Why TRANSGENRE Exists Within The Australian Music Festival Scene: 'It’s Basically Our Attempt To Un-F*ck The World'
As Tim Blunt and Ellie Robinson prepare for the return of TRANSGENRE, they discuss the event's importance and the realities of independently hosting their own festival.
TRANSGENRE Festival (Source: Supplied)
Tim Blunt and Ellie Robinson are the masterminds behind the music festival TRANSGENRE.
Australia’s first-ever festival dedicated to spotlighting artists comprising transgender and non-binary creatives (or at least one transgender or non-binary member), the pair hosted the event’s debut in December 2023, putting on an event starring Cry Club, Those Who Dream, Blake Williams, FVNERAL—led by Blunt—and many more.
In 2024, TRANSGENRE teamed up with the Illawarra Shoalhaven Gender Alliance, Deer Gaze Wollongong and The Mound to promote the Trans And Friends Music & Arts Festival. Blake Williams and FVNERAL performed once again, and were joined by the likes of Joe The Kid, Raechel Williams, Cherry Ripe, and Sweaty Biscuit.
In 2025, TRANSGENRE will return for its second edition—but not before Robinson and Blunt put on a fundraiser event called Gender Reveal next week.
Next Friday (27 June), FVNERAL will perform with a brand-new line-up for the first time, and allies Huck Hastings and Ben Lee, performing as DJ Dad Bod, will take to the stage at Lazy Thinking in Sydney.
Why a fundraiser gig, you ask? So Robinson and Blunt can make the second TRANSGENRE “the biggest and best day possible,” all while keeping ticket prices “as cheap as possible.” As we know, putting on a festival in Australia is notoriously difficult, especially in a post-pandemic environment where the average punter is affected by the cost-of-living and spending less on tickets and alcohol.
Don't miss a beat with our FREE daily newsletter
With TRANSGENRE 2.0, Blunt and Robinson are looking to ensure that their event’s future can exist sustainably.
The return of TRANSGENRE is personal for Blunt and Robinson, and as outlined in FVNERAL’s just-released single, front door, Blunt uses their music as a way to share their experiences.
With front door, Blunt explores their coming-out experience as a transgender non-binary individual, commenting on the single: “I think an experience many queer people, particularly trans people, have is a feeling of whiplash and something akin to regret when coming out.
“After coming out to myself, the process of starting to come out to some of the people around me was really difficult and saw a huge amount of my friends and family quickly distance themselves from me,” they continue. “front door describes the internal tug-of-war in simultaneously wanting to run back into the closet and the desire to be out and proud. The song finishes with a defiant ‘I’m walking out,’ to signal a determination to persevere and to find my chosen family.”
Looking ahead to the Gender Reveal fundraiser and the second edition of TRANSGENRE, The Music caught up with Robinson and Blunt to find out more about what’s on the horizon.
“We’re working towards having the second edition of TRANSGENRE later this year,” Blunt notes. Reflecting on the festival’s debut, they tell The Music, “I think we went into the first one kind of blindly and quite naively, as well. It was a crazy amount of work; it was something that neither of us had ever done before.
“It was born from a shared dissatisfaction with how much both of us had been advocating in different ways—me in the sphere of being someone who plays a lot of music and plays in a lot of bands, and then Ellie on the journalism and media side of stuff—feeling frustrated about the lack of representation, and the lack of literacy within the music industry, about what it means to be a trans person.
“The two of us really bonded over that shared frustration about being like, ‘Why are there not spaces for trans artists to play? Why are trans artists not being booked on mainstream festivals?’ And why [aren’t there more spaces] in the production space and songwriting space? And the media and journalism space? Why is it so hard to break through?”
They add, “I think the decision to [put on TRANSGENRE] was like, ‘Fuck it.’ Like, I think if this change is gonna happen, it's probably gonna require at least some kind of DIY, grassroots impetus for it. And it feels so gorgeous to be able to do it with one of my best friends. It’s basically our attempt to collectively un-fuck the world.
“To make the festival happen, Ellie and I really put our lives ostensibly on pause, dedicating basically every waking moment to making that happen. It’s tough financially, because we’re really running it largely on our own.”
