Face of Nation : Pride Night was the very first event in the NAIDOC calendar created to celebrate the LGBTIQ+ community when it began in 2017.
But from just a handful of people turning out for that first performance, it has since grown into a major event for the broader Indigenous community.
SBS News attended this year’s event in Melbourne on Thursday to meet some of the participants.
A member of the Arrernte community from Alice Springs, Stone Motherless Cold is a 21-year-old drag queen who identifies as gender non-binary.
Stone moved away from her hometown at a very young age but the idea of going back to visit family has never been an easy one.
“I’ve been told that if I was to go back to Alice Springs, I’d have to just quiet down the queerness, just a bit of carefulness I’d have to apply.”
“It’s a bit daunting because I want to go visit my family, but I want to feel safe on my own country.”
Stone says the combination of being Aboriginal and LGBTIQ+ generally does not make for an easy life.
“There’s a lot of blackfellas that are like, ‘If you’re queer, why are you acting white? Why are you like this? It’s not in our culture’, but that’s generally the wrong case.”
“Then in the dating world, you’re either fetishised and people only like you if you’re black, or you’re on the other side, and there’s people who are like, ‘I only like white people, no blacks, no Asians, no fats, no femmes’.”Since moving to Melbourne for university, Stone has come to embrace both sides of that identity and has found a level of community support never enjoyed before.
That support network is a big part of why Stone does drag – to show the next generation of young, Indigenous LGBTIQ+ people there is a likeminded community ready and waiting to accept them.
“For me, to be performing on a night like this for NAIDOC Pride, or just performing in general and being an Indigenous queen on stage where there’s not that many, is so hopefully young Indigenous queers can be like, ‘Oh, that’s for me as well,’ or ‘I can be in this community, I’m accepted’,” they say.
“Just being able to see people like you out in the world and telling you it’s okay for you to be out in the world like who you are, as a person – it’s necessary and it’s needed.”
Adam Francis, 36, is a gay Ngarrindjeri man from South Australia who dances professionally under the stage name ‘Astro’.
Adam says he was fortunate to grow up in a loving and proud Aboriginal household that fully embraced his identity. His schoolmates, however, were not so supportive.
“Going into then schooling and things like that, that’s when I really started to struggle because I think it was then identifying myself,” Adam says.
“One, I’m black. Two, I’m queer. And that, there, was always shunned upon. We were always laughed at, there was always racist remarks.”
Showing a talent for dance from a young age, Adam’s family supported him to make the move to Melbourne, where he became the first Indigenous student to enrol on the Victorian College of the Arts’ dance program.
Adam says having that creative outlet throughout his life has made all the difference.
“For me it was always about being truthful to yourself, and I think deep down I use that tactic now to show the people ‘Yes, that was a negative, but I’m turning that now into a positive, because this is who I am, and this is who I need to be,” he says.
“A lot of the processing of all of this – I’ve struggled a lot with that myself – so I think this creative outlet, identifying that, and reaching out to others, showing that this can – through all that process of dealing with mental health – this can help as a creative outlet for that.”
Now Adam’s focus is shifting towards guiding younger members of his community who might be struggling, as he once did, through their own journey.
That’s why he believes pride nights are so important.
“Because of the struggle of where I’ve been – I’ve been in that dark place, I’ve seen that – and now I think I’m turning myself into showing and teaching others and being that mentor,” he says.
“We all need to just come together and be one big community and be able to celebrate and enjoy what is pride and what is to be proud and be Indigenous and be part of the umbrella of sexuality.”
Born into the Wiradjuri community, 22-year-old Indiah Money is an up and coming drag king who identifies as gender non-binary.
Indiah grew up on the Mornington Peninsular and was not able to come to terms with their sexuality until moving to Melbourne a few years ago.
“Where I grew up on the Mornington Peninsular is statistically the whitest place in Victoria, and I think that’s very important to talk about in relation to Aboriginality and to queerness.”
“And it was very homophobic, very transphobic … and I was so homophobic and biphobic towards myself.”
