BRONTE: [00:00:00] This gay man was dying and we had time to plan his funeral, but on the day of the funeral, his family stepped in and I had to advocate for him because I knew exactly what he wanted, and he was no longer there to talk about it, as in ‘this is what I really want’. And so I had to respectfully ask the family not to do a couple of things they were planning to do or to do them in different ways because that was not what he had envisaged at his funeral.

CATHERINE: Welcome to Don't Be Caught Dead, a podcast encouraging open conversations about dying and the death of a loved one. I'm your host, Catherine Ashton, founder of Critical Info, and I'm helping to bring your stories of death back to life because while you may not be ready to die, at least you can be prepared.

Don't be caught dead. [00:01:00] Acknowledges the lands of the Kulin Nations and recognizes their connection to land, sea, and community. We pay our respects to their elders past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nation peoples around the globe.

Today I'm speaking with Bronte Price. Bronte is Australia's first marriage celebrant to be certified in lgbtqia plus weddings and a leading voice for inclusion in both weddings and funerals. He has now conducted more than 200 LGBTQIA plus weddings. After more than two decades as a senior executive in state and local government, Bronte transitioned to Celebrancy, combining his calm professionalism with a deep passion for authentic, meaningful ceremonies. 

He [00:02:00] and his husband Clint, married in 2019 after nine years together, an experience that gave Bronte a firsthand understanding of what couples truly need from their celebrant. Today he specialises in creating ceremonies that reflect each person's identity, values, and love journey.

In 2016, Bronte co-founded the Equality Network - training, wedding suppliers and Celebrants, as well as funeral directors and staff in LGBTQIA plus inclusion. A former Joy 94.9 newsreader, storyteller and advocate for the LGBTQIA plus community. Bronte continues to champion visibility and respect for queer lives, both in love and death.

Thank you so much for spending the time with us today, Bronte. 

BRONTE: Oh, it's a pleasure to be here, Catherine, and I'm looking forward to our chat. Thanks a lot. [00:03:00] 

CATHERINE: Now, Bronte, we met in October of 2022 at the redesigning death care conference that the University of Melbourne had put on, and what struck me about you straight away is how warm and welcoming you were.

I think you realized that I was attending by myself and you were My first lunch date that I had, 

BRONTE: we were, we did several lunches and just got to know each other. It was one of those, for me, it was a pretty profound kind of conference, but it was also an opportunity to meet people you hadn't met before and to reacquaint yourself with some people who were working in the death industry as well.

So, good conference. 

CATHERINE: So tell me, where did you get started? Like how did you transition from being in government to then being, you know, Melbourne's gay celebrant? Like that is quite the transition. 

BRONTE: It, for me, it was just [00:04:00] a, a natural transition. So back in, I think it was 2013 or so, I had been working as director of regional development in Tasmania.

The Tasmanian government changed from red color to blue colour. And my position then became redundant. And so the department I worked for offered to move me to anywhere that I wanted to go as part of my package. And so I chose Melbourne, and Clint started working in Melbourne at the same time. So we moved in together and, you know, up until then we'd had this kind of long distance relationship.

I was unemployed for eight or nine months. I needed a bit of a break, and also just started to look for jobs. Ended up getting a job of the Victorian Ombudsman around digitisation and data analytics that I, I really loved. But in the meantime, my best friend Suzanne had suggested to me, have you [00:05:00] ever thought of becoming a celebrant?

For me, it was kind of light bulb thing that happened and I, I just thought there was this beautiful collision in a nice way of my background as an English and drama teacher, my background also around managing teams, writing all sorts of documents, including, you know, cabinet submissions and I love writing.

And so for me it was one of those, why have I not thought of this before? So I'll always be eternally grateful to Suzanne for suggesting that I become a celebrant. And of course, by that afternoon after our phone call, I had enrolled in a course. 'cause you have to do a, a course with a registered training organisation.

And I had no idea what I was in for. And then eventually I started working for the Ombudsman, finished my course, and I had, my first couple was with [00:06:00] two very dear friends who, you know, we'd met in Sydney and they subsequently moved to Melbourne. So literally my registration, I think as a celebrant came through a week before I was due to marry them.

Luckily. 'cause I teed up a registered celebrant, obviously, to do that. So then it was a matter of, um, wow, what is this thing called Celebrancy? And as part of the course you have to design your website and write out your documents you're gonna use and think about how you market yourself and so on. And honest to goodness, the words I'd used, you know, for my website, I look back at them now and I think what was even in your head, like there were far too many words.

And, and of course you've got no images, so you have to rope in some friends to go to a park and make out you’re marrying them or having a commitment ceremony of their LGBTQA Plus at that time. [00:07:00] And so this was an incredible learning experience. I went to lots of wedding expos as an exhibitor, you know, I had my stall there.

I advertised lots. I very quickly got two websites. I've always had a straight website and a queer website as part of my business, and two different businesses as well. So I eventually, and, and I threw way too much money down a rabbit hole that went nowhere, spending it on SEO that never really occurred.

