No place for Schrödinger’s Queer:

June 1990: I am fascinated by the changes that are happening to my Mother. As her lithe body has swelled and stretched, skin tight across her broadened belly, she practically glows with pregnancy. All evidence of creating space for a new human being, one who will soon share our lives. I lay my head on her stomach so I can feel my sibling’s movements, and I use my tiny hands to chase their kicks across the vast expanse of my mother’s stomach.

“How does the baby breathe?” I ask

“They don’t,” She says, prodding my belly button and explaining how the baby is connected to her, like I was, spending time growing until they will be big enough to join us out here in the world. I find the idea that a whole person exists inside my mother, that she can create space for one was so utterly magical it almost seems impossible.

On the day they are born, my Nana leads me down the long shiny hospital corridor my sandshoes squeaking on the worn lino and I am so very excited. I am surprised that they are so small, and I watch in awe as their tiny fists and feet with perfectly formed fingernails like mine splash in the water of their first bath. Every single new thing they encounter is an entirely new discovery of their world. I sit on the hospital bed, with the scratchy cotton sheets, and a blue waffle weave blanket and hold my small sibling grinning fiercely utterly thrilled that they are here in the world with me now. That I will get to share this great big world of possibilities with them. “This is your sister. Isn’t she beautiful” they say.

When we are born and join the world, we emerge entirely new with the promise of boundless possibilities ahead of us. We leave behind perhaps the only place created entirely for us, where we existed in safety, to only grow and be nothing but ourselves. When we are born, we are instantly labelled and assigned an identity, one of many that the world will place upon us in our lifetimes. My sister, like me, was Assigned Female at Birth: and all the baggage that came with it. Baby girl, Sister, Daughter, Granddaughter. So many boxes for one so small to occupy.

2000: Schools are meant to be safe places but along with a uniform of long tartan skirts, and crisp white shirts that create a loathing I cannot name, comes the incessant questions about which boys I like. I ponder why boys are the only option. Queer teens experience suicide at a rate of five times higher than the average population and much like the modern day crusade against the Safe Schools Programme mirrored efforts made by my teachers to keep us safe, prevented me from gaining knowledge about myself. All the while handing my classmates' weapons of cruelly wielded words; Dyke, Lesbian, Gay slice through my skin, like butchers knives, carving pieces off my soul. Leaving wounds that will take decades to heal. The vicious ways they use them makes me bury my questions deep inside, and I feign an interest in boys that isn’t entirely fake, just incomplete while I studiously ignore the itching under my skin that begs me for further exploration of self.

September 2004. The winter sea is flat and the colour of steel, not the best time to be visiting the tiny town of Bermagui on the south coast of New South Wales. Nana wants my Tante Stantcha who is here from the Netherlands to experience the place she and my Mum spent many summers when they were younger. Tanta Stantcha doesn't feel the cold. Not the way my Sister and I do, the coastal wind bites as it howls through this small town. We stay up late into the night talking, sitting together on the top bunk like small children, wrapped in scratchy woolen blankets against the cold. One night she finally manages to get out the words

"Roisean, I think I am gay."

She is filled with a fear that is deep and dark like that flat grey ocean.

She makes me promise not to tell Mum. Afraid that our Mother won’t understand, afraid of rejection, and though I assure her that Mum will always understand and love her no matter who she loves. I keep her secret along with all my own.

October 2009: It takes my sister nearly five years to tell Mum. The words burst out of my sister as a sob, like she can no longer contain them behind her lips or within her mouth.

“Mum I am Gay.”

Our Mother’s reaction is as I promised all those years ago

“I love you, you are my daughter, and nothing can ever change that.”

Our wonderful Mother hauls her into a hug so fierce it makes my sister’s bones creak.

Nonetheless, it takes me much longer to come to terms with who I am and who I love than my little sister who paved the way for me and in many ways is much braver than I.

2014: “I don’t date Bisexual girls, I don’t want to be their experiment.”

Like a grenade, the words are dropped casually into the conversation evokes a raucous laugh from the women around the table. The detonation comes from a beautiful lesbian, who continues by expounding on the audacity of women who call themselves “Queer” and yet still date men. I grip my drink tighter, swallowing a retort with a gulp of my cocktail before it can escape my mouth before I question her gate-keeping my identity and my place here at her table. My previously sickly sweet cocktail tastes bitter on my tongue and nearly tripping on my too high heels, I escape the suddenly unwelcome table, as laughter follows me across the sticky floor of the dim lit bar, and my hands shake as I lock myself in a bathroom stall. The casual nature of having my identity questioned, erased by other Queer Folk never ceases to surprise or shock me. Perhaps one day I’ll be immune, but in that moment it is a sucker punch from people I thought wereon my side. The painful reminder that for some I will never be queer enough to belong at their table.

