The Secret History of Atralia's Gay Diggers | SBS Voic

Contents:

• THE SECRET HISTORY OF ATRALIA'S GAY DIGGERS
• 10 GREAT ATRALIAN GAY FILMS
• JAKE'S STORY OF BEG GAY RAL ATRALIA
• WELE TO OUR GAY ATRALIA TRAVEL BLOG
• GAY BRISBANE

THE SECRET HISTORY OF ATRALIA'S GAY DIGGERS

Sydney Gay and Lbian Mardi Gras – SGLMG is one of the olst and ntuoly operatg LGBTQ+ anizatns Atralia and was built on the foundatns laid by early muny activists who fought for queer rights a time of opprsn. Midsumma Ftival - this annual ftival  Melbourne is one of Atralia’s leadg and long-nng LGBTQ+ events and is nsired alongsi Sydney Gay and Lbian Mardi Gras as one of the major pri celebratns the untry.

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.

10 GREAT ATRALIAN GAY FILMS

“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.

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While Atralia’s official ban on gay and lbian service was repealed 1992, LGBT+ soldiers served long before then. 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.

JAKE'S STORY OF BEG GAY RAL ATRALIA

“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. Gay bars Kgs Cross bulged wh servicemen and sailors as warships me to port. There are multiple s of veterans beg arrted for homosexualy offenc after the war, tellg thori they were pursug sir disvered the armed forc.

WELE TO OUR GAY ATRALIA TRAVEL BLOG

“I do not believe I have ever loved a woman more eply than my mate, ” said one Atralian WWII veteran, who went on to assert the relatnship wasn't homosexual.

GAY BRISBANE

The l between gay love and straight mathip were difficult to discern for some. Ackerley, an openly gay Brish war hero om World War One, wrote an acclaimed play tled The Prisoners of War upon his return to England.

While Ackerley's work has not passed through to mastream textbooks, the works of a fellow gay ntemporary have.

Absent om lson plans is Owen's apparent homosexualy, hidn by his fay but unvered by his bgrapher. Before the war's end, he spent time socialisg wh other gay Brish lerary lumari.

Magn Hirschfeld documented numero stanc of homosexualy among German soldiers durg World War One. The gay Jewish doctor – who was later exiled by the Nazis – wrote of how German soldiers would risk severe reprimand to sneak off to the lols’ ho occupied France to have sex. Unr fire, gay men would charge to “the thickt ra of bombs and the most adly attacks, ” Hirschfeld wrote.