MAN ABOUT TOWN: Gay Bhrangers

Contents:

• GAY HISTORY: A QUEER BHRANGER
• ABC BACKSTORYZOë COOMBS-MARR EXPLOR ATRALIA'S QUEER HISTORY QUEERSTRALIA, UNVERG LBIAN NVICT GAM AND A GAY BHRANGER
• THE RELIG LIFE OF PREACHER, BHRANGER AND GAY IN CAPTA MOONLE
• MARC WHALE’S NEW JAM IS BASED ON THE LEGEND OF GAY BHRANGER CAPTA MOONLE

GAY HISTORY: A QUEER BHRANGER

“Well, was really only after the whole event that people raised that he might be gay, ” Fergon explaed. I’d learned about Moonle om Willett and other gay historians, I explaed.

We don’t know if he was gay or not. In his 1958 book The Atralian Legend, which popularised the ncept as a natnal tra, Rsel Ward suggted that, the mascule environment of the ontier, the typil bhman satisfied himself sexually wh prostut and digeno women, then assuaged his “spirual hunger” wh “a sublimated homosexual relatnship wh a mate, or a number of mat”. Do homosexuals now wre poems to each other?

“Men often slept together the same beds, ” historian Clive Moore explas his study of sexualy on the ontier, “whout raisg the slightt spicn that they were volved what we would ll a homosexual affair, were physilly affectnate, had romantic csh, wrote lovgly to each other and etted when they were apart … For most of the 19th century there was no clear social, medil or legal ncept of homosexualy; homosexual acts were regnised, particularly sodomy, but not a personal disposn or social inty.

ABC BACKSTORYZOë COOMBS-MARR EXPLOR ATRALIA'S QUEER HISTORY QUEERSTRALIA, UNVERG LBIAN NVICT GAM AND A GAY BHRANGER

“Is there a gay muny Gundagai? A uple of others town who are probably bachelors but most people say they are [gay].

THE RELIG LIFE OF PREACHER, BHRANGER AND GAY IN CAPTA MOONLE

Gundagai is nservative but I don’t thk ’s really bothered by homosexualy. “Would the town be open to the tourist potential of Moonle as a gay in? In that posthumo digny, we n tect, Amanda Kalalfos says, the begng of the morn science of sexualy, which the s to e would tablish “homosexualy” as a distct and all-nsumg pathology.

Was Feeney gay? Stt was disarmgly ank about his feelgs for the younger man, pecially an era durg the 19th century when sex was not discsed publicly and homosexualy was harshly supprsed by the state. "Ian Jon se no evince of a homosexual relatnship between Byrne and Sherrt.

"You look at the two fellers and they are both very actively heterosexual, " he gay man who's had sex wh a straight man n ttify that beg sexually active wh women don't le out same-sex activy. In 1966, a Sydney Morng Herald article, lguist Sidney J Bakerwas quoted as sayg about the Kelly Gang, "I have ltle doubt that they were a group of homosexuals. " Curnow then danced wh Dan Dan Kelly (right) is our most likely spect as the gay member of the Gang, on the basis that he specifilly asked a man to dance wh him spe the fact that Mrs Ann Jon, the nkeeper, and her dghter were prent, we should also nsir that Ned was probably no stranger to man-on-man actn, havg been jailed several tim sce he was a youth.

MARC WHALE’S NEW JAM IS BASED ON THE LEGEND OF GAY BHRANGER CAPTA MOONLE

I said 'Look, what do you thk about the stori about Ned beg homosexual? I would say that Sidney was homophobic, and that by applyg the allegatns to the Kelly Gang he thought he had placed them beyond the pale. "While we may never know for certa whether or not members of the Kelly Gang forted one another durg those ld nights alone the bh, there is one Atralian bhranger that we n nclively claim was what we would now ll a homosexual.