Australian drag performer Shane Jenek, aka Courtney Act on LGBTIQA+ representation, first kiss, being a ‘soy boy’
Australian drag performer Shane Jenek, aka Courtney Act, on LGBTIQA+ representation, finding a settled life back in Sydney, and being a ‘soy boy’.
Australian drag performer Shane Jenek, aka Courtney Act, opens up to Bridget Cormack about moving back to Sydney, being a “soy boy” and seeing the humanity in one another.
Writing my memoir Caught in the Act was … the deepest form of childhood regression therapy. When you go back and introspect you realise you have your memories saved as a script, whether they be funny scripts or sad scripts. At some point they kind of pause in development.
My first kiss with a boy was … at Stonewall Hotel in Sydney. When I went back to write about it in my memoir, I thought about the punctured leather couch by the DJ booth and my friends upstairs on the third level while I had run downstairs to the second level to follow this boy. That kiss wasn’t just the happy memory of the moment, but the 18 years that led up to it. It was amazing how much emotion and release was wrapped up in that one kiss. It was more than the realisation of who I would become; it was an acknowledgment of all the confusion that had come before.
Life at 11 was … different to life at 10. I went from going to a public school, which I quite enjoyed, to a private school, which was horrible. I didn’t like it and they didn’t like me. In primary school all of our individual nuances had developed over time so they weren’t really seen as negative or positive. When I got to the private school a lot of that wasn’t well-received.
Life at 21 was …my Australian Idol year. I had come out of the wild party phase of moving to Sydney and discovering sex and drugs and boys and my identity. I knew that I was being swallowed into a world that was not what I wanted. I wanted to focus on career and entertainment but I didn’t quite know how to do that. I was still doing drag four nights a week, but I stopped partying and started taking it more seriously, then the auditions for Australian Idol came up. Shane got knocked back but I went the next day as Courtney Act and made it through. I saw that I could have a professional, respectable career as a drag performer.
Life at 41 is … settled, so delightfully. In January 2021 I moved back to Australia from London, after living overseas for 10 years. I bought my first home and decorated it. It’s nice to have a career here where I get to do exciting things; from the opening of Sydney World Pride opening concert, performances such as New Year’s Eve at the Sydney Opera House, hosting One Plus One on the ABC. Things that I legitimately love doing. A lot of the reality shows I have done over the years have been a means to an end and they have given me that end now which is something more fulfilling.
The strangest thing in my shopping trolley is … the amount of soy milk I buy. I’m definitely a soy boy. I pop into the shops a couple of times a week but every few weeks I’ll buy about 10 litres of soy milk online. They’re like bricks and it seems impractical to be lugging them home.
When I’m in bed awake at 3am I’m trying to … solve problems. In my world I think about how queer people and trans people have been criticised in the media, in the US in particular. If people could understand what it means to be a queer person or a drag performer in the way I understand it they would see how wonderful, exciting and natural it is. We need to keep the storytelling going so we all see the humanity in each other. Because the robot overlords are going to take over soon and we’re going to need to band together.
Courtney Act is the author of Caught In The Act and will appear at Sydney Writers’ Festival on May 25 and 27.
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