A listener production. When I was finally able to stand in the truth of who I was and say that who
I am is enough and who I am is correct and who I am is valid, it was such a liberating feeling in
that moment. Hi, I'm Jess Rowe and this is the Jess Rowe Big Talk Show, a podcast that skips the
small talk and goes big and deep. From love to loss and everything in between, I want to show you
a different side of people who seem to have it all together in these raw and honest conversations
about the things that matter. I don't know about you but in this time of social isolation I really
crave connected conversations so I'm going to dig deep to give you a new window into the souls of
the people we're curious to get to know and understand. There might be tears as well as
laughter as we celebrate the real life flaws and vulnerabilities make us human. Courtney Act is a
trailblazer glittering on the international stage as a drag diva, reality star and social commentator
but she's so much more. Courtney is unashamedly open about her search for identity and spreading
queer joy. I first met Courtney when we did Celebrity Mastermind together, she of course
won. My subject choice of cats was no match for her knowledge of the nanny tv series. I was drawn
to her glamour then but knew that I had to talk to her after reading her extraordinary memoir
Caught in the Act. You are remarkable, I have just finished reading your memoir. I saw an Instagram
post of you reading it and I felt very honored. I inhaled it over two and a half days. I mean it
gives me sort of shivers when I think about it because you are so open and brave. I think that
the idea of being open about things that might sound like bravery but I think it's more that
it's easier to be honest and open about everything because then you've kind of got nothing to lose.
Does that make sense? I think it does because but to get to that point though
must have been hard because in the book you talk about revisiting times in your life and when you
were writing you were literally rocking and falling your eyes out. Yeah it was so fascinating
writing the book because you've got all of these stories that you've told many times like my first
kiss with the boy I've told this is a jovial cute story about the second level of stonewall by the
DJ booth but when you sit down to write it and you want to add in more description about the room and
you know the cigarette punctured leather couch and the sticky carpet and the music that was playing
and you go back and you google what was the top 40 that week that I arrived in Sydney and look
at all those songs and you're like oh Kylie Minogue's spinning around yes and you remember
all of those sensory memories that so often you don't recount when you're giving the bullet points
and you become immersed so deeply in the memory and now with your adult mind as well you look back
at that time and so many of the things that were happy or sad come with an overwhelming amount of
emotion because as humans I think we experience things and the things we're not capable of
understanding kind of get stored in like the cache I don't know if that's too techie but like the
cache of our brains where it's like it's not stored in the deep memory it's still sort of in
this in between like it might be used again soon and a little like on the bottom of your
computer screen when you've got like a something that pops up and it like wiggles at you to say
like this is open or there's a notification I think our brains are like that with memories that
aren't quite resolved and it keeps popping up and it keeps reminding you and it keeps playing into
your experience every single day until the time comes when you look back at it and you actually
feel the feelings of that time and then with your adult mind you're able to understand it and process
it and store it in your archives in a more organized manner and also to be compassionate
with that younger self because take us back to that sort of first boy kiss you just arrived in
Sydney you were what 18 yeah your Oxford street which is just paradise yeah and you weren't quite
sure at that point who you were yeah absolutely um I hadn't really acknowledged my sexuality
because I'd never had any examples of any positive examples of what being
queer meant of what being gay men of what being same-sex attracted meant and more than not having
positive examples I only had negative examples and it was mostly like the boys in the playground
calling you poof or faggot and not really knowing what that meant but knowing it was a bad thing
and I think in a way knowing that who I was wasn't bad and therefore not taking on those labels
because I didn't feel like who I was was wrong and it wasn't until I got to Oxford street and
walked into the Stonewall Hotel my friend Stephanie took me I was actually not willing to go I was a
little reluctant because I was it's not one of these gay bars is it like I was a bit but also
secretly inside squealing with delight but why were you reluctant why because I thought gay was
poofed up faggot and I thought that's what Stonewall was going to be I didn't I didn't
have a conscious understanding of anything beyond the negative slur I mean there was small examples
in childhood whether that was like Priscilla Queen of the Desert was probably the biggest one
Bob Down or Carlotta popping up on Good Morning Australia with Burt Newton but I think going to
Stonewall for that first time when I walked in the door and I felt the excitement and I I realized
that like I was able to dance and I was able to have fun like Kylie Minogue was playing and there
was other boys dancing and and in the the bars that I'd been to before the guys would stand on
the edge and the women would dance and I'd be the only boy on the dance floor and so it just kind of
felt like a homecoming and what a beautiful thing as an 18 year old yeah to think this I've come