Robinson, who you may remember from The Music, echoes the sentiment. “Hosting an independent festival is definitely pretty stressful and it takes a whole lot of effort – but I’d be remiss not to focus on how rewarding it is, too, especially with the prospect of doing something really special for our community.
“The atmosphere we’re able to foster on the day makes all the stress feel so worth it, a thousand times over. We’re really thankful to have an incredible team behind us, and we’ve learned a lot from linking up with some of our more experienced industry friends.
“And of course, we are absolutely blessed to be working with the team at the Red Rattler – they’re some of the most genuine and dedicated people we’ve ever met, and we’re truly inspired by their passion for running a DIY, community-oriented space.”
She adds, “In terms of all the red tape, we’ve found that Sydney is relatively easy to host a show like ours in, at least in comparison to Melbourne and Brisbane. There are definitely a lot of rules we have to play by, especially in order to make it an all-ages event – and because we’re putting the show on for a marginalised community, we have to be extremely diligent about safety and security – but again, it’s very much worth it.”
Speaking on the inspiration behind hosting a fundraiser ahead of TRANSGENRE 2.0, Robinson cites the cost of putting on festivals in the current landscape. As a fully DIY operation, all of the expenses come out of the pair’s pockets, which are “pretty empty to begin with,” she quips.
“Doing the fundraiser means we’re able to invest in making TRANSGENRE Volume II as big and special as it can be, while keeping tickets as cheap as we can make them,” Robinson shares. “It’s super important to us that all of our performers get paid fairly, while still having the show be accessible to as many people as possible.
“We’re so very thankful to Huck Hastings and Ben Lee – two of the best cis allies we could ever ask for – for donating their time and talent to next week’s show. And of course, to the Lazy Thinking crew, our besties at Sock Drawer Heroes, and everyone helping us out on the night!”
Blunt concurs, “To be able to do the best job we can in putting on stuff, we need to think of a few creative ways to lay some cash [laughs]. And yeah, it kind of coincided with my own project re-launching itself around this time.
“I guess the funny thing about this phrase [Gender Reveal] is that we are using it as an opportunity to test how it goes, trying to put allyship into action in the sense that both Huck Hastings and Ben Lee are involved as well. Neither of them are trans, but both of them have been quite vocal about wanting to contribute to what TRANSGENRE does.”
Blunt recalls meeting Ben Lee last year when FVNERAL opened for the Catch My Disease star on tour. The pair quickly struck up a friendship, with Lee taking FVNERAL under his wing “in a very sweet way.” Now, Lee is someone Blunt looks to as a mentor.
“Ben is someone who has really lived a few music industry lives,” Blunt says, citing Lee’s pop-star life and recluse life and who he is today: Someone who has the ability to platform artists he cares about.
“It’s such a beautiful thing, but such a rare thing to meet a cis, straight man who is dedicated to the idea of platforming marginalised voices and learning and listening with humility,” Blunt shares. “At different points, I told them [Lee and Hastings] wanting to find a way to raise money without asking any other trans artists to work for free, and they both instantly were like, ‘If there's any way we could help, please let us know.’ They were down to help by promoting it or working on the door or anything.”
They continue, “After Ellie and I got together, we were sort of like, ‘Maybe this makes sense as a way to demonstrate allyship in action, particularly given as it’s Pride Month.’ There’s all this rhetoric around Pride Month about wanting to be an ally and showing up, and we were kind of like, ‘Well, this feels like a pretty obvious and tangible way for these two to put their money where their mouth is.’
“And to their credit, they were like, ‘Fuck yeah, let’s go!’ I think for people like that, who are extremely busy people and quite in demand, it meant a lot to be able to have one conversation with both of them, and for them to instantly be like, ‘Alright, cool. Blacking it out in my calendar.’
“Ben was like, ‘I can let my booking agent know that I’m not available to do any stuff on that day.’ There’s something that feels quite precious about the idea of these people whose art I really love, but also whose politics and the way that they carry themselves through the music industry. I really respect the fact that they were both like, ‘Oh, yeah, we fully co-sign this and want to elevate it and platform it.’ That means a lot to both Ellie and I.”