And so eventually you kind of sort that out, but you need to go through some good and bad experiences on the way to doing that. And so it was, I think, 18 months after I'd become a celebrant, that I decided that I'd had enough of a public servant life. And so I tendered my resignation and overnight, um, [00:08:00] having resigned from the Ombudsman, I became a full-time celebrant.

And it was like, oh my God, what have you done? Like, where do you think the salary is gonna come from now? And it had, it had to work. So that was in itself just a, a learning experience. It's been a great, great ride. And the transition has been really about just, um, meeting people where they're at. And helping them in whatever way you can.

And that's always been the driver of the content of my, my websites, I think, and my blogs are about what sort of questions are couples increasingly asking. And so putting that up as you know, as a help. And of course, getting the websites SEOed and now GEOed, uh, to the hilt as much as you can. And so I don't advertise anymore, ever anywhere.

I rely simply on my website for weddings, and I [00:09:00] do roughly just over a wedding a week, which is enough for me. 

CATHERINE: And tell me, Bronte, there's two things that intrigued me with that, how you got started. Firstly is two websites, one straight, one gay. 

BRONTE: They're different audiences. The language is different, the images are different, but the rituals and traditions I think should be different in many cases with celebrancy.

I, I think that's the, a rare, rare, rare exception. And the same for funerals, of course - should be, but rarely are. And people will say, well, we just treat everyone the same. My response to that would be, why on earth would you treat everyone the same? Because our, our culture as queer people, our language, our history, our struggles, our stories are completely different from a couple who is possibly not LGBTQA plus.

So that's why two websites, if I was to do it again. I think I'd [00:10:00] still have two websites. Even though there are many people in marketing in particular who would say you should be integrating. I still, you know, my, my queer website is very, very effective for me. So it, it's just, it, it's what's worked for me.

CATHERINE: And tell me, Bronte, for someone who may not be that familiar with the LGBTQI a plus community, what is it that makes it unique? When you're talking about your queer stories, your history, how does that play into your conversations when you are working with a, a couple to develop their ceremony? Obviously you, you focus on marriage, but more importantly, when you're actually focusing on someone when they've died or they may have a, a life limiting illness.

Can you talk me through about what's unique about that? 

BRONTE: Yes. [00:11:00] So let's take an example, a couple come to you and look at the couple, let's talk weddings and then let's talk funerals. 

CATHERINE: Yeah, 

BRONTE: sure. And there's perhaps a, a person, a couple who present to you as a man and a woman. And in your head, possibly you think of them as a straight couple.

I got to the point some years ago where in my client relationship management system, if people want to contact me through my website, then there's not a form to fill out. And each of these bits is optional. Their name I need, and their email and phone number I need. But the other questions I ask are about their pronouns, (optionally) sexuality and gender.

Both optional. And I've had no one yet who's come through, including straight couples who haven't filled out the form - what the dropdown menu is. So that goes from that contact form straight into my CRM system. And [00:12:00] so then if someone's got comes through and has they/them pronouns, that saves me having to ask or assume that they're he/him or she/her.

If they come through as bisexual, as a bisexual man or a trans woman, that saves me having to ask rather than assume. So that's for me the difference, Catherine. So I have educated myself, trained myself, in fact, not to make assumptions based on appearances. 

Can you tell someone's name by looking at them? Of course you can't. Can you tell someone's pronouns by looking at them? Of course you can't. You might think you can, but you'd be making an assumption and, sometime down the track, if you keep doing that, you'll be wrong. Can you really guess someone's gender or sexuality just by looking at them? Of course you can't.

I learned that [00:13:00] years and years ago, and so that all requires me as a, certainly an LGBTQA plus or queer celebrant to I, I want to know that information because the lived experience, if they present to me as this couple that I was talking about earlier, present as a man, the woman, well, if you assume they're straight. That's fine. If they happen to be a trans man and a queer woman, completely different story, which I wanna know about because they've got different life experiences, they've got different, uh, safety requirements. Maybe you suddenly have to ask whether, you know, the, the venue is a safe space in terms of basic things like toilets, whether the venue and the staff are being trained in queer literacy, uh, and so on and so on.

So it's really, I think, let alone the rituals. So one of the [00:14:00] things I did during COVID was right an ebook on, I think I took 38 different rituals, wedding rituals. So one of them is walking down the aisle and it's a very strong ritual. So I named the ritual, I talk about where did that originate? What's the origin of walking down the aisle?

Why have two sides? And why have this thing called an aisle with the processional? And then I put, I think it served for each of those, I put three alternatives for queer couples. And one of them is don't have an aisle. Why would you have an aisle where, you know, the origin was that this side and this side didn't know each other.

So they'd take a side and she would walk down the aisle with her father, the man to be handed over to another man as a piece of property back in the day, as an asset to this guy who is gonna be her husband in [00:15:00] a few minutes' time. And so that ritual doesn't make sense to a lot of queer couples. And so let's talk about having an entrance or not having an entrance via an aisle.

So that sort of stuff. So that's what I talk about when I say I try really hard to offer alternatives that are not straight or heteronormative as we call it. I've gotta say both the wedding and funeral industries are highly heteronormative, and that implies a bias, whether it's conscious or unconscious or both, that everyone is straight and that everyone is cisgender and they're not.

