This article was first published by NITV.

Warning: this article discusses themes that may be distressing to some readers, including queerphobia and suicide.

At the beginning of this month, Darlinghurst was exploding with colour and noise as the 47th Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade strutted down Oxford Street.

Both honouring protest for queer rights and celebrating the diversity of LGBTQAI+ communities, many participants join community floats to display their distinct identity.

Felicia Foxx, a high-profile Kamilaroi and Dunghutti drag performer, was one of these participants, donning an outfit inspired by their Koori cultures and queer identity.

Wearing a red laplap, underwear straps visible from the top, knee high red heeled boots, adorned with ochre and carrying a coastal fishing spear, this was Foxx’s take on the First Nations community float’s theme of ‘Free to Be Black Royalty’.

“I wore traditional ochre paint, which was gifted to me by an Uncle from my Country, Uncle Raymond Weatherall, just before Mardi Gras.

“And I was taught how to paint myself correctly as a gay Aboriginal man who would be going into war coming from the Kamilaroi clan.”

Posting their outfit to social media, Foxx received “immense” support - until trolls began sending abuse, much of it focused on the intersection of her culture and identity.

“Calling me a poofter, telling me to go kill myself, telling me that I’m not a part of the culture ... that I am not worthy of being an Aboriginal man.”

Foxx says the comments, and the sentiments behind them, are bigotry masquerading as culture.

“They are hiding their homophobia behind their culture. And it’s my culture,” Foxx told NITV.

“I am a gay Aboriginal man, and that’s something that I have to live with and deal with every single day, 365 days a year. I can’t wake up and put my queerness aside. I can’t wake up and put my Blackness aside.”

Studies show the challenges facing queer mob

Felicia is not alone in facing challenges at the intersection of queerness and First Nations identity.

Professor Corrinne Sullivan is a Wiradjuri academic and Associate Dean of Indigenous Education in the School of Social Sciences are Western Sydney University.

She is currently leading projects focusing on queer First Nations needs and aspirations for the future, saying that the experience of being both is sometimes “a double-edged sword of discrimination”.

Her research shows three main trends in queer First Nations mental health and wellbeing, experiencing:

• An increase in discrimination, facing both racism and queerphobia.  
• Challenges in their cultural identity and connection to community, due to lateral shaming and discrimination from other mob.  
• A lack of comprehensive services that effectively include both First Nations and queer identities. 

“Now this isn’t saying that all queer mob feel disconnected or that all mob are queerphobic,” she told NITV.

“But what is happening is that there are some communities and some individuals that do discriminate against our own queer mob, here in New South Wales and across Australia.”

She says there’s also evidence that some rejection of queer mob can be religiously motivated, “which I find surprising, because it’s kind of conflated with our cultural identities.”

Queer identity a ‘decolonisation’

Dylan Hoskins is a gender non-conforming Dunghutti, Gumbayngirr and Bundjalung person, who also says being queer and First Nations is challenging across multiple fronts.

“Being a First Nations queer person is the decolonisation of these western structures that we exist within. It’s a form of resilience, fighting both as a black person and a queer person, against a constant structure that has never had a place for us.”

While acknowledging the “powerful allies” in First Nations community who advocate for queer mob, Dylan still sees “culture becoming weaponised, where people try and misconstrue the authenticity and wholesomeness and the positive nature of self-expression and self-identity”.

“[Being queer] is not attacking their culture. It’s not attacking their identity. It’s not harming them in any way. It’s not harming their understanding of cultural practice or ceremony.

“It’s simply someone expressing identity and that duality.”

Both Felicia and Dylan are concerned with the mental health challenges facing not just queer mob but the greater Indigenous community.

“Hone in on actual problems that we have happening communities,” Felicia says.

“We do have a very high rate of suicide in our communities, especially for queer Aboriginal people, and we need to be worrying about the substance abuse, the domestic violence that we are facing in communities.

“You know, we wonder why we have so many Aboriginal people, especially Aboriginal men, who are taking their lives.”

Dylan wants community members to “[not] start wars within our community when we’ve already got so many things going on in this country that needs to be addressed. To then focus on a minority within a minority”.

Despite facing stigma, queer First Nations feel a strong sense of community, connection and pride in their identity.

Professor Sullivan says she celebrates, “the way queer mob make community with and for each other”.

“There’s this beautiful thing around ‘big queer mob love’. Where we do look after each other and find spaces for each other.”

Dylan recognises the “beautiful Elders and allies within our community that really go into bat, nurture and hold space. They’re part of the movement and the activism that comes along with being Black and queer.”

As for Felicia, if they had the opportunity to do Mardi Gras all over again – they wouldn’t change a thing.

“I would wear the exact same outfit, because at the end of the day, that is who I am. I am a gay, proud, Aboriginal Kamilaroi and Dunghutti man.

“I think what I was doing at Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras was being that visibility and representation so that young queer Black mob can take strength from that.

“Be empowered to go and do anything in this world. Because nothing is impossible at the end of the day.”

By Phoebe McIlwraith of NITV.