Dating Blind 2

00:06S1

This is Studio One on Vision Australia Radio.

00:11S2

I don't want to say Gay is that you can say you're queer, but you are also, if you want to go basic... reaper of the lingo or the language of how to identify someone you can call, you can use gay or queer. All right, well, we start that way to start that again, because queer these days is a theory neutral term. Okay. I'll start to call someone in the LGBTQ plus community if they don't identify with other labels. We start that again. Yeah.

00:44S3

Hello, I'm Sam.

00:45S4

And I'm Lizzie.

00:46S3

And this is Studio One, your weekly look at life from a low vision and blind point of view here on Vision Australia Radio.

00:52S4

On this week's show...

00:54S3

Our Valentine's Day episode was so popular that we've decided to dive right back into the world of dating and romance.

01:01S4

But this week we look at things from a more colorful standpoint.

01:04S3

Over the next two weeks, we will talk to four people who've had very different experiences in love and life.

01:11S4

As we always say at this point, please do get in touch with the show. Whether you have experience with any of the issues covered on this week's episode of Studio One, or whether you think there's something that we should be talking about, you never know. Your story or insight may help someone who is dealing with something similar.

01:27S3

Please contact us by email. Studio one at Vision Australia. Org. That's studio - number one - at Vision Australia - dot - org or perhaps drop us a note on our Facebook page. We want to hear from you. Hello, Lizzy.

01:40S4

Hey, Sam, how are you going today?

01:42S3

I am good, I just come off what I think will prove to be a very good and very positive interview. We're going to hear that sometime later on in the show. And how are you going?

01:54S4

I am very good. Thank you. I'm extremely good. Yeah.

01:58S3

You've had too much coffee. 

01:59S4

Yeah, I've had way too much coffee.

02:01S3

So our last show that dealt with romance and dating was actually fairly popular, and people seem to enjoy listening to it. What was interesting, though, is as I just come up with the required 28 minutes worth of material, all of a sudden Jason Gipps, who is our general publicity person, had given me a whole lot of more people to talk to, and they had a very different view on life, and it just felt like a shame to not include it.

02:32S4

Oh, I agree, and, you know, I think the people that we're going to hear from are very insightful. They've got some interesting stories to tell and a different perspective. As we as we alluded to in the intro...

02:42S3

There you were there for our interview with tests and she was just terrific.

02:49S4

Lovely. Yes. best interview that I've done.

02:52S3

I think it was a bit of a crisis of faith for a while there, because initially I wanted to have do a bit of a play on words with what we call this episode. And I had the lovely idea of the rainbow connection because I don't know, I don't know if people think about that connection between Kermit the Frog and the LGBTQ community, but I thought that would actually be singling people out too much. And I think what we found out during the course of recording this show is that as different as people are from us, they're actually quite similar, and we all have the same disability. I don't know about you, but what do you think about that?

03:32S4

I think we're all human, and our needs for love and affection are all the same, whether it be from male or female or, you know, it's all the same love and attraction and romance, or it's a pretty universal language and disabled or not, doesn't really make much of a difference. But I find that disabilities do play into it because people are less willing to, to enter into relationships with us.

04:00S3

The other thing I found interesting in recording this was, I mean, I'd sort of said, right, Lizzy, off you go, let's go and find out what people think of their of love and dating and that sort of stuff. And you weren't very successful in finding people to talk to.

04:13S4

Nobody really wanted to talk to me. In fact, I, I reached out to a couple of people and the comment I got was, I don't have anything to say on the matter. And, you know, I knew I've known these people for a while, and I'm like, what do you mean you have nothing to say? Like, I know you're dating history. Why won't you talk about it? But it's just I think it's too personal for people to get into.

04:35S3

Well, we found the absolute opposite problem with these four people. We did. So without adieu. Let us catch up with the formidable tests.

04:51S5

Hello, guys. Sam and Lucy. It's lovely. Lovely to be with you both.

04:56S3

So tell us a little bit about yourself. I mean, where do you live and what do you do for a crust?

05:02S5

Well, I am in Albany. I am, I'm writing my first novel, which is a queer romance, and I'm nearly finished the first draft of that. I also volunteer with the Australian Web Accessibility Initiative, and that's, that's those are basically my my main areas of interest at the moment. And when I'm not doing that, I love to read everything from classics to crime to, you know, romcoms. And I love I love music and all all, all manner of all manner of crafts and fun things like that. So that's that's pretty much what I'm doing with my life at the moment.

