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Thorne Harbour Health is committed to ensuring that our organisation, services and events are accessible and inclusive of gender, sex, and sexually diverse people with disabilities.

In partnership with Inclusion Designlab, Thorne Harbour Health engaged a number of community members with disability to share their stories and perspectives. The people involved hope they can provide some much needed positive representation, support and connection for other LGBTIQ people with disability.

How do you introduce yourself?I’m Alex Creece, a glitter grub, grotty gremlin, and goofy goober.What are you passionate about?Literature! Arts! Creativity! Human rights and inclusion! Community goodness! Mental health and wellbeing! Kindness! Critters! Friendship! Sleep routines!How do you spend your time?Reading, tinkering with words (either my own or other people’s), collecting treasures as if I’m a crow, crafting bizarro art, collaborating on community projects, very occasionally gaming (I get obsessed too easily), hiding from my dog as I try to eat crisps (she’s like the ear monster from A Quiet Place), and trying to hold myself together as a human being (somehow!).What does Pride mean to you?I hate to call anything a ‘journey’ because it’s rather clichéd, so I’m not going to do that. (Although obviously this word came to mind, so the implication is that it may be something of a journey.)I have a lot of confidence issues, so concepts like pride and self-belief make me a little swampy behind the knees. But I think pride can come in many forms – it’s about owning your identity in a way that’s comfortable for you. Phrases like ‘loud and proud’ describe pride as more of a shared experience, or one that manifests as a euphoric celebration. Although pride can definitely be fostered as a community, it’s also a process that we continue to negotiate within ourselves. These internal manifestations of pride are much quieter, yet so important.Furthermore, pride doesn’t mean glossing over the challenges. You can still be proud without liking everything about yourself, or without pretending that aspects of your identity are easy to bear. Society can be hostile, and there are times where my vulnerabilities feel like such an ill-fitting burden within it. But being proud means believing that I deserve to be treated with dignity, and that I deserve to be included, even at times when I’m unfortunately not. Pride is knowing what you deserve, even when other people haven’t yet caught up to it.What is your favourite thing about yourself?My chaotic energy. I spent years too scared to take up space, to share anything about myself, to let people see or know me in any meaningful way. But it was never enough to even convince people – I still came off as chaotic, just in a different way – and I was miserable the whole time.

How do you identify/ how do you introduce yourself?My name is Dr. Christopher Bryant, and I’m a queer man.What are you passionate about?Creativity! I’m a theatre-maker and author, but creativity exists in everything, not just ‘the arts’ - it’s in making a nice meal, in finding creative ways to support friends in need, or in the way you dress for any occasion.How do you spend your time?Reading, writing, sleeping. A lot of sleeping at the moment.What does Pride mean to you?

Tell us a little about yourself.I live in St Kilda with partner Lee and two cats — Tribble and Boop. I'm an artist (written and performing arts) and I make podcasts (producing, directing, acting). I use a powered wheelchair - the 'space chair' cause it’s like a spaceship.How do you identify?I'm a queer, trans, bisexual, pansexual, disabled, fat, polyamorous artist and a ‘pretentious Melbourne hipster arts wanker’ who likes arts, brunch, and talking about pretentious things at the Art Centre. And I'm a leather-man/kinkster.What are you passionate about?EVERYTHING. I’m laid back, but in a passionate way. I care a lot about community involvement, which can look like a lot of things. It has looked different for me and my partner over the years, but humans are social animals and we actively need to interact with others in our society to be healthy as people. I think that’s important to nurture in yourself, as much as your diet. It’s one of the strengths of humanity, that we know how to cooperate and work together.I'm passionate about accessibility and art. The older I get, the less I care if art (any kind) is good, or if I like it. What matters to me is if it’s interesting.I'm passionate about volunteering. I used to do a lot of volunteering with VicLeather, event organising etc. Volunteering with podcasting! It doesn’t have to look like formal volunteering, which can have requirements that a lot of us can’t meet. But it’s important to find some ways to contribute to your communities, because giving back is good for YOU.How do you spend your time?I spend most of my day in bed! I spend around 6 hours a day on average on bed rest, so when I’m in my day bed and working on my podcasts from there, I do creative writing, research (some for work, sometimes just for the fun of it), audio editing, and production planning.I socialise from bed via social media. I spend SO much time on Twitter (it’s a hellscape but so is all social media). Twitter is really good for community building, but it’s also one of the few platforms that isn’t focused on what you look like.Lee and I go on dates a lot. The movies, the theatre when we can afford it. Live streaming isn’t the same. Now that I’ve got my chair, we go for walks a lot. We’ve been together for 10 years so we do most things together — spending too long deciding what we want for dinner, watching TV together, what you’d expect. It’s normal, it’s very boring. When you’re in a good relationship, it can be boring and that’s great.Neither of us have been dating anyone else for a while, but when we do (we date individually not as a couple) we’re not the ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ poly type, we bring our dates home to meet each other and stuff.Lee works on the podcast too. Making art with your partner is a really good thing.The moments when I’m happiest is when Lee and I would go to our local pub for brunch. We’d talk about politics, and do some script editing, and watch dogs walking past — eating avocado toast in the sunshine. Every single time, I think about how happy I am and how grateful I am.What does Pride mean to you?Interesting question, because think trying to narrow it down, Pride is an understanding and acceptance of my own self worth. It's about recognising myself as a complete human and celebrating myself as a complete human. When you narrow down queer pride, disabled pride, etc., it all comes down to it being that I am a worthy, complete person and that’s worth celebrating.What’s your favorite thing about yourself?I have so many things I love about myself!It’s contextual: if I'm thinking about it physically it’s different to my favourite thing about myself in a relationship.I love my patience. I have almost endless patience which is a side effect of the disability I have. You learn to be patient when you have to wait days between being able to do things.I love my curiosity, and I’m a very cerebral person. I like to spend a lot of time thinking about things, which is goodI don’t sweat the small stuff.I have a very good mum voice. I can command attention without being threatening. I’ve worked very hard to be non-threatening.I love my facial hair! I’m also very soft and huggable.What do people find surprising about you?That I can basically make a podcast from bed. I have a table from Aldi that I have on an angle, and my monitor strapped to that with some pillows I’ve bundled up under my arms.

Thorne Harbour Health is a registered LGBTIQA+ NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) provider. Our NDIS services support the needs of our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender diverse, queer and intersex communities to ensure that all gender, sex, and sexually diverse individuals are treated with dignity and can participate fully in society. This commitment is set out in our Diversity Statement.

A team of LGBTIQA+ people with disability worked with Thorne Harbour Health and Inclusion Designlab to create a number of resources to support LGBTIQA+ people with disability to better understand their rights when accessing support.

Thorne Harbour Health and Inclusion Melbourne have released a set of resources for LGBTIQA+ people with disability to understand their rights and navigate Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).LGBTIQA+ people with disability consistently indicate that they have had poor experiences navigating both the NDIS planning process and working with NDIS registered providers in addressing their specific intersectional needs.The suite of resources includes: Knowing Your Rights: Disability & LGBTIQA+ Australians Preparing for your NDIS Plan LGBTIQA+ Clauses for Your ContractCommunity advocate Ruby Mountford was the project lead on the partnership between Thorne Harbour Health and Inclusion Melbourne.