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

Contents:

• COOMA JAIL: PRISON THAT WAS ONCE 'WORLD'S ONLY JAIL FOR GAY MEN'
• EXPOSG THE SHOCKG PLAN BEHD ATRALIA’S GAY PRISON
• COOMA JAIL'S DARK PAST CLUS BEG WORLD'S ONLY 'GAY PRISON', PODST REVEALS
• THE SECRET HISTORY OF ATRALIA'S GAY DIGGERS
• A TE CRIME POD ABOUT ATRALIA’S ‘GAY ONLY’ PRISON IS HERE AND WE’RE ALREADY FKN HOOKED
• PRISONERS REVEAL MAT HAVE SEX WH GUARDS AND 'GOG GAY FOR THE STAY'
• THE BT GAY BARS MELBOURNE
• COOMA 'GAY PRISON' PODSTERS LL FOR ERNMENT APOLOGY FOR ENTRAPMENT, PERSECUTN OF HOMOSEXUAL MEN
• MELBOURNE GAY BARS

COOMA JAIL: PRISON THAT WAS ONCE 'WORLD'S ONLY JAIL FOR GAY MEN'

Image source, The Greatt MenaceImage ptn, Cooma jail was once ed exclively to imprison gay menSet one of the lst and wdit small towns Atralia, Cooma prison holds a dark only was reopened 1957 wh the specific purpose of rceratg men for "homosexual offenc", was also said to be ed as a human ttg ground wh the ultimate goal of eraditg homosexualy om 's jail is believed to have been the only known homosexual prison the world, acrdg to a new now, even some prison staff say they didn't know the real reason gay prisoners were segregated Strzelecki, 66, started as a ctodial servic officer at the prison 1979, and later set up the Corrective Servic Mm Cooma. "You wouldn't bunk two together… that was one of our biggt problems - keepg an eye on them, " says Mr New, now source, Thomas McCoyImage ptn, L Strzelecki (left) worked at the jail before settg up the lol Corrective Servic MmHistoril documents suggt New South Wal (NSW) Jtice Mister Reg Downg took cred for tablishg the reportedly exprsed "pri" at his pet project, tellg the Sydney Morng Herald 1957: "Nowhere Europe or Ameri did I fd any prisons where homosexuals were separated om other prisoners.

" A 1958 prs statement om Mr Downg nam Cooma prison as "the only penal stutn the world, so far as is known, voted specifilly to the tentn of homosexual offenrs".

EXPOSG THE SHOCKG PLAN BEHD ATRALIA’S GAY PRISON

Prisoners at Cooma were rcerated for beg gay, or crim related to beg gay; homosexualy wasn't crimalised NSW until dranian state laws 1955 had cracked down on homosexualy. Attempted buggery rried five years, and a harsher crackdown, a clse was add statg "wh or whout the nsent of such person" source, State Library of NSWImage ptn, Reg Downg exprsed pri separatg gay prisoners om othersBoth Mr Wotherspoon and the podst ce evince of police actg as "agents provotrs" to ce men to m homosexual acts.

"They'd e hunky policemen to entrap gay men by enticg them to have sex, ually public toilets, " Mr Wotherspoon 1958, the NSW ernment announced a mtee of quiry to the "e and treatment of homosexualy". It nam Cooma prison as "a special stutn for nvicted homosexual offenrs" which will "facilate the vtigatn" a "scientific evaluatn of the problem and possible solutn" has been found, Mr Downg is quoted as sayg, "the ernment nsirs that the problem mt be attacked wh vigour". ' and nclud that 'overmotherg' was "a major e of homosexualy, " says podst creator and journalist Patrick Abboud, who has spent years rearchg the prison.

COOMA JAIL'S DARK PAST CLUS BEG WORLD'S ONLY 'GAY PRISON', PODST REVEALS

"We know they failed their missn to eradite homosexualy bee our podst reveals gay men havg ongog relatnships the prison.

