Identity, Space, and the Work That Doesn’t Give Up

It’s difficult to choose the many colours.

To describe the texture.

To explain the tapestry we wove.

The work with Dougie D was never one thing. It was never linear. It was never about scaling up, ticking boxes, or moving neatly from problem to solution. It was about creating critical space — social, emotional, cultural — where identity could form, fracture, reform, and breathe.

Dougie D came through my projects over time, as a full social program we produced together. Central to that work was identity: particularly his gender expression as a cross-dresser, and how that identity intersected with trauma, violence, skill, creativity, and belonging.

Making Space for Capability

One of the early recognitions was that Dougie’s army-trained skills were not something to be discarded or apologised for — they were something to be re-situated.

Those skills meant he could become a full coordinator at Food Not Bombs Hobart, operating for months on his own. Logistics, reliability, calm under pressure — all reframed not as remnants of a past life, but as tools for community contribution. This wasn’t role-playing. This was trust.

Taking Over Space — and Turning It Into Music

At one point, we quite literally “took over” a psychosocial centre.

Together with members of the centre, we built a rock band. For Dougie, this was a dream realised — not just to play music, but to identify publicly as a musician, an artist, a collaborator. The band wasn’t therapy-as-performance. It was identity-in-action, loud, imperfect, joyful.

Home, Violence, and Becoming “Grandma”

With community care outreach support, we worked through domestic violence that was directly linked to Dougie’s gender expression. This wasn’t abstract theory — it was safety planning, presence, and staying.

From there, we built outward again — into his life within a community housing block. There, Dougie began identifying as an “old grandma” figure: supporting, listening to, and stabilising many mentally disturbed men in the block. Not as a service role. As a relational role. Identity found not through expansion, but through usefulness and care.

Tools, Wood, and the Father Line

Another key project lived at local tool sheds. These spaces became places of making and reconciliation.

There, Dougie developed a baroque wooden recorder invention — a deeply symbolic act. His father was an army bandmaster: the apparent opposite pole of Dougie’s gender transformation. And yet, through wood, sound, and craft, a relationship line was quietly reworked. Not resolved. Not erased. But honoured and reshaped.

And We Kept Going

We did many more things with Dougie D — all involving relationships and space. And we are still going.

Currently, we’re using space at a soup kitchen — No Buxs. It loops back to early experiences at our own kitchen, closing a long circle. Using his writing skills, Dougie has now written a dozen songs about No Buxs, and we’re planning a street choir.

This is not regression. This is continuity.

Identity Doesn’t Always Get Bigger

Today, Dougie spent Christmas Day with the people in his community housing block instead of attending a large 200-person event.

That choice matters.

Identity doesn’t always grow by going bigger and bigger. Sometimes it tapers. Sometimes it turns inward. Sometimes it deepens rather than expands — and in doing so, improves outcomes for everyone around it.

We don’t give up.

And neither does Dougie D.

See more post about the work:

• Seeing the Work: A Reflection on Relational Practice
• Seeing the Work: Pete
• Seeing the Work: Priscilla
• When making isn’t about outcome
• The Giveaway Table – Presence before Program