05:41S3

I believe you're totally blind.

05:42S5

I am yes, yes, I was born with Steptoe optic dysplasia. So that basically...

05:48S4

So was I.

05:48S5

Yeah, yeah. There you are.

05:51S4

Amazing. And I think it's a very rare condition to, like, there's not too many blind or vision impaired people with severe optic dysplasia in Australia.

05:58S5

Yeah, you're quite right. And I, I know this because my art is apart from the fact that they don't work and the purely decorative, as I always like to say. But you know, people often say, um, you know, taste your, your eyes, you know, you know, they don't they don't they don't look, you know, they don't look the way I would expect them to look if you can't see because, yeah, the simple truth was that the optic nerve just never developed and nothing else was. Nothing else is really wrong with them. So don't really do anything. They just sit on the they just sit on my head, which is fine.

06:25S3

So are you a guide dog user like Lizzie is?

06:28S5

I'm not, I'm not. I use a cane, I think. I don't I mean, you know, I think I can be really, really useful, but although I am, I don't dislike dogs. I'm not afraid of dogs. I think you have to be a real dog person to have a guide dog, because you can't just the way I do, you can't just put it in a corner of the room and leave it. You know you have to and you wouldn't want to. I mean, you know, if you had a guide dog, you know, it's it's your companion. It's it goes with you everywhere. I think you have to really love. Well, I think you have to really love dogs to to do that.

06:56S3

The thing is, though, I've heard that they're a real chick magnet, though.

06:59S4

This is so true. I was trying to get from the train to the bus, and she was more worried about the wet dog in distress than she was about me, but I had sparked some sort of connection. So dogs I think, can be chick magnets.

07:13S3

Yeah, I've always wanted to borrow one and just test it out myself.

07:16S5

Well, I don't know. I mean, maybe you could speak to someone at seeing my dogs, but, I don't know how far you get.

07:24S3

So as somebody who is queer, how do you think being blind actually affects meeting up with other people?

07:34S5

It's tricky. So I guess, you know, as a as a queer person, like, I probably a lot of the dating challenges that I face are probably similar to what many blind people face, you know, finding dating apps which are accessible. I get around that problem. I have a support worker who's also a friend who I trust, and so they help me, you know, with inaccessible apps and websites also, you know, explaining to them the importance of meeting in a place that I'm confident in or familiar with, or at least having someone take me to the place and, and then come and get me, you know, explaining that I actually do need to do that for safety, as well as anything else, I guess. 

Also, when to tell someone that I'm blind, I generally choose to tell them well before we meet on a first date. But it is tricky because, you know, meeting people as not only a blind person, but a queer person. It's kind of I'm in two minorities. And so, you know, I understand that for some people, being being blind might be a dealbreaker. And I, you know, in the last couple of years I have realised that I am asexual. I'm not I'm not a romantic, but I'm asexual and primarily romantic, romantically attracted to women. But, you know, it's kind of a big disclosure because not only do I have to tell them I'm blind, I also have to find the right time to tell them that I'm asexual. And that can be tricky.

08:51S4

So you say that you've you've known that you you were lesbian for a long time, but when did you get the the first sort of initial inkling that that might be the case?

09:03S5

When I was in my, um, I probably like 11 or 12, you know, I'd always found, you know, like, you know, for most of my life I've recognised that women can be very, very beautiful and have very, very lovely voices. I read a book by Sue Haynes called out of the shadows, about two teenage girls, and one of them being at being being a lesbian and how that felt. And I guess I wondered at the time, and of course, I lived in a very small town and, you know, I was I was just, you know, just starting high school. You know, when I was figuring all this out, so for, for years, you know, I tried to convince myself that I was bisexual. And then when I was 23, I thought that, you know, finally, I'd hit upon it, that I was only attracted to women, that I, that I was attracted to women in all, all sorts of ways. And. If only I met the right woman, then I would feel the kind. You know, all the attractions. Not just, you know, romantic, emotional, intellectual, aesthetic. 

