Resources
Webinar: Bold Voices, Bright Futures (Wear it Purple Day 2025)
Original Event Date: 29/08/2025
For Wear it Purple Day 2025, we were delighted to host this exciting in conversation with two First Nations queer creatives, Bebe Oliver and Arlie Alizzi. Over the hour, we reflected on this year's Wear it Purple Day theme (Bold Voices, Bright Futures) and the role of storytelling, creative expression and visibility in building communities, connection and new narratives.
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Bebe Oliver
Bebe Oliver is a Bardi Jawi award-winning author, poet and illustrator.
As a leading advocate for Aboriginal advancement and self-determination, he is deeply committed to the empowerment and visibility of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander creators. Bebe is the Artistic Director and CEO of Blak & Bright, and the Deputy Chair of Magabala Books, demonstrating his drive for literary excellence and cultural representation.
Bebe’s highly celebrated and widely published work explores love, loss, identity, the intersection of Aboriginal and gay existence, and the rich tapestry of place and Country, making him a compelling and transformative voice in contemporary literature.
Bebe’s newest book, if this is the end (Magabala Books, 2024) is regarded as a fearless and honest exploration of identity, and “a queer Blak classic”.
Arlie Alizzi
Arlie Alizzi is a Yugambeh trans man, a writer, and editor at Magabala Books since 2022. Currently based on Yawuru Country in Rubibi/Broome, he is a researcher and anti-racism educator who has been published by outlets such as the Sydney Review of Books, Liminal Magazine, The Lifted Brow, the Sydney Morning Herald, ABC News, SBS and Overland. He was the inaugural writer in residence at MPavilion for 2018, and in 2022, he was one of 10 fellows for the Judith Neilson Institute’s Long Lede program for long form non-fiction.
Webinar: Centering Peer Leadership in LGBTIQA+SB Suicide Prevention
Original Event Date: 28/05/2025
In this very special discussion, we sit down with four peer workers from across the suicide prevention sector to discuss how they approach their work, the unique offerings of LGBTIQA+SB peer wisdom in responding to suicide, and what they wish the healthcare sector knew about LGBTIQA+SB peer leadership.
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Kiara Lindsay (she/her)
Kiara Lindsay is the Lived Experience Peer Worker at StandBy Metro Melbourne and Gippsland. She lives and works on Wurundjeri Country. Over the last year working for StandBy, Kiara has brought insights from her personal experience of suicide loss and professional learnings to support individuals on their journey of suicide bereavement. Kiara is also pursuing counselling studies to broaden her experience and impact.
Is Hay (he/they)
Is (he/they) is a disabled, trans, queer, mad, autistic young person with a lived experience of suicide who lives and works on stolen Wurundjeri Woiwurrung Country. Is invests deeply in embedding disability justice, trans liberation and intersectionality within in suicide prevention and all spaces that work with communities. He is the Allocations Coordinator for Roses in the Ocean's Peer CARE Companion Warmline, which is a non-clinical peer-led suicide prevention call-back service by and for people with lived experience of suicide.
Matthew Simpson
My name is Matthew Simpson, and I am the Lived Experience Peer Worker for StandBy NT and a qualified Grief Educator. I have 50 years of experiencing an eclectic mix of life’s trash and treasures. Am physically disabled. Cancer survivor. Bereaved by suicide. Live with two neurological disorders. Learnt to walk again after MVA in 2009. 27-year AOD abuser now 8 years clean. Had to learn to walk again after nearly having my leg amputated in 2022. I’ve worked in the human services professionally for over 25-years. Am a post graduate student. Fabulously Queer. Writer. Born Atypical with various neurodivergences. Love travelling having explored over 25 countries. A “Kindness Advocate”. Spiritual Explorer. Musician. Dancer. Dreamer. Peace filled human, for I’ve found what I spent my entire life searching for …. “me” …. and I’m living a life I never knew I dreamt of.
Dan Powell (he/they)
Dan Powell (He/They) is a proud Yorta Yorta Aboriginal Queer man and currently serves as the First Nations How2 Project Lead at Rainbow Health Australia, within the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS) at La Trobe University. Dan brings a strong background in inclusion and diversity, with a focus on working alongside LGBTIQA+ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and the services that support them. His current work involves developing a ‘Best Practice Model for Rainbow Mob Inclusion in ACCOs’—a framework designed to ensure Rainbow Mob are meaningfully included in the Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs) they engage with. Dan also has experience in the disability sector, Aboriginal youth justice, and suicide prevention. As a dedicated lived experience worker, he champions the value of lived experience voices in shaping health and human services. His work supports the creation of inclusive spaces where people feel seen, affirmed, and understood. Passionate about collaboration, Dan is committed to fostering meaningful cross-sector partnerships and embedding principles of self-determination and co-design in service provision. Outside of work, Dan loves a boogie, spending time with the world’s best dog Ari, and jamming with his mates!