June 2016. My heart is broken, standing in the freezing cold my girlfriend and I are surrounded by a sea of strangers, the crowd lit by the flickers of candles held in chilled hands. My eyes searching the shifting sea of people for the familiar face of my sister. These vigils are held all too often by our community. In Orlando, Florida, 49 people have been killed and 58 wounded in a nightclub called Pulse. Someone walked into our community, into a space meant to be safe and killed them, just for being like me, and those I love. Fear bites into me like the wind off the ocean in Bermagui so long ago, and it chills me more than the winter wind ever could. I am afraid for myself, my friends and my girlfriend, but also because in exactly two months my Queer Baby Sister will be flying to the United States on exchange for University. I was afraid for her already, now fear has deepened to dread. I can barely breathe through it, and I am swallowing back tears in the dark. The spaces we create for ourselves have their sanctity violated time and again in the most vicious of ways. Finally, among the sea of lights, I find my sister, our hugs tight, full of unspoken pain, anger, loss and fear. We stand side by side in the cold as the tide of the grief washes over us, and slowly the sea of lights disperses. Not ready to be alone yet, to face the pain without others. My Girlfriend and I find ourselves at a friend’s place. Long into the night we talk, savouring the comfort that only exists when others who are like yourself are close. But it is a holding action against the dark because we know beyond these walls we are not safe, and the world holds no true sanctuary for those like us.

March 2017: Mardi Gras is the biggest event of the LGBTQIA calendar. Bright colours paint the city and rainbows are splashed everywhere, on ATMs and train stations. Before I did not attend because I did not feel Queer enough. Like most Queer events it requires extended periods of standing, crowds, dancing, and bright lights.The physicality it demands is too much for my disabled body to bear and so another space is denied to me. My sister is marching, and I help her find the right makeup. I offer advice and wish I could watch her dance in the parade. I help my friends get ready, rainbow glitter coating me in a sparkly reminder of the event I will not attend this year, or likely any year. Instead with my Girlfriend, we curl up in bed under a rainbow flag watching Gay Romantic Comedies. Am I less valid of a queer because I am not marching like my sister or decked out in rainbows and glitter like my friends today? Late that night lying awake watching my partner sleep, I question if I will ever feel queer enough to believe that I belong and if there will ever be space that fits all of me. An accessible space where all my varied identities can comfortably reside.

April 2017: Standing with my partner, knees aching in the long snaking line outside a venue the cold is seeping into my bones. The trek along dark, uneven paths from the station was longer than anticipated. I am enjoying this rare, accessible Queer Community event, savouring the feeling of being surrounded by my people. Inside, seated in the dark on hard solid wooden seats, I listen to Queer Folk tell stories. For a brief moment I feel truly connected, a kinship that only exists in the presence of others like me in spaces I feel welcome and the knot I always carry in my chest relaxes. A woman in her 50s with bright blonde hair and a deep infectious laugh begins her story. Her joke lands like a physical blow, knocking the wind out of me and I struggle to breathe through the pain. Gripping the wooden seat with my hands I rest my head on my girlfriend's shoulder. Willing myself to stay in place. Fighting the urge to run or stand or shout as I am the punchline to a joke. Pain like a physical force ripples through the audience, and out of the corner of my eye I see a friend flee the venue, then another. Even here I and others like me are not truly welcomed, truly a part of this community, this space is not sincerely welcoming of me and mine. Once again I am reminded painfully I do not fit anywhere.

May 2017: Sitting on my friend's bed, their tiny apartment crammed with way more people than it was ever meant to hold I cannot help but marvel at the people who have become my own personal community. I wrap my arms around my Partner, and I savour the connection. Outside these walls, we are not seen as the people we are, welcomed by the wider world, or even the wider queer community. But together we have created for ourselves a space to exist, and I get to share this great big world of possibilities with them. We talk, and we laugh til we cry about ridiculous things. I want to exist in this kind of space all the time, to feel this connection, this safety, this happiness all the time, and I want this kind of space for everyone like me. Because often those who need safe spaces the most are excluded from them by arbitrary roles the world assigns us, gatekeeping by others or a literal lack of access. This space with these peoples is a custom creation, one we made with each other and for today it is enough to simply feel like I belong.