My best friend and I are often accused of copying one another. It’s more complicated than that.

Drag provides a place where people create a character, first and foremost, and where people can connect with a part of themselves that has been hidden away.

The intersection between racial identity and queerness is often being left out while QPOC exist within those multitudes.

Many religious schools continue archaic practices of suppressing and excluding queer identities, leading to lasting impacts on students.

I should not have been explaining non-binary identity to my senior school director at the age of 17, just as my peers should not have spent their lives dodging homophobic jokes just for the chance to be included in their “normal” peer groups.

As Jesus at the Gay Bar exemplifies, queer coming out often resists categorisation as happy or sad; self-acceptance is not a linear process.

I call all of my joy “queer” joy, because being queer is what pushed me towards seeking joy.

The bitterness of the first act sets up a sense of sweetness in the second. I was amazed that characters so initially unlikable — who I had set myself against so strongly — could win my heart with their attempts to love each other.

I understand your struggles as a queer person, but you do not understand mine as a queer person of colour.

By supporting local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanderand Pasifika queens we are amplifying their voices and the issues they raise.