Marijke Bassani, a First Nations international Human Rights Lawyer, Scholar and PhD Candidate, is leading a Human Rights photography project spanning several years that will centre the lived experiences and stories of LGBTQIA+ Indigenous people from remote communities in the Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland.
The Lama Lama/Lamalama, Binthi Warra and Bulgun Warra gender and sexuality diverse woman was born and raised in the region and speaks two of the local First Nations languages.
Ms Bassani also a contributor to several Oxford University Press publications is an American Australian Association Scholar, Roberta Sykes Scholar, and Cape York Leaders Scholar, and was the former Visiting Scholar and Human rights Lawyer in-residence at the University of California Berkeley Center for Race & Gender in 2022-23.
The Cape York-based project is focused on community-connection building and is supported by Pride Foundation Australia and Nikon Australia Pty Ltd. It is the second phase of her UNSW and Berkeley PhD study and aims to celebrate First Nations gender and sexuality diversity in the Cape, as well as “dispel existing harmful myths” about all Cape York First Nations communities and cultures being cis-heteronormative.
She told National Indigenous Times this queerphobic legacy left behind by missionaries (and the Church) has resulted in Cape York Rainbow mob being excluded from their own communities, cultural and spirituality practices and rituals.
Ms Bassani notes that this has led to historical and ongoing high rates of suicide amongst Cape York Rainbow mob, which is now increasing due to the global and national rise in queerphobia and racism.
She said the genesis of the project was her “own lived experiences growing up here in the Cape, as well as the experiences of community members that I was surrounded by who also identified, often in secret, as queer or rainbow”.
“It was really those personal experiences that sparked my interest, because coming from a non-English speaking background, so many of us up here are bilingual or multilingual, English is my third language, and so I also found that I didn’t connect with any of the dominant definitions, terms, labels and narratives about gender and sexuality diversity in the mainstream queer community,” she said.
“I often turn to my language, and a lot of us up here have turned to our language as a starting point, but it’s very difficult to feel like you belong when there’s no way to describe yourself in your own language.
“It’s been quite a journey on that front and dispelling myths around why that is the case. There’s an assumption up here, in some of the communities including my own, that we don’t exist in our language because we just didn’t exist at all. I challenge that argument and that point, because I think it really discredits our old people and how intelligent they were.”
Ms Bassani said it is important to remember colonial linguists and anthropologists did not learn everything there is to know about Indigenous language, culture and spirituality.
“My cousin and I yarned about the importance of making space for the idea that our old people were very intentional in not sharing and passing down knowledge about gender and sexuality diverse Cape York mob to the John Havilands and all those other famous white colonial linguists and anthropologists, because they knew that they would not understand that aspect of our culture. They knew it would be a death sentence for us,” she said.
“I really believe that it was intentional… but at the same time, I also want to make space for not romanticising pre-colonial and post-colonial First Nations culture in the Cape, because a lot of mobs up this way are patrilineal, not matrilineal and it is possible that not all Cape York mobs celebrated or accepted Rainbow mob. Also, keeping in mind that First Nations patriarchy in the Cape is not the same as the patriarchy that we know in mainstream society today.
“We also need to make space for the possibility that the reason why there is no way to describe us in some of our languages today is due to the way gender and sexuality diversity manifested in the Cape back then—we didn’t have words for it because it was seen as just another manifestation of our Indigeneity. Just another way of being Indigenous.
“It’s about challenging all of those existing dehumanising, violent and colonial, queerphobic stereotypes that have come from a legacy left behind by the churches and the missionaries.”
A long-term, grassroots project
Ms Bassani said the project is a three-to-four year First Nations LGBTQIA+, Sistergirl, Brotherboy human rights photography, grassroots project.
“It’s a big one. I’ll be starting it later this year, after I submit the PhD thesis, and it’ll be the second phase of my PhD project,” she said.
“It’s not a post doc, though, because I intentionally wanted to stay clear of universities and academic institutions. I wanted this to be completely independent. Led, designed and determined by Cape York Rainbow mob.
“I’m making space for it possibly being longer, because of the social, political and cultural landscape in the communities up here at the moment, due to the global and national rise we’re seeing in racism and queerphobia.”
She will be the photographer and project lead.
“I’ll be taking portraits and collecting contemporary personal narratives from Cape York Rainbow mob about what life is like when it comes to community and culture for us. I’ll be collating those photographs into a photography book and all proceeds from the book will go directly back to Cape York Rainbow mob who featured in it to build financial wellness and autonomy,” she said.
“Some of those photographs will be selected to be showcased in an art exhibition that will tour around Australia and maybe other parts of the world.”
Ms Bassani said the work is a declaration of belonging.
