TEDx: Starlady, transgender woman on her move to the desert

STARLADY was spat on, beaten and verbally abused when she lived in the city. So she moved to the desert and has never been more accepted.

The transgender woman who grew up identifying as a gay man says she has never felt more like herself than with the world’s most ancient people in outback Australia.

The Queen of the Desert first started working with young people in indigenous communities in 2000 but moved to the desert permanently six years ago.

She says she spends her time working with youth, focusing on LGBTI issues and working with transgender girls and boys who would otherwise have no access to support services of any kind.

“I once identified as a gay man in the 90s in regional Australia,” Starlady told news.com.au.

“It was extremely homophobic. I had death threats, got spat on, hate calls, beaten up. Everyone was like ‘tone it down’.

“The pressure to live in a hetero-normative existence was strong. How I survived was to get creative. The more hate and violence I experienced the more creative I got.”

That creativity has soaked into her work with “Sistergirls” and “Brotherboys” in the outback. But for everything Starlady puts in, she gets just as much out.

“It’s my life, it’s about being queer and transgender and about the journey to finding acceptance,” she said.

“It’s a cross-cultural collaboration and everything I offer is two-way learning.That’s what makes what I do so powerful.”

Starlady said the culture in indigenous communities lends itself to acceptance. People only see what’s on the inside, she said.

“There is an open-heartedness where friendship and cultural connection transcends those differences. People are more concerned with what’s in your heart than they are about how you look and how you act.”

But they still like to look good. To encourage their creative side, Starlady offers hairdressing and fashion workshops. She says the young people she works with love it.

“Bright colours like red, pink, orange, they already existed. I just helped develop their style. That’s been really exciting. They’ve got a really unique and edgy style that we don’t see anywhere else.”

The Federal Government earlier this month announced cuts to a number of services in the Northern Territory. The budget caters for a one-off $155 million payment for the territory government to take “full responsibility” for delivering essential services.

Starlady said organisations working creatively with young indigenous Australians are at risk of having their funding cut, too.

“We’re living in an age where the government is perpetuating a myth that indigenous communities are unsustainable,” Starlady said.

“They have a lot to offer this country.”

Starlady was speaking at TEDxSydney on Thursday. TEDx is an annual ideas festival taking place at the Sydney Opera House. Her talk will be available online at tedxsydney.com.

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