Joël Murray identifies as a transgender non-binary queer person and recently spoke to Star Observer about their lived experience
“I feel like my whole childhood narrative is trying to fit in and responding to external stimuli, and that really had an impact on my mental health and sense of identity. I had been questioning my gender for a long time, not really understanding how it was a social construct,” they told Star Observer.
At first, Murray correlated their experience to that of gay men until they moved to Melbourne. That was when, they realised that they were not like them. They had to come out five or six times in their life. They came out regarding their status as living with HIV and hepatitis-C and spoke to audiences about HIV transmission and sexual health. “[My aim] was not to try tell people what to do, but rather inform and empower individuals to be conscious of the decisions they make about their own sex lives,” Murray had previously said.
Murray expressed their gratitude for the support networks they have from other trans people, because they are really critical. They finished the My Trans Story panel by singing a song from Sunday In The Park With George.
“I am going to change the lyrics to contextualise it,” they said. Murray is setting it up to make it seem as though they are having a conversation with their late grandmother in the first half. The conversation is about how wonderful they are as trans people and how much she would have loved them, and the second half is about the advice she used to give.
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