home I've found my people yeah it's a wonderful feeling because it's not that I didn't have
connection with different groups of people growing up obviously my family very important to me
I went to the Fame Talent Agency and Theatre Company which was like a singing and dancing
and acting school and they were definitely my people but when there is a facet of your identity
that isn't acknowledged anywhere else and then you finally come to find a place where it is
that's a really powerful feeling and it's amazing to me when you when you connect with that and you
throw off the shame or the worry of what you think might happen and you embrace it there's something
that you can never understand from the other side before you've done it there's you can only
like intellectually understand it but until you've actually experienced it there's a level of
of freedom I think that comes with acknowledging the truth of your identity
and that's what I want to talk with you about now because you talk a lot about
finding your identity yeah who am I in your book and and it was something that I found fascinating
I sort of kept and I don't know if this is either the wrong or the right thing to say but I kept
wanting the answer yeah okay yeah is Courtney Courtney or is Courtney Shane yeah or or who are
you but it's not as simple as that I would say the easiest way to explain my identity which is I think
the confusing thing is is we know about maybe trans women we know about drag queens and then
people might look at me and say oh Courtney looks like a woman looks very feminine she must be a
trans woman or court but Courtney's a drag queen or is that trans woman a drag queen and in some
ways I probably confuse the whole conversation um but I think that the fact is that there's not
really a binary of yes or no or man or woman or trans and cis cis being someone who is not trans
and for me so I'm a cis woman you're a cis woman yes I like that yeah I'm a cis woman well cis woman
is uh cis is a latin term meaning on the same side of and trans is a latin term for on the other
side of so a trans woman is someone who is a woman but was obviously assigned male at birth but has
come to understand the truth of who they are internally to be a woman um and so for me
gender and vocation were strangely interlinked or maybe not so strangely and that was um a real
important understanding to come to where I'm Shane and I'm Courtney and I think they're two ends of
the same stick and just as you might go to a red carpet event and you get your makeup done and your
hair done you put on a gown I think that's all it is for me as well um it just maybe accidentally
accidentally I have two names I think I would almost prefer if I just had one name because
I think people see me as two different people when actually I'm consistently me I'm just wrapped
differently I guess on the outside pronouns that's another thing that I think a lot of people
grapple with and I know as Courtney you like to be she yeah Shane he yeah or do you prefer they
and them I'm happy with whatever pronoun the person is using like I understand that like
different pronouns can be confusing to me it would seem obvious that if I look feminine that I would
be a she if I look masculine I would be a he um but they is also fine and I think a lot of people
might be confused by they them pronouns it's a kind of conversation that is maybe just sort of
tapping on the edge of the mainstream we might have heard of people like Sam Smith and Demi Lovato
identifying with they them pronouns Australia's own G flip and I know it can be confusing for
people but the thing that I love about they them pronouns is that they're kind of punk
because they disrupt the system we're so used to everything being a he or a she
that when someone says that they're a they everybody instantly recoils and gets confused
and that doesn't make sense they is a plural and this doesn't and I'm confused and in that moment
I think that is having the desired effect I don't think that all people who identify with they them
pronouns are just doing it because they want to be political or punk I think it's because it feels
more comfortable to them but I think the process of they them pronouns of a gender neutral pronoun
actually deconstructs the idea of binary gender and I think that really
benefits women and men in ways that perhaps we're not aware of so yeah I think the idea of they
them pronouns can be confronting but I think maybe that's the point or that's one of the points is
that it is confusing and also I think could I say the point is it's about being seen yeah
and it's about being respected I actually had a thought the other day which I haven't shared
with anybody or thought about I realized that maybe if I lived in a world where they them
pronouns didn't have to be explained constantly that I might go with a they them pronoun
I was reading an article about me and it was like Brisbane boy he him it was all very like he he
and I there was just just there was some it's not that I don't acknowledge that all those things
are true and that journalist was completely doing what was correct but I found myself like
just feeling like a little bit like every time I read like the he and the him and it's not that
I don't acknowledge those things are true but whenever people refer to me more gender neutrally
lately I'm like oh that does feel nice but then what I realized much like wearing high heels
I don't quite have the energy anymore and that must be exhausting at times because it's kind of
like do I have to be the poster girl for all of this totally and which in a way I mean that's
what with this interview I mean I'm I'm asking yeah yeah for you to explain because as well I
think sometimes I want to consider myself an ally and to do sort of my best yeah but also as you say
