Will you stand against discrimination?
Tagline of International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism, and Transphobia
Prominent queer rights advocate, Kitty Bang, also known as the Drag Queen activist Viva LaBang, faced a transperson’s nightmare. Being doxed with their legal name. This wasn’t an accident, either, it was a targeted act of silencing, carried out in full view of a community that claims to value inclusion. The fact that this happened two days before IDAHOBIT day is a slap in the face to every queer person speaking out against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism, and Transphobia.
Kitty Bang was the first non-binary contestant to enter the Leather Titleholder Competition: Sydney Mr Leather. The impact of a non-binary person becoming a runner up in the 2024 competition was felt across the country with an increase of non-binary contestants entering titleholder competitions. A notable event that occurred after was the Queensland Kinkster 2024 title, a gender-neutral competition, created by Mr Australian Leather 2023, Shane Stevens, and won by Drag Lord Sev, an openly trans non-binary person.
Photo Credit – Andrea Francolini 27/07/2024 (KINK – Ms & Mr Leather 2024)
Kitty Bang’s involvement in the Sydney leather and kink community lead to them speaking out regarding the nature of the connection of Sydney Leather Men Inc. (SLM), Studio Kink, and Haus of Savvy to the Sydney Mr Leather competition. For SLM, the Sydney Mr Leather titleholder becomes their representative while Haus of Savvy is the producer of the Sydney Mr & Ms Leather title competitions. In 2024, one of Studio Kink’s co-owners became the Sydney Ms Leather titleholder – causing public scrutiny with her business sponsoring the competition at the time of entering. In 2025, the title formed the basis for her entry and participation in the International Ms Leather and Bootblack Competition (IMsLBB). These individual ties to the Sydney titleholder competition’s create a web of influence supporting a closed circuit of power, gatekeeping, and ethical conflicts.
Keeping true to their activist nature, Bang also criticised SLM’s policy of allowing only masculine men who like masculine men at their social events. Which are held in public spaces making this an illegal act of discrimination. Bang actively spoke out regarding; transphobic behaviour, ableism, tokenism, sexism against women, and fascism being fetishised within the kink/leather community.
This standing against discrimination lead to Dick Savvy, the owner of Haus of Savvy and producer of the Mr Sydney Leather title competition, publishing Bang’s full legal name as a Facebook comment. In a subsequent Facebook post Kitty Bang called out Dick Savvy for abusing their connection to the Sydney Mr Leather titleholder competition to access confidential data which Savvy then used to publicly out a trans non-binary person as a vendetta against them. This act not only violated Bang’s privacy, it weaponised their trans identity against them in a public sphere, days before IDAHOBIT.
This led to their Facebook profile, their platform for activism and queer voice, being suspended and ultimately deleted for not providing their legal name as their Facebook profile name. Their use of a chosen name intended to validate their identity and protect their role as an activist resulted in Facebook silencing a queer voice.
Photo Credit – MiscMinx 2024 (Performing at SLQ/SLW Launch)
In honour of the spirit of IDAHOBIT day, of standing against discrimination, I thought I’d take the time to pay homage to Bang’s activist and queer career that led to them taking on three of Sydney’s largest kink and leather organisations.
Kitty Bang started their career as the drag performer, LaBang, working in bars across Australia including the famous Taxi Club. Through their work they supported several charities and causes, including raising several thousands of dollars within three months for the Bobby Gold Smith Foundation which led to their 2011 DIVA award nomination for Queen of Hearts.
Photo Credit – Marc Eldridge, 2011 (Raising Funds for Bobby Gold Smith Foundation)
In 2013, they transformed from drag performer into the drag activist, now known as Viva LaBang, having blown the whistle on the corruption and mistreatment of drag performers by the owners and promotors of the Newcastle gay bar: Unity. In true Viva LaBang fashion, they also formed an activist organisation in the April of this year, called The Rainbow Army, in honour of another queer voice silenced too soon; ‘Founded in honor of the late Cameron Vella aka Wildcat to continue his work, The Rainbow Army fights for equality and queer rights,’ (Rainbow Army, 2013).
One of the founding acts of The Rainbow Army was to call out the Newcastle City Council, being directed by then Lord Mayor Jeff McCloy, in April 2013 for the removal of rainbow chalk art that was used to promote marriage equality. Bang showed their sense of humour in a quote to the ABC by saying that The Rainbow Army is ‘gunning for marriage equality and we are going for Julia Gillard next,’ (ABC, 2013).
Following a chalk war with the Newcastle City Council, The Rainbow Army spread across the state, forming divisions in; Newcastle, Sydney, Central Coast, Wagga Wagga, Western Sydney, and the Illawarra. They became heavily involved in the campaign for marriage equality using media stunts and clever actions to gain public attention taking the issue to front page headlines.
