Leonie Dickinson Interviewer: Emma Shield, Project Co-Curator

Project: Small Town Queer podcast interviews Interviewee/s: Leonie Dickinson Interviewer: Emma Shield, Project Co-curator. Location recorded: Murwillumbah, New South Wales, Australia. Date: 01/02/2021 Transcription by: Emma Shield, Project Co-Curator.

Small Town Queer Podcast Series Episode Seven: Creating A Community

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(Introduction) Emma: You are listening to the Small Town Queer podcast produced by Tweed Regional Museum in Northern New South Wales, Australia. Follow us as we uncover and explore Tweed's rich queer history from the early 1900s to the present. The Museum has collaborated with LGBTQIA+ community members to collect, share and preserve the histories of Tweed's many and varied queer voices.

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(Aboriginal Acknowledgement) Emma: We wish to recognize the generations of local Aboriginal people of the Bundjalung Nation who are the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which we are recording this podcast today.

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(Podcast Hosts) My name is Emma Shield, and my name is Erika Taylor, and we are the curators of the Small Town Queer digital project and exhibition.

(Interviewer) Emma: Hello! On today's podcast, we're talking with Leonie Dickinson. Leonie works in vocational education and training, dividing her time between the Tweed and the Northern Territory, where she specializes in working with Aboriginal people from remote communities. Before moving to the Tweed Coast from Melbourne in 2004, Leonie studied at the Australian Film Television and Radio School in the late 1980s. Leonie became a Film Director and Digital Content Producer and was the first female in the audio department at Channel 7

in Melbourne. In 2017 Leonie created an inclusive online community for Lesbian and [self-identified] Dyke campers, which currently boasts almost 2500 members.

(Emma): Welcome, Leonie. Thank you for joining us. We're starting our podcast series by asking all of our participants: how do you identify as a small-town queer?

(Leonie): Um, well, on two levels there; one is that I identify as a Lesbian, but I also strongly identify as a small-town survivor. Growing up in a small town in rural Victoria, I always knew that I was different, but I didn't have any models role models to tell me what that difference was. I thought I was just a tomboy, and then years later, I discovered soft butch.

(Emma): And did you discover that by leaving a small town and going to move somewhere else?

(Leonie): Um, look, I can't remember what I came across, but at 12 years old, I actually came out at school. And um, the girls who I'd, the kids I'd gone to school with all reacted with a distance, and I thought, oh I've done the wrong thing. So I immediately jumped back into the closet, and then, you know, Uni was basically a safe place, you know, ten years later. Um, you know, we were discussing things, and where it was philosophically open and, you know, we were the hippie, you know last of the era of the 70s. The Lesbian Movement scared the hell out of me at first because it was, um, in the late 70s, it was still strongly separatist, and I have ten brothers, and so it was. I just thought, oh, you know I'm not about to cut out all of my siblings here. Um, so look, I think I was a bit late for Aquarius Festival as well. So I'm sure it had some impact, you know, in a trickle-down effect, uh, but I, I was post that really. And you know, I was just post Women's Lib[eration] stuff, but it was, I think it was probably more Feminism that drew me to Lesbianism, um and that, there were basically, you know, some Lesbians around me at Uni.

(Emma): Did you ever feel pressured to be part of the Separatist Movement? (Leinie): Um... (Emma): Which was a strong movement within Feminism as well, too, so…

(Leonie): I didn't feel pressured to become part of the Separatist Movement, although my first girlfriend and I, we identified strongly as not being Separatists, and we took quite a few years to find each other. I was a late, late starter with relationships. I wasn't in a relationship until I was 24, even though I'd identified as a Lesbian for three or four years.

(Emma): What attracted you to the point where you decided to actually move here [Tweed Shire]?

