NSW police lose urt bid to exclu Stt Johnson killg om gay hate quiry | Sydney | The Guardian

Contents:

• GAY SNAS SYDNEY
• DRAMATIC GRDR ENUNTER AT A PARK ADDS CHAPTER TO SYDNEY’S GAY HISTORY
• GAY SYDNEY: A GUI TO CLUBS, BARS, BARET AND CULTURE
• NSW POLICE LOSE URT BID TO EXCLU STT JOHNSON KILLG OM GAY HATE QUIRY
• THE 5 BEST SYDNEY GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS SYDNEY
• GAY SYDNEY

GAY SNAS SYDNEY

While Oxford Street is still the se of many of the longt-nng gay clubs Sydney, the fun isn’t relegated to Darlghurst alone. If you’re keen to really make a night of , keep an eye on the lik of Heaps Gay, Poof Doof, Hoe of Mce, Honcho Disko and Birdge (as well as the social media-elive Kooky) to fd out when their next soiree start planng your next night out, read on for our gui to some of Sydney’s favoure gay clubs, pubs and bars.

DRAMATIC GRDR ENUNTER AT A PARK ADDS CHAPTER TO SYDNEY’S GAY HISTORY

Chg-a-lgsSure, ’s not officially a gay bar, but Chg-a-lgs draws a pendably queer crowd. The ColombianOpen 9am ‘til 6am every day — y, you read that right — this sprawlg Oxford St hnt n always be unted on for a tipple the early 117-125 Oxford St, DarlghurstYou n fd all the tails for this year's Sydney Gay and Lbian Mardi Gras here. Warren and Edn choose a two-seater bench Green Park, Sydney’s gay-iendly ner-cy Darlghurst – a safe public space to ially appraise one another the (Steve Le Marquand) is his late 50s.

He lls himself straight and thks of himself as happily married to the woman wh whom he liv a regnal has been beaten up the past, and remembers the moral csa to punish gay men at the peak of the AIDS crisis.

Cred: Steven SiewertEdn (Joseph Althoe) intifi as queer rather than gay yet hems himself to the archetype of the “twk”: a photogenic, cute young man wh a skny build. While the earlier versn of Green Park revolved around hookg up the park, was set a Darlghurst admired what the play had to say about the behavural chasms between different generatns of gay men, and the unexpected plexi of the two characters, as well as s ntemporary ronance: “It really engag the ‘missn acplished’ set of expectatns the straight world has of the LGBTQIA world, particularly the gay world, ” he says.

GAY SYDNEY: A GUI TO CLUBS, BARS, BARET AND CULTURE

… But so much ridual trma exists the gay world, and a lot of is exprsed laterally the way gay men hurt each other, are not munal-md and still engaged sometim a real battle for self-prervatn that means they n be terrified of vulnerabily and beg open. ”'But so much ridual trma exists the gay world, and a lot of is exprsed laterally the way gay men hurt each other.

Audience members watchg Green Park might notice the large pk triangle stallatn, a memorial to queer men and women murred durg the Holot, who had to wear pk triangl stched to their clothg to note their spised sexual the bottom of the hill is St Vcent’s Hospal, where many AIDS patients were treated and across the fenced si of the park is the palliative re hospice where some are also shadows of the gay scene’s nghtier si. Edn is obssed wh his self-worth based on enumeratn: the numbers of followers on Instagram and “flame” ins om potential sex partners on the actual Green Park “looks like a nice place where gays active wear n walk their signer dogs”, says Greene.

Meanwhile, the troductn of laws that rtrict late-night socialisg central Sydney’s party preccts has severely damaged Oxford Street, the cy’s tradnal gay strip.

NSW POLICE LOSE URT BID TO EXCLU STT JOHNSON KILLG OM GAY HATE QUIRY

And, while Oxford Street is fely hurtg, a handful of Sydney’s “tradnal” queer venu ntue to thrive there spe of the challengg and mixedTokyo Sg Song basement Patrick Abboud, a documentary filmmaker and televisn prenter who -hosts and produc for the Sydney Gay and Lbian Mardi GrasThe biggt challenge for visors who want to explore Sydney’s LGBTQI scene is that only the old, mastream optns tend to be listed travel guis. On Sundays plays crowd-pleasg hoe, electro and two most mastream venu for gay guys are Stonewall and Arq. Lbian-iendlyThe Heaps Gay monthly rovg queer Geia Verkuylen, strategy and partnerships manager at Archer magaze, the Atralian journal of sexual diversyLbian-foced venu n be hard to fd Sydney.