Photo Credit – Photographer Unknown, 2015 (Protest for Marriage Equality)
During this time the fight for marriage equality was gaining traction, with the ACT passing an act in December 2013 for same-sex marriage that ultimately got struck down by the High Court due to its conflict with the federal marriage act.
One of the members of the NSW parliament that was part of the petition to the High Court was Rev. Fred Nile – who also released a statement saying he would be celebrating the reversal of the act with his own traditional wedding. This became the opening Bang needed for developing a troll war and ongoing feud with Fred Nile in the name of gaining attention for his long history of blatant homophobia.
They staged a mock wedding in December 2013 outside the church during Fred Nile’s own wedding. Dressed in a white wedding gown and full drag, Viva LaBang was married to their then partner and was quoted by The Sydney Morning Herald as saying ‘Nile’s ”point of being against gay marriage is because the Bible says it’s between a man and a woman for the means of procreation. Yet here’s a man, 70-something years old, marrying a woman of 55. Are they really going to procreate? So, if they can get married, why can’t we?’’,’ (Rick Feneley, 2013).
Photo credit – Robert Brindley, 2013 (Mock wedding protest at St Mary’s Cathedral)
This comment invalidated Fred Nile’s entire argument against marriage equality and later that same night, one of his own supporters tweeted, ‘Sorry, but you just lost your own argument against marriage equality.’
It took three years before Fred Nile spoke on the issue again, but following that there was a continuous ongoing feud between Bang and Nile that resulted in multiple actions and several rather humorous cases of Bang trolling Nile online, including the annual birthday card from The Rainbow Army congratulating Nile on being one year closer to the grave.
Between 2013 and 2017 Bang continued their fight, fulfilling their promise to gun for marriage equality by leading protests and rallies with an unforgettable tenacity. These actions lead to the 2017 plebiscite that approval marriage equality and the passing of the marriage equality bill in the December of 2017.
Alongside fighting for marriage equality during this time, Bang also had several other notable actions and stunts such as; leading queer blockades for the fight against fracking in NSW, supporting Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore, in her One Vote One Value campaign, leading the fight against Tony Abbott and coining the now famous slogan, Fuck Tony Abbott, for the 2014 national day of action for marriage equality, and being involved with protesting the World Congress of Families in 2014 where Fred Nile was a guest speaker.
Photo Credit– Miss Eddie, 2025 (Mardi Gras Fair Day)
After the successful campaign for marriage equality, Bang stepped away from activism to focus on their personal life, until a brief return in January 2020 for the climate protests happening against Scott Morrison. They had a personal investment after narrowly surviving the New Years Eve Fires that hit Cobargo and they ended up leading Sydney protestors in the chant, ‘Scomo is a wanker’. CNN reported that the organisers of this protest ‘put the number between 50,000 and 60,000 people,’ (Helen Regan et al. 2020).
Following the lockdowns ending, Bang emerged once more to bring the first ever all queer inclusive kink munch, a social event for LGBTQIA+ kinksters and allies, which they named Rainbow Kink. This led to them gaining notoriety in the kink and BDSM scene, becoming known by the monicker Kitty, later claiming Kitty Bang in recognition and connection to their long-standing queer legacy. An identity they took with them into the Sydney Mr Leather Competition in 2024.
Photo Credit – Kitty Bang, 2024
In a manner befitting their queer activism, they recently began speaking out about a series of drink spiking amongst queer and kink individuals on the leather scene – to which they were also a victim. It was these events and the dismissive response from influential members of the community that lead to them finally calling out the corruption, discrimination, and mistreatment of women and queer folk by SLM, Haus of Savvy, and Studio Kink.
Digging their claws in, Kitty Bang, refused to let this discrimination go unanswered. They began a campaign fuelled with satirical call outs while working to dismantle SLM via means such as a petition through change.org, Shut Down Discriminatory Practices by Sydney Leather Men Inc., and it was this open and vocal attempt to protect their community that lead to them having their own voice removed by Facebook. Dick Savvy’s personal vendetta and revealing of Bang’s legal name is believed to be what caused their profile to be flagged, suspended, and deleted. Facebook acted unfairly against Bang, determining that using their chosen name, as a trans non-binary person, and the name they use within their community, was a violation of Facebook’s terms of service.
Yet, this isn’t the end, and Kitty Bang will continue to fight to protect their queer community from discrimination. As Bang’s most popular protest chant and the official chant of The Rainbow Army went; we’re here, we’re queer, we’re fabulous, don’t fuck with us.
Photo Credit – Miss Eddie, 2024 (Melbourne Street Art)