Talking about putting on TRANSGENRE not just once, but twice, leads to emotional reflections from Robinson and Blunt. After the first edition in 2023, the power duo had “so much ambition and forward momentum” for Volume II, but Robinson admits that they ran into hurdles that forced the delays for the second festival.
“Towards the end of last year, we had to kind of slam the brakes on everything we were doing with TRANSGENRE. That was definitely a massive gut-punch,” she tells The Music. “But we regrouped at the start of this year and started throwing some new ideas around, and I remember hopping off that first call with Tim just feeling so excited and energised about this project again.
“The first edition of the festival was legitimately one of the best days of my life. I’d always dreamed about putting on my own little music festival, and not only was it actually happening, but it was happening as this big celebration of my community and all the incredibly things about it – all the incredibly diverse and incredibly talented people in it – and it all felt so surreal, in the best way possible.”
Blunt adds, “With the first one, we kind of didn’t know what to expect. And it felt so poignant, because both Ellie and I have, separately, had so many conversations with kids. Being an all-ages event, we had some of these moments where lots of parents came with their trans kids who were saying that it was one of the first times they were able to experience feeling safe and comfortable and not feeling relegated to the margins and let their guard down completely.
“I’m so happy that these kids and young people have got an opportunity to come into that space and feel like it’s theirs,” they continue. “It feels special because I want it to grow, and I want TRANSGENRE to not be the only festival like this. I want people who come along to want to start their own thing.”
Taking us back to the 2023 event, Robinson recalls a moment where she and the team were setting up the stage for WA outfit Those Who Dream. Looking out at the crowd, she froze in her tracks.
“There were so many people in that room, all smiling and dancing and being their best selves,” Robinson reveals. “That’s kind of rare for us as visibly queer people – a lot of times at gigs we end up just kind of vibing in the corner and keeping a low profile, because if we stand out too much it can invite trouble. But the kids at our show didn’t need to worry about that, because everyone there was just like them. It was their space. And they really embraced it! The atmosphere was so electric, and the vibe was so wholesome.”
Blunt describes that day as “kind of like a little utopia” and one of their favourite days ever. “In a selfish way, I crave more and more versions of that same day,” they say. “Being able to see that other people had a similarly positive experience at [the festival], it really motivates me to want to make sure it happens as often as it can, and that it’s as good as it can when it does happen.”
Robinson adds, “We heard afterwards that a lot of people ended up making new friends at the show, they got super into the bands we had playing, and there was a real hunger for more events like it. Especially as an all-ages thing, having that space available for young people who maybe aren’t able to connect with their community or openly embrace their identity at club nights or other queer events. So now that we get to do it all again, it feels amazing. It’s really special.”
The longstanding aim of TRANSGENRE is for it to exist as a “wide-spanning initiative that wholly celebrates the diversity of talents among the trans and gender-diverse people in the Australian music scene,” according to Robinson.
“It’s not about tokenisation or saying, ‘You should pay attention to these artists because they’re trans’ – it’s about genuine representation, and giving a platform to artists that are often overlooked by the industry because it still tends to rely on these outdated, cis-heteronormative ideals,” she says. “It’s about saying, ‘You shouldn’t ignore these artists because they’re trans – in fact, here’s why they’re so cool and why you should give a shit about them.’
“Just having this community-centred space for our fellow trans people to find new music from artists they can relate to and connect with in a unique way; it always feels so fucking special when you find a piece of art and you can be like, ‘Wow, this really speaks to me, and the person who made it, they’re just like me!’
“We want TRANSGENRE to be a platform people can look to and find those pieces of art – and at the shows, have this space to engage with that art and those artists in a real, tangible way, surrounded by their own people, knowing they’re safe and free to be their most authentic selves.”
Gender Reveal will take place at Lazy Thinking in Sydney on Friday, 27 June. You can find tickets here. TRANSGENRE will return later this year, and the line-up will be revealed soon.
More From Our Network