(Leonie): I think the natural beauty of the Northern Rivers has always been the magnet, you know. You've got beaches and hinterland, and you couple that with it was the largest Gay and Lesbian um Community outside of Sydney, or you know Melbourne outside of any city. And then for me, it simply became that the internet, even though it was ADSL, you know, um, became usable from a distance. So I was able to, um, sit in an in a home office writing scripts and then, you know, putting in funding applications from a little regional hub really and Screenworks had just started in Byron Bay, and it was a brilliant resource, and there were a few of us that made the move out of Sydney or Melbourne.

(Emma): What kind of work were you doing in the Northern Rivers at that point?

(Leonie): In the early days of moving up, um, I was still aspirational to direct films. I, you know, I've made a living as a Sound Recordist for 15 years, and um, had sold some films to ABC and SBS as a Director. Um, but it was, I wanted writing time, so I kind of got stuck into that and then very fortunate because every man and their dog wants to be a Filmmaker or Director, um fortunately for me I got into teaching and um, I started teaching filmmaking, and I commuted from Byron bay to Grafton for seven years [laugh]. (Emma): It is a long way for our listeners that aren't aware of that particular trek! [Laugh]. (Leonie): Yeah, yeah. So, it was a two-hour drive for work, and I used to stay down there two or three nights a week and taught at Grafton TAFE very happily for a number of years part-time, also still writing the scripts and putting in my funding applications.

(Emma): What were the themes you were wanting to write about or explore in your writing and documentary filmmaking?

(Leonie): Comedy documentaries is my theme. Um, so, I'm always, you know, looking for the ordinary, and you know trying to find a twist on it. In the last few years, I've got into management in education, so, um, that kind of, uh and I also as a Sound Recorder so I specialized in working in Aboriginal communities and I did that. I've worked with Aboriginal communities, um mostly in central Australia and probably over a 30-year period. And so, culture and ceremony and things like that have been really important in my work. So now I, I've semi-retired, camping, rest and relaxation have taken on a bigger passion. I'm still doing some teaching

because I love the face-to-face relationship but um, watch this space for Van Dykes… I'm open; I've just started to think about will I go down the road of, you know, some formal documentary idea.

(Emma): I think, um I think you're on to something there because maybe for people that aren't familiar with Van Dykes and I'll ask you to introduce the listeners to the group, it's a very interesting story, and we explore a little bit of it in an article that we've written about women's only [spaces] and it as Leonie says it's not a separatist group but you, there is a little bit of criteria for joining and some expectations about, you know, what the content is that's discussed. It's a Facebook group, but people meet up all the time as an individual, um travelling companions, but also you organize a few events, and we'll talk a little bit about that. So for the listeners, can you tell us about Van Dyke's? How, what was the impetus for it?

(Leonie): The impetus for Van Dykes grew out of Melbourne Cup day about four years ago. Having grown up in Victoria and lived in Melbourne, it was a public holiday, and I found myself working. I thought stuff this [laugh]. I used to hang with a group of artists by the Maribyrnong River, and we used to watch all the rich people come back in their wealthy boats getting booked by the Water Police on Melbourne Cup day, and that was our entertainment. I just thought I need to hang with a bunch of people on Melbourne Cup day, and I thought, who do I most want to hang with? It was obvious, a bunch of Lesbians - is what I've got most in common with. And so, it was a very simple thing. I'd just driven back from Alice Springs yet again back to the East Coast, and along the way, I'd met a couple of older Lesbians we were in another camping group that had kind of gone pear- shaped. It was a women-only camping group on Facebook, and I just thought, I think there's a need here, and more so, I'm looking for a gang. So I thought I'll just start my own group.

(Emma): Um, we have another one of our participants that we interviewed, we, uh, he described moving to the Northern Rivers as he's sort of finding his spiritual tribe, and I wonder if Van Dykes is a bit like a tribe?

(Leonie): Yeah, Van Dykes is definitely a tribe; it's a very diverse tribe. What surprises me is that I think I've been, um, in a safe house for a long time of hanging out with mostly Left-wing Feminists. Van Dykes has got some right-wing women in there that, um I kind of I can't relate to politically, but it's in an apolitical space, and it's about the love for camping and caravanning and open space um, so that

kind of, that keeps a lid on anything that, um, is a ripple, so it's pretty easily um quelled if there are any issues.