there are sometimes those biases or those things where you think oh maybe that's the wrong thing
to say or I'm making a judgment in this particular way because in your book you write so much about
sex and initially when I read that oh exactly I was like clutching my purse I tell people to
put on a pearl necklace before they read just so they have something to clutch yes but in doing so
I then started to find it very freeing because I thought you know what I need to read about this
kind of sex yeah and there were parts dare I say that I found I mean I get a bit hot under the
collar that were really but they're exciting to read yeah well I wanted to include those because
I think sex is a part of most people's lives most consenting adults lives and I think that
queer sex is not something we ever hear a lot about we see heterosexual sex on tv screens
we see it everywhere we see examples of romance and a relationship and all of those sort of
heterosexual norms but when it comes to queer sex we're just starting to see queer identities
visible but the sex part is still sort of well I don't know whether it's taboo we just don't see
it and I thought you know what I'm just going to describe some sex acts because I don't think lots
of people who are reading this may have had experiences with that and it can be confronting
and it can be pearl clutching but I think like you described as you were reading it
once you got over that initial shock you maybe just saw the humanity of it oh and but also the
fun yeah it's fun and the joy in it and I think unfortunately we're so caught up in convention
but also how we should be talking about sex and how it needs to be like this or like that and
but the way that you wrote it I think was so freeing and also fun and that's what I loved
about it well I love that that was a takeaway for you because that's how I intended it and so it's
really validating to hear that that's yeah that was what you got from it because it is fun like
I think when it comes to sex as well there can be a lot of I guess you would call it slut shaming
and perhaps growing up in the queer community I had a different relationship to that I think I
realized recently as well is that I grew up being socialized what was acceptable and what was not
acceptable for a man to do and I never really fulfilled or lived up to those things but the
first time I put on drag I felt excited because I got to explore femininity and I felt free and I
was never socialized directly to understand what was okay and what was not okay for a woman
and because of that I don't have any of those I don't have any of that shame I understand that
I grew up in a essentially misogynistic society that taught us all to feel certain ways about
women and femininity I think that's also telling of how much of those feelings are not our own
that they're given to us by society because I think we often see what's in front of our face
and we often respond to our conditioning but we don't dig deeper or take a few steps back
and like I guess even the idea of like drag right me wearing women's clothes in in air quotes women's
clothes nobody was born wearing clothes there was nothing that said that people with vaginas had
to dress a certain way or people who had penises had to dress a certain way that's just something
that we've all consensually agreed upon and so once you take a step back maybe you can see
that the idea that women should wear dresses is actually the absurd thing not a boy wearing a dress
and I think that's why I love doing what I do a I love femininity but I also love again that
disruption it's almost like that punk element of well hang on wait maybe there's another way
to think about this well you challenge us and I think that's what is so special about you
and that I also get a sense that you're someone you're very authentic and you've always lived
your truth even though at times you've kind of grappled here with that I mean I think about
Australian Idol you're in that first season yeah and I mean for many young people also grappling
with their identity it was the first time they'd seen someone delightfully queer on the telling
yeah it was such an exciting time because there wasn't really much thought behind it more than
I love performing uh there's this new thing called reality television Australian Idol
I like to sing and I like to perform I'm gonna go along as Shane and then I thought you know what
I'm gonna go along the next day as Courtney as well I'll I'll see you again you're great thank
you you look familiar do I did you audition yesterday I could have possibly auditioned
yesterday I'm still I'm still unclear who were you yesterday Shane because you talk about in the
book afterwards how hard it was to suddenly be recognized and to feel almost trapped in a way
people want to tell you everything and you were suddenly known as this person because that that
was hard wasn't it that was challenging I think the there's I guess there's like what feels good
and I can be sometimes confusing to talk about because we talk about you know what feels good
to you or do that or or listen to you listen to your voice inner voice that sort of thing but it
can be very very confusing to understand what is our our inner voice and what are the other voices
that are not our inner voice trying to I think the real uh journey is understanding which one
of those voices is our inner voice and for me that was the voice that felt good the inner voice is
the one that makes you feel good and that I guess it's like it's almost like I don't know
like your head and your stomach or your head and your heart and your stomach like those three things
are all saying the same thing I feel like that's the inner voice it's when like I love doing drag
and I love performing and I think that was my maybe my heart but then my head there was like
