Rhett D’Costa
DR: Where did you grow up?
RDC: We came to Australia when I was six years old. I was born in India, in Bombay. My dad came to Australia a year before my mum and my two brothers to prepare a home for us. I grew up in Pascoe Vale – that’s the first place we lived, which is near Coburg. I remember back then the biggest issue was my skin colour. I had darker skin then my peers. Did I know about sexuality at the age of six? No. Was it an issue? No. It was an issue having dark skin and coming to a predominantly white culture. So that was the thing that I think I tried to deal with more than anything else. It was not until I was in my adolescence that my sexuality started to become an issue for me. Having not come out, it was the fear of my family and friends finding out that caused much anxiety. I just felt really alone internally. And because I had no one to confide in, no role model, or community, I found the experience really challenging. It was not until much later that I found literature and read my way out of my anxieties.
DR: Anything particularly significant? How did you choose the literature?
RDC: I just kept absorbing whatever I came across. It started with Armistead Maupin’s, Tales of the City series, this beautifully celebratory, sort of experience. I love those books. Then it was Paul Monette’sBecoming A Man; The Swimming Pool Libraryby Alan Hollinghurst; Richard A. Isay’s Becoming Gay; The Journey to Self-Acceptance; and Siegel and Lowe’s Uncharted Lives; Understanding the Life Passages of Gay Men. And then you know, reading And the Band Played On when AIDS came along. I guess it was this combination of personal narratives and accounts which helped with identification, and more objective texts and historical accounts dealing with psychology and sexual politics. I suppose I was looking for knowledge and role models and a community I could identify with and that helped me come to terms with and celebrate my sexual identity.
I can’t remember which book I came across that talked about the four stages that you go through with sexual identification. The first one was an awareness that, I’m gay. The second one was acceptance – oh that’s okay, I am gay, it’s not a problem. The third stage, I think, was anger. You get angry as to why society put you through this trauma – why they made you feel so bad and have such low self-esteem because you were living this big lie hiding who you were. And when you eventually realise that it’s okay, you just get really angry! Who did this to me? Why does this keep happening in our society? Who is responsible for this injustice?
DR: Did that happen to you?
RDC: Yeah, absolutely – all of it. So, to read it and realise that’s exactly what has happened to me, was profound, because all I was looking for was to feel accepted and to feel that it’s okay. I suppose these texts gave me permission to say, oh I’m just like everyone else who might be going through this. I am not alone. So yeah, I didn’t look for community. I didn’t look for talking it through with family or friends. I just found it through literature.
D: So, how did that all play out in the real world?
RDC: Well – the fourth stage is wanting to become a mentor, because you don’t want other people to go through the kind of experiences you went through. So, how did it play out in the real world? Well, I eventually came out, and the reality is that for me all of this negativity, fear and self-loathing I was feeling, felt unnecessary. I don’t recall experiencing any kind of negative backlash from anyone. You know, I was thinking about this before you came today. And I can’t identify a moment when I felt like I was being ostracised.
D: That’s kind of surprising.
RDC: Yes, this is the insidious nature of it. Even though there may not have been any specific scenarios of homophobia toward me, I am aware it exists. It’s around me. It happens to friends. I see and hear horrific stories all the time. The physical and psychological damage it causes. So the fear this builds is real.
It is surprising. Growing up, going to an ordinary public school in the western suburbs, one of the things I did to compensate for what I perceived as being a negative thing – being gay – was that I just over-compensated. I felt I had to be good at everything. I was the most popular kid at school, I was really good at sport, I was really good academically. I know it’s ridiculous. In hindsight I realise these were strategies I employed, survival strategies really. The thing I did was to control the narrative. So I always took a leadership role with friends, and everyone just accepted this. All my teachers used to tell my parents, He’s just a natural leader, he can’t help himself. I realised that this behaviour was because I needed to control the narrative. In every instance I had to be in control. I played football in this male dominated environment with all these heterosexual guys. I had to control the narrative, manoeuvring to make sure we didn’t get to sexuality. So I wasn’t outed – a real fear.
DR: That sounds really exhausting.
It was exhausting. That’s the best way to describe it. In hindsight, I was amazingly tired. There would be moments where I would just have little meltdowns because I didn’t realise the level of control that I was drawing on to survive. It felt so manipulative. It didn’t dawn on me that I was doing that, but I remember there were occasions where I just felt, this is too much. I can’t keep doing this. But at the time the thought of coming out didn’t feel like it could be an option.
D: Were you aware at the time that was perhaps why you were so exhausted?
RDC: I think as I got older, I became more aware. I think once I accepted that I was gay, and there was no turning back from this, I started to realise that the kind of behavioural things I was playing out were to compensate or to control scenarios which made me vulnerable to being ostracised
DR: What age was that?
RDC: Probably in the middle of high school, 15 onwards. But of course, once you start engaging in this controlling and deceptive behaviour, you then start to question how authentic you’ve been about anything. And for what benefit are you doing this because all that success didn’t actually mean anything to me. I didn’t do it because I wanted it. It was just a way of surviving, I suppose. To compensate for my distorted conception that being gay was a negative thing. So I suppose maybe that’s why I avoided getting bullied and harassed. I didn’t get any of that because I was able to manage it by concealing my sexuality. I didn’t know that. I didn’t plan it. That’s just how it happened. I didn’t have anyone to talk to.
Later in my life, once I came out and met my partner everything felt normal. Probably because he was older and a great role model. It just felt okay to be myself. In fact, one of the things he said to me early on was that I was quite together for a ‘black Catholic homosexual’. And I thought, Oh, yeah, okay! He obviously said it in jest – but it’s true. I felt like it was okay. I am OK.
Moving up to Castlemaine was interesting because when we lived in Flemington, it was completely multicultural. Now that I am comfortable (a strange term) with my sexuality, I can’t talk about sexuality without talking about culture, because they’re so intertwined for me. But I think after a week of being in Castlemaine, I said to my partner, I feel like I’m the only gay in the village – I’m the only dark gay in the village. But of course, that wasn’t true. When we first moved to Castlemaine 20+ years ago, there was an older gay community here that were heavily involved in the arts. So a lot of people who were friends of Opera Australia, friends of the MSO, a lot of older artists, a lot of people who worked in the arts industry from Melbourne. But I couldn’t find people my age who were gay. Not that I looked for it. Neither my partner nor I intentionally seek out gay friends or the gay community. I don’t think we are part of any group of gay people. There was a more organised groups of gay men, The Alluvians – we went to a couple of events they organised but didn’t continue engaging.
DR: Did you feel uncomfortable?