(Emma): So, what are the criteria for joining Van Dykes? Like how do you, I mean, it's a Facebook group, but you don't necessarily know to look for it? So it's possible you've heard, uh, through word of mouth on a camping trip or through your other lesbian networks of this group. So how do you find the group? How do you join? What're the criteria?

(Leonie): It's um, www.facebook.com/VanDykes which is a pun on van life. Um, it still keeps being spread through word of mouth. It's, in fact, it's all been word of mouth. The article in, um Out in Perth and Small Town Queer is the only publicity, as such we've ever had. Everything else is word of mouth.

(Emma): But you also organize, uh, big camp once or twice a year as well?

(Leonie): So yeah, so we camp, um we were camping, our first three camps were at Quirindi, so this is the annual camp and this year we've moved to Red Rock. Which is just 14 kilometres up the road because, um, we kept commuting anyway from Quirindi to Red Rock to kayak all day because that's all we do, we just sit by the water, and we laugh, and we tell stories and play cards and kayak, and then we sit by the water, and we laugh, and we tell stories, and then we kayak again. You know, so it's really, it's very low-key but that annual gathering I think has been a bit of a glue because we have women who come up from Melbourne and who come down from Queensland and you know obviously New South Wales, but we congregate, and it's just getting bigger and bigger. In the first 12 months, we also did a trip over to Nanak in Southern Western Australia, and we had about I think there were about 60 women that came along to that. I can't remember the numbers now; I could be exaggerating, um, but you know it's, with COVID, it's been a bit tricky, but my intention is to try do something in each state for the next few years.

(Emma) And there's the gathering online as well too. You've got a lot of visual storytellers, people who are documenting their travels, as well as potentially offering advice. Um, some of the images are really beautiful, um, and maybe for those people who haven't yet got their camp set up organized or their, uh researching what kind of van they want, it's very inspirational. And then to be able to find all these women online and then come together physically, it must be just an amazing experience and probably very reassuring for women that maybe have

come out later in life or are still in the questioning phase or just really are very isolated otherwise in their real life?

(Leonie): Yeah, look, I think there's kind of three themes there, which is that it reduces isolation, but it's also empowering because we've got some incredibly capable women who help each other with all kinds of information. You know, like I was asking some information about solar power before Christmas, you know, it's hive mind stuff that gets in there, and then it's the community when you do get together. So there's online community, that for me, has been so important because I spend so much of my working life in the [Northerm] Territory, um, and where I seriously am the only gay in the village, no joke, you know [laugh]. And here I can get online, and I've got a bunch of, a bunch of dags, a bunch of dykes to have a few jokes with.

(Emma): And maybe a few debates, that you have to moderate sometimes [laugh[.

(Leonie): I don't mind moderating, you know. I mean, sometimes I'll let things run, uh if there's something of descent that's, you know, that's got, that's polite, and we're educating each other. That's okay. I'll kind of let it run. It's a bit of a rare beast, um, but when it does happen, and it's, and it's polite, I think that's good for us all to feel our diversity to know our diversity we're not just left-wing, you know.

(Emma): That's a very good point. I think in the virtual realm, you can certainly find yourself in an echo chamber. Um, certainly 'the Left' is accused of that all the time, and you're right my experience of reading some of the debates, conversations or discussions on the Van Dykes Facebook page is that there is a very diverse set of views, and it's wrong for people to assume that purely because you're a Lesbian and you live may be in a certain place you're going to have this set of values or political beliefs, and they definitely play out virtually, so it is great because you are exposed to other ideas, and for the most part people are pretty, I think, respectful in the way that they convey those ideas. I don't see too many people trying to cancel or, um, abuse someone in return, and as a result, I don't think you do have to step in too much. People are pretty self-moderating for the most part, aren't they?