another voice in my head saying oh this isn't this is shameful boys shouldn't do this
trying to work out which one to listen to that's the hard bit and it was the one that made me feel
good and that was the one that I tried to consistently listen to and then didn't you get
though a beautiful letter ah yeah from a young boy and that that helped you listen to that inner
voice yeah I got a letter from a young boy who said that um he didn't know whether he was gay
or straight or anything like that but he knew that he felt different and he saw me on idol
and he realized that if it was okay for me to be different then it was okay for him to be different
too and that was a really and it was a handwritten letter because it was in 2003
and that was a really pivotal moment for me where I had been feeling like I was whirling around in a
post-idol world with you know being known publicly and and you're a massive star everywhere you went
people knew you you're a touring with all the other idols you're hanging out with Paris Hilton
and then you sort of that trails off a little bit and you're left wondering who you are and
where you are and to get this letter gave me a connection to something that was greater than
myself and I think that as humans connecting with other humans is one of the fundamental
keys to life to happiness it's it's not about where you are or what you're wearing or how
much money you have it's about the people that you're with and and how much you care about them
and how much they care about you and so even this person who was a stranger describing this
connection this impact that I had on them yeah it really changed and pivoted and reminded me perhaps
that or made me see that I could be that person that I didn't see when I was 14 and that has
become I think my biggest motivator and inspiration over the years to realise that wow what an honour
that I can I can be that person for my 14 year old self and for the other 14 year olds out there
and you've continued to do that you've continued to sort of put yourself out there
drag race yes now reading about that and can you please tell us what you had to sign like the
sorts of things that they gosh I couldn't believe it yeah reality tv shows look in the US and
Australia and the UK we have different laws I know you know there's certain statutory rights
that you can't sign away but also in these contracts in reality television there's a lot of
privacy that you sign away and in those types of contracts it says like they have the right to
film you whether you know it or you don't know it 24 hours a day in your home in your car wherever
none of these things actually happen but you're signing a document says that they have the right
to whether you know about it or not and I don't know if and they but they can bug your place
your house that's nuts so why did you sign well because I was young and hungry
and it was I'd seen the show and I knew that there wasn't an element of hidden camera in their home
but the interesting thing is I read the contract from cover to cover which you should always do
I'm not sure whether anybody else did but in doing that it um it made me aware that all of
those things were possible and so I was always thinking about like what was going on even in the
hotel room where we were staying when I showered I would like cover my genitals when I showered
because I thought I don't know maybe this year's drag race is different maybe they're live streaming
our show I was like looking for cameras and looking for microphones because you just you don't know
and so yeah it's a very interesting thing because as a reality television contestant you don't
really have any negotiating power when your entry level you say yes or you don't do it
and I think that that is a bit of an abuse of power on the behalf of the production companies
generally speaking there's no union for reality tv especially for first timers and I think that
there has to be a bit of a redistribution of power when it comes to those sorts of things because
they they put all these things in their contracts just so that if anything happens they're covered
in your book you talk about that wasn't the experience you'd hoped that you weren't happy
with the way that they edited your story yeah filming the show I had a wonderful experience
and then watching the show back that experience didn't match my reality and I had been on
Australian Idol so I was familiar with television and had worked in television in different ways
over the years in Australia but I was a bit naive to this constructed world of reality television
I really believed that they were maybe making a documentary more like like an honest recount of
what happened inside these four walls I knew that what happened was produced I knew that we
were doing challenges and we were being put in different situations that would elicit different
responses but I didn't realize that all of that content was going to be then funnelled even further
and watching it back I felt I guess heartbroken because I had gone in there wanting to be myself
and you'd gone in open-hearted yeah hadn't you yeah and really had it yeah and was so excited
and so bright-eyed about the experience and I felt so good about the experience I felt like I
did really well at the challenges and had a lovely time with all the contestants
but I guess unfortunately that's not something that makes for good television
and certainly not then interestingly in in you know tv boardrooms these days everybody's talking
about authenticity diversity these are the buzzwords but in that time kindness kindness
people compassion compassion these are the words that are talked about now which is a wonderful
thing because then it was all about conflict it was all about entertainment through conflict
and you can definitely still find that but I I didn't understand that and in fact I had
