Transcript
As spoken by Soph Li Rong Tan

This transcript is drawn from an audio recording. It has been lightly edited for clarity and readability while preserving the participant’s original voice and meaning.

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I started living in Wollstonecraft as an adult. My grandparents got this place in Wollstonecraft in the '90s when they were here, after they started a business up in North Sydney.

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I'm familiar with it through, I guess, the lens of both as a kid and as an adult, luckily. As a child, when I used to come to Sydney, we would always visit Berry Island when I was about six or seven, and coming back to Wollstonecraft again as an adult really, I think, changed my perspective on lots of things.

 

I think, as someone who grew up in Singapore, I idolised Australia in a lot of ways.​ I remember the first time I looked on Google Maps. I was looking at where my university campus would be in Paddington. I was looking down Oxford Street like, "Wow, they have so many pride flags around. That's incredible." I couldn't even imagine what that would be like. I was looking at Newtown, hearing that all the lesbians are there, and that really made me so excited.

 

And so when I came to Australia, I think I definitely stepped into myself a lot more. I think I was able to present really the way that I felt more comfortable with.​ When I left Singapore, I had freshly turned 18, so a lot of queer spaces there are not really for youth. I remember talking to somebody who organised a lot of events, and I just asked her, "Do you have any trouble coming up with activities for youth?"​ And it's honestly about, I guess, government funding, and also things can get cancelled really easily, especially if there's still the idea that you're teaching the kids the wrong thing and stuff like that.

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I think it is a disservice to say that there's no queer scene in Singapore, because there is, and it's beautiful, and I love it there so much. I love going to the balls and the drag revues. But I think it's also really special that in Singapore it's a lot more underground and has to fight a lot of bureaucracy.

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I think Berry Island is really important to me for two reasons. One is that my grandfather would come and either do the bushwalk or play in the playground or hang off trees.​ And the second reason is, I guess, now that I've come back to Australia as an adult and I've kind of stepped into my queerness, I was able to bring my partner here on our first anniversary, and we had a little picnic.

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And when I was thinking about what places mean a lot to me in North Sydney, and I guess queering the places in North Sydney, this place came to mind because it felt like a place where I could reconcile both my childhood self and my adult self, and my fullness and my wholeness. That is something really special to me.