And so my mission, I guess as a celebrant, has always been to offer something different, which plays back into the ‘how come’ to different websites. And I'm saying because our culture, our language, our history, our stories, lived experiences are different from [00:16:00] those of straight couples. 

CATHERINE: That is a really good example to use in relation to that about the walking down the aisle.

I think that's a really, and touching on things that people may not even consider, because when you have to run something like an event, which a wedding is, it is a very large event and it is those things that you mentioned that come with so many layers that you don't think about unless you have a lens and you take the consideration about it may not be a heterosexual couple that you're talking about.

So the things that you mentioned about such as even the safety in toilets and how the toilets are marked, whether the staff are aware and have been trained, that is a classic example of how many different layers there must be when you are arranging a wedding or a funeral for someone who is [00:17:00] queer. 

BRONTE: A lot of my clients now come from outside Australia and they come from countries where it's still a criminal offense to be homosexual.

And so simple little things like, I'll just go to one other ritual, then we'll stop talking about rituals, but simple little things like wearing a wedding ring. So if they wear a wedding ring and they're together, say walking down the street or wherever, people will assume - here we go about assumptions again - that these two people are married 'cause that's what the wedding ring denotes. And again, it's a really strong ritual. To discard or to think about an alternative for. So what I do, if we are getting to the point and they, even in a short and sweet legals only wedding ceremony, they want to exchange rings, but they can't 'cause it's not safe for them, like it's literally life threatening.

Then I'll say, how [00:18:00] about you exchange watches? So they know, they'll look at the time all the time and it'll remind them of the person they married at the same time. It's their little secret. So no one kind of, no one apart from them will know. Even close family members will not know that they're married. They know it's got deep significance.

So I've used that numerous times for couples, you know, who will go home to live in the country they came from, but they'll perhaps live together as flatmates or as friends. But they'll wear, instead of a wedding ring, they'll wear a watch or a lapel or a brooch, you know, or a, or a chain necklace. So all sorts of options, but if we don't understand that story or that history, that culture for them, then you know, we won't bother making those options available to them.

We'll treat everyone the same. Catherine, give [00:19:00] them, you know, ‘you've got to swap a wedding ring or nothing’ kind of thing, and we can do better than that. 

CATHERINE: We can, and, and some people may not be aware that it wasn't even in our own country until 1998. You know, you mentioned Tasmania, that being homosexual was decriminalised.

It took until that late in our own history, let alone when we actually introduced, you know, gay marriage a lot later than that. You know, 

BRONTE: Catherine, in 1949, do you know what the penalty was for being homosexual in Victoria? 

CATHERINE: I think you're going to tell me Bronte. 

BRONTE: So death penalty and in 1949 it was commuted to 15 years of imprisonment for having had sexual relations with another ban.

It was, it was exclusively for homosexual men. And it was about anal sex largely. [00:20:00] And so someone caught having, or having been dobbed in and you know, being accused of and then found guilty of that crime with certainly some men were hung at Pentridge for committing that crime. Others had to spend between 10 and 15 years in prison, 1949, Victoria.

So it's, you know, it's within the lifetime of some people who are still very much alive. And that's a difference that people in the non LGBTIQA plus community never have to face, presumably. So, yeah, so again, that's why I think it's, I don't treat everyone the same. It's really important. I don't treat everyone the same.

It's really important to me. 'cause they're not the same. 

CATHERINE: And when we have a history that is, uh, steeped in, uh, it being a criminal offence [00:21:00] 

BRONTE: Yeah. 

CATHERINE: To be gay. How important now is that the work that you're doing with The Equality Network? We've just talked about considerations that a lot of people probably have never thought about in their life when they've gone to a public toilet.

What that poses as a dilemma to someone who is queer and don't identify as, as two option gender, the cisgender of either male or female, and the icons that you're presented with when you go to a public toilet. So with the work that you're doing with The Equality Network, what sort of challenges do you see in the organisations that you work with?

BRONTE: Oh. Thank you. So can range from just not being aware or not having any images of anyone who, you know, I said before, you don't look gay or you don't look bisexual or whatever. [00:22:00] But the implication often is that this is just a, a man, a woman. And often there's no diversity of age or ability or cultural background or any other kind of characteristic.

And so their forms, for example, will be binary based. They'll have for, maybe if it's sex, it'll be male and female, nothing else, or they won't have any other pro, they won't even collect pronouns, they won't collect any information around gender. They will kind of make the little transition from sex to being the same as gender.

It's not, but they won't collect any evidence that someone might be something other than a man or a woman. They won't possibly have any particular leave. This is special [00:23:00] efforts for people who, so they'll have perhaps parental leave for both the, you know, paternal and maternal leave. They may not have any provision for transitioning or other events that someone who's trans might want to have leave for.

They'll have a culture where it's the stuff around the, the coffee table at lunchtime or at morning tea is very heteronormative again. So everyone is assumed. And so in a culture like that, in a workplace like that, uh, very often people who are queer won't be able to bring their authentic self to work.