a friend who was a reality tv producer explain all of this to me before I went in and I just
didn't understand I was like no no no I'll show you won't happen to me won't happen to me I'm
going to show people that you can you know have parents who love you and support you and that you
can love what you do and there doesn't have to be uh there's life's not been without struggle but
I do recognize my privilege in so many facets of my life and I thought that that was a good story
to tell because we hear so much queer trauma and we we don't hear as much queer joy and I always
think that it's important to um to it's incumbent on queer people I think to tell stories of queer
joy for younger people to hear because if you just go up hearing horrible coming out stories and
tragedies you know of of the HIV epidemic and of you know the the deaths of queer people and
and drug addiction and those sorts of things which are all very real and important parts of
you know many queer experiences but I think you have to be balanced and tell a diverse
range of stories and yeah it didn't it didn't pan out so well in the short term
but in the long term when I look back I'm really able to be super grateful for Drag Race
and to World of Wonder the production company and to RuPaul because although I I had a really
challenging time after the show um I can see that my story didn't end there and that looking back
I'm like oh that that challenging time actually allowed me to come to understand who I was in an
even greater way than perhaps if I had had a positive story um and yeah it's it's nice
with time to be able to appreciate all of the bits of your past and I want to talk a bit about
your past and you mentioned your parents and it's so clear how much you love them yeah and they love
you yeah it's a beautiful thing I think my parents I would say have always been the two
most important people in my world and they've always just accepted me in ways again in writing
this book that I didn't realize whether it was as a young kid my dad never never made me feel like
I had to be more masculine or um butchered up like those were never messages I got from him
well didn't he find was it She-Ra or he couldn't find it for you all I wanted was this She-Ra doll
the the 80s action figurine from the cartoon series and he he was like oh what's what's wrong
Shane-O and I was crying because I didn't get She-Ra and he was like oh we tried but she was
sold out he said well let's go to came out of Target or wherever on the Boxing Day sales and
we'll have a look and he took me and we couldn't find She-Ra she was sold out but he picked up off
the shelf Swift Wind who was She-Ra's rainbow winged white unicorn horse I want one I want her
which was arguably uh much more of a girl's toy than She-Ra was if you if you're binarizing toys
and dad offered this toy as a suggestion and my little heart was filled up and but it wasn't
until writing about it in my book that I realized how perhaps unconventional dad's response was and
how he just saw his child and saw what made his child happy and allowed his child to have those
things and and didn't make me feel less than because of it it doesn't seem like a big ask
but I think for many young people parents have so many expectations about what their kids are going
to be and so often they can impose those on their kids whether it be you know wanting them to go
to university or wanting them to play football or whatever it is um I think that must be a
challenge of being a parent or is knowing what your values are and knowing what you want for
your child but then allowing your child to be themselves as well to blossom and to bloom I
love as well the story you say you write in the book about coming out to your parents and in the
end you you texted your mom so please can you tell us that story it was 2001 so just for context we
didn't have iphones or smartphones we had knock ears that had a numeric keypad for texting and
I had had dinner with mom and dad the night before they'd come down to Sydney to see me
and I had dinner with them I was planning on coming out but I just couldn't bring myself to
do it I went home from work and I was feeling very emotional and I turned on the television
and touched by an angel was on which is a very sort of emotive sort of spiritual show about these
three angels that have come down to earth to help people and so it put me in like my feels
and I finished the episode and I texted mum I am gay and hit send and then mum wrote back that's
nice dear see you at dinner and I was like what that's it that's all you've got I was expecting
I don't know what I was expecting but I was I was really grateful for what I got back I had been
dropping big hints I'd been talking about friends who were drag queens and friends who were two
boys who were a couple and stuff like that so I'd been laying the groundwork and been getting
positive feedback but still I was reluctant to you know tell them about my own identity and when I
did they were so supportive and so wonderful and then started asking questions about um dad said
oh you look pretty I was talking about drag queens and he was like oh actually you look pretty good
dressed as a sheila and then I was like well now I'm gonna since you mention it I have done drag
before and just decided that being honest with my parents um I feel like it was the only option
for me because they were so important to me that not being honest about my identity
that was harder for me than coming out and yeah I just I guess I wasn't willing um I wasn't willing
because every time I would talk to my parents in that time that I was in the closet I felt like I
wasn't quite telling the truth and I felt like I was denying something about myself and that didn't
make me feel good um and that wasn't something that I wanted to get bigger I guess and so telling
