Discover Lost Story Of Unimelb Student Terry Stokes, Arrested In 1979 For Kissing Boyfriend

This November, the award-winning student-made podcast Uncurated is digging deep into the University of Melbourne’s archives to reveal the story of Terry Stokes, a 26-year-old Unimelb postgraduate who was arrested in the 1970s for kissing his boyfriend in public.

Available 3 November for free wherever you get your podcasts, Season 4 Episode 6 of the show will document the story of Stokes, from his eviction from his student accommodation by a proudly homophobic warden to the one hundred student kiss-in staged outside the bar where he was arrested. 

According to Michael Saliba, Executive Producer of Uncurated Season 4 and a Master of Journalism student at the University of Melbourne, the story has a rather personal significance to him.

“I’m the same age Terry was, and am also a gay post-grad at the same university he went to,” Saliba told the Star Observer.

“As a young queer person, I keep seeing the rights the LGBTQIA+ community had to fight for trying to be taken away, and people questioning whether pride is still important. So I knew very early on that I wanted to find a protest about a gay student.”

Michael Saliba On Discovering Terry Stokes’ Story

Saliba told this masthead he did not know about Terry’s story when he began his research for the episode, but knew he had struck gold when he uncovered work by Dr Graham Willett and fellow historian Dr Kathy Sport examining queer history in the University of Melbourne archives.

“I did a bit more digging and found a highly confidential file in the archives that they used as primary evidence,” Saliba said. “So I sought to get my hands on the same fifty-page file ten years after they did, and almost fifty years to the day of the famous case.”

Saliba soon discovered that a protest of a whopping forty student occupied the building where Terry was evicted from his student accommodation, forcing the warden to agree to a meeting. Apparently even the cafeteria staff joined in, organising a stop-work meeting in solidarity with the protesting students. 

A Message For Allyship Today

According to Saliba, it was these courageous acts of defiance that secured Terry’s reinstatement, helped drive policy changes, and contributed to Victoria’s broader gay liberation movement.

“All these different people banded together to help this student,” said Saliba. “If everyone had turned a blind eye, the university would’ve gotten away with it, and it’s a strong reminder that we must not let discrimination of any kind go without consequence. 

“We are still in a time when our rights are actively being taken away, and we need the wider ally community to speak up for us and support us.”

To watch the full episode on Terry Stokes, or to learn more about the show, visit here.