It’s early 1987 and a young greenh Horn of a Cadet journalist has just moved to Sydney from Queensland a state in the final throws of its long and conservative tenure under the God-fearing hillbilly dictator Jo Peterson right now right tonight all the greenhorn has rented a narrow cockroach
Ridden townhouse unbeknown to him and until very recently a former Bordello in Fitzroy Street Su Hills and in those first few months in his new home he remains puzzled and terrified throughout the night and into the early hours by strange drunken men relentlessly banging their fists on the front door demanding
To be let in but on this Saturday night in the late summer of 1987 the green horn Ventures out and down toward WS South Darling Street where he Inuits that nearby some sort of gay and jolly Street Carnival is taking place as the greenh horn heads towards Oxford Street he sees something so
Shocking so jaw-dropping to a hay seed raised on Beki Peterson’s gobbledygook mantras like you don’t tell the frogs anything before you drained the swamp that almost 50 years later that moment still seems like an hallucination what the green horn sees is this a young man in his mid 20s
Dressed in a Roman style toer roller skating furiously towards Oxford Street a fixed to the back of the toer rising resplendant from the man’s shoulders is a pair of white feathery Angels Wings this was eye popping enough for the green horn who before his move South
To the big bad smoke of Sydney thought that having a gay time was nibbling on a biscuit coated ice cream and a golden one at that just as The Apparition reached within meters of him as he waited at the traffic lights on that distant barmy evening a corner of the Angel’s flapping
Toer somehow got caught under the wheels of his left skate and with a whooshing sound the toer the wings the whole edifice was suddenly ripped off as a magician might whisk away a tablecloth without disturbing the plates and Cutlery on the top in that instant what remained was a
Naked fleshy blur that continued to coren towards Oxford Street the clattering skates not missing a beat the wings abandoned and left in the wake of a bare male buttock that if memory serves correctly was dusted in glitter we’re not in Brisbane anymore Toto thought the young
Journalist I was that green horn and it was my first experience of Sydney’s famous gay and lesbian Migra give me a G what do we want it’s hard to believe that that Angelic Apparition in 1987 was less than 10 years after the very first Sydney gay Migra on June 24
1978 a moment not of love and community and inclusiveness but of hate and violence with Marchers clashing with police and metaphorically hitting a wall of generations of community ignorance and intolerance it was a scenario I was all too familiar with in Brisbane and the city’s history of Bloody Street marches
There too dreams and ideologies met the cold reality of police trunions eggs were thrown and punches exchanged when after the demonstrators were repeatedly told that the magistrates saw no reason as to why they should not be admitted police continued to refuse entry it whil demonstrators went through a
Repertoire of slogans the court began reminding the 53 people arrested on Saturday night but before midday another seven people were in jail that night and the following day some of those arrested were locked up and brutalized in the Dank cells of the darlinghurst police station near the Triangular corner of Forbes and Burke
Streets in darlinghurst just north of the Sydney CBD those Warriors would become known in time as the 78ers gay rights organizer for that historic March Alan Hyde decried the violence against gay people at the time police from darling Hurst police station very regularly attack gay people in our
Gay community up in Oxford Street and Williams street it’s a very very common occurrence and what happened on Saturday night was more more dramatic and it’s got media coverage but it happens all all the time in the grandest of ironies this epic story has now come full circle the Sandstone monster that was
The darlinghurst police station is now home to copia the world’s largest museum dedicated entirely to queer history and the lgbtqi plus Community the building built at the turn of the 20th century was a brutalist nightmare of poorly lit cells including one of the padded variety for as authorities described then violent cases
Now as the copia museum a sort of miraculous exorcism has replaced that horrifying history with light and love Sydney Lord May Clover Moore said positioning the museum in the old police station would heal past injustices and celebrate the community’s resilience at 11:00 this morning at Sydney’s National Art School copia will
Be officially opened by Anthony albanesi new southwales premier Chris mins and Lord mayor Moore News Corp chairman Lin Murdoch and his wife Sarah whose Foundation donated $1 million towards the realization of the museum will join about 400 other guests from the world of Politics the Arts and sports including
Former rugby league Hardman and gay icon Ian Roberts the museum will celebrate queer Stories the community’s historical struggles particularly during the dark years of the HIV AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 90s its setbacks and triumphs and it’s ongoing an extraordinary contribution to Australian life the timing is perfect on March 2 Oxford
Street will be once again full of angel wings glitter and the occasional Bear butock for the mardig gr parade roaring back onto its traditional parade ground Sydney’s G lesbian Migra repping up a bumper crowd LED as always by dkes on bikes followed soon after by ITA on a triack
