In Western Australia it is illegal to crush beercans between your breasts in the pub!
A 31 year old barmaid who worked at the Premier Hotel in Pinjarra, south of Perth, ended up in court and was fined 00.- for crushing beercans between her breasts!
He wants to set an example for young Aboriginal people who may be struggling with their sexuality."They can see me walking down the main street of Dubbo in full drag, not really caring what anyone thinks and loving the moment, he said.
This year's Central West Pride March was delayed to follow the result of Australia's same-sex marriage postal survey.
Mr Steepe said there were many LGBTI people under the age of 18 were negatively affected by the No campaign and frustrated that they couldn't directly participate."There was a whole conversation going on about their life and their future and their identities and they couldn't be a part of that," he said.
The march was also a chance for same-sex marriage supporters to celebrate.
The survey results showed 62 per cent of Australians favour allowing same-sex couples to wed.
"For me something just switches halfway through a face and I'll just be like 'hey, she's here now'." Mr Ridgeway's interest in drag took hold when he was living in Dubbo, a regional city 400km north-west of Sydney."The main reason my drag did kick off with the Dubbo Pride March was in reaction to a council member saying that homosexuality is not part of the Indigenous culture," Mr Ridgeway recalled."I was taken aback by that …
in retaliation, I was like 'well, I'm going to rock up to the pride march in full drag in a black, yellow red dress with a pride flag at the end of it'."Homosexuality is part of the Indigenous culture, we exist." Mr Ridgeway lives in Newcastle now, but comes back to Dubbo every year to march with his family and friends.
"So many people go off to major cities and Sydney in particular where you have Oxford St and Newtown where you know you're going to get that acceptance," Nicholas Steepe, one of the march organisers, said."We were like 'no, that's not OK' because we lose so many young people, their talents, their knowledge, their experiences, to the metropolitan areas." Mr Steepe said his own experience of coming out in Dubbo was "negative, to say the least"."I didn't particularly have that much family support and there was quite a lot of social isolation and verbal bullying at school," he said.
"I developed mental health issues as a result of that and as a coping mechanism I self-harmed for a round two to three years."Now a social worker, Mr Steepe said it was vital that LGBTI people have a culture of acceptance within their communities."Through the support of friends and eventually the majority of my family I became very comfortable with who I was and that it was OK to be gay," he said.
On Saturday, the pair marched for the first time, hand-in-hand, holding signs supporting same-sex marriage and transgender people.