Speeches at IWD2026 Launch QVWC - 4/3/26

Ms D.Meaner: MC

“Marang yariya, everyone – yuwin ngadhi Ms D. Meaner. Baladhu Wiradyuri yinaa and the current Ms Australian Leather.

Mandaang guwu, yindyamarra woi wurrung-bu bunurong marinya, muyulung, ngarumbang, biriks. Yindyamarra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander marinya. Yindyamarra and solidarity to Indigenous people fighting for their liberation on this continent and all around the world. Mandaang guwu, yindyamarra to the yinaa in my life.

Welcome everybody to the launch of Suzanne Phoenix’s IWD2026 exhibition. Tonight we are here to celebrate Suzanne as an individual and her incredible body of work over the past 15 years. Winner of the Australian Women in Music Hotel X - Music Photographer Award, Suzanne’s latest instalment of her annual International Women’s Day series showcases 23 of Naarm/Melbourne’s activists, artists, authors, dancers, models, musicians, photojournalists, singers and connectors.

2026 includes many from Australia’s music scene including Janet English (Spiderbait), Candice Lorrae, June Jones, Kate Dillon (Full Flower Moon Band), and Evie and Gigi from Public Figures, along with photojournalist Alex Zucco, artist Carol Green, artist Ponch Hawkes and many others.

It is a subversive series of raw and honest photographic portraits in Suzanne's signature black and white style. There is a self-published book available, a few copies of which are here tonight and if you have placed a pre-order you can collect yours tonight. These books contain both the portraits and each person’s uncensored, written response to the question: What Does International Women’s Day Mean to Me? Through these responses we catch a glimpse of the personal stories and lived experiences of every cis and trans women and gender diverse people involved.

I’d like to start with a quote from Suzanne herself about the project that speaks to her intent with the project and demonstrates why it is so important:

‘I'm excited to bring together another 23 people into my IWD portrait series in 2026, the 15th year. I continue to collaborate with cis and trans women and gender diverse people, predominantly in Melbourne's music and queer performance scenes, as a place to document and provide an uncensored voice. We continue to live in a society where gender-based violence and oppression is ever present, so I continue to build on this annual series. I hope this work contributes in some way to changing perceptions and challenges everyone to reach beyond the staid IWD breakfast events.’

I was honoured when Suzanne asked me to MC this event, just as I was honoured to be included in the IWD series. Not as someone with a palatable career, but in full regalia, as a representative of a group of women and gender diverse people whose existence has always been, and continues, subversive, powerful and perceived as a threat to the patriarchy and cishet society. To be included in this project as my whole, uncensored self, a Wiradyuri woman and a Leatherdyke in a space that is quite far removed from the spaces I’m used to appearing as Ms Australian Leather, I believe, speaks to the empowering and visionary nature of Suzanne’s project. It takes someone with vision, dedication and courage to decide who to include, year after year, that celebrates us all as individuals and as part of the collective that forms Suzanne’s expansive and thoughtful portrayal of womanhood.

It takes someone who is observant and filled with compassion to look around and see the kind of women and gender diverse people who aren’t being celebrated on IWD or any other day. Someone who sees the stories that are often made in invisible, whether they be women of colour, Mob, cis women and trans women, fat bodies, disabled bodies, Queer women and gender diverse people and professionals whose is either undervalued or deemed a threat simply because of who they are. It takes someone like Suzanne, who is kind hearted, curious and active in Queer community spaces like Pony Club Gym to even cross paths with a Blak LeatherDyke.

When I became Ms Australian Leather, one of my goals was not to just help create space and visibility for LeatherDykes, Leather women and marginalised identities within my own community, but to bring that visibility to the outside world. LeatherDyke culture and history is subversive and powerful but we are rarely even acknowledged by outsiders as a collective, let alone celebrated by society. We have a rich and diverse history that speaks to decades of advocacy for all women and which deserves to be recognised within our broader history. Suzanne has helped change that with her International Women’s Day series by giving visibility and a platform to someone like me as my whole, uncensored self. She has given me the kind of opportunity she speaks of being at the heart of her project. Here, tonight, I can share who I am, who my community are and what we represent with a whole new audience.

Whether you love leather the way I do or not, I think it’s safe to say that every person in this room can appreciate the value of a community who has spent decades practicing, theorising, developing and advocating for robust models of consent. In the writings and conversations of LeatherDykes, you can see many of the same principles and values that we now see in the consent laws implemented in every state on this continent. I think we can all see the value in finding different ways to build the confidence we need to assert our boundaries wherever we are in the world. Bedroom, board room – consent is consent and boundaries are boundaries.

I’m not saying that LeatherDykes have done everything, but we have done most things. Most importantly, we have spent years on the frontlines, advocating for the rights and safety of all women and gender diverse people. Fighting for empowerment through sexual liberation. Fighting on the frontlines of Second Wave Feminism and pushing back against the ideas of a trans exclusive or sex worker exclusive brand of feminism. Ideas that we, as LeatherDykes, are still fighting back against today.

For everyone in this room, our lives are shaped by things we cannot control: policy, political theatre, the media, the violence of others. But knowing who we are, what we are worth and how we deserve to be treated is within our control. That is what the LeatherDykes before me have fought for. The confidence that allows me to move through the world in the way that I do and it comes from knowing myself as a LeatherDyke. It has helped me learn who I am and helped me understand that all of the horrible things that this patriarchal, colonial cishet society says about a woman like me simply aren’t true. That the things I want to do with other consenting adults aren’t something to be ashamed of. I’m not even at peace with them. These things add value to my life. They serve me and make me a stronger, happier woman. Being part of the leather community gives me the opportunity to be around people, to be around women, who are doing the same thing all the time. And it takes someone like Suzanne, curious, -kind-hearted and-community minded to be in Queer spaces with LeatherDykes and recognise what we have done for, and what continue to offer, all women. To recognise that we deserve to be seen in our entirety as women and gender diverse people.

The power and the value of a project like Suzanne’s IWD Photographic series is that it gives a woman like me the chance to talk about these things in places and with people I would not normally be able to reach. To be seen and included and celebrated on IWD, even when I am not the kind of woman society typically celebrates. It is an honour to be included in Suzanne’s vision of womanhood and to have someone document my place in this world in such a cool and powerful way. And the best part of all is that I am just one woman in a very long series of cool and powerful people! To be part of a collective of 200 stories spanning 15 years is something very special. And Suzanne Phoenix is the woman who made it all happen.

In my response to the prompt ‘What Does International Women’s Day Mean to Me?’ I speak about the co-option of causes like IWD in institutional or corporate settings. The way the causes that were designed to empower us can be used to inhibit meaningful change under the guise of helping us. The way lip service and saying all the right things can mask our achievements or sabotage any chance of receiving material support. Suzanne’s IWD Series is a reminder that despite all of this, there are women still doing things that matter. Suzanne’s project gives us tangible proof that there are so many women taking up space in their own part of the world and utilising whatever opportunities they can to empower and support us all. The IWD2026 Series shows us that there are women, like Suzanne herself, who understand just how expansive and powerful our collective understanding of womanhood can be and that through this knowing, we can recognise that there are women in every aspect of our lives whose achievements, success, survival and contribution to the world are worth documenting and celebrating. “ https://www.instagram.com/msaustralianleather2025/