Webinar: LGBTIQA+SB Lived Experience Leadership in Practice with Mind Australia
Original Event Date: 27/03/2025
Changing the Landscape is thrilled to present this exciting conversation with Mind Australia. We hear from Mind's executive leadership, LGBTIQA+ strategic management and peer workers as they reflect on what it means to do this work at every level, and how embedding LGBTIQA+SB leadership is not only transformative when working with community, but strengthens all approaches to suicide prevention.
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Katie Larsen (she/they) - Executive Director Lived Experience, Mind Australia
Katie works from a lived expertise and social justice perspective, drawing from her own lived experience of mental health and wellbeing challenges and LGBTIQA+ identity. At Mind, Katie leads the delivery of Mind’s Lived Experience Strategy and provides lived expertise leadership in the development of peer led service models. Katie is a PhD Candidate at Deakin University researching intersectional leadership and decision-making in mainstream mental health services. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Journalism) and Master of Social Work.
Cit Brett-Renes (they/them) - Program Manager LGBTIQA+ Aftercare, and LGBTIQA+ Strategy and Service Development Manager, Mind Australia
For over a decade, Cit has worked both as a practitioner and a leader in providing mental health care to the LGBTIQA+SB community. Cit is currently the Program Manager for LGBTIQA+ Aftercare, Australia's only suicide aftercare program tailored to the needs of the LGBTIQA+SB community. Cit has also supported major NGOs with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives concerning LGBTIQA+SB workplace inclusion. Additionally, Cit is an Expert Advisor for Healthy Male (formerly known as Andrology Australia) and has served as an Associate Lecturer in the University of Sydney’s Postgraduate Program in Sexual and Reproductive Health at the Faculty of Medicine and Health.
Niharika Hiremath (she/her) - Lived Experience Workforce Partner, Mind Australia
Niharika Hiremath OAM, a South-Indian mental well-being peer-practitioner, advocates for mental health and addresses systemic gaps in the well-being sector and with multicultural communities. At the intersection of Lived Experience expertise and cultural responsiveness, she emphasises culture and identity's role in service delivery and systemic change. Niharika’s sizeable role includes supporting Mind’s Lived Experience Workforce, and she also serves on a variety of external advisory boards and committees, specifically focusing on promoting cultural humility and a more responsive system through narrative approaches and self-determination.
Alex Cuffe (she/her) - Peer Practitioner, LGBTIQA+ Aftercare
Alex Cuffe is a compassionate mental health peer practitioner, artist, musician, living on Djaara country. As a queer trans woman, Alex embraces her diverse histories to connect deeply with those she supports, drawing strength from her community to offer understanding and solidarity during difficult times. While trained in counseling, Alex’s journey as an abolitionist, survivor of complex trauma and diverse cognition guides her to work within peer frameworks. This approach fosters healing through authentic connection and mutuality. Central to her practice are the values of love, liberation, and a commitment to decolonization.
Webinar: LGBTIQA+SB Advocacy and Health Resistance with Wil Stracke
Original Event Date: 16/10/2024
In this webinar, we sit down with Changing the Landscape Ambassador and queer rights advocate, Wil Stracke. We discuss how we can advocate for the changes we need to see in our health and broader social systems, and what it means to build community through acts of resistance.
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Wil Stracke is the Assistant Secretary of the Victorian Trades Hall Council, the peak body for unions in Victoria, and a long-term campaigner for women’s and queer rights. She was previously an Associate Solicitor at Slater & Gordon before commencing as an organiser with the Australian Services Union where she worked with members on workplace and industry wide industrial campaigns. She was the Lead Organiser in Victoria for the ASU national ‘Equal Pay’ campaign that achieved wage justice for underpaid, predominantly women workers in the community services sector. In 2013, Wil shifted across to Trades Hall, coordinating large scale trade union political and industrial campaigns. She was elected Assistant Secretary in 2014.
In 2017, Wil ran the Victorian field campaign for the ‘Yes’ campaign for marriage equality. Wil has a large online presence and uses her platform to promote issues around gender equality, queer rights, mental health and workplace rights. Wil’s work has been acknowledged with the 2018 John Cummins Victorian Unionist of the Year Award and the Jennie George Award in 2024 for outstanding contribution by a woman to the Australian union movement.
Webinar: Wear it Purple Day - Pride and Passion in Lived Experience with Emily Unity
Original Event Date: 28/08/2024
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Emily Unity is an award-winning mental health advocate, software engineer, and creative designer. They are passionate about creating change through disrupting traditional systems and amplifying intersectional voices. Emily is informed by their intersectional lived and living experiences. This includes mental ill-health, disability, LGBTQIA+, multiculturalism, neurodivergence, homelessness, family violence, and more.
In this webinar, we sit down with Changing the Landscape Ambassador and mental health advocate, Emily Unity.
It’s time to change the story on trans lives!
We know the stats are high on trans suicide and we talk about it because we want it to end. But how we talk about it matters.
We need to name the impacts of systemic discrimination on the trans and gender diverse community and we must highlight the power of connection, support and access to health and community services in creating opportunities for trans people to thrive.
This resource is free to download.