We’re in an op shop in Melbourne’s inner-north.

I’m trying on RM Williams jeans. They cling to my thighs before dropping into a bootleg, defying my current preference for baggy pants. But my partner says she can picture me wearing them on my parents’ property in Red Hill, the rural town where I grew up.

“They’re very cowboy,” she says, which sells them to me.

Image by: Alex Cao

My hometown is 87km away from that op shop changeroom. My first queer safe space was the local beach, known colloquially as Pines. It’s a five-minute drive from my family home. There’s nothing overtly queer about the beach, but it was a place I confided in as a teenager.

Before I came out to my family and close friends, I sat on the sand around the thick shrubs that line the land before it climbs to a cliff, and rehearsed what I would say. I watched the waves peel and imagined myself unbridled by the fear that surrounded coming out as a lesbian.

Growing up in the small, rural community of Red Hill, I didn’t know a queer person, and I couldn’t ‘see’ an out queer person around me. It took me years to realise the ways that a Catholic high school, which bred a culture of queerphobia, and my rurality prevented me from understanding and accepting my queerness as a young person.

Over the past 1o years, I’ve noticed – mostly via Facebook – that some of my old peers and friends from high school have come out and grown into their own gender and sexuality. It’s comforting to know we weren’t alone, that we shared a space together, but it saddens me that there was no sense of queer community or social support groups while we were in high school.

Sometimes, I picture us meeting on the oval, laughing and connecting. I imagine the comfort and support we could have conjured, just by noticing each other. But it wasn’t safe for us to be ourselves or to explore our gender or sexuality at the time, and subconsciously, I knew it.

A lot has changed since I was in high school. Many rural and regional towns have been putting the work in to foster safety and inclusion for the LGBTQIA+ community.

In rural places, safe spaces look different to metropolitan areas – they might be smaller, and are often inaccessible by public transport. Persistent advocacy is required to attain funding and make formal safe spaces happen in these areas. But safe spaces in rural and regional towns are there, and they’re providing young people with crucial support systems.

I met with Teddy, the project officer at Rural Rainbows, a peer-led social group for LGBTQIA+ people in the Yarra Ranges, in the outer east and northeast of Melbourne. It began in 2021 as a community-led initiative to connect young queer people in the Yarra Ranges region and its surrounds.

The group meets once a fortnight in Lilydale and once a month at Yarra Junction. Its members decide on the activities for each session; the focus shifts from chilled out movie nights to craft sessions where tote bags are painted and flowers are constructed out of Lego. Rural Rainbows favours activities where something tangible can be made and taken home as a reminder of the group members’ time together.

While Rural Rainbows is about having fun, the group members also give each other space to share difficult things. They sometimes discuss the challenges and complications that come with being out in a rural town: the names they’re called on the street, and the failed or shallow efforts of their schools to create safe spaces for them.

Teddy spoke on behalf of the group: “Rural Rainbows gives us the opportunity to just be together, to connect with other queer people.”

The participants know they are a part of something, a tight-knit group that values connection and kindness. It offers opportunity for queer and gender diverse people to make friends and grow a support network that can live and thrive outside of Rural Rainbows. For example, when they all boarded a bus together to attend a queer ball in Melbourne’s city centre, the connectedness of the group was resounding.

A similar group, Skittle Squad, now runs out of the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council’s youth centres. Skittle Squad is an LGBTIQA+ social group for people aged 11 to 17.

The local council youth workers also support the school nurses with lunchtime pride groups in secondary schools. Youth workers provide resources for these groups, including books by queer and gender diverse authors, fidget spinners, pronoun pins and conversation starters.

Rae, a facilitator of Skittle Squad, noted that these groups play a crucial role in introducing young people to others who have shared experiences as queer and gender diverse people living rurally. They described instances of participants expressing their excitement upon meeting youth workers who identify as gender diverse and use they/them pronouns.

Rae said: “It is so important for [rural] young LGBTIQA+ people to see adults in their community who live their lives, have jobs and are open about their identity.”

Having formal social groups for young queer and gender diverse people is immensely important for our communities. We need connections that are safe and offer room for growth and discovery, and often this is possible because of shared lived experience as a foundation of trust.

Queer relationships, platonic or romantic, are magic. They can help us carve out safety in places that would otherwise be daunting, or impossible to inhabit.

Queer safe spaces are all about context, but they’re also about people – the people we feel safe around.

When my girlfriend and I had just started seeing each other, I took her to Pines beach for the weekend. It was the first time I saw her smile from ear to ear and sprint up and down the sand with a dog.

Pines was the first place I allowed myself to be queer and happy, and I’m grateful for that. Nowadays, it’s a relief to see that queer kids in rural areas might be able to access that feeling within their communities, as well.

For those in rural or regional Victoria, check out Rainbow Network’s Directory for queer groups and services in your area.

Grace Hall is a queer, crip writer and disability support worker based in Naarm (Melbourne). Grace’s writing explores the joys and pitfalls of growing up queer in rural Victoria. Her work has been published by Bramble Journal, #EnbyLife Journal and Writers Victoria. In 2022, Grace was a participant in Toolkits Lite: Non-fiction program.