RDC: I didn’t feel uncomfortable, I just didn’t feel like I had a lot in common – except being gay. I suppose I didn’t need sexuality to be the binding point that brought us together. Maybe I just didn’t give it enough time. I don’t know. But we didn’t maintain contact. If there is such a thing as a community of gay people in the town, I don’t really know. I guess there probably are different groups. There are a lot of older gay people we know from owning a café and a pub in town. We met a lot of people in the gay community and a lot of straight people. Being in hospitality means you meet a lot of people.
I just find it really hard to individualise one aspect of who I am as a sort of identifying marker, that I’m then going to draw on to determine who’s going to become my friend or part of my social circle – I don’t think that’s ever happened. We seem to have a lot of female friends, a lot of female gay friends but not as many male gay friends in the community.
I guess what I am saying is that we don’t feel the need to seek out and be a part of a gay community. But I love that there is such a large community of gay people in the town. I guess in the circles we move in it feels normal to have a mix of gay and straight friends.
I don’t know how we are perceived in the gay community, because we don’t sort of engage in many activities or events. I don’t know if I’m seen to be a part of that community.
DR: I don’t think there is only one community. That’s what I’ve been discovering, there seems to be a lot of different communities.
RDC: Yeah, I like that porosity. It feels like there’s a younger community moving to the area. I think there’s more acceptance from this generation within themselves. And less care about how we might perceive them. Have you spoken to younger people?
DR: A few. Probably, the youngest is in their mid 20s and a lot in their 30s. I think they feel less need to define things in terms of their sexuality or difference. Not that I want to make generalisations, but they seem more fluid and shifting depending on who they’re with or how they are feeling. But it’s different of course, with different people.
RDC: That’s good to know. I don’t know a lot of this generation in the community but having taught in an art school in Melbourne for so long, I guess I am basing my assumptions on those experiences.
My art never engaged with my sexuality either. It was never content I used in my practice. The first time I was in a gay show, I just remember thinking, oh this is the first time I’ve actually been labelled as a gay artist.
DR: What was that like?
RDC: It felt weird at the start. But it felt good as well because I’d not been a part of that exhibiting community. It felt more ‘good’ than weird. I felt sort of proud. I did however question whether I wanted this labelling. I think it’s because there’s been so much discourse about how artists are defined through their national identity.
DR: Did you make a different kind of work?
RDC: I did end up making a different kind of work. In terms of form, content, and method. I almost pulled out of the show because I struggled with content. It was a beautiful show called The Secret Files of the Working Men’s College at RMIT Project Space. Stephen Gallagher curated it. He wanted to focus on this idea of gay academics in the art school by looking at the history of RMIT as a working men’s college. I thought it was a really playful title. So when he asked me, I said yes and then just panicked because I didn’t know what to make. I’d just started a PhD, so my head was in a different space. There were times I felt like a fraud, thinking I can’t really do this. But circumstance prevailed. I was overseas at the time. I was in New York and then Seattle doing a residency. I ended up staying with a friend and made a work about her husband. While talking to him one day, I could see on the refrigerator a photo of a very handsome young man with a little boy. I said who’s the good-looking guy in the photo? And he turned around and said, oh it was me. Then he started telling me about how when he was growing up, everyone just assumed he was gay. Then he blurts out this story about when he was growing up his cousin used to dress him up as a girl and photograph him. And just to make conversation, I said to him, I’d love to see the photo. I mean, I didn’t know what else to talk to him about, it was just one of those off-the-cuff comments. Anyway, I was back in New York when this email arrives and there was this amazing photograph of this boy dressed as a beautiful young girl, just posing for this photo. It was the most extraordinary image. But what was more extraordinary was how a narrative had unfolded around the circumstances of this image ending up on my laptop. So, I made a work about the narrative that sat behind that photograph. I showed the photograph as part of an installation. That artwork ended up being really important to me because I decided to use a serendipitous way of allowing narratives in the world to unfold as a way of making work. That was the only way I could have found my way into making a work that might have dealt with sexuality and social expectations.
DR: But with this project, you feel it’s fine to participate.
RDC: Yeah, absolutely. I think the project you’re working on is really important.
DR: Oh, tell me why?
RDC: Well, I don’t know that anyone has made work that looks at the local community through a ‘gay’ lens. And that reaches out to the community for engagement and active participation to hear our stories about being gay.
DR: What does that feel like for you?
RDC: I guess at this stage I am thinking more about how you will tackle this project and less about it being about me as one of the participants. I can’t wait to see how the show is going to be perceived. I don’t know. When I talk about it being important, I don’t mean that you’re going to change the world. I’m sure that’s not what you’re thinking it’s going to do either. But I think there are just going to be some beautiful moments where we can take pride that somebody cares to engage with the gay community in this region. And I think it’s interesting that you have sort of one foot in each camp, being a gay artist, but not being part of the local community.
I’m interested to see how you negotiate this position – I wonder how people will feel about you coming into the community, and looking at it through this particular lens. I wonder how that will be perceived, this objective/subjective position. I imagine it will be a big learning curve for you and the participants. I wanted to be a part of it, not because I wanted to hear my voice in it. I don’t know that my voice is that critical to the project, but I did it because I wanted to support this project in every way I could. In a way I feel proud being a part of it.
DR: Oh, that’s what I had hoped. It’s quite stressful because of the responsibilities.
RDC: The responsibility for you, not for me. Although I am now beginning to understand that as a participant I am as responsible as you. It’s about you and the participants. It was great to read your blurb about the project. I remember thinking I would feel really good to be part of this. I was going to use the word honoured and I actually almost wrote it in the email and then I thought I’ll have to explain what I mean by honoured, so I didn’t. I didn’t think it would translate very well. But it is an honour.
DR: It’s definitely fascinating. It’s taken a long time. I think it has taken a long time for people to feel like they can trust me and be a part of it. A lot of people say I’m easy to talk to – which is nice, it helps.
RDC: This morning when I was thinking about it, I thought this conversation was going to finish in five minutes because I didn’t think I had a lot to say.
DR: Well, you have said quite a bit already.
RDC: I know, I think it’s you. You are pretty easy to talk with.
DR: I think it’s because I’m quiet, and don’t say much so people want to fill in the gaps.
RDC: No, I was wondering how formal our conversation would be and whether you would have a series of questions you were going to ask me.
DR: Maybe I should start now. (Oh, that plant’s doing well – the Philodendron.) Have you always felt very comfortable and accepted being gay here in Castlemaine?
RDC: Always. That’s not easy to say moving from the city to the regions, and because we bought the roughest pub in town. And we made it non-smoking, we took away the pool table, we took away the pokey machines. I think we did everything to stop making money. But we wanted to make it feel like a place that people would feel comfortable in. We’d heard such horrendous stories about the kind of people who turn up to pubs, particularly in the community. We were warned about football club season break ups, which sometimes got out of control. I couldn’t deal with any of that.