So they may not be able to work, they may never talk about their private life. They may never talk about the fact that they and the queer partner have got children that they, they may never talk about the fact that they've got [00:24:00] a, a fur baby instead of, uh, a human child. They won't talk about what they did Saturday night at the, at the Gay or Lesbian Club.

They may not talk about the, the gay crew or what they did when they went to, you know, somewhere like in March for example. It's just so that - summing all that up - they can't bring their authentic selves to work. And so they put their head down, their bum up and get their work done and then go home to be their authentic self at home after work.

And so that's, that's kind of fundamental I think, at any workplace. So the work that I've been doing with an aged care provider based in Queensland since February has just been around all of that changing, having a look at to their processes and their systems and their forms and their website and the whole organisation and doing a, a large [00:25:00] inclusion audit of all those things.

And then making some recommendations, which then form the basis of a very solid piece of work over the next 12 months, including some inclusion training that’s mandatory for all staff to do. And that's led to that organisation now changing so much, so, so authentically that they've just won three major national awards.

One in diversity, one in employer of choice and one in workplace diversity and co workplace diversity and inclusion. And so when, when you have a CEO at the helm really is dedicated to this and, and wants to do this work no matter what, and is all about building capacity around inclusion, diversity, and making sure that everyone, everyone can bring their authentic selves to work.

And, you know, different perspectives are [00:26:00] listened to and valued and heard. That changes an organisation, I think, for the better. So that's the sort of stuff that we do. If we look at funerals and the funeral industry. I said before, Catherine, that the wedding, but let's talk funerals. The, the funeral industry is one of the most heteronormative sectors that exists today.

There is no dedicated rainbow space in any cemetery or memorial park in Australia. Everyone is assumed to be straight. There are dedicated areas 

CATHERINE: that shocks me, but at the same time, it doesn't at the same time. You know what I mean? Like, it's this, it doesn't surprise me. But yet at the same time, I am alarmed by that.

BRONTE: There are, you know, there are clear reasons if you talk about that. You know, Tasmania took until the late 1990s to decriminalise homosexuality, whereas that happened [00:27:00] in South Australia in the mid 1970s under Don Dunstan, that's another 25 years it took for that to occur. So there are good reasons. The problem is though that we've got, and it's gonna take time and we accept that. But here we are in 2025 and there are still no rainbow sections in any cemetery or memorial park in Australia. There is no, to the best of my knowledge, no safe space, rainbow space where people from the queer community can gather safely and farewell a loved one with whatever rituals and brights they want to employ.

But we have for all sorts of religions, for all sorts of cultures, we have dedicated parts of memorial parks and the cemeteries, but we still have none. And I sound like a cracked record [00:28:00] and I understand that. But we still have none for the rainbow community. And it's time that stopped that, that comes as a result of heteronormativity - the bias.

It assumes that everyone, we just treat everyone the same 'cause everyone's, you know, everyone's just cisgender and, and straight. And then they will say, these people who manage the cemeteries and memorial parks and, and trusts that well, they can put a rainbow on the headstone, if you like. That's different from having a whole section dedicated to rainbow people.

One of my favorite stories is of four elderly gay women who each bought a plot in the form of a kind of a cross. So each one of them is gonna be touching each of the others when they eventually get buried at this cemetery. So they've created their own [00:29:00] safe space, their own rainbow little spot within this cemetery.

And, you know, there are, I think there's, there's good reason to start thinking about having a dedicated space, my own personal opinion. 

CATHERINE: And Bronte, what would that take, like, what would that need to look like for it to be safe, to be a, a rainbow space that was queer safe? 

BRONTE: I think, well, it would take some high level discussions, possibly even at state government level, but also at trust level, cemetery trust level.

So they oversee usually a range of cemeteries or memorial parks, but getting input from the local and maybe state-based, you know, overarching rainbow bodies, particularly from people who perhaps work in death care. So there might be people who are already, you know, embalmers or funeral directors or whatever who work in that space.

Or they could be advocates for [00:30:00] equality and equity who have some better than pedestrian, kind of ‘picked up on the street’ knowledge about death and death care and what the issues are. So being aware of some of the issues we raised back at that redesigning death care conference, Catherine. But again, it would take time and I think it's, there's this inertia that we've gotta overcome from people who are in the death care industry already, who would say, well these days we just integrate everyone into whatever spaces there are.

And I, you know, my comeback is here, but have a look at any memorial park or cemetery and there are these dedicated spaces, why can't we churn out or carve out rather a dedicated space? So what I'm saying is it needs wide input from right across the community of, I'm also aware. That you've gotta be careful not to place such [00:31:00] a space where it's going to be in conflict with a certain religion or a certain cultural entity.

So, you know, that's why the high level planning at trust level or at state government level needs to occur. Or again, with people who are switched on enough to think about what that might look like. I think we are still decades away from having such a dedicated space. That's my own, my own thought. I hope I'm wrong.

I hope we would see one before 2030 or 2040. That would be a terrific if we did. 

CATHERINE: Well, it sounds like that if we're addressing not only ageism within an aged care facility with this client that you're working with, if they're acknowledging the fact that someone's queerness is something that they need to feel safe in, in aged care.