(Leonie): Yeah, I think people are pretty um self-moderating, and in fact, more likely the comment is that they're drawn and want to be in Van Dyke's because that stuff isn't there. That it's a positive, feel-good group they can find their echo chamber in plenty of other groups, uh on Facebook, whereas Van Dykes is known as the friendly welcoming group.

(Emma): A lot of lesbian spaces are, no longer exist, the physical ones I'm talking about. Whether they be bars or whatever meeting place that, um, that women tend to, Lesbian women have traditionally congregated in, so I think the virtual realm is incredibly important. The lack of those spaces, particularly in regional Australia, so I think it has a lot of value in that respect, as well too. Because you can join a group like Van Dykes yes, it is about camping, but you get, as you say, so much more from it. You might not even be ready to camp, but you've had a lot of camping, or you used to camp when you're a child. So you're right, it has these sort of these, it's almost like a two-fold effect - you're there, and you're getting lots of great information about camping and about Australia too, but also you're finding a community within a community in a way.

(Leonie): Look, we really are a bunch of van-dags, you know. (Emma): That needs to be the next t-shirt, I think [laugh]. (Leonie): You hang out on a weekend with Van Dykes, and it's like a group of cockney men, you know. The level of innuendo and kind of sexual jokes that would not pass muster anywhere else. In Van Dykes they're known as just being; it's been, it's kind of safe and dagging and stupid, and you're laughing at the cultural norm that's out there.

(Emma): I also think the great thing about meeting up with, um, other Van Dyke travellers on the road or going to one of the events that you organize is it's so great for single or solo women who maybe are frightened to get out there and camp on their own. Understandably, there're, you know, there are legitimate reasons why it's unsafe for women to be camping alone. However, there's some great advice, and they're always seems to be somebody saying: "hey, are you in this area?" or, you know, "are you, I'm heading in this direction, what's your advice, or do you want to meet up?". So my question is why is it really important for particularly, uh, women on their own to camp, and how is Van Dykes, um, able to facilitate that?

(Leonie): Look, the exact reason why I started Van Dykes was for single solo travelling women like me. Um, I wasn't interested in a dating group, you know. If somebody turned up, yeah, great [laugh] but, you know I've been virtually mostly single for a seven-year period, and I'm after community, you know. I want a group that I can hang out with. I'm not hankering to meet 'Ms Right', you know, I want the gang that I can, you know, go kayaking with on the weekend but that I can also be travelling from Cairns or Townsville down to, um, back to Byron [Bay] or Pottsville and hoping that I'll bump into somebody on the way. Because part of the caravan

park experience can be very isolating. If you're a serious traveller, there's this 'six o'clock swill' as I call it that that happens. That's full of couples that, they're quite friendly, but I've often got very little in common with them. Um, and it's a bit kind of 'bloke's world' as well, and as a 60-year-old woman, I just kind of go: I don't want to be told how to fix my battery, thank you very much, you know. I'll ask a Van Dyke, you know. In truth, the um, there's a broad demographic within Van Dykes, like if I actually do a search on it, um, the age range is broad. However, it's the um, the vocal majority are women over 55 and um, I think we've been looking for something to belong to again for a long time. We were the women who had women's dances in the 80s. Those were our social gatherings, you know, there was, that they were charity events that, you know, where it'll be a women's band, a live band playing, um and we would, there will be you know 200 women that would turn up to Paddo Town Hall or Northgate Town Hall in Melbourne, wherever it was. And they were great gatherings, and I think we're just looking for something similar, and it's low key again. It's a broad, um basis in which together. You know, that those women's um dances were largely put on by the Feminists, but the Sporty Dykes would turn up, and the Bar Dykes would turn up, and you know the women with no politics at all would turn up, and we'd all be together. So I think it's a similar thing, and I think that's why Van Dykes works. Then it was about the music or the gathering or the fun, this is, it's the same time.

(Emma): When you go, when you rock up to an annual Van Dykes camp, um, I'm assuming you kind of take over the park; you probably have the majority of the spots. What kind of reaction do you get from maybe people who aren't part of the Van Dykes camp but are holidaying in the area?

