Deadly Queens

Updated

They're fabulous double minorities. And for Australia's growing community of Indigenous drag queens, a small talent quest offers the chance to strut into visibility.



In Sydney, a battle is taking place — one whose combatants are armed with wigs and cinched waists, with high heels and hardship.

Seven performers have arrived in the city to compete in Miss First Nation, a week-long pageant described by one contestant as Miss Universe for Indigenous drag queens.

Most have crowdfunded their way there.

They will pose, model, lip sync and vogue.

"A big part of creating it was about that visibility and allowing the queens out there to shine; to be able to show their skills, to be able to dabble in it, and to be able to, eventually, make a living from it," said Ben Graetz, aka Darwin drag queen Miss Ellaneous, the competition's creator.

The competition's prize is a sum of cash, but the real winnings — exposure, confidence, community — are potentially huge.

Over the week contestants will also continue to fight a battle on two fronts: as Indigenous people seeking acceptance for being gay, and as gay people seeking acceptance as being Indigenous.

These are some of their stories.

Zodiac: drag changed my life

Zac Collins-Widders wanders into the ABC Melbourne studios at Southbank in slacks and a navy knitted sweater.

He has negotiated an extended lunch break from his government job and is laden with bags bulging with make-up, wigs, accessories and a variety of outfits.

"Typical Libra," he says. "I couldn't decide what to wear."

Although he has lived in Melbourne for the past four years, Zac is a proud descendant of the Anaiwan people from the Northern Tablelands in New South Wales.

Drag has only been part of his life for the past 12 months, but in that time it has been a strong source of guidance.

"For ages I thought I was trans," the 22-year-old explains.

"I wanted to be a woman and it wasn't really until I started to explore what gender was that I was like actually, there's not just two genders, and you can play with gender.

"That's kind of how I started getting into drag."

As we speed through the midday transformation, we get to talking about why Zodiac is so keen to make this photoshoot fit within her crowded schedule.

Growing up, she rarely saw Aboriginal people portrayed in the media, especially not those from the queer community.

That changed this year with the documentary Black Divaz, which followed the contestants of the inaugural Miss First Nation competition.

"Even for me, someone who's confident in my sexuality, my identity, seeing that there was a documentary about it kind of showed that it was important," Zodiac says.

"I can only think what it would mean to someone who isn't as confident with themselves, how important that would be for them."

Now, that lack of visibility has stoked a determination to be loud, proud, vocal and queer.

"Be the change you want to see in the world," she says.

"You don't really understand how much you can inspire people by just little actions and being yourself."

It was an episode of American reality TV show RuPaul's Drag Race that made the performer reassess the line she had drawn between Zac and Zodiac, encouraging her to take her newfound confidence in drag into life off stage.

"Ru Paul says to someone, 'The confidence that you have doing drag is within you all the time; you just need to learn to apply it to your everyday life'. That really stuck with me," she says.

"If you knew me 12 months ago, I was so shy... timid, not confident at all, and then as soon as I got into drag I just became a completely different person.

"Look at me now: she's got a full-time job, she lives in South Yarra, living her best life, and I feel like it comes from the confidence I found in drag.

"Drag really changed my world."

MadB: mum and dad both

MadB is a mother and father of four. That's how they got the stage name MadB: mum and dad both.

"They used to some days call me mum and some days call me dad."

MadB uses the pronouns they and them, identifying as non-binary, but often flits between the names Shawn or Shona to their friends.

They grew up in an accepting Cairns community that had more than a few sistergirls and brotherboys — gender diverse Indigenous people.

But the performer's own path was less straightforward.

They didn't come out until later in life and spent a few years with a female partner who is the mother of their children.

"We moved to Innisfail when I first left their mother and I had all four children live with me," they said.

"The looks that we used to get on the street, with this out-there white[-presenting] guy walking down the road with my chocolate rainbow, as I call my children.

"We also had narrow-minded people ask: 'Did you kidnap that one?'"

MadB is now a full-time carer for one of those children in Canberra.

There's barely enough time for drag, but they get it together for the odd show among Canberra's drag community here and there.

"I see myself as very maternal, both in real life and in the drag world.

"When I see a sort of younger queen struggling or needing help with stuff, I'm more than happy to go, 'Yeah, you can just join my family'."

MadB pauses to apply fake eyelashes — the most delicate part of becoming a queen.

Miraculously, they get both of them on the first try.