There were four of us in the business and everyone sort of took on these roles. I got thrown into being front of house for the pub and I thought that was going to be really challenging for people to see a gay, dark man in what was ostensibly a working-class, heterosexual, male, white customer base. But it was fine. We had a group of older citizens who ran a social club at the pub. They were old locals who’d been here their whole lives. They thought we were going to throw them out and gentrify the whole thing. But they came and introduced themselves and asked us if they could continue their social club at the pub. And we said, ‘of course’. Turns out they were incredibly protective of me. They just wouldn’t let anyone be even remotely negative toward me.
I remember once a guy turned up in the afternoon, and as the hours were proceeding, he started getting more and more aggressive. A couple of them were there and they just shut it down. He started subtly taunting me about race and sexuality. I noticed the tone was getting a little aggressive and I don’t know if it was just because he was getting drunk or he felt he had the right to do that. Then all of a sudden, there were little snide things always clouded in humour. I can't remember word for word, but he was having a go and there were comments about sexuality and skin colour. And then, he just started becoming mean, quite nasty. I remember thinking at the time, this isn’t going to play out well. I didn’t really know how to handle the situation, and I remembered there was a woman and another guy there. And they just put a stop to it. They just bailed him up and said – enough! It was the woman who said, I think it’s time for you to go on your way. And he did, which was pretty extraordinary.
We never talked about being gay with the members of the social club. They knew that I was gay. They just accepted my partner and I immediately. And I think it was something to do with being open and honest about who we were from day one. We didn’t have to announce anything. I think we normalised it for them. I don’t think they were judging us. They might have been, I don’t know. But they didn’t seem to hold any prejudices against us, they just wanted to know who we were.
We still keep in touch with a lot of them. One of them, the president of the social club, still comes over and fixes our lawnmower and has a drink. And he’ll bring a mate around. And it was really funny because he was an absolute gentleman, like he would come to the pub, and he would take his hat off when he entered the dining room. And then one day a friend of his came in for a drink because they were going fishing, and I realised he’d been on best behaviour when he was with me. When he talked to his mates, the language was different, quite a bit of swearing … I think it was just out of respect that he didn’t swear when he talked to me. I don’t swear in general conversation so I think people just pick up on that. But that’s happened all my life, people just don’t swear in front of me. I think he just took that on.
A couple of guys who were regulars would often bring me flowers from their garden. Can you believe that? There used to be this guy called Chook, who was about six foot five. The first time he walked in I was just terrified because I thought he would kill me. He looked a bit like Chopper Reed. He was really brash and loud. Anyway, we got to know him quite well. He used to come over to our place every now and again. He’d bring flowers in for me at the pub. He’d bring in bunches of flowers from his garden. And another guy, Alan used to bring in bunches of flowers for me too. People would come in and they’d go, Oh what are those beautiful flowers? And I’d say, oh, Chook brought those for me. Or Alan brought those in. And they were completely cool about that.
DR: That’s really nice. That’s so sweet.
They just knew I loved gardening and I think it was pride on their part to show me what beautiful flowers they grew. They were both married, so who knows what they said to their wives – I am just taking a bunch of flowers for the guy at the pub. I don’t know how that conversation played out. I would always put the flowers in a vase and put them on the bar. I think they liked that.
DR: It’s unexpected, isn’t it?
RDC: But lovely. Owning and running the pub held unexpected surprises. The pub ended up attracting a lot of women. There are a lot of single older women who live here. I think they just feel really comfortable in the community. A lot of women used to come to our pub because they just felt sort of comfortable. We didn’t build a male-orientated drinking culture at the pub. Owning and running a pub is often built around alcohol. Although it was a lot of fun, I didn’t want to make money from somebody else’s misery.
DR: What’s it like being gay in the Anglo-Indian community?
RDC: Ha-ha. I don’t know. It’s not spoken about. I don’t think my family talked about me being gay. And I don’t personally know many Anglo-Indians leave alone gay Anglo-Indians. Hmmm … I should look into this more.
Recently I found out my second cousin was gay. I don’t think it was spoken about. I did have an experience lately that really upset me about the lack of conversation about being gay in my family. I found out that my mum’s eldest brother’s daughter, my first cousin had two sons who lived in Melbourne. She lived overseas. I found out that one of them committed suicide. I think he was only in his 30s and it took me a while to realise that he was gay. Because no one had told me. It was just through a conversation with my mum, who kept referring to him as a very sweet and sensitive boy. And I kept thinking, oh, that’s all code … it sounds like he’s gay. Turns out he was a prodigious talent in the music industry. Apparently, he was described as being one of the most innovative young composers of his generation. And I was really upset because I thought, he’s my cousin! We were both in the arts. I was at RMIT and he was at VCA – that’s just down the road. And no one ever told me. I could have built a friendship with him. It would have been nice to know.
Maybe we could have been a part of each other’s lives in some way. And maybe that might have made a difference. I don’t know. But yeah, I was upset. I just thought, why didn’t anyone tell me? And the other day my other cousin happened to mention that her son from her first marriage was gay. I didn’t know that. He’s now 42. I knew him as a little boy but no one ever told me. And then she just said it, and I sort of did a double take. Later she texted me and said, Rhett, I would love my son and his partner to meet you and Charles. I’ll organise a dinner, because he said he’d love to see you. And I just thought why didn’t we do that earlier?
So, I don’t know … to answer your question. Maybe we don’t know how to talk about sexuality. I look at my cousins now who still live in India and they seem relaxed around issues to do with sexuality. Perhaps with the internet things are changing. I think there’s a lot more tolerance now. It’s a horrible word ‘tolerance’, used in this context. I’m sure there would be a lot of young gay men and women in India.
I recently made an artwork around these ideas of ambiguity, sexuality and tradition. It’s called Holding Hands. The first time I went to India, I kept noticing that many straight men hold hands in India, in very intimate ways. It’s just a gesture of friendship. Although the first time I saw it, I just thought, Oh my goodness, everyone is gay! What’s going on here? So, I decided I wanted to make a work where the subject matter was two Indian men holding hands. There is an Indian guy that I know and who worked with me on a project previously, so I asked him.