(Leonie): To be honest with you, when we as a big group, as the annual gathering turn up and take over Quirindi, or Red Rock or wherever, I don't notice the other people that much. I'm so busy hanging with the Lesbians that it's like this is my world, you know. So I don't notice those people much; however, when I do, I notice the blokes are mostly bemused and at a loss as to what their function might be. And the women, in the toilets, [are] really curious [laugh]. There are conversations that happen in the toilets where the women are kind of asking questions, and they say things like; you know that that really daggy phrase, which is, you know, "well some of my best friends are gay". You know, don't drop that into the conversation [laugh]. The truth is, it's a really different world, you know. People know now, people are more accepting but also that if they're not so accepting, they know that that's not appropriate, so they don't show it, you know. So we, you know, we are so much safer in the world than what we were 20 years ago, so it's, you know, thank God really. Thank God bloody Australia moved on.

(Emma): I often try to think about, um, what a young Queer person is thinking or imagining when they're reading the Small Town Queer exhibition website. Or they just happen to be holidaying with their family near a Van Dykes camp and wondering: who are all these women and what's going on? You know, that visibility is probably very reassuring even if they themselves aren't really sure of their own identity. Um, there is a real lack of Lesbian Culture in mainstream media; it's to this day, you know. You really just don't see too many lesbian characters. So it's hard to look at mainstream media to get some reassurance about who you are or to see the diversity within the Lesbian Community. So, I feel like online communities are a great place to meet people who might be like you, to get a better sense of who you are. Do you find that there are women joining Van Dykes who are going through that at some point in their life? They're questioning, or they're finally out of the, you know, their marriage, that they got into very young and, you know, obviously it hasn't worked out. Do you meet women like that very often, or is that maybe too personal in a conversation for a Van Dykes [?]...

(Leonie): No, no, it's not too personal. No, um, how I relate to that is that as a child, my family, we would go to Melbourne and we would go to South Melbourne Beach, and I can remember my mum had this thing that she had 'gaydar' far superior to anyone I know. And she would she'd kind of call me close, and she'd point out a group of women that often had short hair, um, sitting together maybe half a dozen of them, but she used to come she'd whisper in my ear, and she'd say "look at those women up there, I reckon they're a group of nuns". [Laugh]. (Emma:): That could mean so many different things [laugh]. (Leonie): [Laugh]. Exactly! Lesbian Nuns! [Laugh]. She had no idea that she was looking at Lesbians, possibly. And you just think, you know, what glasses do you wear in the world, what lens do you wear in the world, you know? And what you're hunting for? You know, I was hungry to find some of those references.

(Emma): Why is it important to you to collect and preserve queer history but particularly local or regional queer history and objects?

(Leonie): Look, I haven't thought greatly about it, but recently, um, recently, I was on an, um, an online forum, and I just made the quote to "subvert the dominant paradigm", and um, and I thought people don't know what that is. But in the late 80s, late 90s, that was a sticker we all had on our car. If you were left-wing, that was your sticker, you know. So to feel that I am contributing to, look, I just wanted a community. To now know that that community is really providing a service, particularly to older women in the community in decreasing isolation, I feel so

happy, you know. I just feel like wow, how good is this, you know. It's a really simple thing, and, um, it makes me feel part of something. So to feel that other women might get that feeling, I just go: great!"

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(Outro) Emma: Thank you for listening to the Small Town Queer podcast. To hear more Small Town Queer stories, subscribe to the series and like, share and review this episode, and check out the Small Town Queer playlist on Spotify curated by museum staff and project participants. For more information about Small Town Queer, visit: https://museum.tweed.nsw.gov.au/small-town-queer

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(Thanks) Emma: Tweed Regional Museum is supported by the New South Wales Government through Create funding (NSW). This project would not have been possible without the support and collaboration of the people of Tweed, who have generously shared their lived experiences, archives and objects with this project.

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