Being gay in australia
Unbelonging: Anti-Asian racism in Australia’s gay community
Belonging, at its root, is a fantasy of a socio-cultural space where differences do not impede on feeling related with others. Some link belonging to our innate human desire for feeling comfort grounded in feelings of recognition, connectedness and/or acceptance. It is often a social emotion: the feeling of affinity with a group, of creature part of something larger than ourselves and being welcomed by others. Many of us first experience this feeling in the family home and look for to recreate it in ever widening circles from university to workplaces to neighbourhoods and communities.
If you are fortunate, you mostly advance through life feeling like you involve. While we all, at some points in time, perceive like a ‘fish out of water’, especially in novel cultural spaces, this experience of innocuous non-belonging is a temporary feeling and generally exceptional in one’s everyday life.
By contrast, if you are unlucky, other people accidentally or purposefully, sometimes even maliciously, ensure you do not experience ‘at home’. From overtly violent and bullying behaviour to more subtle workplace discrimination, ill-treatment in everyday life, a
Marriage equality
Decriminalisation of homosexuality
From the 1960s the socially steady South Australian Labor government wanted to repeal laws criminalising homosexuality.
However, it was not until the May 1972 murder in Adelaide of Dr George Duncan, a law lecturer and gay man, that premier, Don Dunstan, assessed that the community mood was receptive to reform.
Dr Duncan’s murder led to revelations of how commonplace hostility and harassment against queer people was.
South Australia’s Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Behave, was enacted on 2 October 1975. It was a landmark in LGBTQIA+ rights in Australia because it fully decriminalised lesbian acts.
Equivalent law reform was passed by the Australian Capital Territory in 1976, Victoria in 1980, the Northern Territory in 1983, New South Wales in 1984, Western Australia in 1989, Queensland in 1990 and Tasmania in 1997.
Recent surveys in Australia show a moderate level of acceptance for LGBTQ+ rights in specific areas.
Survey results from 53 LGBTQ+ Equaldex users who lived in or visited Australia.
Perceived Safety*Absence of verbal harassmentAbsence of threats and violence*Survey results represent personal perceptions of safety and may not be indicative of current actual conditions.
Equal TreatmentTreatment by general publicTreatment by statute enforcementTreatment by religious groups
Visibility & RepresentationRepresentation in entertainment
CultureInterest groups and clubs
ServicesSupport and social services
History
Homosexual activity in Australia
?Homosexual activity in Australia is legal.
Lgbtq+ activity was federally decriminalised by the Human Rights (Sexual Conduct) Act 1994, although some local declare laws remai
It's only 25 years since being gay stopped organism illegal in Australia
The tardy 1980s were tough for Rodney Croome. Aged in his 20s and not long after coming out as gay, he decided to become an LGBTIQ+ advocate in his residence state of Tasmania.
“I discovered then, that because I was gay, I lived in a police state,” he says.
He recalls going to a gay people meeting and learning not to use his surname as police informants could be hidden within the group. He was also told police could be waiting outside to insert attendees’ car registration plates to their so-called “pink list”.
Tasmania's state law at the time still criminalised homosexuality, meaning sex between men was punishable by more than 20 years in prison. The unwind of Australia had decriminalised it.
Police attending a queer law reform stall at Hobart's Salamanca Markets in 1988. Source: AAP / Roger Lovell
The last day a person was charged with homosexuality offences in Tasmania was the mid-1980s, Mr Croome says, but the law “was still used as a justification by the government and others to discriminate”.
The worst example came in 1988 when
Timeline: 22 years between first and last Australian states decriminalising male homosexuality
The political manoeuvres over homosexual law reform in Australia have been characterised by a series of defeats and setbacks before eventual success.
South Australia was the first state to decriminalise male homosexuality and it took the last remaining declare, Tasmania, 22 years to follow suit.
First state decriminalises homosexuality
September 17, 1975
South Australia is the first state to decriminalise male homosexuality under reformist premier Don Dunstan and attorney-general Peter Duncan.
ACT prepares bill before SA
November 4, 1976
The Proceed very nearly thrash SA to the punch, having prepared a decriminalisation bill before Dunstan.
Canberra did not hold self government at the time, relying on Federal Parliament to enact laws which were not passed until after SA.
Police harassment continues into 1980s
December 23, 1980
Until 1949 the death penalty was still on the books for sodomy in Victoria.
The Hamer Liberal government decriminalised male homosexuality in December 1980.
A loosely worded "soliciting for immoral purposes" clause, inserted by dissident Liberals, saw p