Inclusive Rainbow VoicesTo celebrate Pride Month, author and advocate Jasper Peach reflects on the alignments and beauty that exists across their identity as an LGBTIQA+ person, and a person living with disability and chronic illness.
Feeling different and lonely was normal for me in my life – until around my mid-20s.
It took a very long time for me to reach an understanding that the person I am is perfectly designed, including my physical body.
This doesn’t mean life is always easy, but it does mean that I know myself and work with what I’ve got, ensuring I am kind and compassionate to myself and to others, as much as I can manage.
No child is born understanding that their gender, identity or health status may change during their lifetime. Some folks are born with disability, others acquire changes to their physicality or mental health later in life.
Photo by Amy Woodward
For me, disability and coming out as queer happened at the same time. I was 26 years old and felt excited about having finally worked out who I liked smooching. Almost simultaneously, I began to feel shame and a sense of failure when my physical capacity shifted into a different gear entirely.
It took a decade before I could accept my disabled body, and even longer than that to feel comfortable saying that I was disabled. It felt like I was co-opting someone else’s culture, that I needed permission from someone in charge. But who would that even be?
The sweet spot for both of these significant parts of my identity would have been neutrality: an internal feeling, or a response from others, that these facets of identity were neither good nor bad – they just were. This neutrality unfortunately didn’t exist in the discourse at that time. I didn’t know anyone my age whose life had changed so drastically, and I viewed my place in a hierarchy as going south without my consent.
When it came to my queerness, there were visible examples of celebration, pride and joy. Walking in my first pride march was an incredibly moving experience, although I ducked behind tall people whenever a photographer came near. (I wasn’t out to my family yet.)
Of course, if I’d grown up with the understanding and representation that all genders and sexualities are accepted, valid and no big deal, there would have been no great need to unburden my soul with my realisation.
The same can be said for my disabled body, and for my mental health status, both of which are referenced as “illnesses”. The NDIS is hell-bent on framing me as being in deficit, but if I’d seen and known people in my life who reflected the true variability of humanity, my disability could have been something I arrived into without complete shock.
The narratives of life being over, and of people unable to fathom how I could go on with my body as it was, were demeaning and devaluing of the natural variants that occur in the ecosystem of humanity.
A few years ago I sat and wrote down a wishlist for my writing career. Every now and then I look at it, delighted to have crossed off a few more things. One of the wishlist items was to write a book for kids.
I recently published my first children’s book, with vivid artworks made from Beci Orpin’s paper collage. I’d initially planned to write a book about health. But when I really got down to it, this book already existed. So I went deeper, landing in a rich area focused on each of us trusting our own strong sense of self
It’s so crucial for a kid to understand that this body you live in will be yours for your entire life – and while there are many things out of our control, especially for kids, these young people actually hold so much wisdom.
I wanted to convey that they know themselves, that they can trust their inner voice and experience changes and challenges with their own unique skill set. I wrote the book I needed so much when I was small.
It’s fascinating what stands out about a person’s identity. There are many and varied ways that we collide – whether rawdogging connection in common spaces without a script, or through structured activities – some of us long for a sign or label we can point to that will sum us up.
“I am this, how about you?”
“Yes, same here. What else do we have in common? Who else do we have in common?”
When children are forming friendships, I’ve noticed how they gravitate toward a similar sense of humour. My eldest met their bestie at 14 months of age when they discovered a shared love of slapstick comedy. If not humour, children bond over shared focus in play, or compatible imaginations.
Photo by Amy Woodward
It’s been quite overwhelming to literally see a dream come true in front of my very eyes – adorable pudgy toddler hands gripping the pages of something I’ve created.
It took a few years, lots of research and endless discussions. There was Pam the kindergarten teacher; Dr Chris Cheers, the educational and developmental psychologist; food and nutrition scientist Dr Emma Beckett; my own children; and many more people who know a thing or two. I loved having long, meandering yarns with these people who knew so much, and then working with my mentor Myfanwy Jones to distill all that knowledge down to the core of what I wanted children to have access to.
The intersections between the disabled community and the LGBTQIASB+ community are massive – there are so many of us who fit in both camps. We have common goals in liberation, safe access and the extremely low bar of basic human acceptance.
In an ideal world, people with all kinds of bodies, capacities and abilities would feel welcome everywhere. The same could be said for trans and gender diverse folks – but the unfortunate reality is reflected in the recent Equal Identities report from the Human Rights Commission. There are significant and serious implications on safety and dignity experienced in schools, medical spaces and workplaces.
I wrote My Body is my Home for young children, but ideally the core concepts of bodies having natural variables, all of us having hearts and lungs and bones and blood, no person being superior to another for aesthetic or physical reasons, would be read and understood by everyone.
I’m not sure how people who disagree with this have achieved their positions of power, but if we could bring them back to kindergarten and let them do some collage about their feelings, the world might be a kinder and more well adjusted place.
Celebrations of identity are so important, and always will be, even when the extremely low bar of basic equity for all people is achieved.
I’m happy to report that these days I’m a lot less lonely in my body, and in myself. If I can share with one kid, or one parent, the deep wisdom that their body and identity are perfectly designed, then that’s another step in the right direction.
Jasper Peach is a trans, non-binary and disabled author. They are passionate about equity and inclusion, playing with dismantling misplaced shame across written word, visual and audio mediums.
Their first book, You’ll Be a Wonderful Parent (2023) was a groundbreaking and accessible parenting resource for rainbow families of all kinds. My Body is My Home (2026) is a picture storybook for young readers, illustrated by beloved Naarm artist Beci Orpin.
Published in The Guardian, The Australian Poetry Journal, The Big Issue, Powerd Media, SBS and ABC online, Jasper loves writing for all audiences. Currently working on a mosaic memoir, A Thousand Spinning Plates on Fire, Peach explores the intersections of queer, disabled, fat bodied, transgender, parent, non-binary, neurodivergent and activist identities. This work is presented in prose, poetry and visual forms.
Jasper can usually be found in the beautiful chaos of life with their partner, children and pets.