Maxi Shield teeters the 200 metres from her old back lane townhouse up to Oxford Street, her wig a big bouffant and her prodigious breast plates affixed. She sashays on heels near the fortress-like sandstone cells of the former Darlinghurst police station, where inaugural Sydney Gay Mardi Gras revellers were held and beaten by police in 1978, back when being queer was a criminal offence.
Gingerly negotiating the pavement gradient up to Taylor Square on a sultry February Saturday night, Shield is ready to perform at the Oxford Hotel alongside fellow drag queens Jacqui St Hyde and Coco Jumbo as the body-positive Triple Ds. She recalls drunkenly agreeing to her first proper gig here, on this street, more than 25 years ago: she debuted on the back of a ute outside the Midnight Shift nightclub, lip-syncing to the tinny output of a handheld CD player.
