Vagina, vagina, vagina

Zenith Virago, Brunswick Heads

I would just like to thank everyone for your loving messages of congratulations. It was overwhelming to be nominated and to become the 2021 Byron Citizen of the Year. Thank you everyone. It was so unexpected, but it feels fabulous to be recognised and honoured by the community. I also want to honour the other nominees for their community work.

I trust it will encourage people to do the work they believe in, to stand up for the causes they believe in, to be unconventional, to be queer and visible, and to learn so many rich life lessons to become the very best people we can be, with all our imperfections. To not be afraid. 

It’s been an incredible experience to live this one wild and precious life, to have been an unruly, outspoken feminist and dyke. To somehow, slowly to have become an easily accessible community resource, to stand strongly for women’s issues, and to protest against violence on women and children. To create and present the V Day flashmob and the Vagina Conversations, and encourage the word vagina to be in more common usage. To stand up openly for LGBTIQ issues, equal human rights and marriage equality. To have made dying, death, and loss a more familiar, and easier to bear experience. To dive deep into death, ceremony and our rites of passage with so many courageous and capable people. To marry over 2,500 couples, to have had so much fun doing it, to have met such incredible people, to love and be loved. I feel so fortunate.

So, to all of us living, working, and volunteering to make ourselves, our friends, our families, our communities and our worlds more holistic, concerned, connected and kind – never give up. Every little action, every loud noisy protest, every debate counts. We really do need to be the change we want to see.