It’s an ambiguous and quite complicated work. We’d had many conversations around familial and social expectations – traditions, being gay, religion, skin colour, migration and the complexities of navigating this stuff from day to day. We used to have conversations about our perceptions of each other. I used to see him and feel a little envious of how connected he was to community and to his Indian culture, because he would wear Indian costumes and spoke Indian languages. So, I would think of him as being a far more authentic being than I would ever be because he had these strong connections to India. Of course, his perspective was different. He would look at me and think how lucky I was to not have these perceived burdens, and to feel so at ease with my sexuality and cultural identity. It was interesting that we both, before talking, had different ideas of what we thought was important. I asked him if he would make this work with me where we would be in Indian costume and hold hands in the Australian bush.
It was really interesting making that work because I had to first get him to agree to it. And then when I showed it, initially he was concerned about who would see it. I said, well, I’m doing it for a particular show. But then when it was in another show, I had to call him and ask him again. And then when a project wanted to use it as a billboard I said I can’t agree to this until I get permission from him. I had to tell him this is going to be in the public realm.
I am always conscious of that when I look at that image, and it was really weird making it with him because there’s so much to read in it from a religious perspective as well – because it looks like I’m wearing a Muslim costume and he’s wearing a Hindu costume. So it appears like we might be talking across religious grounds as well, which we weren’t. I remember when we were trying to work out the gesture of how to hold hands. I didn't want us to feel intimate and I didn’t want it to feel sexual. I wanted it to feel like we had a nationalistic connection. So we hold hands in a really weird way where there is this clear distance. It feels like it’s camaraderie in our culture rather than in our sexuality. We tried a few different takes, I didn’t talk to him about it but I talked to the photographer about what gesture I was looking for beforehand – I mean there’s holding hands and there’s holding hands. That’s probably why I never thought about it as a work about sexuality, but of course, when I’ve written about that work, I acknowledge that we’re both gay men holding hands in the Australian bush.
DR: How are we going for time … ?
RDC: We haven’t eaten any cake!
DR: We haven’t eaten any cake … could I just ask you one more thing? It would be interesting getting your perspective on everyday language, being a writer and an academic. Do you ever think about language shifts and how you talk about your sexuality?
RDC: As an academic, I had to because it was brought into academia so quickly. Pronouns were something we had to take on board and trying to navigate that was difficult initially. Clearly, we wanted to do the right thing, but I suppose no one actually educated us about how to do it. I am sure that has all changed now. I would hope there is training and support around this for academics. At the time there was an assumption we’d know what to do. So, I think I still struggle with that. I’m conscious of getting things wrong and inadvertently offending people.
I have a very dear friend whose daughter is transitioning. It was interesting talking to her about it. Because I knew her as a little girl, and now I know him as a young man, or a trans man – I am not sure which is the correct term. I think he’s identifying as a ‘he’. My friend and I used to talk about language and terminology. I was always worried about getting this right when I met him and worried about how accepting he would be if I got terms wrong. She said he was pretty intolerant with her because he expects people to get it right almost immediately. And I thought, well, that’s fair enough, actually. I mean it’s about him. It’s not about me, and if I’m concerned about it then I need to be on top of that. It’s the same argument with indigenous cultures. We need to do the work. We don’t work hard enough at it. So, I think we have a responsibility to work, to find out what is appropriate and what is not, and to get it right.
It was interesting talking to my friend about a conversation with her son when she said she fully understands and fully accepts who he is now and how much she loves him – I can see how she’s been amazing and completely supportive. But then she asked him, if the conversation is about you when you were a little girl, am I allowed to refer to that person’s female name at the time? To which her son said, no. A little surprised by this response, my friend asked him why and he said, that person doesn’t exist, that person never existed except as a lie, until he got to be the person that he wanted to be and needed to be. Therefore to bring that person up doesn’t make any sense to him at all. I remember thinking how astute and profound he was in answering his mother’s question. Clearly, he had worked really hard at trying to work out what was right and appropriate for him. But so hard for his mum because logistically it didn’t make sense to her. It’s challenging to not acknowledge history and where truth may lie. But also recognising the fluidity of how a history can change, depending on who is writing the narrative. Before I heard his answer, like his mother, I thought it would be more authentic to acknowledge the transition from female to male – where one started – rather than making a definitive cut and removing his previous female entity. But I suppose the narrative is up to him, because it’s about him. It’s his story. And he should be allowed to decide.
So, I think from an academic perspective, I could argue my case, but from an experiential and a more personalised perspective, I think it is up to the individual how language is used. But language itself is complicated. I’d totally accept being pulled up by anyone, and I would accept it as being my problem, not theirs. So, I get quite angry when I hear people saying, give us time, or, it’s a generational thing so we need to catch up. I just think that’s nonsense. I’ve been in quite heated discussions with people where they’ve tried to put forward counter arguments and I’ve been pretty clear that I totally support the position the person dealing with the transition wants to take – whatever they want. That’s the way. That’s the right way. We just have to accept that. We have to take that on board. It’s our responsibility to take that on board if we really want to be supportive. Does that make sense?
DR: Yes, it does make sense. It’s challenging hearing that story, that’s not something I ‘ve actually thought about … and I imagine that would be very difficult for the mother.
RDC: It’s hard, but she gets it, and she knows that however difficult it might be for her, it’s harder for him. So, she works at getting it right for him. Because she loves him. She has photographs of her then daughter so it’s not just the deep emotional memories she has, but there are physical photographs of her son as a daughter. So it’s really challenging for her. I guess it’s a transition for all parties to go through. But she has to accept her son’s position that the person in the photograph didn’t really exist. So that is challenging.
I think when talking about a photograph as a photographer, that whole idea of authenticity in a photograph is challenged. If we think of photography as indexical, in terms of accuracy and truthfulness, then I suppose that is the counter argument I was alluding to earlier. Him saying the person in the photograph doesn’t exist is as truthful as anything else. It is challenging for somebody to know how to find language to talk about that. But I suppose, in a similar but different context, when I think about the person I was and what I projected to the world, before I came out as a gay man, that was pretty fake. To an extent it’s hard for me to look at a photograph of myself before I came out and think that person was real. So I sort of get it.
D: It’s changing and shifting.
RDC: I think it’s shifted. It’s here now. Until the next iteration comes along, and I think we’ve also learned enough now that we have to maintain discourse as fluid and ongoing. That’s what the plus is, isn’t it? We have to accept that we’ll keep moving in directions that change. Culture, and indeed language, isn’t static. I think what makes it hard is that we’d like culture to be static. Our generation were used to more parameters and less intersectional ways of thinking about multiplicity. Whereas discourse now shows us that that is the authentic way of living in the world. If that’s what we’re chasing, then we have to take this on board. It isn’t just a discourse that suits a particular group of people. It’s the right way to do things. I think we all have a responsibility to do the work and accept and engage with shifts in nomenclature or shifts in language. None of us wants to live in a static way determined by parameters that aren’t flexible.
