Bt of mat: why 'gay gen' are a good f for Darw

Contents:

• DARW'S GAY SCENE: TAKE A TOUR THROUGH NT'S QUEER HISTORY WH ACTIVIST AND AMIC DR DO HODGE
• A GAY DAY …DARW
• GAY DARW GUI | AN LGBTQIA+ GUI TO DARW
• GAY DARW
• THROB: DARW'S CHANGE-MAKG GAY NIGHTCLUB OF AGE
• THIS IS NOT A GAY CLUB - THROB NIGHTCLUB
• ‘MEN WERE STTERG EVERYWHERE’: QUIRY HEARS OF STRG OF VLENT CINTS AT SYDNEY GAY BEATS
• ON THE BEAT: BATE ON PUBLIC SEX DIVIDG THE GAY MUNY

DARW'S GAY SCENE: TAKE A TOUR THROUGH NT'S QUEER HISTORY WH ACTIVIST AND AMIC DR DO HODGE

Atralian gay history amic and activist Dr Do Hodge arrived Darw 1983, jt before the closure of two now-legendary mp venu, Dix and Hodge has sce moved to Alai, but returns to Darw to host walkg tours that foc on the Northern Terrory's lser known amic's last walkg tour for Darw Pri Ftival 2015 began at Lameroo Beach — known by the Larrakia people as Damoe-Ra — on Darw's Esplana.

Colonisatn begs DarwAfter the first succsful European attempt to reach the Top End 1845, what is now known as Darw beme predomately lonised by men, which helped created a "homosocial environment" 1923 public baths were built at Lameroo Beach, which soon went onto bee a meetg place for gay men — albe well-vered circumstanc.

A GAY DAY …DARW

It was discreet, " Dr Hodge is unclear how much sexual activy occurred at the baths but Dr Hodge has found legal rerds between 1942 and 1962 ditg homosexual activy was takg place " every European centre across the Terrory", cludg sports ovals and World War II, Darw's populatn doubled mostly due to an flux of servicemen, and the baths flourished. "I wasn't an absolute whore, only a part-time one, " relled an Atralian Air Force serviceman, who equented the baths, oral history accsed by Dr 's gay bar scene emergAs social attus to homosexualy began to soften the late 1950s, Dr Do Hodge found evince of the first Aborigal man publicly g out as gay.

"He me out when he was que young, about 18, which was a very brave thg to do, " said a gay Aborigal man at the time oral history accsed by Dr the 1960s, Gurra relled an Aborigal woman also g out. (Supplied: Dr Do Hodge)She was a teacher ted down south who drove around wh her partner a vibrant green Dr Hodge said the queer nightlife scene which started to emerge Darw at this time maly tered to homosexual 1969, celebrated entreprenr John Spellman donned women's clothg and opened the Pianola Palace, the first gay-iendly Darw club beme known for a topls drag queen barmaid and a miature nu statue of David before beg cimated by Cyclone Tracy Spellman kept the Pianola Palace nng wh the help of tarpl tents and, as the town revered, other gay-iendly bars such as Dix, Fanni, Close Enunters, Squir and the Mississippi Queen emerged the Hodge believed lbians equented the venu but were generally "more discreet", and the prence of lbians was "assumed rather than apparent" Terrory's equal rights eraDr Hodge said the Terrory's lbian muny was bolstered by the Pe Gap women's peace mp, tablished 1983 near Alice Sprgs to ph for women's equal tablishment of women's legal service and refug the 1980s ntued this femist momentum, but there was evince of homophobia a tradnally mascule "wboy" town. (Supplied: Dr Do Hodge)Siarly, the gay muny — which started to lnch clubs such as the Darw Gay Society and the Boomer Motor Club the same era — also battled ternal and external divisn.

"There are a lot of racist gay wh around, " relled an Aborigal man 1980s oral history accsed by Dr muny was also challenged by the AIDS crisis and associated "fear and moral panic" the late 80s, Dr Hodge the Terrory, the queer muny rpond to the global crisis wh a lol AIDS uncil — a ty office tablished 1985 and n on a shotrg Darw's CBD. "[The fact] that today we enjoy such a society is substantially due to the urageo and ntug efforts of many of the Northern Terrory's lbian, gay and trans cizens, " Dr Hodge said. More than 200 years later, rearch has moved past some of the taboos those early rearchers faced and shown that homosexualy is much more mon than prevly thought.

GAY DARW GUI | AN LGBTQIA+ GUI TO DARW

Rearchers are now gog beyond jt observg though, wh rearchers at Imperial leadg the way unravellg how, and why, homosexualy is found across nature. This suggts that homosexual activy is not a recent human nstct, cultural or even evolutnary terms, but stead occurs along many branch on the tree of life.

Female homosexualy has been well studied Japane maqu, but Clive’s rearch would exame how homosexual behavur differs mal and across environments. Rerdg homosexual behavur the wild and llectg blood sampl are the first steps for Clive; the next is sequencg DNA to search for nnectns between the behavur and geic markers. This ia stemmed om a study showg a rrelatn between geic marker Xq28 and male homosexualy, although there were statistil uncertati about some of the fdgs.

