Country Roads to Pride survey
Thanks for taking the time to view the Country Roads to Pride Gallery. We hope you liked the images and engaged with the stories. Can you spare a minute to tell us what you thought?
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KL Joy
they/them
Ballarat | Wadawurrung Country
21/12/2021
My road towards pride has had many bumps along the way. I've struggled with identity issues for most of my adult life. At the age of 49, I bravely walked into the non-binary space which had always been my aspiration. When imagery around me in the 80’s was the androgenous aesthetic I aspired to, I thought ‘I'm too busty’ or ‘I can't 'pull that off’ or ‘no one will believe me’. But language evolved and I was able to reconcile my gender identity as more than my aesthetic... it just is! Funny enough, mostly this happened because eight years ago I moved to a smaller regional area. Ballarat is a super supportive, queerly accepting, generously giving regional town that has embraced me while I explore my ‘becoming’. It was because of the Trans and Gender Diverse Clinic at BCH that was promised in 2019 that I started to investigate medicalising my transition - so, had it not been for the access to the peer navigator here, I don't know that I would have been brave enough to reach out and do something. After 20 years of being active in the Leather and Fetish community in Melbourne and the wider LGBTIQA community, I have found that I want to spend my energy closer to home. In 2020/2021 I started ‘A Place At The Table’, where community organizations connect with LGBTIQA+ folk. We break bread together over a long lunch on a Sunday near IDHOBIT* in March.
My portrait was taken out front of the Ballarat Mechanics Institute where we held the inaugural ‘A Place At The Table’. Standing in the rotunda in the middle of Sturt St, opposite Camp Street and just down the road from what used to be the Camp Hotel, I connected my history with the history of that place.
In 1988 (at the tender age of 18) I came to Ballarat to be with my first (secret) girlfriend who was studying at Ballarat Uni. We were not very ‘visible’ because both of us were quite scared of the community and backlash, so we mostly stayed at the hotel and in town, rather than on campus. As of October 2021, I am one of nine people from the LGBTIQA+ community on the newly formed advisory committee for the City of Ballarat. I hope that my experience will help form strategies that will help our community for years to come. * IDAHOBIT reminds us that homophobia, transphobia, intersexism and biphobia needs to actively be combated on every level.
KL Joy
they/them
Ballarat | Wadawurrung Country
21/12/2021
My road towards pride has had many bumps along the way. I've struggled with identity issues for most of my adult life. At the age of 49, I bravely walked into the non-binary space which had always been my aspiration. When imagery around me in the 80’s was the androgenous aesthetic I aspired to, I thought ‘I'm too busty’ or ‘I can't 'pull that off’ or ‘no one will believe me’. But language evolved and I was able to reconcile my gender identity as more than my aesthetic... it just is! Funny enough, mostly this happened because eight years ago I moved to a smaller regional area. Ballarat is a super supportive, queerly accepting, generously giving regional town that has embraced me while I explore my ‘becoming’. It was because of the Trans and Gender Diverse Clinic at BCH that was promised in 2019 that I started to investigate medicalising my transition - so, had it not been for the access to the peer navigator here, I don't know that I would have been brave enough to reach out and do something. After 20 years of being active in the Leather and Fetish community in Melbourne and the wider LGBTIQA community, I have found that I want to spend my energy closer to home. In 2020/2021 I started ‘A Place At The Table’, where community organizations connect with LGBTIQA+ folk. We break bread together over a long lunch on a Sunday near IDHOBIT* in March.
My portrait was taken out front of the Ballarat Mechanics Institute where we held the inaugural ‘A Place At The Table’. Standing in the rotunda in the middle of Sturt St, opposite Camp Street and just down the road from what used to be the Camp Hotel, I connected my history with the history of that place.
In 1988 (at the tender age of 18) I came to Ballarat to be with my first (secret) girlfriend who was studying at Ballarat Uni. We were not very ‘visible’ because both of us were quite scared of the community and backlash, so we mostly stayed at the hotel and in town, rather than on campus. As of October 2021, I am one of nine people from the LGBTIQA+ community on the newly formed advisory committee for the City of Ballarat. I hope that my experience will help form strategies that will help our community for years to come. * IDAHOBIT reminds us that homophobia, transphobia, intersexism and biphobia needs to actively be combated on every level.