RDC: We came to Australia when I was six years old. I was born in India, in Bombay. My dad came to Australia a year before my mum and my two brothers to prepare a home for us. I grew up in Pascoe Vale – that’s the first place we lived, which is near Coburg. I remember back then the biggest issue was my skin colour. I had darker skin then my peers. Did I know about sexuality at the age of six? No. Was it an issue? No. It was an issue having dark skin and coming to a predominantly white culture. So that was the thing that I think I tried to deal with more than anything else. It was not until I was in my adolescence that my sexuality started to become an issue for me. Having not come out, it was the fear of my family and friends finding out that caused much anxiety. I just felt really alone internally. And because I had no one to confide in, no role model, or community, I found the experience really challenging. It was not until much later that I found literature and read my way out of my anxieties.
DR: Anything particularly significant? How did you choose the literature?
RDC: I just kept absorbing whatever I came across. It started with Armistead Maupin’s, Tales of the City series, this beautifully celebratory, sort of experience. I love those books. Then it was Paul Monette’sBecoming A Man; The Swimming Pool Libraryby Alan Hollinghurst; Richard A. Isay’s Becoming Gay; The Journey to Self-Acceptance; and Siegel and Lowe’s Uncharted Lives; Understanding the Life Passages of Gay Men. And then you know, reading And the Band Played On when AIDS came along. I guess it was this combination of personal narratives and accounts which helped with identification, and more objective texts and historical accounts dealing with psychology and sexual politics. I suppose I was looking for knowledge and role models and a community I could identify with and that helped me come to terms with and celebrate my sexual identity.
I can’t remember which book I came across that talked about the four stages that you go through with sexual identification. The first one was an awareness that, I’m gay. The second one was acceptance – oh that’s okay, I am gay, it’s not a problem. The third stage, I think, was anger. You get angry as to why society put you through this trauma – why they made you feel so bad and have such low self-esteem because you were living this big lie hiding who you were. And when you eventually realise that it’s okay, you just get really angry! Who did this to me? Why does this keep happening in our society? Who is responsible for this injustice?
DR: Did that happen to you?
RDC: Yeah, absolutely – all of it. So, to read it and realise that’s exactly what has happened to me, was profound, because all I was looking for was to feel accepted and to feel that it’s okay. I suppose these texts gave me permission to say, oh I’m just like everyone else who might be going through this. I am not alone. So yeah, I didn’t look for community. I didn’t look for talking it through with family or friends. I just found it through literature.
D: So, how did that all play out in the real world?
RDC: Well – the fourth stage is wanting to become a mentor, because you don’t want other people to go through the kind of experiences you went through. So, how did it play out in the real world? Well, I eventually came out, and the reality is that for me all of this negativity, fear and self-loathing I was feeling, felt unnecessary. I don’t recall experiencing any kind of negative backlash from anyone. You know, I was thinking about this before you came today. And I can’t identify a moment when I felt like I was being ostracised.
D: That’s kind of surprising.
RDC: Yes, this is the insidious nature of it. Even though there may not have been any specific scenarios of homophobia toward me, I am aware it exists. It’s around me. It happens to friends. I see and hear horrific stories all the time. The physical and psychological damage it causes. So the fear this builds is real.
It is surprising. Growing up, going to an ordinary public school in the western suburbs, one of the things I did to compensate for what I perceived as being a negative thing – being gay – was that I just over-compensated. I felt I had to be good at everything. I was the most popular kid at school, I was really good at sport, I was really good academically. I know it’s ridiculous. In hindsight I realise these were strategies I employed, survival strategies really. The thing I did was to control the narrative. So I always took a leadership role with friends, and everyone just accepted this. All my teachers used to tell my parents, He’s just a natural leader, he can’t help himself. I realised that this behaviour was because I needed to control the narrative. In every instance I had to be in control. I played football in this male dominated environment with all these heterosexual guys. I had to control the narrative, manoeuvring to make sure we didn’t get to sexuality. So I wasn’t outed – a real fear.
DR: That sounds really exhausting.
It was exhausting. That’s the best way to describe it. In hindsight, I was amazingly tired. There would be moments where I would just have little meltdowns because I didn’t realise the level of control that I was drawing on to survive. It felt so manipulative. It didn’t dawn on me that I was doing that, but I remember there were occasions where I just felt, this is too much. I can’t keep doing this. But at the time the thought of coming out didn’t feel like it could be an option.
D: Were you aware at the time that was perhaps why you were so exhausted?
RDC: I think as I got older, I became more aware. I think once I accepted that I was gay, and there was no turning back from this, I started to realise that the kind of behavioural things I was playing out were to compensate or to control scenarios which made me vulnerable to being ostracised
DR: What age was that?
RDC: Probably in the middle of high school, 15 onwards. But of course, once you start engaging in this controlling and deceptive behaviour, you then start to question how authentic you’ve been about anything. And for what benefit are you doing this because all that success didn’t actually mean anything to me. I didn’t do it because I wanted it. It was just a way of surviving, I suppose. To compensate for my distorted conception that being gay was a negative thing. So I suppose maybe that’s why I avoided getting bullied and harassed. I didn’t get any of that because I was able to manage it by concealing my sexuality. I didn’t know that. I didn’t plan it. That’s just how it happened. I didn’t have anyone to talk to.
Later in my life, once I came out and met my partner everything felt normal. Probably because he was older and a great role model. It just felt okay to be myself. In fact, one of the things he said to me early on was that I was quite together for a ‘black Catholic homosexual’. And I thought, Oh, yeah, okay! He obviously said it in jest – but it’s true. I felt like it was okay. I am OK.
Moving up to Castlemaine was interesting because when we lived in Flemington, it was completely multicultural. Now that I am comfortable (a strange term) with my sexuality, I can’t talk about sexuality without talking about culture, because they’re so intertwined for me. But I think after a week of being in Castlemaine, I said to my partner, I feel like I’m the only gay in the village – I’m the only dark gay in the village. But of course, that wasn’t true. When we first moved to Castlemaine 20+ years ago, there was an older gay community here that were heavily involved in the arts. So a lot of people who were friends of Opera Australia, friends of the MSO, a lot of older artists, a lot of people who worked in the arts industry from Melbourne. But I couldn’t find people my age who were gay. Not that I looked for it. Neither my partner nor I intentionally seek out gay friends or the gay community. I don’t think we are part of any group of gay people. There was a more organised groups of gay men, The Alluvians – we went to a couple of events they organised but didn’t continue engaging.
DR: Did you feel uncomfortable?