When I was 23, I was like, no, I'm not bisexual, I'm a lesbian. And I came out to my, you know, by that time I was living in Melbourne and I had a good group of friends, a couple of people that I, you know, that I was friends with were a bit, you know, mainly I think just 1 or 2 were bit, thrown by it, but most of my friends were 100% accepting, embracing. And my family certainly were, I'm very lucky in that way. And I'm quite sure that if I had told them as a teenager that I was interested in women, they probably would have been fine with it, too. I just didn't have the courage, I guess. And so for eight years I, I identified as a lesbian. And then about 18 months ago, I started to actually think, well, is this true? And and is it not? And I started reading up on asexuality. You know, I found a good book. I did some internet research, I talked to people, and I realized that I wasn't a lesbian. I was asexual and primarily romantically attracted to women.

10:56S3

At a risk of asking a silly question. So feel free to give me a silly answer in response. Can you give us a potted idea of what asexuality is? And oh, maybe, maybe I won't feel it that way. Maybe I'll say, what is it for you?

11:12S5

So I am, I basically the thing for me is that I experience, you know, I can find women and, and men to on occasions I can find them very beautiful. I can be, you know, very drawn to them, romantically, emotionally, intellectually. You know, I can, you know, imagine what it would be like to go on dates with them, spend romantic time together, you know, be it, you know, cooking or watching movies or going on holidays. You know, I can imagine. I can't imagine sharing a life with someone. But it doesn't matter how much I might, you know, because, you know, it doesn't matter how much I might love someone romantically or how drawn I am to them, or how beautiful I find them, I just I don't experience a sexual attraction to them. So, you know, everything else is the same. Except I just have no, no desire to yet, I guess, be no desire to have sex with them, be physically intimate with them. 

And yeah, it really doesn't, doesn't matter how much you know, it's not a measure of how much you love someone or how physically attractive you find them. You know, all those things I still experience and all those things are very, very, you know, very like as with anyone, they vary according to, you know, who the person is. And, and, you know, like, I can fall in love with someone as much as anyone can.

12:32S3

Before we go, tell us about your book. 

12:36S5

Oh, so it's. Yeah, it's a it's a queer romance. It's set in a country town. Two women meet on a train and it gets delayed. And so they kind of bond and they end up in the same country town for, you know, quite a while, and, you know, six weeks and. Yeah, in the you know, in the, in the process of getting together and getting their lives together, they, they end up supporting each other through a lot of, you know, emotional turmoil and family drama and kind of having to because they're both at a crossroads in their life. And so they have to really reevaluate where they are and what what they want the next, you know, one, five, ten years of their lives to be like, because, yeah, both of them are kind of at a standstill. And so they both have to, you know, sort of really work out for themselves. And, and, you know, with each other's help, exactly what, what the next stage of their lives look like because they're basically they're aren't, you know, they're it's a summer. 

So, you know, they're on a summer holiday to the country. So they're really it's like a phase between the next, you know, this current stage and the next stage of their lives. So it's not very original. I'm sure many people have written it before, but I'm hoping that it will. You know, the way I write it and my characters will be relatable. One of the characters is also blind. So we get the intersectionality of what it is to be blind and queer. And in fact, one of my characters is blind and asexual. So, you know, it's not my story. The character is not me. But I have put a lot of my experiences in it, and I hope that that will resonate with readers and that, yeah, that they'll they'll want to read it, I guess.

14:04S3

At what stage are you as far as the novel itself?

14:07S5

I nearly finished the first draft, so I have about three chapters to write, and then I will have to get into the second draft. And I haven't thought about publishers or anything yet. I basically I just want to write it out and I want to edit it and do some restructuring, and then I can start thinking about, you know, publishers to contact or whether I in fact, go down the self-publishing road. So I can't wait till I think about what to do.

14:30S4

I can't wait to read it. Yeah. 

14:32S5

You'll like it? I really hope you like it, Lizzie. And I hope, as I say, that people will like it. Honestly, at this stage of my life, if I get 100 people to read it, you know, and like it, I'll be happy because it's just it's a real passion. I'm not doing this because I think it's going to, you know, be a bestseller. I'm doing it because it's a passion project. And, you know, I've never been happier than I am now when I'm actually. For the first time.

14:51S4

Sometimes passion projects are the best projects. I reckon they are. That make you the happiest.

14:57S3

Yeah, well, Tessa, we've really liked talking to you, so thank you. Thank you for joining us. This is been a lot of fun. And, well. Carry on.