Importantly, this will clu exploratn of homosexual partners the hope of unrstandg different mate-choice strategi reproductive and non-reproductive ntexts. Versluys says: “Homosexualy is still somethg that’s not always well unrstood among the scientific muny and maybe even more poorly unrstood among the general populatn. And spe the acknowledgement of how wispread homosexualy is nature, rearchers have to ntend wh a arth of rearch that should have been built up over s.

GAY DARW

The food was h and lic and the bouzoi player the background set the mood perfectly and round out a totally fun night.Conveniently loted right next door was Throb Nightclub, the only gay venue town.

Image source, ThkstockIn the last two s, dozens of scientific papers have been published on the blogil origs of homosexualy - another announcement was ma last week.

THROB: DARW'S CHANGE-MAKG GAY NIGHTCLUB OF AGE

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis's h song Same Love, which has bee an unofficial anthem of the pro-gay marriage mpaign the US, reflects how many gay people feel about their mocks those who "thk 's a cisn, and you n be cured wh some treatment and relign - man-ma rewirg of a predisposn".

Sce the early 1990s, rearchers have shown that homosexualy is more mon brothers and relativ on the same maternal le, and a geic factor is taken to be the e. Also relevant - although no way proof - is rearch intifyg physil differenc the bras of adult straight and gay people, and a dizzyg array of homosexual behavur animals. "How n a tra like male homosexualy, which has a geic ponent, persist over evolutnary time if the dividuals that rry the gen associated wh that tra are not reproducg?

THIS IS NOT A GAY CLUB - THROB NIGHTCLUB

The evolutn of lbianism is relatively unrstudied - may work a siar way or be pletely gen that for homosexualy do other thgs tooThe allele - or group of gen - that sometim s for homosexual orientatn may at other tim have a strong reproductive benef. This would pensate for gay people's lack of reproductn and ensure the ntuatn of the tra, as non-gay rriers of the gene pass are two or more ways this might happen.

"We know that women tend to like more feme behavural featur and facial featur their men, and that might be associated wh thgs like good parentg skills or greater empathy, " says Qazi Rahman, -thor of Born Gay; The Psychoblogy of Sex Orientatn. Andrea Camper-Ciani, at the Universy of Padova Italy, found that maternal female relativ of gay men have more children than maternal female relativ of straight men. The implitn is that there is an unknown mechanism the X chromosome of men's geic which helps women the fay have more babi, but n lead to homosexualy men.

‘MEN WERE STTERG EVERYWHERE’: QUIRY HEARS OF STRG OF VLENT CINTS AT SYDNEY GAY BEATS

Gay people were 'helpers the nt'Image source, Jeante MankelowImage ptn, The fa'afafe of Samoa dislike beg lled "gay" or "homosexual"Some rearchers believe that to unrstand the evolutn of gay people, we need to look at how they f to the wir culture. The ia is that gay people pensate for their lack of children by promotg the reproductive fns of brothers or sisters, ntributg money or performg other uncle-like activi such as babystg or tutorg. Some of the gay person's geic is shared wh niec and nephews and so, the theory go, the gen which for sexual orientatn still get passed down.

Vasey hasn't yet measured jt how much havg a homosexual orientatn boosts siblgs' reproductn rate, but he has tablished that Samoa "gay" men spend more time on uncle-like activi than "straight" men. His lab had prevly shown that gay men Japan were no more attentive or genero towards their niec and nephews than straight, childls men and women. Vasey speculat that part of the reason the fa'afafe are more attentive to their nephews and niec is their acceptance Samoan culture pared to gay men the Wt and Japan ("You n't help your k if they've rejected you").

That hypothis has led Vasey to speculate that the gay men who intify as men and have mascule tras - that is to say, most gay men the Wt - are scend om men who had a cross-genred people do have childrenImage source, Getty ImagImage ptn, Elton John and David Furnish have had two children wh a surrogate mother, although the inty of the blogil father is secretIn the US, around 37% of lbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual people have a child, about 60% of which are blogil. Acrdg to the Williams Instute, gay upl that have children have an average of figur may not be high enough to sta geic tras specific to this group, but the evolutnary blogist Jeremy Yor pots out a blog post that for much of morn history gay people haven't been livg openly gay liv.

ON THE BEAT: BATE ON PUBLIC SEX DIVIDG THE GAY MUNY

In the 1940s, US sex rearcher Aled Ksey found that while jt 4% of whe men were exclively gay after adolcence, 10% had a three-year perd of gay activy and 37% had gay sex at some pot their liv. But most scientists rearchg gay evolutn are terted an ongog, ternal pattern of sire rather than whether people intify as gay or straight or how often people have gay sex. This has nothg to do wh Gee Orwell, but scrib the observatn that boys wh olr brothers are signifintly more likely to bee gay - wh every olr brother the chance of homosexualy creas by about a third.

He not that the herabily of homosexualy is siar to that for divorce, but "social science rearchers have not… searched for 'divorce gen'.