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

Contents:

• 10 GREAT ATRALIAN GAY FILMS
• FROM TROYE SIVAN TO PADAM PADAM: ATRALIA IS S GAY ERA AND THE WORLD SHOULD THANK
• JAKE'S STORY OF BEG GAY RAL ATRALIA
• THE SECRET HISTORY OF ATRALIA'S GAY DIGGERS
• GAY MELBOURNE

10 GREAT ATRALIAN GAY FILMS

The Set (1970) is the first Atralian film wh homosexualy as a central theme, while gay men appeared sexploatn favour such as Atralia after Dark (1975) and The ABCs of Love and Sex: Atralia Style (1978), which H was for homosexualy.

Sign up to BFI Flare emailsGet the latt #BFIFlare news and ticket release Max 2: The Road Warrr (1981) featured a gay villa (the leather-clad Wez, enraged by the slayg of his lover), while more sympathetic homosexual characters appeared prison drama Stir (1980) and fay melodrama Mull (1988).

The Naked Bunyip (1970)Homosexualy was tnip to many of the filmmakers behd the wave of sexploatn documentari that flourished Atralia the 1970s, which often served as an exce to show tillatg shots of lbians gettg down to bs the bedroom. The film draws parallels between the close mascule relatnships that form unr the Atralian phenomenon of ‘mathip’ and homosexualy, while talkg heads discs the importance of crimalisg gay sex, which at the time of the documentary was a crimal offence  Atralia. Bond himself was gay, an early bar scene looks like a scene om William Friedk’s S&M thriller Cisg (1980), while is clear that some sort of sexual act, probably a rape, tak place between the teacher and Doc after a vlent stggle, sendg the protagonist to another spiral of spair.

FROM TROYE SIVAN TO PADAM PADAM: ATRALIA IS S GAY ERA AND THE WORLD SHOULD THANK

The Clic (1982)In this fun and bawdy bo of scy edy and sex tn aid, we dip to a day the life of a VD clic, where a laid-back doctor (Chris Haywood) and a pdish medil stunt (Simon Burke) tend to patients of all walks of life, om ank sex workers to ashamed hoewiv, om promiscuo gay men to cheatg hbands. But ’s wickedly entertag, Arthur Dignam is excellent as the polician, and ’s a unique film that uld not have been ma at any other time, wh sex scen too graphic for before the 1980s and an anti-gay streak too unpalatable for the 1990s. For much of s length, the film feels very post-gay; Isaac (Ewen Llie), our antihero, a moody Greek Atralian who unearths some unpalatable fay secrets when he returns to Greece followg the unexpected ath of his father, is certaly not fed by his homosexualy.

Matt’s birth mother is the member of a homophobic church, and he qutns her beliefs at every opportuny, while Graham, an adopted 11-year-old who n’t read, fac new challeng when his dads move to Fiji wh him and enurage him to keep their sexualy a secret owg to s nservative society. Wh such a hateful swamp of nservative legislators, was left to the movie dtry to fight for equal rights love, marriage and child ctody law, hence why, nearly all of the movi here, the gay relatnship is a ‘problem’ for wir society and the participants endure abe, vlence or hate. There have been plenty of high school g-out films, but none as raw or emotnally-charged as this (very) low-budget ’90s tale of two awkward teenagers clumsily workg out their feelgs for each other and pg wh their (very) dysfunctnal fai and latent homophobia.

The anizatn’s choice of name was a nsc play on the term ed by many Atralian gays of the time to refer to themselv, “mp, ” a word that would rema age until the adoptn of the word “gay” om the Uned Stat gay liberatn movement to Atralian English 1972.

JAKE'S STORY OF BEG GAY RAL ATRALIA

The rt of the saw the appearance of three short-lived tl jog Camp Ink, the Sydney Gay Liberatn Newsletter (1972-1973) which beme Gay Lib News (1973-1974), and Red and Lavenr: Newsletter of the Socialist Lbians and Male Homosexuals, published om 1976 until 1978. In 1982, s tle changed to simply The Star (1982-1985), followed by the Star Observer (1985-1986), Sydney’s Star Observer (1986-1987), Sydney Star Observer (1987-2014) and the ntemporary Star Observer, at The 1980s saw the addn to the Atralian gay prs scene of a journal om the Sydney Gay Wrers Collective, Inversns, published 1980 and 1981, and the first issue of an annual serial, Atralia and Beyond: a gay and lbian gui to Atralia & New Zealand, which would rema prt until 1991. In 1992, the Atralian Gay and Lbian Law Journal began publitn, and would rema existence to the twenty-first century, changg s tle to the Atralasian Gay and Lbian Law Journal after 1993 and to the Gay and Lbian Law Journal startg 2001.

