LGBTIQA+ young people have unique mental health and wellbeing experiences, so it's important for communities to provide access to spaces that support and celebrate their diversity. 

WayOut Sunbury worked with Storyland and a group of LGBTIQA+ young people in Sunbury to create an animated video, sharing their conversations with other LGBTIQA+ young people about the impact of having safe and supportive spaces.

The video below is captioned; alternatively, read the transcript below.

Transcript

♫ Upbeat music plays ♫

In 2022 Sunbury and Cobaw Community Health received 18 months of Vic Health Big Connect funding to extend their WayOut work into Sunbury.

Here are some reflections from young people and supportive adults involved with these programs.

"Probably invisibility."

"Uniquely queer."

"Invisibility."

"I don't really know."

"Teleportation invisiblity or telekinesis."

"I would magically give all the queer people the support that they need, based on each individual person and all their like, strengths, weaknesses, their personality."

"I would want everyone in town to just feel included and take away any negative comments people may say about them."

"Like, I don't have to be like this completely different person that's not me. Like, I don't have to wear my mask to hide my identity."

"I think that more education on like, how to support rather than hate queer people would be nice. 

"Definitely, yeah more protection. That comes along with the visibility because I feel like with that we'd be able to reach our full potential in expression and in participating we wouldn't feel so scared to be visible."

"We have this whole other culture and it's like, you know a culture that belongs to us."

"Meeting organizations that have done you know great things for me individually. The other best part about being queer is being able to love who you want, and be able to express who you are with no limits."

"The best thing about being queer is probably just questioning everything and getting to sort of break free from what you've been taught is a certain way to be."

"When I was I think I was six or seven I started dressing more masculine. No one thought about that but until I was out. They're like, 'oh, okay that's you. But you just be you.' That's the best thing about being queer is no one can tell you what to do. You are just you."

"The best thing... um there's a lot more people you can date. Um there's a very, very welcoming community and it's just a lot of fun."