. It was really disgusting. It was gross.
It was very upsetting because I didn’t quite understand. And then they would try to lock me in the boy’s bathroom. I would be crying, and they’d lock me in there. It was really stupid shit.
DR: When did you start doing drag performance?
HD: I think I was 25 and I was going through a lot of stuff at that age, getting involved with all the different things … When I was about 17, a friend’s mum wanted to take me out gay clubbing underage. And she would go, ‘We can put makeup on him and make him look really nice, and then he’ll get in and he won’t be asked for ID.’ Because back then that was a thing you know, a lot of under-agers used to go in drag just to get into the club.
Then I started seeing RuPaul’s Drag Race and I said, ‘I want to try drag.’ My ex in Melbourne used to do drag so he taught me the basics of where to go and what to do.
DR: What does it feel like now when you go back to Bendigo or Castlemaine?
HD: It’s definitely changed since I was there. When I left there wasn’t anything going for it. A lot of people my generation committed suicide and died, or crashed their car, because there was an ice epidemic. And then there was nothing there. When I finished my undergraduate studies, that’s when Bendigo started really focusing on the LGBTQIA+ community. I did a performance in drag for this youth event at Ulumbarra Theatre, performing for people between the ages of 16 and 21. I did a Welcome to Country. I told the kids that we never had any of what they’ve got – never had the support services or the social workers. That they are very, very lucky to have this because it is very good and positive. Especially for kids. When you’re at the age of 16 in Bendigo and trying to figure yourself out, you’re at risk of a lot of things like drugs and alcohol and dropping out of school. I said to them, ‘About 10 or 12 years ago, you’d be walking through this park and you would get bashed for being gay, but now we’re allowed to have these parties in this park.’
HD: When I was young my aunty and my grandmothers would let me wear high heels and dresses and stuff like that. But my father and his father didn’t really like it. I think there was a soccer player or somebody who was gay, and he was in the media. And my grandfather goes, ‘See that, Harley. They’re sick. They got AIDS.’ He goes, ‘Don’t you be gay like them, you’ll be sick, just like them.’ I didn’t even understand. Back then I couldn’t quite understand who I was in terms of sexuality because I was made to go to Sunday school and people at school would pick on me for being gay or girly, or something like that. But I didn’t quite understand what that meant.
From when I was two years old, I would play with my cousin’s Barbie dolls, and I would line up all the Barbie doll shoes in a row. My aunty used to let me do it, and then my uncle, was like,‘Why are you letting him do that?’ They used to get into arguments about it. I just think that these things should be an option and shouldn’t be a yes or no, you should let your children do whatever they want because boys can play with Barbies and girls can play with boys’ things and they end up being straight. It doesn’t really matter.
Bisexuality was a thing in Year 11 and 12. I was still in denial about being bisexual. I would say I was and then I’d revert back to saying, ‘No I’m not,’ and find a girlfriend. I was doing a lot of drugs to try and block all that stuff. I used to get bashed a lot for being gay. Especially in Year 11 and 12, people would go to these parties and find me and everyone had to hide me in the back somewhere because I’d get bashed. One day when I was about 17 I was set up, and I had 20 guys kicking and punching me. These groups of gangs, people in the suburbs, knew people from high school who would say stuff about me. Even through high school, I had guys flash their dicks at me and say, ‘Are you gay?’ And some of them even had erections. It was really disgusting. It was gross.
It was very upsetting because I didn’t quite understand. And then they would try to lock me in the boy’s bathroom. I would be crying, and they’d lock me in there. It was really stupid shit.
DR: When did you start doing drag performance?
HD: I think I was 25 and I was going through a lot of stuff at that age, getting involved with all the different things … When I was about 17, a friend’s mum wanted to take me out gay clubbing underage. And she would go, ‘We can put makeup on him and make him look really nice, and then he’ll get in and he won’t be asked for ID.’ Because back then that was a thing you know, a lot of under-agers used to go in drag just to get into the club.
Then I started seeing RuPaul’s Drag Race and I said, ‘I want to try drag.’ My ex in Melbourne used to do drag so he taught me the basics of where to go and what to do.
DR: What does it feel like now when you go back to Bendigo or Castlemaine?
HD: It’s definitely changed since I was there. When I left there wasn’t anything going for it. A lot of people my generation committed suicide and died, or crashed their car, because there was an ice epidemic. And then there was nothing there. When I finished my undergraduate studies, that’s when Bendigo started really focusing on the LGBTQIA+ community. I did a performance in drag for this youth event at Ulumbarra Theatre, performing for people between the ages of 16 and 21. I did a Welcome to Country. I told the kids that we never had any of what they’ve got – never had the support services or the social workers. That they are very, very lucky to have this because it is very good and positive. Especially for kids. When you’re at the age of 16 in Bendigo and trying to figure yourself out, you’re at risk of a lot of things like drugs and alcohol and dropping out of school. I said to them, ‘About 10 or 12 years ago, you’d be walking through this park and you would get bashed for being gay, but now we’re allowed to have these parties in this park.’