I was born one half of a set of twins, profoundly deaf. By the time we left hospital my twin, HALF of US... was missing. At four, after I came back from the Royal Children's Hospital Hearing Clinic, my parents had a heated discussion. All my preconceived ideas of what they sounded like, or possibly sounded like, were smashed in an instant. And I refused to speak for two more years. My parents took me to a specialist Doctor, who diagnosed some of my hereditary conditions. I have non-Diabetic Hypoglycaemia, with many, many allergies, and juvenile arthritis. I was put on a special diet. Then I was diagnosed as Autistic and sent straight into prep classes at primary school. NO speech specialists for me, thank you very much! My whole childhood and young adulthood I was as an alien-outsider. LGBT people were seen to have mental conditions until about 1981. In 1981 I was 18 and when I heard the news around this time I came out as queerly different. From leaving home I went straight to a religious Order because ‘God’ wanted to show me something. I sung as a Church Cantor in St Stephens Richmond for eight years. I had a brilliant Counter Tenor. I was observing silence in the Order which was ideal because I would dream the twins in my mother’s womb. Each night was different; each dream stood out as something distinct and special, and I learned something new. Somewhere during the 1990s I realised I was different to GLBTI. Queer is a term I took a long time to embrace, as it was used in psychology as a term for being mentally unstable. Between 18 and 22 or 23, when my mother was menopausal and we could not stand each other, I was listening to negatives and being drugged to silence. I also came out during the first pandemic - HIV/AIDS. I used to volunteer in care teams but found that my clumsiness kept colliding with my desire to care, and my empathy. In 1998 as a coming out gift to myself I went on an overseas holiday following the Steps of Saint Paul Tour, across Greece, Turkey, Jordan, and Israel. My past is a blur of good sex, night clubs, dinner parties, and unique choices, which others worried about. So did I. I was addictive and had alcoholic tendencies. My peccadilloes for surprising people, meant that I had many competing hobbies. I used to write on my Curriculum Vitae, that my hobby was hooking up with men in European cars, attending cross-dressing parties, and tragic karaoke, singing women's anthems… I love opera and musicals, been here, there and to many high places. I love spectacle. I once met my twin brother/sister on a cancelled train, on the Belgrave line. We spoke to each other, and he was overwhelmed. My parents and I often have pub lunches and talk about things that could have been.