Hopefully we're on the right path. We just need more clients like that. Bronte, 

BRONTE: we so do, [00:32:00] and some of it is about, for example, the, let's go back to funerals, but the funeral director acknowledging that perhaps this person didn't have a biological family but had chosen family and not prioritising when they refer to a family.

And the word family is used heaps and heaps in the funeral industry and in most people's heads, I think that would be mom and dad and the three kids and their biological kids, of course, perhaps adopted. But we've gotta get into our head a wider understanding of this term family and the fact that it might be you, a chosen family, could be really good friends for some people who are queer, people who are isolated.

It might be their chosen family, might be their hairdresser that they see once a month, or it could be the postie who comes by and has a chat every day as they deliver the [00:33:00] post, so it can be whoever they are. The really important thing I think, to understand is that there's a really low take up rate of the required or the.

Yes, I'll use the word required documentation within the queer community. So the, the rate I've seen figures where there's somewhere between 12 and 18%, I think of the LGBTQA plus community, have things like wills, advanced care directives, powers of attorney, and so on. So there's a, there's a whole education program needed, if you will, to talk about, well, what is a will? What happens if I don't have one?

And some, you know, I've got some friends who would say, well, I don't care. I haven't got kids, I haven't got family as in biological family, and I've just got stuff and I'm not gonna be here to sort out the mess. So whatever happens, happens, I haven't got a will, I don't [00:34:00] care. So moving from that point, possibly to getting them to at least understand why some of that documentation's kind of important and, and also.

Not just have it, but tell someone or make it visible like my will is here. Or put a, put a note behind the front door saying, uh, if I die, and here's where you need to find these documents. That sort of stuff. Hmm. 

CATHERINE: I'm glad that you brought up the term chosen family. I know when you were. Kind enough to sort of provide me advice when I was developing my questions for the critical info platform is that that was something that was really fantastic.

And so I actually completely move away from the term family at all and refer to it as loved ones because that is more of a universal term. And that was based on your feedback that you gave me, Bronte, and the fact that, you know, [00:35:00] the, the word, you know, family can be such a loaded word and such a, a very much a heteronormative word.

And yeah, I think that that's why I, I always use the, the term loved one because that can be in whatever shape or form, whatever pronoun it can be, whatever you, you want it to be. But why do you think, is it, I have some ideas in my head about. Perhaps what the challenges might be in taking up those documents.

What do you think that there might be some of the reasons why people don't have things such as a will, an advance care directive when they ask someone within the queer community? 

BRONTE: I don't know, but I think there's this thing about, particularly older members of the queer community feel, perhaps they've been mistreated, discriminated against, harassed, bullied all their lives, and they don't [00:36:00] have the energy to do it.

They don't have the, the willpower to do it. It's not important to them. They don't care. And so I think there, that's the sort of stuff that's in their head. I think there's a vast amount of room for, you know, that there to be, it would need to be queer led, but a program with an estate lawyer who either has really good queer literacy or is from the queer community themselves.

Just two, just two. Have, you know, sessions like this, Catherine, I think that talk about, well, let's do the 101 stuff first, but also let's fire off some of those, those questions from the audience, I guess, about what happens if I die and I haven't got a will, who cares, or, you know, if I, if the state does come in and take over my estate, then how much they take all that stuff and why would I have an advanced care directive and so [00:37:00] on and so on.

So I think there's, there's a lot of, when you consider that, pretty much fewer them, one in five of us have those documents in place. I think there's a lot of work still to be done. Mm-hmm. 

CATHERINE: That's, that's low numbers even for death, you know, literacy. 

BRONTE: Yeah. 

CATHERINE: Um, and tell me, Bronte, you mentioned earlier the fact that you had to be certified as a celebrant for marriage, but.

Tell me you don't need a certification for funerals, do you? 

BRONTE: So as a celebrant you have to have a Certificate IV in Celebrancy and you have to also meet the, uh, what are they called? You know, you are, you are a suitable character. You have to have these character references and be subject to a police check by the attorney General's department.

That takes roughly three months, but that's quite serious. But no, then I [00:38:00] went on and I found this course that I did online in the United States, and it was around queer weddings because they had marriage equality before we did. And you know, when I became a celebrant for four years, the first four years, I wasn't able to marry anyone who was queer.

And we had to offer them this consolation prize called a commitment ceremony. We actually had to say the words in front of their friends and family that this was not a legal ceremony. And when I married straight couples, I had to say the words that marriage is between a man and a woman. And it was just gut wrenching for some of the times to have to say those words, knowing that.

I was, I was doing something for couples that no one could do for me and my, and my partner at the time. So then, of course, to be a funeral celebrant, [00:39:00] you don't need any qualifications at all. You can just, you know, roll up, call yourself a celebrant, a funeral celebrant and start work. And how you do that is, I guess, to liaise with various funeral directors to have part of your website devoted to that or all of your website if you want to devoted to, uh, funeral celebrancy.

Get some really good runs on the board, get some reviews and testimonials, get some great blogs happening and some good resources. And, you know, there are, there are people out there who have spent years and years and years being fantastic celebrants. You hope they're doing. And the good ones are doing really customized kind of funerals for people.