them really resolved that disconnect between who I was and look I understand it's not such a happy
story for everybody and the other side is that if you're in the closet and your parents love you
for somebody that you're not that can also cause its own psychological issues because
you're consistently validating that who you are is wrong because if you're not willing to be yourself
and you're being loved for being someone else that's kind of like a negative affirmation of
your own identity and for some queer people particularly you know in religious families
and in families of diverse ethnic backgrounds it's not as much of a conversation and it can
be challenging and I know that there are some people who come out to their families and they
don't have healthy relationships after that which would be a horrible reality to imagine but also I
think you're that's kind of like the front line of change that's giving a human experience to
something that they might not understand and if you're willing to experience that discomfort
initially understand that your family this is something new for them you've been thinking
about it for a while this might be the first time that they've thought about it so if you can give
them some tools give them some information give them some time and know that um that whatever
they're feeling whatever negative feelings they're feeling again aren't theirs they're things that
have been sort of given to them by their religion by their cultural background and that I know that
at the core of every parent there's love for their child another story that you write about
in your book is the friendship that you have with chas bono yeah and how he really helped you
understand your identity yeah chas was maybe like the icing on the cake of my
journey of self-discovery chas asked me if i'd ever heard of the term gender fluid
and i hadn't this was 2014 and he simply said it's the idea that it's okay for boys to be
feminine and it's okay for girls to be masculine and it was one of the most pivotal and profound
understandings that i've had because up until that point i thought that it was shameful for
a boy to be feminine despite having done drag for at that point probably 15 years or so
i still didn't think it was right even though i loved it that feeling inside was love but the
feeling outside was shame and so when he told me that and i understood that there was just a label
that there was other people that it was okay i felt so validated and liberated by this label
and it was like the past 20 something years of of gender confusion that i had experienced on and off
all just made sense and i i was like oh i'm not a trans woman i'm not a man but i'm i'm i'm me
i'm something more individual than a discrete binary label and i think the truth is that most
humans probably are most humans probably feel comfortable enough in their binary boxes but i
think we all understand that there's things about our identity that aren't stereotypically
what we're in air quotes supposed to be and i think leaning into that and exploring that can be
a really powerful and liberating thing did you just feel like this was it like a weight came
off your shoulders how would you describe the feeling it was a weight came off my shoulders
and it was almost like everything i had always all of those good feelings that i've been sort
of talking about all of those good feelings ended up being true and all of that that brought me joy
throughout my life all made sense in that moment where i was like oh you were so worried about what
other people would say about you or about what other people did say about you or how this would
impact your work or your love life or your family or all of those external things and ultimately
when i was finally able to stand in the truth of who i was and say that who i am is enough
and who i am is correct and who i am is valid it was just it's it was such a liberating feeling
in that moment and it's only continued to pay dividends where you know we obviously we all
still have our insecurities and we question ourselves we still you know have skinny days
and fat days or whatever it might be or doubts about ourselves but i think now i come from
a place of resolve and i'm able to acknowledge that all of those feelings and thoughts
they're they're sort of like part of being human but like i said they're not mine i do want to go
back to something that also you write about in the book is taking drugs and ice being one of them
and obviously i know that with going out the parties all those sort of dance parties and
things that's very much a part of it but i must say i was surprised at the amount of drugs i
suppose that you took yeah and ice as well yeah it's funny because in the gay world we call it
crystal meth and in the straight world it's called ice um and it came along in 2002 in sydney and i
had i had taken party drugs i guess you would call them although it's funny because the term
party drug makes it sound cute and fun and happy and really drugs can be very dangerous and can
and can lead to addiction and can lead to you know horrible side effects and things but the other
side is that i also did have a lot of fun taking some of these drugs and i wanted to explore that
and talk about that in a in a honest and open way because i think so often there's a demonization
of drugs period and when that happens young people you know we know statistically young people are
going to have sex young people are going to try drugs and experiment and so if we can talk about
it in a way that gives them the tools to make good choices then hopefully they make good choices or
they make more good choices than bad choices i will say that when it comes to ice and crystal meth
and i say this i i tried it so you don't have to um before it came along taking drugs was about
going out on a friday night or a saturday night and having fun and connection and things like