It’s also where the rovg queer party Heaps Gay has been held for the past uple of months.

Heaps Gay is a massive event that draws queer folk of all ag, sexuali and genrs. To fd out what is gog on across Sydney regards to arts events and queer culture, keep an ear out for the rad programm Canvas (on FBi), and Gay Panic and So Hot Right Now (both on 2SER). Thk 1970s performance art meets homoerotic dience teractn, wh a sprklg of straight at boys who’ve stumbled downstairs om the pub above.

THE 5 BEST SYDNEY GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS SYDNEY

The productn of Angels Ameri 2014 was heart-punchgly good, and I re-staged my turbo-gay one-man show, Blue Wizard, there durg Mardi Gras this year – so has fely supported this Wizard was part of the Mardi Gras Ftival, which ns the weeks leadg up to the para March. A bid by New South Wal police to exclu a high-profile killg om a gay hate quiry has been ath of US mathematician Stt Johnson is one of dozens of s unr the spotlight at a special missn of quiry to spected gay hate crim Sydney between 1970 and 27-year-old died after he was punched at a gay beat on Sydney’s northern beach. A 2017 qut termed his ath was a homici, wh fdgs that he “died as a rult of a gay hate attack” viewed by some police as a “feat”.

In the latt velopment, Stt Phillip Whe plead guilty to throwg the punch that ultimately ed Johnson to fall to his month, jtice Robert Beech-Jon dismissed “what appears to be an absurd suggtn [by police] that Dr Johnson killed himself” when sentencg Whe to ne years past newsletter promotnafter newsletter promotnNSW police had argued Johnson’s ath was outsi the current quiry’s terms of reference on the basis the matter was not unsolved, the man rponsible for his ath intified as gay and a sentencg judge did not fd the ath to be motivated by gay the quiry’s missner, jtice John Sackar, on Tuday led s terms of reference were much wir and answers to qutns such as how and why Johnson died were still not urt did not make a fdg beyond reasonable doubt that Whe was motivated by gay hate, but did not le out the possibily, he is due to hand down his fal report next month.

GAY SYDNEY

The unvarnished fact is that late at night, Marks Park, a grassy verge ppg the headland and the ncrete pathway skirtg the cliff face, had been a gay beat – a place where homosexual men would socialise and hook up – sce at least the late 1920s. Gangs like the Bondi Boys (otherwise known by their graffi tag PTK, or People that Kill) would prowl here, rryg out brazen acts of vlence; ’s likely that at least a few were serial offenrs; perpetrators of an anti-gay murr spree that swept across Sydney at the is no simple whodunn; volv a tangled tale of hate crim volvg multiple spects, gangs prisg up to 30 members, some of whom circulated among other gangs across Sydney, posg a dark mosaic of murr. This is a lot more than n be said for the other men killed here, or for that matter, the vast majory of other murrs of gay men blightg Sydney at the a year to the day earlier, on another eezg night July 1989, Ross Warren, a handsome, charismatic weatherman and newsrear om WIN-TV Wollongong, vanished on this headland the early hours of a Saturday morng.

”In what was perhaps another watershed moment this year, a 75-year-old man was arrted for the murr of Raymond Keam, a martial arts expert and father of two who was found beaten to ath January 1987 at Alison Park, Randwick, then a well-known gay beat Sydney’s east. As Sue Thompson, a former state ombudsman’s vtigator who joed the police force 1990 to ordate s liaison wh the gay and lbian muny, tells me the podst: “Cliffs were the easit weapon; you didn’t have to rry anythg wh you. ”“Thgs did not change magilly 1984 [when homosexualy was crimalised NSW].

”For Thompson, beg a liaison officer was eply personal: one of her close iends, a gay man, had been murred only months before she took the role, and she was ls than imprsed wh the police rponse.