The look isn't the most polished, nor does it aim to create a true female illusion.

But that's the fun of drag, and it goes back to the form's old-school roots, when queens embodied big, bold women.

"To any of them little young ones out there thinking 'I can never do this', honey, if I can do it anybody can do it," MadB says.

"You girls and boys and humans just need to rock it and be yourself because we have so much to offer.

"Just do it. Just be yourself, have fun, and do what you can. Because we're amazing."

Shaniqua: carrying the Tiwi torch

Shaniqua is late.

It is AFL grand final day and many of the Tiwi Islanders that aren't at the MCG have travelled by the plane and boat-load to Darwin for the match.

Willie Rioli, to whom Shaniqua is related in a cultural way, has kicked the first goal that would see the premiership handed to West Coast. People are merry because of the win.

The call time for All Sorts — a Darwin Pride Festival party where Shaniqua is due to perform — is shortly after 8:00pm.

Navy and yellow jerseys are filling social media feeds, calls for cheap food are being placed at the hotel's bar, and beers are being cracked by the time we get recording at 7:52pm.

Shaniqua grew up as a football-playing teen on Bathurst, the smaller of the two Tiwi islands known for their strong cultures of art and football.

Recently, the islands have also become known for having a population with one of the highest concentrations of gender diverse people in the world.

The small communities of just 2,500 people are home to the Tiwi Islands Sistagirls, a group of Aboriginal transgender women now so well-known that their Mardi Gras floats are regularly covered by national media.

These days, according to Shaniqua, the term broadly encompasses Tiwi Islanders from LGBTIQ backgrounds.

"I am a drag performer and a Tiwi Island Sistagirl."

She now struts in the trailblazing footsteps of Sistagirl Crystal Love, drag queen Foxxy Empire, and the people who sadly took their own lives before acceptance became common on the islands.

It's after 8:30pm by the time layers of stockings are rolled on, cinches strapped across waists, food brought up from the bar.

It can take two-and-a-half hours for Shaniqua to materialise, but we need to be quick.

Drag is also expensive. Money is tight. Hosting bingo nights raises your profile but does not pay rent.

The Tiwi queen has been crowdfunding her way to Sydney and has raised $450 — enough to pay for her costume.

"Drag doesn't come easy and it doesn't come cheap," she says.

Then there is the fact that to be a LGBTIQ Indigenous drag queen is to be a minority within a minority within a minority.

Does it ever feel that way?

"Totally," Shaniqua says.

"We continue to create better paths for ourselves, and not only for ourselves, but the next generation to come."

Like water off a duck's back, this suggestion of hardship runs, then Shaniqua sets her make-up with hairspray, is chaperoned speedily into the city, and glides with confidence into the venue shortly before 9:00pm.





Bailey Legal: from red dirt to a Sydney stage

"I'm almost done," 22-year-old Jay Jay Carroll yells into the corridor of his stark University of NSW student accommodation.

"I've just got six pairs of pantyhose left to put on."

It's been almost three hours since Jay Jay began the transformation by gluing his thick eyebrows down with a gluggy white paste.

"It's the best way — it hides everything, and you don't have to shave your legs," he laughs.

"Bad thing is, no peeing. You cannot pee in drag."

Jay Jay grew up in Bourke, about 800 kilometres north-west of Sydney.

"I remember back to when I put on a wig, when I was about six or seven, and I was running around my auntie's house talking about how I was going to put on a show," he says.

"Mum goes, 'You're not gay are you Jay?'"

"At the time I had no idea what that meant."

At 18, he moved to Sydney to study and explore the nightlife subculture on the famous Oxford Street.

In just two years, Bailey Legal would be on the stage.

"That transition from being on the veranda with the red dirt and kangaroos, to a Sydney stage — one of the biggest night clubs around — it's like a drug," he recalls.

"It's addictive and you don't want to give it up."

Sitting on his bed, littered with hip pads, fake breasts, tucking G-strings and textbooks, Jay Jay describes drag as a crossing point.

"Drag is an interface for me — it becomes a place where culture, queerness and identity merge and move around each other and shape each other.

"It's like a bit of clay that never sets.

"That's where Bailey comes from."

Miss First Nation 2018 will be crowned on October 20 at the Imperial Hotel in Erskineville.

Topics: lgbt, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, indigenous-culture, performance-art, people, human-interest, darwin-0800, canberra-2600, sydney-2000, melbourne-3000, australia

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