And it's a, it's a very. It's a very enjoyable job. It's a deeply kind of intimate job. You're dealing with people at their most vulnerable time of their life for people who are mourning, you know, the loss of someone that they've, they've loved. What I've found really [00:40:00] inspiring is being called by someone to help them plan their funeral while they're alive.

And that way, you know, the, the funeral is completely authentic and you're sitting with them and their partner, if their partner and you gain access to, you know, some really interesting stories, I think, and you get to create this funeral that they actually want, not the kind of funeral that they live, no clue about, or the family or, or their loved ones, sorry, had to guess about and make all sorts of assumptions about, you know, that there are many of us who don't even have the conversation about whether we.

We wanna be cremated or whether we wanna be buried and whether we want to have any ceremony at all and all that sort of stuff. And it's, it's good. I think it's, it's useful to have those conversations sometimes, or you still can have those conversations. It just makes the job so [00:41:00] much easier for those loved ones who are left afterwards.

CATHERINE: And tell me, Bronte, do you remember the first funeral where you were a celebrant? 

BRONTE: Yeah, I do. And it was, you, you want to do a really good job with that? So I had, I had previously done parts of, for example, my mum's funeral, and that was before I was a celebrant. That was 10 years before I was a celebrant.

And so. I knew a side of my mum that my two brothers didn't know she was religious, and so I, I play piano and organ, so I played the pipe organ for, you know, for the mingle music and for the hymns that she wanted. I knew the, she wanted, I also did a tribute to her as one of her sons. And I also, I knew that she had, she was a singer, she was a wedding singer and [00:42:00] she had had a recording made of her voice at a wedding, and the song was called I’ll Walk Beside You.

And so I had that recording played as we walked out of the church. Behind her casket and there wasn't a dry eye in the church, and it was that sort of stuff. I knew what she wanted and what she didn't want. She and I had had these conversations and so I kind of count that as one of my, one of my first, but it also gave me, I've been to funerals, I've been to funerals where I thought the celebrant was, could have done better. It was different from weddings, and that was part of why I branched out into funeral celebrancy as well, and really sitting down and having that cup of tea with the loved ones. And just trying to take in the politics of the family as well [00:43:00] and trying to to deal with that and to get that access to that one person 'cause you don't wanna deal with five or eight. Who is gonna be the person that I talk to? And you know, just like every wedding, every funeral is different. And it's been joyful also to pre-plan several funerals. And what's been interesting in one of them was that this gay member was dying and we had time to plan his funeral.

We had time to choose the venue, all of that. But on the day of the funeral, his siblings and family stepped in. And I had to advocate for him because I knew exactly what he wanted and he was no longer there to say, this is what I really want. And so I had to respectfully. Ask the family not to do a couple of things they were planning to do or to do them different ways because that was not what he had envisaged at his [00:44:00] funeral.

So part of it is also being that voice for that person. 'cause you know what they want. 'cause you've spent all that time with them pre-planning. And I always think that's such a privilege to actually be able to sit down with them, take as much of the emotion out of it as you can, but know you've got limited time to do this and you need to get it right.

So that's, that's so much. Different. So much better than, for example, someone dying very suddenly and no one had had the conversation about whether they wanted to be buried or cremated, let alone all the other stuff that you then have to try and find from various sources of, you know, loved ones who are, who are grieving really deeply at that time.

And it's, it's a hard time for everyone, I think, to pull all that together in such a short time. I. 

CATHERINE: It is, it, it is, [00:45:00] it's super challenging. And it, and it clearly, again, highlights what you were saying earlier about the importance of having those conversations earlier and more regularly with loved ones about what our wishes are.

BRONTE: Yeah. 

CATHERINE: Um, tell me, you, you spoke a little bit about the, the beautiful ritual of suggesting to partners that they exchange watches instead of rings, so it was culturally safe for them to do so. What are the, the things in death when you are talking about ritual and practices that you encourage people to do or suggest people do when you are honoring someone who was in the queer community?

BRONTE: So it's, and again, it will vary from individual to individual, so. For example, the presence or not of a rainbow flag or an asexual flag or a trans flag and having people understand what they are. Or having a little stand with a little [00:46:00] six by four flag, so you could have the whole catapult, if you will, or a, a memorial table draped with a large flag in any of those colors that are relevant to that person.

Or have a, a little stand that's got either two or three six by four inch flags. So there might be one for an ally flag, one for say a bisexual flag, and one for just the the general rainbow pride flag having, I think. Making it okay and it being safe. So sometimes I put up a, what I call a safe space sign that I've developed and used as part of The Equality Network and in training sessions.

And so it's an upside down pink triangle in a green circle, and that's kind of an international sign. If you go to the public toilets at Los Angeles International [00:47:00] Airport, you'll see that sign an upside down pink triangle. If you go to a part of the Castro, which is gay central in San Francisco, at one end of the Castro is Harvey Milk Plaza.