15:08S5

Thank you. Thank you very much.

15:13S4

I loved speaking to Tess. I don't know about you, but I found that to be very, very interesting conversation.

15:19S3

Am I going too far if I say that I've just got a little bit of a crush on her?

15:23S4

I don't think so.

15:24S3

Thank you, Tess, for sharing some of your views. It was fantastic. Now, next up, we're talking to a friend of yours. Yes. Um, we'll say the edited highlights.

15:35S4

Yes. So we are going to hear from Jared. And I've actually known Jared since I was in primary school. He's a few years older than me. And he's....

15:47S3

I would say he's out there.

15:48S4

He's out there. He's out there. But he's very intellectual, very insightful.

15:53S3

So yes, let's hear from Jared.

16:00S4

So, Jared, not only have you got a vision impairment and some other disabilities, but you are also queer. 

16:08S6

Mm. Well, I have gay as well, but I do identify as being not. I'm heterosexual. So to put it on layman's terms.

16:19S4

If you don't mind me asking if it's not too personal a question. When did you have your first inkling or when did you start to think that maybe you didn't identify as heterosexual?

16:30S2

Oh, God, I'm turning back the clock, winding the back all the way to the year 2000? I was 14, 15 years old. And knowing as someone who is, you know, stuck at home, bored and not doing anything, I kind of felt I really was really quite curious, inquisitive about, oh, more to do about the the forsake and the physicality of of the I could what the white was put in there, the male species. When I first detected I was gay I had to do my own education. I searched the internet. I unfortunately did... go into some... pornographic websites and few other places. 

I remember one time when I was at my Nona and Nona's house, my like, my grandparents or my mom's side, and Sydney, I went to the house and one day there was a stash of magazines. It was just, you know, Cosmopolitan and Elle and then but then I came across a backdated edition of Cleo, and it was the 20th anniversary issue. And there attached was the original male centerfold. And that, you could say, was my first exposure to any pornographic material relating to the allure of what it was that I was sexually attracted to and was, um, drawn towards. And then being like 15, 16 year old, you're going, oh yeah, yeah, this is what I'm into. This is what I didn't understand about before.

18:26S4

So did you ever feel like a sense of shame or did you is that something that you were happy with identifying with, or was as some feelings of shame and embarrassment around that? And how did your family receive that news? 

18:43S2

Well, I was in the closet for quite a lot of time until I was about 26. Oh, and this is going back to 2011. But before then, between the ages of like 14 to 24, I did have to keep it to myself. And there was this secret that I knew, and I don't do it. Strangely enough, I didn't feel guilty or ashamed for having these, um, um, compulsions, these feelings to other men that I knew that it wasn't something criminal, even though there were a lot of, like, commentators and naysayers out there saying, oh no, you're committing a sin. Oh, it is, um, deviant behavior, but it isn't. It's something that's natural.

19:28S4

So when you did come out of the closet, so to speak, and you announced that you were queer or gay, how did the people around you take that?

19:37S2

Oh, well, by the time I did a lot of Lgbtqia+ advocacy and activism work, I was involved in the Australian marriage equality movement. I was with a group there called Equal Love, but I put a post on Facebook for National Coming Out Day, and it was just about, you know, being there and knowing that it doesn't matter who you are, that you can be your true, authentic, genuine self. Don't know the type of wording I put in that that post, but my mum saw it because she is a Facebook friend. As someone most people my family are right. But then my mom saw it and one night when I came into the house, I was there to get my dinner and then my mum asked me. I saw you put on Facebook and asked, are you not attracted to what girls and women and with women and that? And I'd say, no, no, I'm into men. That's what I'm beginning to for a long time. And I pretty much how I came out to my mum and she four and I come and she said he considers the question that she thought I had to be gay because I wasn't able to get a girlfriend.

20:55S3

So being a member of a minority group, and you're a member of a few minority groups in some ways. So would you say that the capacity for ignorance also exists within the gay community as much as it is in the straight community?

21:08S2

Yes, yes, yes. The response I got when I appeared on the Fade online was quite well. I could say there were some good positive comments I got, but there was a lot of people who went off at me for like, I don't know, being. I think there was some person feel I was demanding sex or some kind of incel. I mean, that's not that's not who I am. What were you getting these assumptions from? That's that's not the way that I was brought up.

