Quotes from Courtney Act

I know when there's lots of stuff racing around in my head it can be hard to sleep and stay asleep. And one of the biggest things that used to keep me awake at night was worrying about my gender and sexuality.

Courtney wants to make the statement that superficial beauty is manufactured and that any woman, or in this case, any man can be beautiful with the right tools.

When someone is saying something bigoted, try and remember that that person actually just doesn't understand, and that it comes from a level of ignorance, or from socialised brainwashing, or religious ideas.

Yeah, back in 2003, I went to 'Australian Idol' the first day as a boy, and I got knocked out. So I went back the next day in drag and made it into the Top 12 and got a record deal and toured around Australia.

I love being Courtney, but it almost feels like something different to drag for me - it's a part of me, it's not a parody, it's a form of expression for me, a way to give my feminine and masculine sides an outlet.

Obviously drag has different intentions and my drag has always been about gender illusion.

Drag has taught me that I have deliberate control over my image, and when this notion is applied to one's whole life, it is both powerful and transformative.

For people living with HIV, the knowledge that undetectable equals untransmittable is huge news, not only as a means of preventing transmission, but in breaking down the stigma that many people still experience.

The art of drag is intrinsic to who I am.

A word of advice - don't invite your parents to the after-party at 4 A. M.

I am attracted to people irrespective of their gender.

I'm no Joan of Arc, but it's pretty revolutionary having a gender illusionist selling the illusion of beauty to females.

It's so easy to be polarised and yell from different sides of the room about certain subjects, but I think it's so much better to walk into the middle and have a conversation to drive change forward.

Pride is a time to celebrate what makes us unique and the more we let young people know that those things that make us different are actually our greatest strengths, the more comfortable we are in our own skin and the more peacefully we'll sleep at night.

On New Year's Eve, 2000, my friends and I were going to a party in Melbourne and I decided to do it in drag. It was the happiest night of my life.

The gay community has had a sometimes tumultuous relationship with non-queer people coming to their shows because it was tourism, like using the queer spaces as a form of comic relief or entertainment.

For my teen years and all of my twenties it felt like I was trying to live up to this expectation of being a man and what that meant - not just what clothes I wore, but how I acted.

Because bisexual people almost have a foot in the gay and the straight world, their friends can misunderstand them too. Like if a bisexual man starts dating another man, people are like 'Ah, he's gay,' but you know, bisexual people remain bisexual, and their attractions can change and flux over time.

My style of drag has always been a little bit more moderate.

Different people are attracted to me depending on how I look. I have a very broad spectrum of attraction.

The Spice Girls were the life preserver to my high school years.

The Spice Girls and Fran Drescher were such important parts of my childhood. There was something about them that allowed me to be myself.

Recognizing your place of power and privilege in an unfair system can, as an ally, help you to start using that privilege as an opportunity to do good.

Drag can make you a little more fearless and I think girls especially love drag because they get to see somebody define their own standard of feminine beauty.