When Holly Conroy organised the 2019 Pride Parade in regional New South Walesâ Wagga Wagga, she feared it could be the first and last. The city with a population of just over 60,000 had never hosted such an event, modelled on Sydneyâs annual Mardi Gras Festival that is attended by hundreds of thousands.
Now, a year later, the transgender truck driver is planning the areaâs own Mardi Gras Festival after the communityâs positive reaction to the pride parade. âLast yearâs event was just one night. This year Iâve actually put it over three days,â said Conroy. âItâs quite a big deal.â
The Riverina region where Wagga Wagga lies has the countryâs highest percentage of people identifying as Christian, so it is a big deal as Conroy leads the charge in changing conservative attitudes towards the queer community.
Her efforts havenât gone unnoticed. She has been nominated for the NSW Women of the Year Awards, which is âextra specialâ to her âbecause I fight to be accepted as a woman and I fight to have trans rights being acknowledged as womenâs rightsâ.
âIt really shows all the hard work Iâve put in to creating visibility and trying to gain acceptance to be included as a woman is all paying off. Women are women, whether youâre a cisgender woman or a transgender woman.â
Like Conroy said, itâs been a fight. Itâs been a tough fight since childhood, when Holly was Dave and wanted to wear a dress to school.
âFrom early on as a kid, I knew I was different. I looked at the girls at school and I was jealous,â she said. âWhen I was about 11, I cut the crotch out of an old pair of shorts to make it a skirt.â
However, âgrowing up in a small country town and hearing relatives and friends talking really bad about gay and trans peopleâ made it next to impossible to come out at that age.
Fourteen years ago, she tried to come out as a 27-year-old trans woman, but negative reactions from close family and friends forced a return to the closet. A decade later, she came out again, and committed to hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery.
âI didnât get the response I wanted,â she said of her initial attempt to come out. âWhat I got the first time around was, âWe love you, but youâre going to lose friends, youâre never going to get a job. Weâre not going to leave you, but everyone else will.â They kind of accepted it, but they did nothing but fill my head with negative thoughts.â
Conroy knew that her mental health was suffering as she lost her job and friends.
âIt all piled on at once, and I thought, âMaybe theyâre right. Maybe Iâm never going to have any kind of life if I do this.â It scared me to the point where I went back into the closet.â
âI didnât get the response I wantedâ
Suppressing her true identity, she later married a woman. Their marriage lasted five years, at the end of which she was ready to come out as Holly.
âI left [the relationship] and three weeks later I came out as trans and havenât looked back,â she said, explaining that self-reflection drove her to make the big decision. âI had no respect for myself, and then I sat down and reflected and thought, âYou know what, Holly? You need to do somethingâ.â
Choosing to do it her own way now, Holly pursued a very public transition journey, including coming out to friends on social media and then sharing updates.
âIt was the best decision I made, to come back out at 37. Once I got good reactions on Facebook about coming out, that was a huge load off my shoulders. I thought, âWhat have I been worried about?â I think I cried happy tears for at least the next hour after I started getting reactions from people.â
Emotional and teary as she reflected on the affirming reaction, Holly spoke about a man she used to do MMA (mixed martial arts) fighting with.
âThe very first comment I got was from one of the guys I fought with before, and it said, âWe were brothers in the ring, and now weâre brother and sister. If anyone has a problem with you, theyâve got me to deal with.â I tear up every time I tell this story.â
Holly has felt touched by being able to help change othersâ views on trans people through sharing her story. Navigating the workplace has been another example of her challenging the norm.
âWhen I first started transitioning, I was unemployed. I was looking for a job and I thought, âIâm not going to start a job as Dave and then try and explain to them. I would have to come out againâ,â she said.
Soon after, she landed a casual contract with a construction company where her role involved driving a delivery truck to work sites.
âI started out as a very camp Dave. The first time I went to work there, I had nail polish on but was wearing high vis,â she explained.
âI thought, Iâm just going to deal with the backlash. People will assume because Iâm wearing the nail polish. So, I wonât have to portray this masculine fake person. I could still go and be at this stage girly Dave, which was going to make it a lot easier to tell people because they would have already had an inkling because of the nail polish and everything else.â
âI started out as a very camp Dave. The first time I went to work there, I had nail polish on but was wearing high vis.â
Holly eventually confided in a colleague, revealing that she was seeing a doctor in Canberra to start hormone therapy. Word got back to âthe big bossâ, who called Holly in for a Friday afternoon meeting.
âI thought theyâre going to sack me because they donât want a transgender person working here,â she recalled. âIâve gone into the office, shaking like a leaf and my boss turned around and said, âI hear youâre transitioningâ. Heâs like, âI want you to know I donât have a problem with it and the company doesnât have a problem with it. Any time you want to come to work as yourself, feel free, no pressure.â I turned around and said, âSheâll see you Mondayâ, and that was it. From that time onwards, I was full-time Holly.â
Her contract eventually ended at that company, but two years later Holly continues to be a Wagga Wagga truck driver, and her straight male colleagues attended last yearâs pride parade. Sheâs a few months into a happy relationship, and she hopes her openness will inspire others.
âThe whole reason I went public to begin with was to create an environment where people could gain knowledge and open their eyes. Or if a young trans person is sitting in their bedroom, either dressing up or having mental health issues, I would most definitely think Iâm trying to help those people by going public and putting my story out there for everybody to see,â she said.
As the festival draws nearer, the trans rights activist recalled the time a young man approached her at the 2019 Wagga Wagga Pride Parade.
âIt was about one oâclock in the morning, and I was just about ready to go home to bed, and this young boy came up to me, he wouldâve been just 18 or 19. He had tears in his eyes and said, âHolly, Iâve been trying to run into you all night. I just wanted you to know that I came out todayâ.
âAnd it was because the hometown was so supportive of the Mardi Gras event,â she explained. âSo many people embraced it, from young kids to grandparents. Iâm pretty sure there were more straight people at the parade last year than there were gay people.â
Will this yearâs festival have an even bigger turnout from the community? Holly is as sure of it as she is of her identity as a woman.
This article is part of HuffPostâs Proud Out Loud project, which profiles the next generation of LGBTQI change-makers from around the world.