By by that plaza, uh, 15 plinths that are, each of them has a, the face of it on the top is an upside down pink triangle so that the pink triangle. Was used as a, a horror kind of symbol. It was the symbol sewn into the left hand pocket of the uniforms of homosexuals who'd been rounded up by the SS and put into concentration camps.

And so the 15 plinths each represent 10,000 people who were homosexuals, who were put into concentration camps because they were homosexuals. And so the queer community has taken that symbol and turned it around and said, okay, this is the [00:48:00] exact opposite. This is, you know, this is now a safe space. So it denotes that no homophobia, transphobia, biphobia, it's safe for everyone there for the duration of that funeral.

And I explained that I call that out at the start of the, you know, in the housekeeping session. And I've got, I would have three or four of those around the. Around the venue. It's only a safe space, of course, if the bathrooms, if the toilets are safe for everyone as well. So non-gendered for the period of two funeral rituals might be, of course, having some queer anthems that means something to the person who died.

Certainly a possibility, and I know this is stereotyped, but having a drag queen or a drag king perform at the ceremony and just, I think feeling that it's okay to tell this story. So let me flip it, Catherine. So I've had situations [00:49:00] where the biological family has not allowed the partner, the long time partner, to speak or be involved in the ceremony.

Partner and chosen family have been on one occasion, not allowed at the funeral and so we had to have a separate celebration for them, or on another occasion was, was seated at the back. Sometimes there were religious things that happened during the ceremony that just had no, you know, that the person went to a religious school and that was the end of it only.

And so the family, highly religious and so wanted, you know, symbols and various hymns and things, prayers said and sung and also. If someone's trans and the biological family remembers that person as they were before [00:50:00] they transitioned. So I've had one situation where the nameplate, there were two nameplates on the coffin. So at one end was the pre-transition, and on the other end was the transitioned. And you dealt very, very carefully with who saw which nameplate, if you know what I mean. And so, yeah, or, or alternatively having, just because the water and oil won't mix, having two completely different ceremonies. Uh, one which referred to the person post-transition and, and used the, you know, that name and, and pronouns and told stories about that person and the other one for biological family.

Just talking about the person as say, we're pretty much pre-transition. So it's, it's, it's stuff again that people [00:51:00] who are not LGBTQA plus just don't understand or even, you know, I remember for a, a trans man, they had a non-binary partner and I had reminded the funeral director who'd asked me to do the ceremony a couple of times about the non-binary partners pronouns as they them.

And I got to the, I got to the funeral home early and I just had a quick word with the funeral director who was there obviously, and I said, just a reminder that the partner is non-binary. And he said, oh, that's right. I knew something was different about them, about him. And I said, and you've been calling him him all the time, haven't you?

He said. Yeah. I said, no, it's they and them, and it was like, we can do better, you know, at least [00:52:00] show some respect and at least do the 101 stuff. If you're not really interested in being truly inclusive, then, you know, maybe that person should have been dealt with in death by a different funeral company, but at least if you have got the, have got the job, then at least do the, the really, really basic stuff around.

It's not even 101. I don't know what that is. 

CATHERINE: No, that, that is less than 1 0 1. That's just human decency, I think. 

BRONTE: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

CATHERINE: Bronte, how much is your work in this space? Like it, it seems to be like when we've talked about symbolism ritual, what makes up a person? It's always just, you know, is linked with our history and who has who and what has come before.

How has your [00:53:00] experience in being a celebrant for both weddings and funerals informed the work that you're doing now and, and in your personal life? I suppose there's two questions there. Your work in the Equality network and then you as Bronte Price at home with Clint and the dog. 

BRONTE: Let's do the, the, the work first.

So, um, in its early days, The Equality Network was, this was before, even before marriage equality and it came about, The Equality Network came about because there was this, we were hearing things, seeing things from wedding professionals that just indicated, boy, boy, like, no, like that's just wrong. You shouldn't be saying that.

Or you just don't know that stuff. And we've gotta understand, we are not taught this stuff and other professionals aren't. I [00:54:00] think GPs get, you know, one or two lectures on queer stuff during their whole six years of university study. 

CATHERINE: And they're not taught anything about death. So that's 

BRONTE: a failure. No, there we're, there we're. And the same with other, other professions such as law. But I. Firstly focused on areas that I knew. So it was initially celebrants and then wedding venues, and then it became other professionals such as migration agents who helped people come here and get married and cake makers and so on and so on. And through that it was just making people aware of it certainly was the 101 stuff.

But it also talked about some of the alternatives that we can do because all of us need alternatives. If you are a car driver, if you are a venue, certainly if you are a cake maker in the alternatives that are not heteronormative. [00:55:00] And then it began just through people I knew. I got asked to train someone who's a family lawyer.

I got asked to train a whole firm of criminal lawyers. And I heard back from the CEO of that firm that at one stage she had been in court and the defendant was non-binary. And the police report though, talked about him all the time. He and him. And so in court it got to the point where this criminal lawyer suddenly respectfully educated the magistrate and the, and the police prosecutor that how important pronouns were and that he/him didn't apply and that they/them were the appropriate ones.

And so there was this sudden little realisation that change doesn't have to be massive, it just can be incremental and, you know, [00:56:00] step by step at a time. And so I. I also knew that people are watching you as well, and so you need to show that you know, the stuff that you, you actually do, the stuff that you talk about.

