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LGBTIQ opinions and in-depth reads
The sordid history of gender testing and the Olympic Games
Gender testing began because the International Olympic Committee refused to believe ‘real’ women could or should participate in traditionally male track events. The all-male IOC insisted the fairer sex’s fragility made events like the 800m impossible for the delicate female constitution. However, 20th-century testing failed to identify male imposters. Instead, it evolved to exclude women …
Peter Black on 50 years of C.A.M.P. in Queensland | CAMP INK
On the opening night of the annual MELT Festival at Brisbane Powerhouse, QC President Peter Black delivered a speech on the 50th anniversary of CAMP on Queensland. The Campaign Against Moral Persecution was the first local organisation dedicated to homosexual law reform in the state. Peter Black Peter Black is the Associate Dean of Learning …
Olympics intersex rule: Faster, Higher, Stronger – except you
Olympic regulation excludes some female athletes unless they artificially lower their natural testosterone levels. The Olympics intersex rule puts the lie to the Games motto, ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together’. For those athletes, it might better read, ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger – except you!’ Read also: The sordid history of gender testiing and the Olympic Games. …
Coming out to Granny – a personal memoire of the 1970s
I long considered my grandmother proof that the secret to a long life is to be a cold hard bitch. So I judged her the greatest obstacle to sharing my truth with the world when I came out at seventeen. I did not otherwise regard the experience as of any real consequence, never suffering the …
The pre Drag Race all-stars downunder – Aussie herstory
Today, RuPaul’s Drag Race defines drag. Indeed, drag queens of a particular vintage complain that baby drags have no idea the artform even existed before RuPaul’s Supermodel of the World. But a glance through old newspapers and magazines shows pre Drag Race all-stars downunder making Aussie herstory decades ago. Undoubtedly, thanks to RuPaul, drag enjoys …
Maud Allan & The Cult of the Clitoris: the trial of the century
A 1918 newspaper article headlined The Cult of the Clitoris destroyed the career of the most famous dancer on Earth. It implied that Maud Allan was both a lesbian and a dangerous femme fatale, undermining the British war effort by encouraging sexual deviance. Total tomfuckery. The suggestion Maud Allan influenced World War I was ludicrous. …
Lindsay Kemble: from Adelaide’s ‘gay deceiver’ to war hero
Billed as Adelaide’s ‘gay deceiver’, Lindsay Kemble enjoyed a decades-long stage career as a female impersonator after the publicity from a 1915 arrest for unlawfully disguising himself as a woman. Two constables testified against Lindsay in the Adelaide Police Court. Each detailed the interest they took in a young woman they noticed “out late at …
Supermum Shelley Argent talks to QNews – the 2011 interview
Shelley Argent is a mum on a mission. From putting up posters in men’s toilets to taking the fight for equality to Canberra’s heavyweights. Shelley has become a force to be reckoned with who wants nothing more than to see her two sons treated as equals. QNews recently visited Shelley at home and, over freshly …
Sir Chips Channon: Nazi-loving arselicker to the aristocracy
Long-forgotten politician Sir Henry Chips Channon is about to enjoy a new lease on life decades after his death. Publication has begun, over three instalments, of his unexpurgated diaries. Channon’s bitchy and salacious revelations of the rarefied circles he moved in will provide immense entertainment to history buffs and royalists. Unfortunately, the avalanche of bon …
1750 deathbed confession includes tale of failed gay seduction
A British museum recently acquired a 1750 pamphlet detailing the deathbed confession of Thomas Mun, executed for various crimes in that year. Mun speaks candidly about various exploits including an account of a failed gay seduction. Executed for robbing a mail coach, Mun apparently handed the manuscript to his jailer on the morning of his …
For all the lovers: LGBTIQ+ Valentine’s Day love quotes
For much of history, Valentine’s Day remained off-limits to all but heterosexual lovebirds. Indeed, most societies excluded romantics of diverse genders and orientations from the public celebration of their love. But times have changed in much of the world. So here are some LGBTIQ+ Valentine’s Day love quotes for all the lovers, however, and with …