“The idea is to show our communities up in the Cape that we belong here as well, and we no longer want to feel unwelcome in our own communities, on our own lands, in our own bodies,” she said.
“So, it’s a grassroots community connection-building project that cultivates visual and bodily space for Cape York Rainbow mob to challenge our position as the invisible and hyper visible, what I term “Black-Indigenous-Rainbow ‘Other'” on our stolen lands, by reclaiming and taking up space within our communities and really demonstrating that, you know, we love to go hunting for turtle and dugong too. We’re also talented at making and throwing spears, just really breaking down those colonial barriers and myths about us.
“Because a lot of the myths up here about Rainbow mob and community are so awful. Some of those myths include that we are sexual predators, products of colonisation and human evolution or that we’re the result of trauma. There is this resistance in some communities about our pre-colonial existence and the idea that gender and sexuality diversity is in our bloodline – basically, there’s a real resistance to accepting that we are also part of Cape York culture and spirituality.”
Cape York communities – unique linguistically, culturally, spiritually and socially
“We were born this way, and so we need to make space for the very real potential that we had old people and ancestors who also identified in this way. But because of colonisation how that manifested back then is very different to how it manifests today,” Ms Bassani told National Indigenous Times.
“However, in some communities, how that manifests, you could argue, is quite similar to potentially how it manifested earlier—my aunties who proudly wear what we call a cultural beard come to mind here as they do not identify as anything other than an Aboriginal woman. But again, we really need to be careful of not homogenising and romanticising Cape York communities, because at the end of the day, they’re all very unique; linguistically, culturally, spiritually and socially.
“By way of example, in one of my communities it was the women who taught children of all genders how to hunt, not men, and this is a patrilineal community which further reinforces my point about not conflating First Nations patriarchy with the violent patriarchy we have come to know today.”
Ms Bassani hopes Rainbow mob will find the experience empowering.
“I want to use this project as a catalyst to spark further debate, and to platform and protect the rights, interests and voices of gender and sexuality diverse First Nations peoples, not just from the Cape, but also across the country and world,” she said.
“I’m really committed to leading the way toward a vibrant future for us that is free from discrimination, violence and exclusion. I’m not here to win awards or popularity contests. I’m not here to be liked, and I don’t care what people think about me. I was born with a story that my ancestors and old people gave me to carry. I’m here to live out that story by affecting real change in our communities up here, because currently, we are just surviving, and many of us are taking our lives, particularly First Nations queer men, and in all honesty it’s a path that even I have grappled with at times in my life,” she said.
“I’m not a messiah or medicine woman and I don’t have all the answers. I would just like to bring some freedom and ease to the daily lives of Rainbow mob by empowering us to stand confidently in the fullness of all our ancient rich, vibrant cultural complexity.
“I also hope that the project can bring about some level of financial freedom and autonomy, because often we’re the ones in our families and communities who are dumped with the children that are labelled too hard, who have been neglected and abused. They become our children, we love, raise and look after them.”
Ms Bassani said Rainbow mob also often take on “the caregiving responsibilities for Elders and people in our families or communities who have very high, complex medical needs, because the view is, we’re queer and we’re never going to have a family of our own or kids of our own”, a view which “couldn’t be further from the truth, we have those same aspirations as well”.
“What is more frustrating is that Cape York Rainbow mob are then expected by our families and communities to be grateful for this “inclusion” if you could even call it that,” she said.
The Cape and Far North Queensland are her key areas of focus.
“I want to showcase a different side of Cape York First Nations culture, a side that Australia at large hasn’t seen before because our voices matter and so do our lives,” she said.
“But it’s important to note that while visibility can lead to empowerment, influence, recognition and respect, we also need to be mindful that when it comes to Rainbow mob in the Cape, that visibility can also be quite unsafe for us, and so I’m also making space for mob involved in the project to meet me in Gimuy (Cairns) and off Country to have their portraits taken.
“Ultimately, Rainbow mob decide what they’re going to wear, where they’re going to be photographed, and how they’re going to be photographed. They have autonomy over the entire process. I’m just there as a person, heart open, spirit ready, privileged to be able to capture this sacred moment, their story and their expression in this way.”
Self-determination is the key
“I think it’s so important that Rainbow mob have that choice of being photographed in clothing, poses and locations of their choosing, because another key theme of my project is emphasising that while self-determination and sovereignty over our lands are important, so too is self-determination and sovereignty over our own bodies, our own genders and our own sexualities, because in 2025 it’s time that we felt welcome and at home on our own lands, in our own bodies,” Ms Bassani said.
“I am committed to spreading this story, this narrative, this idea that it’s not just time for land back, it’s time for bodies back too. It’s time to welcome the unwelcome home. This is our homecoming.”