Neither Jackie Turner nor Aimee Bull-McMahon were looking for love when they met in 2019.
Jackie had recently called off an engagement, and Aimee was coming out of a more-than-10-year relationship. But, despite their best efforts, something sparked between the pair.
Both now in their late 30s and based in Sydney, the two bonded over their work and passion for community: Jackie is the director of the Trans Justice Project, and Aimee is a climate justice campaigner.
This year, the pair will be marching together in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, with the Parents for Trans Youth Equity.
We asked them to share their love story with us.
How did you first meet?
Aimee: We met in April, 2019.
Jackie: [Gently interrupting] We actually met in March.
Aimee: Oh [laughs], my mistake! Anyway, we met online. I think it’s quite cute that we met on OKCupid, which I’m not sure anyone’s using anymore. It’s charmingly old-fashioned. But it’s nice to have that big long profile where you can read all this stuff about someone.
And before we met up, by just doing a bit of background chat with people, we knew that our worlds intersected quite a bit.
Jackie: We got a drink together at a queer bar in Redfern called The Bearded Tit. We met after work at about 5:30, ended up having dinner there together and just talked basically until midnight.
Aimee: I got there first. Jackie was running five minutes late and was apparently stressed about it, but I didn’t really notice. She arrived, she sat down with me and then went, “I just need a moment.” And she just closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
I was very impressed. You know, it’s quite a self-aware thing to do and something you might do if you aren’t so worried about what someone thinks. You’re just going to do what you need to do for yourself.
Jackie: I think two things really stuck out to me. One was just how easily the conversation flowed. It felt like we just really connected on a lot of our perspectives on life, about the things that we wanted. And I just really enjoyed talking to you.
And I think the other thing was that I was out as non-binary at the time, and I’d kind of made it clear in my profile that I was in the process of transitioning. It can be a bit of a maze sometimes, dating as a trans person, for how people will treat you based on how they perceive you.
But there was this absolute comfort with the way Aimee and I related that felt really nice. It just felt like the gender stuff really didn’t come into our conversation much at all. It felt very easy.
Aimee: I thought Jackie was going to be a cool kid, because she’s kind of covered in tattoos and had an undercut at the time. And this isn’t all the time, but my association is that cool kids often define themselves by what they don’t like or what they’re kind of snobby about.
Jackie is just a big fan of lots of things, really likes music, really likes movies that don’t have to be highbrow, gets excited about stuff. And that really appealed to me.
Jackie: One thing that was quite funny was that we’d been talking for a few hours and I offered to get Aimee another drink. And she was like, “Sure, I’ll have a Jim Beam and Coke.” I felt like she was testing me to see whether I would make fun of her.
Aimee: Both of us had just come out of very long-term relationships in the preceding couple of months. I think we were both just dating to be dating again, and weren’t expecting to meet “the person” yet.
Jackie: We were both a bit cautious about falling in love too quickly. I had quite a bad break-up and was still in the very early stages of rebuilding my sense of self.
It had happened so quickly that I was like, “Oh, I haven’t had the time where I’m meant to figure everything out before finding someone.”
Aimee: We both knew emotionally that we’d found someone and that it was a big deal, a long time before we expressed it. There was a knowing ahead of time, which was kind of what slowed us up a bit. Is that right?
Jackie: I think also just fear. Pure fear [they both laugh].
When did you move in together?
Jackie: We didn’t move in together for at least two years. You know, breaking the mould. We were very coy.
Aimee: Jackie moved house pretty early on [in the relationship] to live in a share house, and happened to move very close to where I was.
We caught the same train to work and sometimes I’d miss a train or two just to see if Jackie would show up on the platform.
But during the first [COVID-19] lockdown, it was difficult to see each other. And it was an emotionally stressful time, so you kind of want to see each other more.
Jackie: We moved in in 2021, and we got married in 2022. I’d had a previous long engagement, so I was like: “All right, let’s do it.”
Aimee: I think a lot of people in lockdown were like, OK, what’s something we could look forward to? Maybe we should get married.
We even picked our rings out together and and ordered them. But Jackie had this thing where she wanted me to propose…
Jackie: You’re making me sound really needy.
Aimee: It was fine with me! I had this plan to propose on the cliffs at La Perouse, because early on I’d taken her for a picnic there, but it just happened to be raining for a month.
And then the rings arrived in the mail and we opened them and Jackie just immediately started crying when she saw them and, through tears, was like, “Just do it now, just do it now, just do it!” So I just knelt down in the lounge room.
And how was the wedding?
Jackie: We did it all on a very budget vibe. We hired a small community venue that I think cost $750, in the Blue Mountains.
Aimee: Another special thing was that a lot of our decorations were old Mardi Gras decorations that we got from Reverse Garbage. The rainbow streamer roof [we had at the wedding] was from a Mardi Gras float and we gave it back to Reverse Garbage afterwards.
Jackie: It was just so beautiful to have all our family and friends there. My mum sewed 100 metres of bunting, or more. Our friends also made a beautiful chandelier. And we had an amazing dance floor. Aimee had all of our friends do different DJ sets, and they really just turned it on.
Aimee: Jackie’s dad did a song while we were signing, and Jackie’s cousin sang us up the aisle. So that was really beautiful.
How has your relationship changed since then?
Aimee: It’s changed a lot, but really deepened because the “in sickness and in health” part happened quite quickly after we got married.
Maybe a few weeks after, I just suddenly couldn’t get out of bed. I ended up developing long COVID: I didn’t work for almost a year and we couldn’t go on adventures anymore. We were pretty worried about our future, what it would look like. But we adjusted, and I had to learn how to get cared for.
And then when I was just about getting to a good level of recovery, about 18 months ago, my mum passed away and I was the sole executor. So we spent most of our time planning the funeral, cleaning the house out, selling the house.
And then my dad died about two months ago. So we just basically switched roles. I had been there for Aimee while her mum was dying, and then she basically had to do the same thing for me and be a real rock for not just me, but also for my mum. We lived with my mum for a good two months or so while that was happening.
We’ve got this basis in our relationship of connection and trust where I now feel like we’re just this solid foundation that can handle when things happen. And there’s this safe place to return to or to be cared for.
I think that it’s brought us closer, because we’ve had to talk so much as it’s gone along. We’ve gotten a lot better at just sharing the journey together.
It took some time to feel comfortable in the world again.
But as it’s gone along, I think it’s nice for us that the world has started to treat us a bit more how we have seen our relationship. We used to get treated as a heterosexual couple and now we’re either treated as sisters or best friends. [Both laugh.]
Aimee: Sisters, best friends, or wives.
Live broadcast of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade starts Saturday 28 February at 7.30pm AEDT on ABC TV and ABC iview.