"The elive report has never been found - somethg Mr Abboud says amounts to a "ver up" source, Getty ImagImage ptn, Cooma is a town of about 7, 000 peopleIt's unclear when homosexual prisoners were no longer sent to Cooma. Corrective Servic NSW and the NSW Department of Communi and Jtice cled to ment on the allegatns, cg their "historil nature" Abboud believ gay prisoners may have been sent there until the early 1980s, cg a 1982 statement om the rrective servic mister claimg the policy still stood.

Sex offenrs were also sent to Cooma and this further stigmatised gay prisoners, says Mr Wotherspoon says, wh recent parliamentary bate of a Relig Discrimatn Bill threateng to allow discrimatn based on sexual orientatn, such recent history rri a soberg warng.

THE SECRET HISTORY OF ATRALIA'S GAY DIGGERS

The gay marriage bate Atralia had boiled over, and while he was verg an anti-gay marriage prott, the openly gay journalist was mobbed and the SBS work Christmas party, he was unwdg wh a uple of drks, then planned to h the dancefloor before gog home and takg a break om reportg for a while. Journalist Patrick Abboud has created a podst about the world’s only gay Rohan ThomsonThat was exactly when his iend and -worker Simon Cunich walked up to him to say he’d received an trigug story tip.

“Simon said a iend of an acquatance had told him that there had once been a prison somewhere NSW that was set up to rcerate gay men, ” says Abboud. ’”Abboud, wh Cunich as -producer, voted the next three years of his life to fdg out about , and the rult is The Greatt Menace, an eight-part Audible Origal lotn of the jail NSW shocked Patrick Rohan ThomsonIt sounds like somethg out of Rsia or East Germany or the US ep south, but happened Cooma, the small town an hour-and-a-half drive south of Canberra known as the gateway to the Snowy 1957, the town’s jail, which had been closed the early 1900s, was re-opened wh a new rem – was to be a prison for homosexuals.

Abboud disvered that the prison was a ordated effort between ernment and police to provi a pool of subjects for study and experimentatn to disver a “cure” for homosexualy.

A TE CRIME POD ABOUT ATRALIA’S ‘GAY ONLY’ PRISON IS HERE AND WE’RE ALREADY FKN HOOKED

As Abboud searched for throughout the seri, he felt that “they eher didn’t disver what they wanted, and uldn’t cure homosexualy, so they need to bury the report, or the thgs they did were so horrific that they never wanted anyone to see the tail.

Abboud terviews gay men now their 70s and 80s who tell raw and revealg stori of beg targeted, entrapped and arrted by unrver police at gay beats such as public toilets, parks and beach. As celebratns ramp up ahead of Sydney's annual Gay and Lbian Mardi Gras this week, a dark part of Atralia's LGBTQI+ history is beg explored by a new pots:The Greatt Menace podst explor the dark past of Cooma's jailThe se reopened the 1950s as a "gay jail"Podst maker says was the world's only "gay prison"Podst The Greatt Menace has unearthed the tth behd the world's only "gay prison, " which operated the regnal New South Wal town of Cooma om 1957 to hoe men nvicted of homosexual historic jail and one-time asylum closed the early 1900s before s reopeng.

PRISONERS REVEAL MAT HAVE SEX WH GUARDS AND 'GOG GAY FOR THE STAY'

(Supplied: Patrick Abboud)The Amazon podst spends eight episos explorg the history of the Cooma Correctnal Centre as a "gay prison" the mid to late 1900s and clus terviews wh mat om that time. (Supplied)"I n't help but sometim feel like 's still the 50s and 60s when the NSW ernment was tryg to eradite homosexualy om the face of the earth, " he said. 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.

THE BT GAY BARS MELBOURNE

“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.

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

COOMA 'GAY PRISON' PODSTERS LL FOR ERNMENT APOLOGY FOR ENTRAPMENT, PERSECUTN OF HOMOSEXUAL MEN

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

“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.

“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. There are multiple s of veterans beg arrted for homosexualy offenc after the war, tellg thori they were pursug sir disvered the armed forc. “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.

MELBOURNE GAY BARS

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. 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.