Content warning: This piece discusses transphobia, transmisogyny, racism, and ritualistic death in First Nations communities. 

I’m from Dubbo. I’m Tubba-Gah, Wiradjuri on my mum’s side.

My father’s family is from former Yugoslavia, but Dad was born in northern Queensland and would always say that he was Aussie.

I now live in Sydney after a long stint in Melbourne. I decided to leave my Melbourne life behind to be closer to family. It took me a little while to find my feet, but now I have an amazing circle of friends and a beautiful partner. The move has been so amazing that it’s allowed me to feel comfortable exploring – and eventually living – as my authentic self.

After starting in drag as Gemini, who made a big splash in the scene debuting at Yabuun Festival 2023, I am now living as a trans woman. I am Jedda Ruby Riley.

Image: Right: Sarah Malone. Left: Courtesy of the author.

Feeling ‘at home’ has been a foreign experience until recently. This has been a strange outcome from my particular intersections – as ‘home’ is everything when you mob.

When I was up on stage for the first time at Yabuun Festival, I realised I didn’t have a façade or mask to protect me. I was used to public speaking and hosting, yet as Gemini, I felt vulnerable and exposed.

I also couldn’t get enough of my new reflection – it reminded me of Nan, Mum and my beautiful cousins. I’ve always had a strong relationship with my family, and as I grew up without any friends, this was the source of love I always relied on. It kept me going.

Image: Gemini performing at Yabun Festival 2024. Photo by Sarah Malone.

Growing up in a country town, I learnt to be tough.

I didn’t get into a lot of physical fights, but I experienced a lot of bullying in school, which continued into the workplace and my adult life. I found that as I leaned into my authenticity, I attracted both positive and negative attention.

Why is it not okay for me to express my gender or Culture, when we sit around and watch shapeshifters on TV move fat from one part of their body to another, crimp it all in a corset and – what I would argue – wipe and swipe on another ethnicity?

One day, I no longer felt attractive in binary men’s clothes. Well, truthfully, I just got tired of pretending. They were dull.

Plus, the previous iteration of me, the Fruity Dead Man, got mixed reviews.

I don’t go home to Dubbo as often as I would like. It’s probably no surprise that becoming Jedda came with its ups and downs.

I struggled with relationship breakdowns, work issues, anti-trans campaigning here and abroad, and not to mention the referendum, which hung over us like a heavy, dark cloud.

During the week of the referendum, I attended a family wedding. My partner and I now refer to it as ‘The Red Wedding’. I’d just started drag at that point, and I was surprised that it led to tension with some family members. The wedding felt uncomfortable.

It wasn’t just the hangover from an unsuccessful referendum that was bothering some of us, it was the non-Indigenous guests who made a number of us Aboriginal mob feel uneasy.

This was worsened by a recent conflict online between some of my family members. I had been verbally and physically attacked in ways that were homophobic, transphobic and racist.

The day of the wedding, I felt like my family threw me to the wolves. I since have had no contact with my family except for my parents, which is still difficult.

Image: Gemini performing at Red Rattler. Photo by Sarah Malone

Over the last few years, I’ve felt isolated and disconnected from my family. It’s felt like my relationship to home has been severed.

It’s felt like I am always transitioning in life, and not just with my gender. I’ve transitioned through depression, anxiety and PTSD, and I also transitioned out of falling for all the wrong guys in all the wrong places.

My family only really knows the old me, holding onto a dead man’s name – and I use the word “dead” as a trans woman. But I have been able to heal and grow as a woman. 

I’m an Aboriginal woman, one who takes her Culture very seriously. I practice it as my spirituality right here on Darug land in Western Sydney.

One of my totems is the sulphur-crested cockatoo, and the other is a possum – they are all I need to connect to Ancestors and Country.

My appearance has always been a traffic stopper. I’ve never been able to go to the supermarket, a bathroom or to a meeting without making someone feel some sort of way.

Now, as Jedda, I’m surprised that – despite a few incidents – the majority of attention is positive. In general, people are accepting. In many ways I feel safer now, even in places outside of the queer community that I’d never felt safe in before. 

However, trans people still face a lot of discrimination. Employment and housing are difficult, and Black trans women in Australia are amongst the most vulnerable in our communities.

One thing that did come as a surprise was that I didn’t find many allies in gay men. It’s a very different experience now on Oxford Street as a trans woman and not a drag queen.

This is something I hope that, as a community, we reflect on.

Image: Gemini (right) at Eya! You Think You’r Deadly? at the Red Rattler. Photo by Sarah Malone.

In my Culture, there is a death beyond death.

See, we believe in reincarnation: when you die, you come back as your totem. As a sulphur-crested cockatoo, I’ll be able to fly, while remaining spiritually involved with the community. That honestly sounds like heaven to me. I can watch over the people I love, fly wherever the wind takes me, and finally see all the world – and maybe the universe – while shitting on the colony from a safe distance.

During times of spiritual healing, it’s not only my totem who joins me, but the ducks along the riverbank, and a tawny frogmouth who visits when weird energy lingers.

The tawny frogmouth guards over our house, but often sits within a few metres of me, engaging in a late night conversation with its quiet language and piercing eyes.

The strained relationship I have with my family reminds me of an article I read about the Macquarie Courts on the riverbank in my Nation.

A man was trialled, and they cut out a shape of him from the bark of a tree. They lay the bark man on the ground and proceeded to execute the man in a ritualistic manner.

The man, after the ceremony, was banished. A dead man, dead name. That is a death worse than death.

So you see, it’s as if the mob respected the dead man in his life, but not in his death – a wise woman I know said that.

The widow of my “dead” self is who I am now: a six foot woman who’s a total knockout in heels, stirring up a lot of feelings and hate.

I’ve always just felt like that girl. And now it’s just my coming out party, my gender reveal – and it’s one to celebrate. Maybe I’m just BRAT.

I’ve learned that the most important thing is to love yourself. Families come in many forms, and they’re easy to recognise because they’ll celebrate the highs, and stick with you through the mud.

Making mistakes in life is normal, and often it’s about finding peace rather than seeking resolution. I’ve learnt to find peace.

Our journeys and our stories are what’s important – particularly for trans people and particularly now. I still grow fearful for the future and the increasing discrimination against trans people.

So just like my Ancestors, I share my journey, my story, because I know many will listen, and some will also relate.

This exchange can lead to the community and sense of belonging that helped me finally feel at home – connected not just here in Sydney, but also back home on Country.