RDC: I didn’t feel uncomfortable, I just didn’t feel like I had a lot in common – except being gay. I suppose I didn’t need sexuality to be the binding point that brought us together. Maybe I just didn’t give it enough time. I don’t know. But we didn’t maintain contact. If there is such a thing as a community of gay people in the town, I don’t really know. I guess there probably are different groups. There are a lot of older gay people we know from owning a café and a pub in town. We met a lot of people in the gay community and a lot of straight people. Being in hospitality means you meet a lot of people.
I just find it really hard to individualise one aspect of who I am as a sort of identifying marker, that I’m then going to draw on to determine who’s going to become my friend or part of my social circle – I don’t think that’s ever happened. We seem to have a lot of female friends, a lot of female gay friends but not as many male gay friends in the community.
I guess what I am saying is that we don’t feel the need to seek out and be a part of a gay community. But I love that there is such a large community of gay people in the town. I guess in the circles we move in it feels normal to have a mix of gay and straight friends.
I don’t know how we are perceived in the gay community, because we don’t sort of engage in many activities or events. I don’t know if I’m seen to be a part of that community.
DR: I don’t think there is only one community. That’s what I’ve been discovering, there seems to be a lot of different communities.
RDC: Yeah, I like that porosity. It feels like there’s a younger community moving to the area. I think there’s more acceptance from this generation within themselves. And less care about how we might perceive them. Have you spoken to younger people?
DR: A few. Probably, the youngest is in their mid 20s and a lot in their 30s. I think they feel less need to define things in terms of their sexuality or difference. Not that I want to make generalisations, but they seem more fluid and shifting depending on who they’re with or how they are feeling. But it’s different of course, with different people.
RDC: That’s good to know. I don’t know a lot of this generation in the community but having taught in an art school in Melbourne for so long, I guess I am basing my assumptions on those experiences.
My art never engaged with my sexuality either. It was never content I used in my practice. The first time I was in a gay show, I just remember thinking, oh this is the first time I’ve actually been labelled as a gay artist.
DR: What was that like?
RDC: It felt weird at the start. But it felt good as well because I’d not been a part of that exhibiting community. It felt more ‘good’ than weird. I felt sort of proud. I did however question whether I wanted this labelling. I think it’s because there’s been so much discourse about how artists are defined through their national identity.
DR: Did you make a different kind of work?
RDC: I did end up making a different kind of work. In terms of form, content, and method. I almost pulled out of the show because I struggled with content. It was a beautiful show called The Secret Files of the Working Men’s College at RMIT Project Space. Stephen Gallagher curated it. He wanted to focus on this idea of gay academics in the art school by looking at the history of RMIT as a working men’s college. I thought it was a really playful title. So when he asked me, I said yes and then just panicked because I didn’t know what to make. I’d just started a PhD, so my head was in a different space. There were times I felt like a fraud, thinking I can’t really do this. But circumstance prevailed. I was overseas at the time. I was in New York and then Seattle doing a residency. I ended up staying with a friend and made a work about her husband. While talking to him one day, I could see on the refrigerator a photo of a very handsome young man with a little boy. I said who’s the good-looking guy in the photo? And he turned around and said, oh it was me. Then he started telling me about how when he was growing up, everyone just assumed he was gay. Then he blurts out this story about when he was growing up his cousin used to dress him up as a girl and photograph him. And just to make conversation, I said to him, I’d love to see the photo. I mean, I didn’t know what else to talk to him about, it was just one of those off-the-cuff comments. Anyway, I was back in New York when this email arrives and there was this amazing photograph of this boy dressed as a beautiful young girl, just posing for this photo. It was the most extraordinary image. But what was more extraordinary was how a narrative had unfolded around the circumstances of this image ending up on my laptop. So, I made a work about the narrative that sat behind that photograph. I showed the photograph as part of an installation. That artwork ended up being really important to me because I decided to use a serendipitous way of allowing narratives in the world to unfold as a way of making work. That was the only way I could have found my way into making a work that might have dealt with sexuality and social expectations.
DR: But with this project, you feel it’s fine to participate.
RDC: Yeah, absolutely. I think the project you’re working on is really important.
DR: Oh, tell me why?
RDC: Well, I don’t know that anyone has made work that looks at the local community through a ‘gay’ lens. And that reaches out to the community for engagement and active participation to hear our stories about being gay.
DR: What does that feel like for you?
RDC: I guess at this stage I am thinking more about how you will tackle this project and less about it being about me as one of the participants. I can’t wait to see how the show is going to be perceived. I don’t know. When I talk about it being important, I don’t mean that you’re going to change the world. I’m sure that’s not what you’re thinking it’s going to do either. But I think there are just going to be some beautiful moments where we can take pride that somebody cares to engage with the gay community in this region. And I think it’s interesting that you have sort of one foot in each camp, being a gay artist, but not being part of the local community.
I’m interested to see how you negotiate this position – I wonder how people will feel about you coming into the community, and looking at it through this particular lens. I wonder how that will be perceived, this objective/subjective position. I imagine it will be a big learning curve for you and the participants. I wanted to be a part of it, not because I wanted to hear my voice in it. I don’t know that my voice is that critical to the project, but I did it because I wanted to support this project in every way I could. In a way I feel proud being a part of it.
DR: Oh, that’s what I had hoped. It’s quite stressful because of the responsibilities.
RDC: The responsibility for you, not for me. Although I am now beginning to understand that as a participant I am as responsible as you. It’s about you and the participants. It was great to read your blurb about the project. I remember thinking I would feel really good to be part of this. I was going to use the word honoured and I actually almost wrote it in the email and then I thought I’ll have to explain what I mean by honoured, so I didn’t. I didn’t think it would translate very well. But it is an honour.
DR: It’s definitely fascinating. It’s taken a long time. I think it has taken a long time for people to feel like they can trust me and be a part of it. A lot of people say I’m easy to talk to – which is nice, it helps.
RDC: This morning when I was thinking about it, I thought this conversation was going to finish in five minutes because I didn’t think I had a lot to say.
DR: Well, you have said quite a bit already.
RDC: I know, I think it’s you. You are pretty easy to talk with.
DR: I think it’s because I’m quiet, and don’t say much so people want to fill in the gaps.
RDC: No, I was wondering how formal our conversation would be and whether you would have a series of questions you were going to ask me.
DR: Maybe I should start now. (Oh, that plant’s doing well – the Philodendron.) Have you always felt very comfortable and accepted being gay here in Castlemaine?
RDC: Always. That’s not easy to say moving from the city to the regions, and because we bought the roughest pub in town. And we made it non-smoking, we took away the pool table, we took away the pokey machines. I think we did everything to stop making money. But we wanted to make it feel like a place that people would feel comfortable in. We’d heard such horrendous stories about the kind of people who turn up to pubs, particularly in the community. We were warned about football club season break ups, which sometimes got out of control. I couldn’t deal with any of that.