Less than two years ago ABC chair AA butros and former High Court Justice Michael Kirby advocated for the city’s first queer Memorial and Museum to put down its roots in the former lockup near Taylor square and Oxford Street the Sydney gay community’s spiritual home and stomping ground after the city of Sydney Council
Approved startup funding of almost $300,000 for the museum in mid 2022 momentum and Goodwill quickly followed first the murdochs then the min’s government which would ultimately contribute $3.85 million to the museum and ensure its unique address edua mccan editor-in-chief of Vogue Australia and publisher of news Prestige titles has been a powerful
Advocate for copia just even having been a young fashion assistant on Vogue the first time I I worked for the brand a very long time ago now in the 1990s I mean the impact of the HIV AIDS epidemic was dramatic and I know that was true of
A lot of the creative arts Industries I lost friends I lost colleagues I was a very young girl confronted with some pretty traumatic losses really of extraordinary individuals and you felt how much was lost there was almost a little bit of a a creative vacuum locally after this horrific event so you
Want to make sure that those people and the stories and their talent and and just how much Sydney has been given by this community like the richness of this city it’s one of the things I think that makes and has made Sydney such a special place in particular and I I you don’t
Want that to be lost in an intergenerational conversation where the norm today is perhaps quite different it’s not even just that it’s a gift I think what’s been delivered here for Sydney indeed but for Australia as well and to the world frankly but it’s also we should be thankful that we can record
This history now and that it’s not forgotten because that’s when unfortunately history can repeat itself cutopia will become a fixture on the Sydney tourist itinery for grown-ups and importantly groups of school kids there’s a very dark history there and for it to be now reborn in such a
Positive way is you know I think that’s just remarkable I think that they will come up with incredibly clever and creative ways of reaching young Australians in particular but all Australians coming up whatever happened to that roller skating Angel well I’ve got you you we’d love you to subscribe to the Australian for
Our unrivaled news analysis and commentary check us out at theaustralian.com.au and we’ll be back after this break utopia’s dedicated head historian Gary wspoon the award-winning author of groundbreaking books including gay syney a history says it’s crucial to have a place where the stories of the queer
Community can be told and retold we have been here as long as everyone else but we have expressed ourselves differently or we have been recorded differently so part of utopia’s role is certainly what you might call setting the record straight and bringing forward a lot of these stories many human interest
Stories many stories about what might call broader social change Gary says the very existence of the museum is still sometimes difficult to comprehend very sort of mindboggling for someone of my age who remembers the early days of gay lib Whoever thought of gay marriage qu you know same-sex marriage it was just
It wasn’t even on the agenda or it was sort of inconceivable then but I think what you might call attitudes to homophobia these days it’s very like transphobia and that’s almost like the New Frontier of what we might call intolerance of minorities you know a very otherwise very good Multicultural
Society edua mccan says today’s official opening and the reality of the museum itself has already proved emotional for members of the lgbtqi plus Community the museum will open its doors to the public tomorrow I have already experienced individuals being incredibly emotional about the fact that it will even get done and
Emotional about the curation of what’s in it just because so many people could never have imagined that this day would come and I think that perhaps the location particularly with the 78ers takes them right back to where it all began for them well not necessarily where it began but certainly to a pretty
Horrific punctuation in that beginning and the fact that perhaps some of that trauma is relived but also owned and able to be just moved moved on I hope will be wonderful for those people occasionally I think back to the naked skater of South Darling Street I
Wonder where he might be how his life turned out and how he managed that night without his wings and toga he would probably be in his late 50s or early 60s now I like to think he’s perhaps a mature gentleman these days maybe walking his dog down Oxford
Street each morning taking a piccolo from a nearby cafe he fully clothed this time sensibly dressed but hopefully not too sensibly and with a twinkle in his eye I like to think of him wandering into copia a museum there to celebrate his community our community and that he
Might take a lot of satisfaction out of that and pride and remember things past and I like to imagine that as he steps out of the museum and into beautiful Sydney he is thinking with a secret smile on his face once I was an angel thanks for joining us on the front
Our team is Leah smogu Kristen Amat Tiffany dimac Josh Burton Jasper leak CLA Harvey and me Matthew Condon check out our journalism And subscribe to make sure you’re always first to know at theaustralian.com.au
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