21:42S4

I think people I think people who don't know anything about people with neurological disabilities or any other disabilities, people who haven't been exposed to that, they're not aware of how to communicate.

21:56S2

Yeah. And then that goes back to the old adage, ignorance is bliss that people do. You know, they just like, cut themselves out of wanting to expand their, um, the range of candidates that they want to be able to be in a sexual or intimate relationship or friendship they stick to. I think I think it's something. Another term that people use, like stay in your lane, do not, um, mix and meld with other people who are who are also in the community, but who don't have a disability or who are not a person of color, or they are not indigenous or there may not be this particular this and that and this and that facet or trait of how a human being was developed or how they have matured. 

But if you do want to be with that person and you're excluding them because they do not fit the stereotypical archetype or imagery that you always see in queer media, like you have to have abs, you're going to have a lot of like a six pack or an iPad, and you've got to have a chiselled look, and you're going to be white and you're going to be able-bodied and neurotypical, and you just you can't have any... abnormalities or deformities or even I'm deficiencies. If you don't want to be with that person, you don't need to make them feel any worse than they already feel being being rejected and being ostracised.

23:36S3

So if you could go back and talk to the 14 year old you who was flipping through that magazine and going, oh, I think I like the male centerfolds more than I like the ladies in the bra ads. What would you say to him?

23:51S2

Oh God, sitting down my 14 year old self and having a chat, I think I could say to him, Don't be so terrified and fearful of fearing your, that you have been born different, that you are broken, that you are wrong, that you are perverse or deviant because you are none of those things. Just knowing that there's always. And this is something I wish I had known when I was at that age, that there is help out there, there is support. There are Lgbtqia+ groups and organizations that you can go to where you can talk to an adult, that that can help you to be guided, to be supported, to be on the right path. And they have the right tools, and they have the right knowledge to be able to get to, to launch headfirst or to be able to take that first step into the community.

24:57S3

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. So before we go and before Lizzie does about five laps of the studio, thanks to all the coffee she's drank, there's one person we haven't really talked about here now. One of our first shows, Lizzie here, was said, oh yes, this and one of my previous relationship was with this girl. And of course, I didn't even bat an eyelid. And that is because why should I have a conversation with somebody off air when I can have a conversation with them on air? Lizzie, what is your story? You're married now to the lovely Stephen. Yes, but you have an ex-girlfriend.

25:35S4

I do. So I am bisexual. I came out as bisexual when I was 14. I always had an inkling that I was attracted to women just as much as I was into men. But it wasn't until I was entering into my adolescence, and I opened up to another female who I happened to have a crush on about my feelings, and she herself was bisexual. And she said that? Yeah. I mean, it's possible to be attracted to women as well as men. In my very limited childhood view, I knew about being gay. I knew about being lesbian, but I thought bisexuality was some sort of, like there's something wrong with me. But no, there's a lot of people out there that are that are bisexual. I've dated women in my past, and. But yes, now I'm in a relationship with Steven.

26:28S3

I always thought that bisexuality should be the next evolution of humanity, because I know it's very, very high and grandiose, but it would actually fix a whole lot of problems if we looked at both men and women the same way.

26:43S4

Yeah, equal opportunities in the bedroom.

26:49S3

Anyway, that is a wrap for the week.

26:52S4

A big thank you to Tess and Jared.

26:55S3

And of course, thank you for listening. Next week we finish off our trilogy with the imaginatively titled Blind Dating 3. When I talk to disability and pride advocate Karen Negron and Vision Australia's own Sarah Evans gives us some advice in navigating the singles world.

27:15S4

Between now and then. Please feel free to get in touch with the show, whether you have experience with any of the issues covered in this week's episode of Studio One, or whether you think there's something we should be talking about, you never know.

27:25S3

Your story and insight may help somebody else who was dealing with something similar.

27:29S4

You can email us at Studio One at Vision Australia - dot - org. That's Studio (number) one @visionaustralia.org. Or you can drop us a comment on the station's Facebook page at facebook.com MVA Radio Network.

You can email us at studio1@visionaustralia.org. That's studio number one at Vision australia - dot - org. Or you can drop us a comment on the station's Facebook page at facebook.com MVA Radio Network.

27:44S3

Goodbye for now.

27:45S1

Vision Australia Radio gratefully acknowledges the support of the Community Broadcasting Foundation for Studio One.