And so that helped me sharpen my website I think. I think it also helped me sharpen the resources I make available to my people. It sharpened up the fact, I remember taking that big leap of redesigning my contact form so it was inclusive and, and made things really easy and clear for everyone. And that meant that on both my websites, you know, if you, if you go into sexuality, you have to go down all these past, all these other sexualities till you get to S for straight and.

As I said before, straight couples as well as queer couples have, you know, if they [00:57:00] want to engage me and I'm sure that's helped clear out some of the, the chaff from the grain. By the time they, they have made an inquiry with me, they have had a look at my website, they've had a look at blogs and all that stuff.

So it has changed how I work, I think, or the equality network work has also. They both changed each other. They've sharpened each other up, I think. And the courses that that I started with in say 2017 are now much, much more. They, they're, right now, if you did the whole course, it would be 15 hours of really solid stuff of the age care provider.

We've done that, as 90 minutes every month and that's worked really well for them. It's all via teams and lots and lots of opportunity for interaction. This group has got, uh, seven out of 20 staff who are queer [00:58:00] who, who felt safe enough to come out as queer during a recent poll survey. So in terms of, for us, we think that marriage has been the best thing that's ever happened to us.

So Bingo, our rescue Kelpie dog, has also been the best thing that's happened to both of us. And you know, there's this saying where, you know, people say that the dog rescued them as much as they rescued the dog. So Bingo's got a great life. We've got a great life because of Bingo as well, and because of each other.

And you know, if we were both say, if anyone had told me at the age of, I don't know, at the age of 18 or 25, that I would marry a man and live happily ever after, you know, that was just never a possibility. And so I came out at the age of [00:59:00] 42. And it took me another heap of years before I was able to marry the person I love.

And so that's, you know, it's, it's just been a joyful, joyful kind of ride. We talk, I try not to use Clint as my sounding board too much, but he'll always have advice to give that's helped me about a certain couple or a certain situation or, you know, and I've learned to listen and take that on board lots rather than just thinking, oh, you know, why, why would I take that on board?

But it's, it's always useful advice. So it's, it's been, it's been good. And, you know, of course, soon after we got married, we took our documentation to our gp. So there was an advance care directive she, she had to sign off on and she - gee, we walked in, we'd made a double [01:00:00] appointment with her and she looked at us and said, what are you two thinking of doing?

And it was this, oh no, we just, no, we are just here because we thought we were doing the right thing, getting these documents done, and we need you to sign off on this one. And it was like, we kind of changed GPS not long after that. 'cause you need someone who's gonna be on side and not thinking, wow, what are you two thinking of doing?

So. 

CATHERINE: There's so much bias in, in that last story that I can't even, I can't even get my head around it. Bronte, I'm, I'm glad to hear that you changed your GP. Uh, yes. Well, I can't thank you enough for your time today. Thank you so much for giving, you know, myself and the listeners a little bit of insight into the way [01:01:00] in which we view the world and the way in which we view others, and hopefully we do that without making assumptions.

BRONTE: Thanks, Catherine. One of the things that as you get older, I think you become, I, I personalized. I have become more, more at peace for the whole heap of things. I've got a friend who passed away a couple of years ago and she was 95, and I had known her since the age, since I was the age of 25. So a long, long time, many decades.

And I taught her two children in my first school. And she would sometimes, every now and then, particularly in the last five years of her life or so, we would ring each other several times a week. So we were very close to each other. And every now and then she'd drop this little comment that would say, ‘you know, my boy, at the end of the [01:02:00] day, something is gonna get each one of us’.

And, I thought, that helps. Like that just, it could be, you know, get struck by a bus. It could be that you get taken with a disease, but at the end of the day, something is gonna get us. And the other thing that I have taken on board now for some years, I think, is that there's always unfinished business.

There's always unfinished business. And so you know, if you didn't reach out to that person and make peace, if you didn't visit that old person and they died, if you didn't finish off that enormous family tree or that jigsaw puzzle or you didn't get to play that piece of music again, or have that meal that you said you wanted as your last meal, there's always unfinished business and that's okay.

That's helped me. 

CATHERINE: I think that's a really [01:03:00] lovely way to end our conversation. Bronte. 

BRONTE: Thank you. Same. And Catherine, I've loved this. It's just been a beautiful chat. Thank you for asking me and for being open enough to consider some stuff that's queer. 

CATHERINE: I will always have you at my table, Bronte Price.

BRONTE: That's very kind. Okay, and good luck with this. 

CATHERINE: We hope you enjoyed today's episode of Don't Be Caught Dead, brought to you by Critical Info. If you liked the episode, learn something new, or were touched by a story you heard, we'd love for you to let us know. Send us an email, even tell your friends, subscribe so you don't miss out on new episodes.

If you can spare a few moments, please rate and review us as it helps other people to find the show. Are you dying to know more? Stay up to date with. Don't be caught dead by signing up to our newsletter and follow us on social media Head to Don't Be Caught dead.com for [01:04:00] more information and loads of resources.