“Law and Life: Transgender Stories is the door into new conversations, of support and kindness. Theatre doesn’t have to be flash or clever to connect. “
Kate Gaul
Venue: Rebel Theatre ATYP, The Rebel Theatre
Pier 2/3, 13A Hickson Rd, Dawes Point
Sydney
Dates: 5th/6th June 2025
Presented as part of the Vivid Ideas program by the community enterprise, Inner City Legal Centre (ICLC), Law and Life is a group of five trans storytellers and one ally share their lived experiences navigating gender, identity, legality, and survival. This is community theatre at its best – in all senses of that description. Katie Green, CEO of the ICLC has lent her heft to the project and it has grown out of the offering of last year – a walking tour which took audiences through iconic areas of the old Kings Cross. In that event, “Sex Work: A Legal and Social History” each stop on the tour was an invitation for sex workers from the industry both past and present to share their experiences with a curious audience.
Inspired by the work of the ICLC, theatre maker Charley Allanah proposed this year’s event. Law and Life: Transgender Stories is a personal story telling event. It is neatly crafted with each individual story interspersed with a song or two. As we are told in the blurb “For a lot of trans people, the core of survival in a system stacked against them is creativity—so expect pageantry, song and outside-the-box-and-binary expression. Beyond the camp and colour though, this evening lays bare an important and necessary conversation. We must face up to the discrimination embedded in our culture and law, its human impact and what can be done to create a better, more inclusive world.”
So, who do we hear from? The big draw card for me was Kings Cross legend Vonni of Les Girls fame. Vonni’s journey began on Adelaide’s vibrant stages in 1975, where she quickly became a beloved figure in the cabaret and burlesque scenes. By 1978, her talents were captivating audiences with the Melbourne touring show of Les Girls All Male Revue. In 1983, Vonni received an invitation to join Sammy Lee’s “Les Girls” in Kings Cross, Sydney. She tells her extraordinary story here. Tonight we hear stories of unsolved murders, police corruption, black mail, paddy waggon dans addault; of financial and emotional survival. This is Sydney in the 70s and 80s. Looking back its not pretty – and we ask ourselves, what courage did it take to survive? Weaving in and out of Vonni’s stories we learn from the inimitable activist norrie mAy welby who became the first Australian to be formally recognized as being gender non-specific. She was granted gender neutrality from the Registry for Births Deaths and Marriages in 2010. The litany of court struggles endured, and societal change witnessed makes for compelling testimony.
These two community elders remind us of how much has changed from the language they use, the landscape they describe of the last decades of the 20th Century in Australia. And what is not said. But no struggle is ever over and three younger trans and gender diverse speakers – Kavitha Sivasamy, a founding lawyer and director of Justice Q, a specialist legal service run for and by LGBTQIA+ people out of Melbourne and Jeremy Moineau, actress, advocate and DEI policy maker join Charley Allanah – share their lived experiences.
Law and Life: Transgender Stories is the door into new conversations, of support and kindness. Theatre doesn’t have to be flash or clever to connect. As we sat around the metaphorical campfire at the Rebel Theatre last night I was reminded of the human need for connection, community and a little catharsis. In this uncertain times we – as Allanah says, “…need our allies. We need our families, our friends, and our lovers, and our partners.”
Check it out!
Kate Gaul, Theatre Now
