Australian Queer Archives YouTube channel launches with Moments in Time

Watch Moments in Time, celebrating people, places and events that made Australian queer history on the Australian Queer Archives new YouTube channel.

Originally broadcast on QTV on Channel 31 between 2019 and 2020, Moments in Time relives the events that made Australian queer history.

The series was produced by Bill Calder, publisher of queer media titles such as Brother Sister, and Graham Willett, historian and former AQuA president.

The collection of videos were launched at the start of the month on the newly created Australian Queer Archives YouTube channel.

“We produced QTV as a half-hour news variety show and decided to add a history segment in,” Bill told us,

“The Moments in Time segments were only three minutes long.”

“We planned to use them in other ways as conversation starters or for education.

“A lot can be said in three minutes, still, it was a challenge we wanted to take on.

“We also had to go with the times of what media is now, it’s quite shorter and sharper and snappier.”

Sharing our stories.

The history series introduces LGBTQ+ people from the past, such as bushranger Captain Moonlite, all-female run garage proprietor Alice Anderson, and Florence Cox, who experienced intersex discrimination.

It revisits events that changed our history, like the Black Rock beat raids in the 1970s, which highlighted police harassment, Melbourne’s first Gay Pride Week, and the Sorrento Radicalesbians conference that unleashed a new voice for change.

Iconic venues such as Pokeys in St Kilda, Val’s Coffee Shop in the Melbourne CBD, and The Hub, which was Melbourne’s first pride centre are highlighted.

Writing about these stories in texts is something historian Graham Willett is used to, but this format was still a learning curve.

“This is a bit new for me and will hopefully be a way to reach a different audience,” Graham said.

“We do the Monty Puncheon, the world’s oldest lesbian in three minutes, and in the last twelve months her entire biography has come out.”

“It was a creative way for us to present history.

“The archives have a huge collection, in all sorts of different formats, books and badges and t t-shirts and so on.

“We are proud to be able to add digital material for people to watch and launch on their YouTube Channel while they can continue to make other digital work available.”

Giving our history a wider view.

Each of the three seasons of Moments in Time has 13 short episodes.

Moments in Time Season One episodes focus on:

Gay Bushranger Captain Moonlight
HIV Activist Bill Hathaway
The Black Rock Beat Raids
The Woolshed Bar Kiss-In
Myer window dresser Freddie Assmussen
Mac Du Barrie, a larger-than-life figure in Melbourne’s camp scene
An all-female garage run by Alica Anderson
Val Eastwood
Nineteenth century sportswoman Harriet Elphinstone Dick
Michael Glynn – Founder of the Sydney Star newspaper
Edward du Lacy Evans
Early sex educator Robert Storer
Sorrento Radical Lesbians Conference

Moments in Time Season Two episodes focus on:

Australia’s first activist group, the Campaign Against Moral Persecution
The Candlelight Vigil
Florence Cox, who experienced intersex discrimination
One of our earliest venue promoters, Jan Hillier
Miss Candee and the transforming power of the Pink Dollar
The successful same sex marriage campaign in Australia
The Tasty Bar raid in Melbourne
Graham Carbery, AQuA founder
Monte Punshon, who, when she died aged 106, was dubbed the world’s oldest lesbian
OutRage, one of the great queer magazines from the past.
Superstar Gladys Moncrieff: 1920s & 1930s musical opera singer and her partner, Elsie Wilson.
Mac Ronan founded the ALSO Foundation, which organised great dance parties such as Red Raw.
Charlie and Lance, who fell in love in 1919, but the law intervened and locked Lance up.