LGBTI leaders are urging Bendigo to follow the lead of other regional cities and host its own pride festival, a move they say would foster acceptance for the region’s queer community.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Gay pride events are now a fixture on the calendar of several regional Victorian locales, including Shepparton, Wodonga and Daylesford.
Geelong also held its first pride event last weekend and Ballarat has this month announced its intention to host a march in February.
But despite a population of more than 100,000 people, Bendigo remains a city without a pride event, the closest being its annual queer film festival in April.
Friends Alike Bendigo – Central Victoria co-ordinator Jakob Quilligan, whose group runs a monthly social opportunity for LGBTI people and their allies, said he would welcome such an occasion.
Without opportunities to publicly celebrate their identity, Mr Quilligan said the city’s queer residents could feel alienated.
“Participation is a huge thing for people to feel connected,” he said.
“Without it, you run the risk of social isolation.”
While he believed the “building blocks” for a Bendigo event were already in place, he worried there were not yet the social networks or financial backing inside the Bendigo community to make it a reality.
In the meantime, FAB – CV will bus Bendigo residents to Shepparton for this weekend’s OUTintheOPEN celebration and transport is already planned to ferry those eager to attend Daylesford’s Chill Out festival next March.
In its fifth year, OUTintheOPEN has grown from a two-day event to a 3.5-day long celebration, with film screenings, drag shows, meditation classes and community dinners all a part of its program.
Festival director Damien Stevens described the event as a grass roots effort, but said it had also received support from government-funded community organisation Kildonan Uniting Care and a bevy of Shepparton businesses.
But LGBTI-themed events were not exclusively for the queer community, Mr Stevens explained.
They were a potentially lucrative opportunity for the city’s business owners, as an influx of tourists meant the services of restaurants, hotels and retail outlets were in demand.
In fact, the goal of OUTintheOPEN was to connect Shepparton’s LGBTI people with other community members, he said.
“We've always done it with a focus on being part of the broader community and bringing the community along with us,” Mr Stevens said.
“It’s not standing out from the community, and being a pride movement in and of itself.”
Equal Love Ballarat founder Koby Bunney, who is responsible for next year’s march, said his event would also be an opportunity for heterosexual people to take pride.
“Everyone can be proud with the fact gay people no longer live in oppression,” Mr Bunney said.
“This is a day for all of us.”
The central Victorian man believed his festival would encourage young gay people, who might otherwise have fled to larger metropolises, to remain in the regional city.
He said he would be willing to meet with LGBTI figureheads in Bendigo to begin organising a local pride event.
Queer performer Lance DeBoyle, an ambassador for Chill Out and a host at the Geelong Pride Festival, said there was a hunger for pride celebrations in central Victoria, with tens of thousands of visitors – including many from Bendigo – travelling to Daylesford each year.
He suggested a Bendigo event could grow from the queer film festival in April; an art exhibition already accompanies the annual weekend of queer-themed movies.
Asked why he believed public events were important for the LGBTI community, Mr DeBoyle said: “Silence is death.
“It’s these little festivals and representations of community that keeps us in the public eye, especially now with what's happening with the plebiscite.”
It’s these little festivals and representations of community that keeps us in the public eye.
- Lance DeBoyle, LGBTI advocate
It was also a way for regional LGBTI communities to remain in touch with one another in an age where interaction was migrating online.
"It keeps people in touch with each other,” Mr DeBoyle said.
“We walk down the street, ear buds in, faces looking down to our palm.
“Those things are walls to community.”