ecstasy or molly as the kids call it now um you know is it has a euphoric feeling of love and
excitement and i'll caveat that by saying that so often we don't know what are in those drugs
so there's a lot of dangers that come with doing them but when it came to ice crystal meth it felt
like it disconnected people rather than connected them in it it it gave you a fixation with simply
doing more of the drug and there wasn't that fun that they used to be and i noticed that changing
and i noticed that i was having less fun and i managed and i don't know how or why particularly
because i know it is a drug more addictive than heroin it's very insidious it destroys a lot of
lives and somehow i was able to stop and i think a lot of that was because i had a dream of of what
i wanted to be i had a vision of my future and this didn't feel like it aligned with that and
also i had my mum's voice in my head quite often where i was what was she saying yeah well it was
like what would mum say and i knew that i knew that this wasn't a good thing and i made several
efforts to stop and failed several times but then did manage to stop and i was retrospectively i'm
very grateful and i the the thing that i and again i don't it's not that easy and i always
am a little bit reticent to sort of just say like and then i just stopped because i know that for a
lot of people and a lot of the people who i started doing it with back then still struggle
with it or have had struggles that have ended them up in prison or dead it was really shocking
when i was going through my photos of that time to see oh gosh that person's not alive anymore
and that's a huge human tragedy and so i was grateful that i was was able to not do it but i
wanted to include the conversations about drugs in the book just because i wanted young people to
have more information i guess and know that that the more taboo the less that they're going to
talk about it and that's when the real danger can happen you talk about the opposite to addiction
it's not sobriety but connection and i think that's so important because so often well drugs like
crystal meth like i sort of described it took away the connection that i was experiencing in
my community and i think that's why it's so insidious because it makes you dependent on
the drug and it takes away those connections to family and friends and work and play and the way
that we cure addiction is through creating connection and i think that happens in a in
an interesting way storytelling that we're starting to see now in pop culture
is a lot more diverse and a lot more inclusive and even representation right on commercial
television seeing people of different experiences allows other people in the world to feel seen
and to feel to see themselves reflected back and that creates connection and so i think that
that so many of our society's problems can be solved with storytelling of different stories
of diverse stories of more voices and and just fostering empathy through storytelling
and your voice is such an important one and i'd love to know what would you say to
teenage you at sangate high now what would you say well that's a it's funny because my therapist
would ask me um you know what would you say to that to that boy and i never understood the
question at the time i was always like ah i don't know and writing this book i i was really able
to connect with that teenage me and give them a hug and i think all of the experiences the good
ones and the bad ones were so important and that so often i thought that i was meant to have it all
worked out i was meant to know all of the answers i was meant to know what i wanted to be when i
grew up or all of those things and i felt really frustrated because i didn't know them and i think
my best piece of advice is that if you're confused about your identity or about you know your job or
your life in general you're probably exactly where you're supposed to be i think being young
is all about having many different experiences and working out which ones serve you and which
ones don't and you've got to have those experience to understand it and i think my advice to my
younger self is like just relax have as much fun as you can be mindful of your own feelings and of
other people's and you know as long as it's between two or more consenting adults then
have fun yes and we will and you know i hope your name is going to be up there next to kerry ann
kennely sangate district state high school if you're this thing i i keep hinting subtly
about the picture of kerry ann kennely that hangs in the hallowed halls of our high school of our
shared high school different year obviously um but as yet i do not believe there is a picture
of me up there so just saying i don't want to tell you what to do i had to live your life but
it wouldn't be unwelcome if there was one there hanging next to kerry ann one day
well it's about time i have so loved talking with you thank you thank you for being so open
for writing such an incredible book that has opened my eyes to so many things that i thought i knew
and i'm forever grateful for that thank you so much for this conversation day i've absolutely
loved it okay you know by now how much i love a chat i could still be talking to courtney if i
could she's challenged the way i think about identity and how we make sense of ourselves
in the world there's a little bit of punk in all of us for more big conversations like this search
the jess roe big talk show podcast and while you're there tap follow and add to your favourites
so you'll never miss an episode the jess roe big talk show was presented by me jess roe executive
producer nick mcclure audio producer nicky sitch supervising producer sam cavernar until next time
remember to live big life is just too crazy and glorious to waste time on the stuff
that doesn't matter listener