Shelley the Magnificent: PFLAG+ National Spokesperson retires
Shelley Argent stepped down this month as PFLAG+ National Spokesperson. In that position and others, she advocated tirelessly for LGBTIQ+ rights over more than two decades. Shelley Argent, however, told QNews she will continue to advocate behind the scenes. “I’m a mother. Mums don’t retire. It’s a job for life. As the mum of an …
Dr Albert W Noll: The Fairy, the Fire Fiend and the Fiddle
The author came across Dr Albert W Noll while researching the recent publication COON: more holes than swiss cheese. The young Boston dentist enjoyed notoriety for his appearances on the Boston stage during the 1890s. He usually performed in drag, either as a white woman or in blackface as a ‘mammy’ caricature. Born into Boston …
Happy Birthday Ned Kelly, though we never knew you at all
Although a national icon, Ned Kelly remains something of an enigma. The most famous bushranger of them all stares out at the world through a slit in his armour plate helmet and everyone makes of him what they will. Despite Red and Ellen Kelly not registering Ned’s birth, documentation indicates a December 1854 birthdate. In …
How a long-forgotten ‘confirmed bachelor’ informs our history
When Robert Herbert and John Bramston sailed home to England after six years in the new colony of Queensland, John’s younger brother remained. A ‘confirmed bachelor’, Henry Bramston played a prominent role in Brisbane life but was quickly forgotten after his death. Robert Herbert, private secretary to Sir George Bowen, arrived in Brisbane in November …
Herston: the companionship that dared to speak its name
In the century when ‘the love that dare not speak its name’ became a euphemism for homosexuality, Queensland’s first premier and his longtime male companion enjoyed a companionship that not only spoke its name but bequeathed it to posterity. Robert Herbert and John Bramston combined their two surnames into one and named the home they …
Vintage Gay Panic Defence – The Cooyar Tragedy, 100 years ago
2020 marks the 100th anniversary of The Cooyar Tragedy, perhaps Australia’s first example of gay panic defence. The newspapers of the day gave that name to the murder north of Toowoomba in 1920 of David Frederick Hawes (Fred). The man charged with the murder, Henry Arthur Dale (Harry), pleaded Not Guilty based on what we …
Pompo and Christie Palmerston: how statues sometimes lie
As #BlackLivesMatter protests continue across the world, statues commemorating divisive historical figures come under fire. At Milla Milla on the Atherton Tablelands, a statue commemorates two people, one white and the other Aboriginal. The white man is Christie Palmerston, a noted explorer, and the Aboriginal is his ‘companion’ Pompo. Milla Milla sits at the top …
Gene Saint aka Jean Delmonico, legendary Brisbane Drag Queen
Smiling postie by day, legendary Brisbane drag queen by night, Gene Saint lived a long full life. The elder of Brisbane’s Rainbow community passed away peacefully last week aged almost 93. I met Gene in the early 70s at one of Dame Sybil Von Thorndyke’s annual Queen’s Birthday Balls. I thereafter received invitations to his …
Australian LGBTIQ history timeline: the 20th century
The Australian LGBTIQ history timeline of the twentieth century begins with male homosexuality prosecuted as a criminal act in every jurisdiction of the newly federated Commonwealth. However, the last 30 years of the century saw every one of those laws consigned to history. While the law only explicitly criminalised male homosexuality, all members of the …
Joe Exotic: the shocking true story of Netflix’s Tiger King
Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness brings to the small screen an unbelievable cast of real-life characters. The Netflix docu-series highlights Americans who conduct ‘big cat rescue’ operations. They then house the lions, tigers and other big cats they ‘rescue’ in for-profit roadside zoos. The series star is undoubtedly Joe Exotic, a gay mulleted cowboy, …
Sydney’s Kamp Kult – depression era fabulousness
Just days before Christmas 1931, the Arrow newspaper regaled its readers with the story of Sydney’s Kamp Kult. The paper marvelled at lavish ceremonies including the coronation of a Queen and same-sex weddings. At the time, Sydney suffered in the throes of the Great Depression. Men struggled to find employment and riots broke out over …