There were four of us in the business and everyone sort of took on these roles. I got thrown into being front of house for the pub and I thought that was going to be really challenging for people to see a gay, dark man in what was ostensibly a working-class, heterosexual, male, white customer base. But it was fine. We had a group of older citizens who ran a social club at the pub. They were old locals who’d been here their whole lives. They thought we were going to throw them out and gentrify the whole thing. But they came and introduced themselves and asked us if they could continue their social club at the pub. And we said, ‘of course’. Turns out they were incredibly protective of me. They just wouldn’t let anyone be even remotely negative toward me.
I remember once a guy turned up in the afternoon, and as the hours were proceeding, he started getting more and more aggressive. A couple of them were there and they just shut it down. He started subtly taunting me about race and sexuality. I noticed the tone was getting a little aggressive and I don’t know if it was just because he was getting drunk or he felt he had the right to do that. Then all of a sudden, there were little snide things always clouded in humour. I can't remember word for word, but he was having a go and there were comments about sexuality and skin colour. And then, he just started becoming mean, quite nasty. I remember thinking at the time, this isn’t going to play out well. I didn’t really know how to handle the situation, and I remembered there was a woman and another guy there. And they just put a stop to it. They just bailed him up and said – enough! It was the woman who said, I think it’s time for you to go on your way. And he did, which was pretty extraordinary.
We never talked about being gay with the members of the social club. They knew that I was gay. They just accepted my partner and I immediately. And I think it was something to do with being open and honest about who we were from day one. We didn’t have to announce anything. I think we normalised it for them. I don’t think they were judging us. They might have been, I don’t know. But they didn’t seem to hold any prejudices against us, they just wanted to know who we were.
We still keep in touch with a lot of them. One of them, the president of the social club, still comes over and fixes our lawnmower and has a drink. And he’ll bring a mate around. And it was really funny because he was an absolute gentleman, like he would come to the pub, and he would take his hat off when he entered the dining room. And then one day a friend of his came in for a drink because they were going fishing, and I realised he’d been on best behaviour when he was with me. When he talked to his mates, the language was different, quite a bit of swearing … I think it was just out of respect that he didn’t swear when he talked to me. I don’t swear in general conversation so I think people just pick up on that. But that’s happened all my life, people just don’t swear in front of me. I think he just took that on.
A couple of guys who were regulars would often bring me flowers from their garden. Can you believe that? There used to be this guy called Chook, who was about six foot five. The first time he walked in I was just terrified because I thought he would kill me. He looked a bit like Chopper Reed. He was really brash and loud. Anyway, we got to know him quite well. He used to come over to our place every now and again. He’d bring flowers in for me at the pub. He’d bring in bunches of flowers from his garden. And another guy, Alan used to bring in bunches of flowers for me too. People would come in and they’d go, Oh what are those beautiful flowers? And I’d say, oh, Chook brought those for me. Or Alan brought those in. And they were completely cool about that.
DR: That’s really nice. That’s so sweet.
They just knew I loved gardening and I think it was pride on their part to show me what beautiful flowers they grew. They were both married, so who knows what they said to their wives – I am just taking a bunch of flowers for the guy at the pub. I don’t know how that conversation played out. I would always put the flowers in a vase and put them on the bar. I think they liked that.
DR: It’s unexpected, isn’t it?
RDC: But lovely. Owning and running the pub held unexpected surprises. The pub ended up attracting a lot of women. There are a lot of single older women who live here. I think they just feel really comfortable in the community. A lot of women used to come to our pub because they just felt sort of comfortable. We didn’t build a male-orientated drinking culture at the pub. Owning and running a pub is often built around alcohol. Although it was a lot of fun, I didn’t want to make money from somebody else’s misery.
DR: What’s it like being gay in the Anglo-Indian community?
RDC: Ha-ha. I don’t know. It’s not spoken about. I don’t think my family talked about me being gay. And I don’t personally know many Anglo-Indians leave alone gay Anglo-Indians. Hmmm … I should look into this more.
Recently I found out my second cousin was gay. I don’t think it was spoken about. I did have an experience lately that really upset me about the lack of conversation about being gay in my family. I found out that my mum’s eldest brother’s daughter, my first cousin had two sons who lived in Melbourne. She lived overseas. I found out that one of them committed suicide. I think he was only in his 30s and it took me a while to realise that he was gay. Because no one had told me. It was just through a conversation with my mum, who kept referring to him as a very sweet and sensitive boy. And I kept thinking, oh, that’s all code … it sounds like he’s gay. Turns out he was a prodigious talent in the music industry. Apparently, he was described as being one of the most innovative young composers of his generation. And I was really upset because I thought, he’s my cousin! We were both in the arts. I was at RMIT and he was at VCA – that’s just down the road. And no one ever told me. I could have built a friendship with him. It would have been nice to know.
Maybe we could have been a part of each other’s lives in some way. And maybe that might have made a difference. I don’t know. But yeah, I was upset. I just thought, why didn’t anyone tell me? And the other day my other cousin happened to mention that her son from her first marriage was gay. I didn’t know that. He’s now 42. I knew him as a little boy but no one ever told me. And then she just said it, and I sort of did a double take. Later she texted me and said, Rhett, I would love my son and his partner to meet you and Charles. I’ll organise a dinner, because he said he’d love to see you. And I just thought why didn’t we do that earlier?
So, I don’t know … to answer your question. Maybe we don’t know how to talk about sexuality. I look at my cousins now who still live in India and they seem relaxed around issues to do with sexuality. Perhaps with the internet things are changing. I think there’s a lot more tolerance now. It’s a horrible word ‘tolerance’, used in this context. I’m sure there would be a lot of young gay men and women in India.
I recently made an artwork around these ideas of ambiguity, sexuality and tradition. It’s called Holding Hands. The first time I went to India, I kept noticing that many straight men hold hands in India, in very intimate ways. It’s just a gesture of friendship. Although the first time I saw it, I just thought, Oh my goodness, everyone is gay! What’s going on here? So, I decided I wanted to make a work where the subject matter was two Indian men holding hands. There is an Indian guy that I know and who worked with me on a project previously, so I asked him.
