Know your gay history
Imagine a world without gay media. Before 1969 there was no gay or lesbian media in Australia. It was a world of silence, persecution and hidden pleasures.
Former editor and publisher Bill Calder is returning to where it all began with the launch of a gay and lesbian history project to look back at some of the first voices in a disenfranchised community.
Currently published online, Calder’s project takes a look at the gay media landscape from 1969 – 2000, and the impact gay newspapers and magazines have had on broader acceptance of homosexuality in Australia.
The project is part of a PhD Calder is completing at Melbourne University under the supervision of Dr Graham Willett and will eventually be turned into a book.
A gay press veteran himself, Calder started BrotherSister newspaper in Melbourne in 1992 and started a sibling paper in Brisbane the following year.
In 1999 he sold both newspapers to Satellite Media, who were buying up much of Australia’s gay media before floating the company on the stock exchange.
When the Satellite Media venture went bust after a year, Calder returned to gay publishing, starting Bnews in Victoria and later the Melbourne Star, before selling both in 2005.
The new owner also went bust three years later, opening the niche now filled by the Star Observer.
Based on his preliminary honours thesis, ‘The Origins of Gay and Lesbian Media in Australia 1969-78’, in his latest project Calder focuses on some of the gay media pioneers who took considerable risks to produce gay content for an audience starved of an outlet.
The project covers characters such as John Ware, the psychology student who took on the profession when he started Camp Ink; Bill Munro who picked up guys promising to run their photos in his porn mag Butch; Liz Ross who took on Women’s Liberation by publishing Lesbian Newsletter, Rod Stringer who started Campaign to promote his bar and Michael Glynn who brought men in leather to Sydney with Sydney Star.
Over the next five weeks, the Star Observer will bring some of these important stories to life, as Calder takes up a position with the paper as guest columnist. Make sure you grab your copy of the Star Observer to find out where it all started.
INFO: www.gaymediahistory.wordpress.com
Peter in Brisbane / TC / Ronson Dalby: It was great reading your posts. Your reminiscences sound fascinating. If you are not already aware the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives (www.alga.org.au) has an oral history program in which we undertake interviews to capture personal stories like yours. If you are interested we would love to get in touch with you to talk about potentially conducting interviews – our email address is [email protected].
ALGA was established in 1978 in Melbourne at the Fourth National Homosexual Conference and is a volunteer-run and community-owned collection of over 100,000 items – from oral history interviews to personal papers, magazines to badges. In addition to the development of the collection, it regularly publishes books (including the recent ‘Secret histories of queer Melbourne’ 2011, and previous titles such as ‘A History of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras’ 1995), runs conferences, history walks etc.
Gee, Thanks Guys!
I thought Sydney was bad enough in the Premier Askin days for Police thuggery.
If you want your tourism holiday ruined by the Police.
Come to Brisbane. You cannot sit in the park, walk along the street, etc… without being questioned and asked to show documents. Just like the Nazi did in Germany.
Then there are the hidden toll tunnels to watch out for on your holiday. Corralling you into huge and unfair fines.
No Oliver, you’re into the fucked-up Catholic gay hate scene from your many post abusing the “Gay Community”, in the name of your beloved church. What you fail over and over to understand is your comments send kids to their deaths. But that is what makes you tick, the hating, not the loving. Just like when you argued we should not have protections the Equal Opportunity Act, you are showing yourself to be full of bile and sin.
Give me a great Catholic man like Gay Burns and Father Bob any day over the hate and misery you bring to the world.
What did you think lots of people did before Gay Bars and Grindr, get the shit kicked out of them by the police or meet at a park. Of the things you could say, you of course graced us with your stupidity yet again.
Amen. Your views are also part of history.
Beats, smoke filled dens? sounds scary. Thats why Im not into the Gay scene!
Well said Peter, TC, and Ron!
The smoke filled dens…the slow ordered footsteps, the worn faded jeans, the lose white tee shirt brightly lit with flouro lights. There was pain, a lot of glamour and hot happenings.
Friends would drop “that guy from…. he killed himself”. Fuck you would think as the bombshell consumes your fond memory of that guy and the hope one day… You could be told countless stories of the police bashing some innocent guy at a beat, then some friends would just vanish, married off, then show up again looking for action.
Now look at us asking daring to ask for equality!
Yes, Peter, despite the dangers there was something exciting about those days that’s lacking now. I’ve ever forgotten being in a Sydney courthouse one day and seeing ‘Buggery’ in the current case slot on a courtroom door.
When I was 16 and went to my first ever gay venue, The Purple Onion, I felt like Dorothy in Oz.
Being a young poof in the 60s had at lease one benefit. When my birthday marble came out the barrel and Vietnam loomed ahead, the army decided this homosexual was definitely not wanted and failed me at the medical. It was a great relief. Not that I was terrified of going to Vietnam. What scared the hell out of me was the fear of bashings etc from fellow soldiers as I wasn’t exactly the ‘butchest’ of boys back then. ;)
The greatest wonder is how I got through all those years without getting the dreaded sickness that claimed so many of my friends.
One last thing: I think the word ‘camp’ was so much better than ‘gay’. :)
Hey Peter right on. Wild parties at addresses spread person to person at Kamp Pubs like Her Majesties in South Yarra (that was before gay meant gay) and Jan Hilliers dances at Darling Street way before her shows at the POW in StKilda. And the various clubs in the Melbourne CBD – where do people think that AC-DC got their first gigs and who kept Little Stevie going?
Gay history.
Police, Police and more police.
Police throwing Gay men off bridges. Police and their mates pushing Gay men over cliffs at Manly and Bondi beats. Police relieving Gay men of their party cash at the old Darlinghurst Police station.
Climbing over the Botanical gardens iron fence at night with a mmmmmmm.
And the parties and dances with real bands playing. No plastic music in hotels and dance halls in those days.
Many a drag queen gave our now famous Australian singers their start at Gay dance halls.
Gay life. Glad to have experienced all of that in those underground, smoke filled dens in old Sydney town. Bohemian Kings Cross, wonderful!