Round One 2022 Grant Recipients

Social Lesbians in Melbourne

This group is for women for social networking from our LGBTIQ community.  The group’s focus is on improving the connectedness of the lesbian community in Melbourne through social activities.  All LGBTIQ women and their women allies are welcome to all events.

Social Lesbians in Melbourne aim to improve the access of lesbians to programs, services, activities and opportunities available to the general community by communicating and bringing along information to the activities for discussion, sharing and networking.

Ripe Development Program

With the grant from Lesbians Incorporated Fruit Box Theatre will help fund a development session for their Ripe Development Program. Ten LGBTQI+ Sydney-based actors and five LGBTQI+ playwrights based anywhere in Australia will be selected to participate in the Program. Which will include a day-long session full of workshops, consultation and brainstorming. These sessions will directly impact and advance the development of an original script, it will also unite a community of queer theatre-makers in a safe, collaborative and cathartic environment.

Throughout 2022, writers will work closely with the Artistic Director and engage in development sessions with actors to workshop scripts from conception to fruition. FBT’s creative process is focused on camaraderie, collaboration and catharsis. The Program will directly involve and benefit the ten LGBTQI creatives involved and will indirectly benefit the broader queer community by improving queer representation on stage.

Pride Round (South Coast women’s soccer)

Pride Round will be a round where all three women’s sides will play at home at Sidd Bigg Park, on a Monday night June 6, 2022. The Wallabies will play teams from across the Gold Coast and northern NSW.

In conjunction with the pride round, Football Queensland and the club will deliver an LGBTI+ education session to all participating and non-participating teams in the lead-up to Pride Round. Pride Round will promote, in a vibrant way, that Mudgeeraba – and more broadly soccer in Queensland – welcomes lesbians and the LGBTQ+ community.

Daddy Developed a Pill a trans lesbian farce 

The Australian Premiere of the play Daddy Developed a Pill a trans lesbian farce at Kings Cross Theatre in 2022. 

Daddy Developed a pill is a surrealist lesbian trans farce programmed for Kings Cross Theatre’s 2022 mainstage season. Set over one chaotic night of deviance and debauchery. A line-up of sixteen psychotic characters portrayed by only three actors means fast wit with even faster quick changes against a backdrop of an upper-middle-class identity crisis with mortal stakes. It is the Australian classic Don’s Party meets the vibrant drug-addled queerness of Euphoria, with a swift injection of an Apple keynote.

Cashless Terminals, The Pollys Club

The Pollys Club holds dances at Marrickville Town Hall and with the grant from LInc they will be able to offer door entry sales and refreshment sales via a cashless payment system.

A cashless payment system will help towards reducing concerns over hygiene and the spread of COVID-19, it will also alleviate the need for a substantial float at the locations. Patrons will no longer have to carry money for entry and bar purchases, nor will they have to rush to a nearby ATM when wanting to pay at the door – ultimately making it safer for all.

Vintage Rainbow Music YouTube Channel

Providing a safe place for lesbians and the wider LGBTIQA+ community to gather on YouTube. To provide a behind-the-scenes example of lesbian marriage thereby normalising lesbian marriage. By focusing on things that we all have in common, we will be normalising lesbian marriage. These things include home life such as house maintenance, gardening, housework, budgeting, music, vintage, joy, comedy and encouragement we will in fact be teaching the wider audience without them realising that they’re being taught. They will aim to release approximately 3 YouTube videos per week. 2 of these videos would be on Homelife and Vintage. 1 of these videos would be a music Livestream where both my wife Lisa and I perform music and comedy.

Female Gaze

Female Gaze is a violet-hue space created for connection. Lamenting the loss of space for women loving women, Female Gaze has been conceptualised through many conversations with women yearning for a queer space that is not male-dominated.

Combining live performance, storytelling, multimedia and sound, Female Gaze is part creative celebration and part social gathering. Leaning on my extensive connections within the creative industries, I’ll engage a selection of queer women and non-binary folks to present work over the course of a night supported by social injections to allow for conversation and connection. The event will end with a dance party – providing space for patrons to get down and dirty to queer anthems.

Female Gaze is a chance to test the waters and gauge Sydney’s response to events like this. Should it be successful, I hope to develop it into a regular event so that women loving women can gather in a space that celebrates female agency, creativity, sexuality and power.

Please note that Female Gaze is an inclusive event. The focus is on providing space for women and non-binary folks, this explicitly includes trans women as trans women are women. Recognising that identity can be fluid, community consultation will be sought to ensure inclusivity and safe space are prioritised. 

Out in the Outback

Out in the Outback is a weekly volunteer-run radio program that aims to build community and LGBTIQ+ visibility in Broken Hill and its surrounds. 

They will use their LInc grant to obtain a custom domain and website to host podcasts and curate information about upcoming community events and publish additional material to support the conversations we have on our show. The show will interview local LGBT community members, with these interviews they can document queer stories in rural NSW on the website, to build an audience and resources for the LGBT community out here. 

 A Cultural Aboriginal Cruise for Older Lesbians

Ten Forty Matrix will book a Cultural Tour of Sydney Harbour in September, with Tribal Warrior an Aboriginal organisation. The cruise will be aboard the Mari Nawi (big canoe). The plan is for a minimum of 40 participants. This can easily be increased if we get more interest as the Mari Nawi can hold up to 150. Participants will learn the traditional culture, history, and stories of Sydney Harbour. They will hear stories of the Gadigal, Guringai, Wangal, Cammeraigal, and Wallumedegal people of Sydney Harbour and learn the Aboriginal names and meaning of the significant Sydney landmarks, before stepping ashore on Be-lang-le-wool (Clark Island). They will learn about pre-colonisation life, indigenous coastal lifestyle, traditional fishing methods and food gathering techniques.