It’s an ambiguous and quite complicated work. We’d had many conversations around familial and social expectations – traditions, being gay, religion, skin colour, migration and the complexities of navigating this stuff from day to day. We used to have conversations about our perceptions of each other. I used to see him and feel a little envious of how connected he was to community and to his Indian culture, because he would wear Indian costumes and spoke Indian languages. So, I would think of him as being a far more authentic being than I would ever be because he had these strong connections to India. Of course, his perspective was different. He would look at me and think how lucky I was to not have these perceived burdens, and to feel so at ease with my sexuality and cultural identity. It was interesting that we both, before talking, had different ideas of what we thought was important. I asked him if he would make this work with me where we would be in Indian costume and hold hands in the Australian bush.
It was really interesting making that work because I had to first get him to agree to it. And then when I showed it, initially he was concerned about who would see it. I said, well, I’m doing it for a particular show. But then when it was in another show, I had to call him and ask him again. And then when a project wanted to use it as a billboard I said I can’t agree to this until I get permission from him. I had to tell him this is going to be in the public realm.
I am always conscious of that when I look at that image, and it was really weird making it with him because there’s so much to read in it from a religious perspective as well – because it looks like I’m wearing a Muslim costume and he’s wearing a Hindu costume. So it appears like we might be talking across religious grounds as well, which we weren’t. I remember when we were trying to work out the gesture of how to hold hands. I didn't want us to feel intimate and I didn’t want it to feel sexual. I wanted it to feel like we had a nationalistic connection. So we hold hands in a really weird way where there is this clear distance. It feels like it’s camaraderie in our culture rather than in our sexuality. We tried a few different takes, I didn’t talk to him about it but I talked to the photographer about what gesture I was looking for beforehand – I mean there’s holding hands and there’s holding hands. That’s probably why I never thought about it as a work about sexuality, but of course, when I’ve written about that work, I acknowledge that we’re both gay men holding hands in the Australian bush.
DR: How are we going for time … ?
RDC: We haven’t eaten any cake!
DR: We haven’t eaten any cake … could I just ask you one more thing? It would be interesting getting your perspective on everyday language, being a writer and an academic. Do you ever think about language shifts and how you talk about your sexuality?
RDC: As an academic, I had to because it was brought into academia so quickly. Pronouns were something we had to take on board and trying to navigate that was difficult initially. Clearly, we wanted to do the right thing, but I suppose no one actually educated us about how to do it. I am sure that has all changed now. I would hope there is training and support around this for academics. At the time there was an assumption we’d know what to do. So, I think I still struggle with that. I’m conscious of getting things wrong and inadvertently offending people.
I have a very dear friend whose daughter is transitioning. It was interesting talking to her about it. Because I knew her as a little girl, and now I know him as a young man, or a trans man – I am not sure which is the correct term. I think he’s identifying as a ‘he’. My friend and I used to talk about language and terminology. I was always worried about getting this right when I met him and worried about how accepting he would be if I got terms wrong. She said he was pretty intolerant with her because he expects people to get it right almost immediately. And I thought, well, that’s fair enough, actually. I mean it’s about him. It’s not about me, and if I’m concerned about it then I need to be on top of that. It’s the same argument with indigenous cultures. We need to do the work. We don’t work hard enough at it. So, I think we have a responsibility to work, to find out what is appropriate and what is not, and to get it right.
It was interesting talking to my friend about a conversation with her son when she said she fully understands and fully accepts who he is now and how much she loves him – I can see how she’s been amazing and completely supportive. But then she asked him, if the conversation is about you when you were a little girl, am I allowed to refer to that person’s female name at the time? To which her son said, no. A little surprised by this response, my friend asked him why and he said, that person doesn’t exist, that person never existed except as a lie, until he got to be the person that he wanted to be and needed to be. Therefore to bring that person up doesn’t make any sense to him at all. I remember thinking how astute and profound he was in answering his mother’s question. Clearly, he had worked really hard at trying to work out what was right and appropriate for him. But so hard for his mum because logistically it didn’t make sense to her. It’s challenging to not acknowledge history and where truth may lie. But also recognising the fluidity of how a history can change, depending on who is writing the narrative. Before I heard his answer, like his mother, I thought it would be more authentic to acknowledge the transition from female to male – where one started – rather than making a definitive cut and removing his previous female entity. But I suppose the narrative is up to him, because it’s about him. It’s his story. And he should be allowed to decide.
So, I think from an academic perspective, I could argue my case, but from an experiential and a more personalised perspective, I think it is up to the individual how language is used. But language itself is complicated. I’d totally accept being pulled up by anyone, and I would accept it as being my problem, not theirs. So, I get quite angry when I hear people saying, give us time, or, it’s a generational thing so we need to catch up. I just think that’s nonsense. I’ve been in quite heated discussions with people where they’ve tried to put forward counter arguments and I’ve been pretty clear that I totally support the position the person dealing with the transition wants to take – whatever they want. That’s the way. That’s the right way. We just have to accept that. We have to take that on board. It’s our responsibility to take that on board if we really want to be supportive. Does that make sense?
DR: Yes, it does make sense. It’s challenging hearing that story, that’s not something I ‘ve actually thought about … and I imagine that would be very difficult for the mother.
RDC: It’s hard, but she gets it, and she knows that however difficult it might be for her, it’s harder for him. So, she works at getting it right for him. Because she loves him. She has photographs of her then daughter so it’s not just the deep emotional memories she has, but there are physical photographs of her son as a daughter. So it’s really challenging for her. I guess it’s a transition for all parties to go through. But she has to accept her son’s position that the person in the photograph didn’t really exist. So that is challenging.
I think when talking about a photograph as a photographer, that whole idea of authenticity in a photograph is challenged. If we think of photography as indexical, in terms of accuracy and truthfulness, then I suppose that is the counter argument I was alluding to earlier. Him saying the person in the photograph doesn’t exist is as truthful as anything else. It is challenging for somebody to know how to find language to talk about that. But I suppose, in a similar but different context, when I think about the person I was and what I projected to the world, before I came out as a gay man, that was pretty fake. To an extent it’s hard for me to look at a photograph of myself before I came out and think that person was real. So I sort of get it.
D: It’s changing and shifting.
RDC: I think it’s shifted. It’s here now. Until the next iteration comes along, and I think we’ve also learned enough now that we have to maintain discourse as fluid and ongoing. That’s what the plus is, isn’t it? We have to accept that we’ll keep moving in directions that change. Culture, and indeed language, isn’t static. I think what makes it hard is that we’d like culture to be static. Our generation were used to more parameters and less intersectional ways of thinking about multiplicity. Whereas discourse now shows us that that is the authentic way of living in the world. If that’s what we’re chasing, then we have to take this on board. It isn’t just a discourse that suits a particular group of people. It’s the right way to do things. I think we all have a responsibility to do the work and accept and engage with shifts in nomenclature or shifts in language. None of us wants to live in a static way determined by parameters that aren’t flexible.