Awareness through visibility: how Gail and Lisette helped connect LGBTIQA+ South Australians

Gail and Lisette have coordinated the Kindred Spirits social spaces for over eight years, but the last event from them will be this March for Trans Day of Visibility.

In response to a lack of opportunities for community to connect with one another, the much-needed social afternoons were intended as a place for all our LGBTIQA+ communities to feel welcome in Adelaide.

We spoke to the pair about the last eight years of Kindred Spirits, how it evolved, and how far the community connection and support has come in that time.

Why did you start Kindred Spirits?

Gail: We met about eight or nine years ago and we had both recently come out late in life as transgender women. We couldn’t find anywhere to go that was for the entire community and when I say entire community I mean all LGBTIQA+. It’s all very well going to a transgender support group or social group, but we wanted to make sure that we could feel comfortable everywhere and we wanted to encourage others to have a place to go socially. That’s why we wanted it.

How long ago did Kindred Spirits start and what did those spaces look like early on?

Gail: I think our first meeting was about eight years ago. We went to the Wheatsheaf Hotel and we’ve been going there ever since. The first three meetings… no one came, [jokes] so that was really fun. Then I changed my marketing strategy and the next meeting we had nearly 20 people which was great. And at that meetup – or social afternoon, as I prefer to call them, we had a good range of our entire LGBTIQA+ community and a good range of ages which was ideal.

Over the next few months, it became more of a transgender woman social afternoon. People thought we were both transgender women, therefore the group was for transgender women. As much as we tried to encourage others to come, it seemed to settle down to be more of a transgender woman type thing. We set up an additional group and, I think like six months later, we started a third group. And these three meetings were held at different locations, so we were doing three a month.

Was there much else in Adelaide for our LGBTIQA+ communities at the time?

Gail: There was another group when we started and that was for transgender people. Early on we just wanted to have a safe space for those who had come out recently whether they be gay, lesbian, trans, whatever.

Lisette: A number of people actually said that they didn’t really have much of anything else they could see that suited them. When we chose all the three venues that originally, we were using, we always made sure that we were going to be accepted there.

Gail: We have helped a number of people – especially those just coming out, just starting out on their journey – a number of times. I used to meet a number of people for coffee privately in the city and other places just to answer their questions and to give them encouragement and just to make sure that they felt that they were on the right track and offering advice where they could get further help.

How have services in Adelaide improved in the last 8-9 years?

They’re better. There’s more of them — Thorne Harbour Health, Bfriend, Shine…. There’s not many other groups though – like if you’re a parent of a transgender child and need help, the closest support service is in Melbourne and it’s still Melbourne, so we need a lot more help.

What is this farewell event for Kindred Spirits coming up, and how do you feel about it?

Gail: We commenced Kindred Spirits and we’ve worked hard at it for our entire period – eight years is a long time. We are self-funded. We never got any government money so everything we’ve done – all our shows, all our events, all our activities, they’ve been produced by us with our own money.

Lisette: With the Trans Day of Visibility community concert – we started that probably five years ago, and the point there was to actually bring the community together as well and just celebrate Trans Day of Visibility of course. So as we were doing that we got a lot of help from the Wheatsheaf Hotel. Their support has been amazing, and so like as we’ve gone on it’s always been a really good event. There have always been a lot of people come to it. We had one show just after Covid when there was a venue limit of the people and we had basically sold out so we had turn people away which was quite sad.

So, this is now the last one. It’s going to be a celebration of everything that we’ve done. It’s going to be a great community concert. We got some fantastic artists like we always have and they’re all from the community as well, which is fantastic.

Gail: For me I’ll probably be quite emotional. It is an emotional event for me. It’s going to be sad that I’m not involved in it. We’ll still be active in the community although we have moved up into the country a little bit. So that’s to deal with me reaching retirement age.

So yeah, apart from that, very emotional. There is a group of people that come to Kindred Spirits on a regular basis and they are talking amongst themselves, trying to keep something similar going and just a social group side of it because Kindred Spirits did a lot more than just the social group but if they can manage that that will keep a good part of Kindred Spirits alive, so we’re hopeful that will get off the ground.

What does Trans Visibility mean to you?

Lisette: It’s very important. Obviously being a woman of transgender experience, we live our lives the same as everybody else does. We now live in a small town. We’ve actually become a part of the community up here so in the more general sense, we’ll go to the post office, chemist, or hotel and people know who we are.

We’ve made some great friends and the whole point about visibility means that we’re not seen as an “other,” or somebody who shouldn’t be around. So, visibility is very important because it increases people’s awareness that we are just like everybody else and that I think it’s very important.

On the flipside of that, it can be quite scary when you’re a young person or when you’re first coming out and going to places… bigotry is still out there. I’ve experienced a couple of times but not as much as other people, but it just builds more awareness.