The opera singer, composer, playwright and educator on coming out as “a 21st-century urban woman who is Yorta Yorta by birth, stolen generation by government policy, soprano by diligence, composer by necessity and lesbian by practice.”
“Coming out does get easier, but it never actually goes away,” soprano and composer Deborah Cheetham Fraillon shares on the latest episode of OUTcast Podcast. “There is always an assumption that society is white heterosexual society, and everybody else orbits around them.”
Deborah, who describes herself as “a 21st-century urban woman who is Yorta Yorta by birth, stolen generation by government policy, soprano by diligence, composer by necessity and lesbian by practice” shares:
“I had many different kinds of coming out: coming out as a Yorta Yorta woman, coming out as an opera singer, coming out as a lesbian… I’ve always known that I was attracted to women, and long before I had even encountered the term ‘lesbian’ I was growing up with my adopted family, who were strict baptists, so the idea of any kind of sexuality outside the heteronormal…”
Her’s is a fascinating and poignant story of discovering her identity as an adopted ‘Stolen Generation’ First Nations Australian, and of coming out against the backdrop of a strict Baptiste church community – all wrapped in her beautiful approach to performing, composing and teaching music.
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OUTcast Podcast 