THE SECRET HISTORY OF ATRALIA'S GAY DIGGERS

While the motn on this pot did not rry, tert remaed as to “whether the law should attach crimal nsequenc to all physil sexual acts between male homosexuals and whether Christians were unr a duty to support the matenance of existg laws” (Report 1971: 1. While the Commtee favored retag the laws limg offensive behavrs, remend that “the provisns of the Victoria Crime Act 1958, which renr crimal those homosexual acts mted private between nsentg mal of 18 years or olr, should be repealed. The full text of that speech was reprted his 1979 llectn of wrgs Comg Out the Seventi unr the tle “Fom on Gay Liberatn “and offers a unique wdow to how the ias and tes of the then-new gay liberatn movement were beg exprsed wh an Atralian ntext.

Its preface c the work of Aled Ksey and quot the Wolfenn Report om the UK as a amework for the then-recent visibily of homosexualy as a social issue, then exprs ncern that chang the social environment towards homosexuals may tempt many people to choose homosexual rather than heterosexual (and Scripturally sanctned) norms of behavr.

The “Remendatns” sectn of the Report lls upon what terms “practicg homosexuals” to cease their activi and strs the threat that the homosexual movement pos to Wtern society before llg for reforms the area of the homosexualy laws of Atralia (towards a greater uniformy) and police practic and the availabily of psychologil rehabilatn. In the same year, on the other si of the ntent, homosexualy beme a subject of bate and discsn the state of Wtern Atralia when a bill was troduced to the Legislative Assembly to amend the sectns of the Crimal Co related to homosexual acts. The basic charge of the Commissn was to exame sectns 184 and 181 of the Crimal Co and to hold heargs and receive wrten and verbal ttimony on attus towards homosexuals Wtern Atralia, the qutn of the victimizatn of homosexuals (rangg om asslt to blackmail), solicatn, and the stat of medil and mental health facili for those who wished to change their sexual orientatn.

GAY MELBOURNE

) The text of the 1973 Sydney report is then analyzed wh regard to s legal and social aspects, s relig aspects, and the attus of the fields of psychology and psychiatry towards the validy of the ia that homosexualy was not an illns to be treated.

” The full texts of the then-current policy on homosexuals the armed forc of Atralia (and a cril mentary on , a “Proposed Amendment to All Atralian Crim Acts to Regulate Crimal Sexual Conduct, ” and two letters to Michael Clohy, secretary of CAMP- New South Wal om the Office of the Prime Mister and the Department of Foreign Affairs addrsg the problems wh the proposal that Atralia make a motn the Uned Natns that the term “sexual orientatn” be add to the Internatnal Covenant on Civil and Polil Rights (which was servg as the basis for a then-drafted human rights bill for Atralia) plete the document. The end wh the appearance 1979 of two documents created by the Gay Task Force Sydney which reflect part the list of remend social reforms listed by CAMP four years earlier, Submissn on the proposed New South Wal child and muny welfare legislatn and the Gay Task Force submissn to Commtee to Exame Teacher Edutn N. In 1980, the Gay Teachers and Stunts Group of Melbourne issued an troductn to gay life and homosexualy for young people, which was picked up by Alyson Books the Uned Stat and published as Young, Gay & proud!, the same tle ed Atralia.

Back Atralia, the Homosexual Law Reform Coaln ntued s efforts to fluence the legal stat of homosexualy 1980 wh the publitn of Myths and facts about homosexualy: a submissn relatg to the passage of the Crim (Sexual Offenc) Act 1980. 1984 was marked by nveng of the tenth annual Natnal Conference of Lbians & Homosexual Men Brisbane, whose theme was “Common Ground, ” and the appearance of two publitns illtratg the diversy of opn on homosexualy Atralia as the AIDS panmic began to unfold. The first is an assembly part of prevly published articl datg between 1980 and 1984 entled Blatant and Proud: Homosexuals on the Offensive, a reference to a claratn ma at the 1979 Natnal Conference of Lbians & Homosexual Men Melbourne that the summer of 1980 the participants would be “blatant –everywhere.

) After reviewg the then-current posns on homosexualy taken by Atralian activists, opposn to homosexualy is offered on moral grounds as an advisable choice, wh most of the book taken up wh “the nature of the homosexuals’ objectiv and mands. In 1985, the first study on an Atralian gay muny which for many rears the northern hemisphere may have served as an troductn to LGBT life on the other si of the world appeared wrten by a former employee of the New South Wal Anti-Discrimatn Board.

In Flaws In the Social Fabric: Homosexuals and Society Sydney, Denise Thompson prents both two sectns om the 1982 report Discrimatn and Homosexualy (of which she was the prcipal thor) on medil mols of homosexualy and Christian moral posns on the subject.