Learng om the liv of gay and lbian Atralians

Contents:

• THE SECRET HISTORY OF ATRALIA'S GAY DIGGERS
• CANBERRA, NOT SYDNEY, IS THE GAY AND LBIAN PAL OF ATRALIA
• GAY MELBOURNE
• GAY SOCCER PLAYER JOSH CAVALLO TO JUDGE RUPL’S DRAG RACE DOWN UNR

THE SECRET HISTORY OF ATRALIA'S GAY DIGGERS

Bt ci Sydney The LGBTQ pal of Atralia, Sydney is one of the most welg and gay-iendly travel statns the world wh a substantial pk tourism scene, pecially durg Mardi Gras when the whole cy sparkl.

Proudly ostentat, the cy boasts many gay and gay-iendly bars and clubs cludg Sly Fox on a Wednday night, Arq, Stonewall Hotel, Palms on Oxford and the Imperial Hotel. In addn to Melbourne, Daylford also has a large gay muny and every March hosts Atralia’s largt untry queer ftival: ChillOut Ftival. Further north, Cairns, Noosa Heads and The Great Barrier Reef are popular travel playgrounds for the gay and lbian muny – however, you may fd regns the untrysi to be ls acceptg.

Sydney Gay and Lbian Mardi Gras, Sydney, Febary – March Celebratg their 40th anniversary 2018, the Sydney Gay and Lbian Mardi Gras is Atralia’s largt LGBTQ celebratn. PriFt, Perth, October – November What began as a muny movement prottg discrimatory laws agast the gay and lbian muny has sce grown to PriFt, a ftivalthat clus Perth Pri Fairday and the Perth Pri para. The Secret History of Atralia's Gay Diggers.

CANBERRA, NOT SYDNEY, IS THE GAY AND LBIAN PAL OF ATRALIA

On Anzac Day, 1982, five gay men walked up to the Shre of Remembrance Melbourne. They were om the Gay Ex-Servic Associatn, and they rried a wreath dited to ‘all brothers and sisters who died durg the wars’—but they would never get to lay at the shre. “I don’t know where all the gays and poofters have e om, ” he was later famoly quoted as sayg, “I don’t remember a sgle one om World War Two.

“There were thoands of ex-servicemen who were mp, I thk I went through 300 of them myself, ” he told the magaze, a py of which is prerved by the Atralian Lbian and Gay Archiv. When one man harassed Smh about beg gay, a iend remd him that Pkie was a three-time featherweight boxg champn.

"We had s of homosexuals really fallg love.

GAY MELBOURNE

In the terts of general happs we re-arranged some room occupants and eventually got all the homos one block, " he said.

“A quarter of homosexual s Queensland crimal urts across the war volved airmen, seamen, pilots or others the ary, ” he says.

While Atralia’s official ban on gay and lbian service was repealed 1992, LGBT+ soldiers served long before then. “There n be ltle doubt there were gay soldiers [...

GAY SOCCER PLAYER JOSH CAVALLO TO JUDGE RUPL’S DRAG RACE DOWN UNR

Before repeal, the Atralian Defence Force policy was to remove gay men “sympathetilly and wh discretn”. But right back to Atralia's early years, Smaal says was easy for gay men to jo the armed forc.

“The irony, of urse, was that they end up an all-male environment wh limed opportuny for female pany – the potential for homo-sex had never been greater, ” Smaal says. Sometim was latent homosexualy, sometim otherwise ‘straight’ men found themselv havg sex wh other men. “It was amazg the number of gay people the POW mp, ” the Atralian serviceman told Outrage, “well not so much gay as bisexual – bee they uldn’t get a woman they’d have a man.

Ined, the forc of World War One and World War Two may have been a surprisgly liberatg place for gay men and women.