“We’ve both had a stressful start to the year, so we’re going to Confest to chill out.”Sounded like my long time friend Mandy had a good idea re getting away over Easter, but what we doing?
According to http://www.dte.org.au/NextFest.html ConFest was started as an “alternative living' festival in the 1970's by Jim Cairns (then Deputy Prime Minister) and his assistant Junie Morosi and many others.” It’s camping, it’s in the bush and it’s largely primitive, although there was a marketplace selling (amongst other stuff) cooked food and lattes for those needing their morning fix.
Being a first timer was a bit overwhelming. However the spirit of Confest is that anyone can run a workshop/gathering on anything (regardless of expertise). 2 gay guys had the sensible idea of holding a queer “meet and greet” on Friday morning, which for a first time attendee was very helpful in feeling more settled.
Saturday was a much noisier with almost 15 hours of tribal drumming which sent me a bit spare. Even the quiet area (also drug and alcohol free) wasn’t completely quiet. To lift myself on Sunday, I decided to put on 2 workshops myself. Old habits die hard and one was “Transgender 101.” Happily no-one turned up. Happily - yes: maybe that no-one was interested meant that no-one there gave a damn about transgender. Hallelujah.
A lovely Hindu gay guy from the Sunshine Coast facilitated a workshop re gay/queer spirituality, specifically is there a queer spirituality or can we be part of mainstream spirituality – an article in itself.
At Confest, clothing is optional re both style and amount. i.e. people can walk around nude if desired and guys wear dresses. In a “gently challenging” way,seeing the nudity was helpful for me. As a transsexual this brought to the surface the internalised transphobia I’ve swallowed re feeling negative about my body and that I need to let that transphobia go. Something to work on…
Overall queerdom was a non-issue; making Confest a sort of queertopia. One gay guy said he’d received a comment there were “no queers here,” (pretty odd given the signs locating the queer village), but that was it.
Undaunted by the nil response to the trans workshop, I tried again and ran a workshop on the “Highly Sensitive Person.” Being relatively unprepared moved me out of my comfort zone, but the results were worth it. 9 other people turned up, only one of whom who knew of the material. The other 8 were “just curious.” However, on finding out that there were other people like themselves and knowing about relevant resources, they walked away happier and feeling less isolated… the highlight of my weekend.
Which is what Confest is about. Giving. Respect for each other. Which begs a question. If it’s so easy for Confest to be respectful of humanity without a whole lot of rules, how come it’s so hard for society to do it?
PS This article was submitted to a local pink newspaper for possible publication: no response, so blogreaders, you get the exclusive!
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