We met Mitch many many moons 🌙 ago and he's been a huge champion of our brand 😭🙌 riiiiight from the get-go.

Name?

Stage name?

Instagram? 

A/S/L?

Profession?

Based?

Where would you rather be?

The land of CHROMATICA. Honestly - get me the fuck out of this world. I feel like we all truly need to board a spaceship to the planet Glamtron and just GTFO.

Which LGBTIQA influencers do you recommend we follow on Insta?

Did you like your high school experience?

I wrote a post on this for the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. My high school experience was honestly like many other gay teenagers exploring their sexuality and gender - tough. I want to acknowledge that there are people who have experienced worse treatment than me in their lives. If you feel saddened by my experience, you need to realise how many others are having to go through the same  (if not harder) journey. 

I was ‘outed’ by an old friend in high school. It wasn’t my choice to come out to the entire student body but because we had had an argument, she decided she had the right to tell everyone. I struggled with this for a while, that the taunting and belittling started because someone else took control of my journey. As much as I hated this person for a very long time, I have forgiven her, which helped me take back that control. Things happen in your life that you don’t always see coming but it's about what you do with them.

Even before her betrayal, school was never a safe place for me. Think back to when you did P.E. and had to change into your sports clothing. Chances are, you won’t remember most of the times you did this, or only a few hilarious of funny moments will stand out.

For me, I remember every day I had to walk into a room of straight males and take my clothes off. I would stand in the corner of the room with my back to everyone and change as fast as I could, making sure to keep eye contact with just the brick wall. Even with all of these precautions I would still get called a faggot or be told “don’t you dare turn around and look at me”. In a lot of ways, it was where you should have felt the safest that you don’t.

I went to an Anglican School and because of this, a lot of the bullying perpetuated by my classmates went unnoticed or was swept under the rug. Almost like in some passage in the bible it was written that hating one’s neighbour was fine if he was homosexual. Of course, there were some amazing female teachers (that I still see) who really helped me grow during high school, but they were in the minority, and I could have done with a few more like them. Even they couldn’t make up for the torment.

I once read that homosexuals are somewhat underdeveloped in their authentic personality because they have had to hide themselves or restrain from growth for an extensive period of time. I have definitely felt this in my life.

Bullying is seen every day in our lives (is that not super fucked up?). It's always been such a crazy idea that people try to cause you harm for being yourself, or exploring other ways of living, wether that be their sexuality or the clothing that they put on their body.

Lucky for me, I had a handful of amazing, nurturing, strong females that I surrounded myself with. These women - women like those few teachers - sheltered me from many ambushes and for that, I will be forever grateful.

I let these actions stop me from being my authentic self during high school, but never again. I am Queer. I am Loud. I am Valuable.

Do you have any advice to young teens to not feel so isolated?

Never forget that you are not alone. Flood yourself with other people’s stories, with other people’s likeness to yourself, to people you admire, to people who are DOING THE DAMN THING, to people who have failed but picked themselves back up. Never duplicate, but learn from these people. Find one person in this world that inspires you to pick yourself up and keep going.

In this world we get the amazing opportunity to choose our family. We get to hand select people we love. Find these people- they are out there. Make it known that you are feeling isolated so that people can show you that you aren’t. More people care about you than you probably realise. If all else fails- find me and let’s have a chat. No judgement. I’m a sassy homosexual with a crazy personality filled to the brim with irony.Sometimes laughing is helpful. We are all in this together.

How can people help who don't relate with what you went through?

This is such an important question and I don’t necessarily have all of the answers.

Raise the voices of those who have walked so you can allow them to run ✊ Social media is an interesting platform. I can post all I want to on my own platforms about what I have gone through and shed light on those situations, however I can mostly only reach people who already respect me or like what I do. This doesn’t allow me to reach most of the people with views that oppose mine. Raising other people’s voices, especially being someone who has had different experiences in their life, allows for you to share their stories with those who truly need to read them.

Stand up for people ✊If it's in the street, if it's in front of your backwards Mum and Dad, or to your boyfriend who sometimes makes cringe comments. Stand up. If you can’t even stand up to these people and fight for queer people how helpless do you think we sometimes feel?

Be fucking kind ✊ If you don’t understand it, if you don’t like it, if it's not your ~thing~, shut up. If life was not so full of people’s hate-filled comments it probably wouldn’t have so many problems.

Now I'm not saying to not ever have a negative opinion, but I am saying to think before you speak:

1. Who are you making your comment to?
2. Did they ask you to make a comment?
3. Would you just not say anything, sip your vodka soda with fresh lime and get to steppin'?

No one is going to be perfect, but let’s try together <3

Fuck / Marry / Kill Dyspy items?

Fuck: Honestly, The Boner Bodice sends me every time I see it on a female. Like how are all of your bodies that perfect? In saying that, I would also really love to have sex in The Powermuff Mini...

Marry: The Patriassy Slip. I will never not marry this bitch. This dress really took our friendships to the next level.

Kill: Y’all kill me all the time. So there’s that?

Crushing on rn?

Diplo forever. Robby Arroyo Smith and his shoulders. Jordan Firstman - not sure I need to explain this one - he's heaven. Lady Fucking Gaga. Myself - 2020 is about taking the power away from fuck boys. 

Watching?

I am rewatching Killing Eve. Villanelle is my ultimate style and power goals. She is HUGE CLIT ENERGY.

How did you come across Dyspy?

Back when I was a baby... HAHA! I first came across Dyspnea 7+ years ago. I use to style back in the day and I was doing a feature on "Emerging Designers People Need To Keep An Eye On". Well, Bitch, wasn’t I right? You Queens did the damn thing and then death dropped at the end of the runway. I used multiple shiny and beautiful pieces in the shoot and that begun our friendship.

So many random moments on - running into each other at bars and taking shots because... how else do you support your friends? Going to your shows and screaming the entire time. ROFLING at each others jokes online because y'all left me in Australia.

I have followed you beautiful queens since the beginning. You inspire me in so many ways and I'm so happy that our fangirling over each other has now turned into a beautiful friendship. Love you guys xx 

*Jam & Rach fall into a heap crying* 

You can follow Mitch right here 👉  💖✨💘💫💞