Homosexuality wasn’t decriminalised in Queensland until 1991, but the state has a long and rich queer history – ABC News

Late at night on the banks of the Brisbane River, two young men settled on a spot between a Moreton Bay fig and a fence.

It was 1968. The teens had nowhere else to go and thought nobody could see them.

The liaison was short lived. A harsh light ripped away the darkness like a bed sheet. It was a policeman’s torch.

“They thought we were trying to break into the milk factory,” Bill Rutkin says with a chuckle.

“When they worked out we were both gay men and probably about to commit an offence, they just gave us a good thumping and told us to go and see a psychiatrist.”

Now 72, Mr Rutkin shrugs off the beating as a “common occurrence” during Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s reign as Queensland’s premier.

“Violence was part and parcel,” he says.

He describes how police commonly used “entrapment” methods to make arrests.

“Some attractive young constable in plain clothes would go into the toilets … and expose himself.

“And then if anyone responded to that invitation, they would be grabbed. And usually some older sergeant or someone would appear from nowhere, and you’d be dragged away.”

Police at the time denied the use of such tactics.

‘Loving’ couple’s conviction galvanised push for change

For most of his life, consensual homosexual activity was illegal – punishable with up to seven years in jail.

In 1988, a male couple on the Gold Coast was committed for trial for having sex in their own home.

They admitted to the offences during a police interview on an unrelated matter.

“We were like a normal couple. I had found a guy who I loved, and who loved me. We made a commitment for a long-term relationship,” one of the men told the Sydney Morning Herald at the time.

Bill Potts was their lawyer. He says the couple ultimately admitted to the charges.

“There they were, a loving couple in a committed relationship, standing in the dock, holding hands and crying,” Mr Potts recalls.

He says the judge was sympathetic and sentenced them to a good behaviour bond.

“Ultimately these men left the dock with a stain of a criminal conviction on their names.”

The couple did not live to see their names cleared. Two decades after the trial, laws expunging homosexual convictions were passed.

Mr Potts says he represented hundreds of men charged with homosexual offences.

“Police were actively criminalising what was essentially private behaviour.

“This was a 19th century law that was out of date with 20th century morality.”

The then Labor opposition used the case to advocate for the repeal of anti-gay laws.

Despite conservatives warning of a “gay flood” if the party was elected, Wayne Goss became premier the following year.

In 1991 the Sunshine State became Australia’s second-last jurisdiction to decriminalise homosexual acts between consenting adults. It would be another 26 years before the age of consent was equalised.

‘The guide dog had more rights’

But decriminalisation was just the start of a long road towards equal rights for the queer community.

It was not until 2002 that Queensland allowed transgender people to change their sex on the birth register. It was only in 2003 the state made it illegal to discriminate against transgender people.

“You could not deny a guide dog entry to a café or restaurant. But you could legally turn away a transgender person,” Gina Mather, the president of the Australian Transgender Support Association, says.

After transitioning in the early 1990s, Ms Mather gave talks to junior police officers and lobbied politicians to include transgender people in anti-discrimination law. Once the reforms passed, she advocated for transwomen in discrimination lawsuits.

One was a sex worker who travelled to Townsville, Mt Isa, and outback towns.

“She got to be well known on the Qantas dash-8 planes. And the [flight attendants] would go around saying ‘what would you like, Sir?’,” Ms Mather says.

“She looked like Nicole Kidman.”

Ms Mather says Qantas settled with the worker outside court in 2007. The airline now has a float in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

“Sometimes I have a private laugh to myself,” Ms Mather says.

Now 82 and living in Carina, in suburban Brisbane, she says few trans women reached her age due to poor physical and mental health.

“That was one of the things that used to upset me. Why are they doing this? Why are they committing suicide?”

According to LGBTIQ+ Health Australia statistics published last year, 35 per cent of transgender adults had attempted suicide. The figure for those aged 14 to 25 was 48 per cent.

“It does get to you,” Ms Mather says.

“I’m not saying I’m hard-headed, but I try, otherwise I wouldn’t be here today.”

Michelle waited until 80 to wear a dress in public

Widespread prejudice was the reason Michelle Rose Turnbull hid her gender identity for most of her life.

It was only this year, the 80-year-old felt safe enough to wear a dress in public for the first time, at the Queens Ball, despite coming out to her sister at the age of 21.

Ms Turnbull was raised in an orphanage and knew as a child she wanted to be a girl.

“You can’t come up to a nun and say, ‘Sister, I don’t feel comfortable in boy’s clothing’,” she says.

“They’d send you off to a lunatic asylum and say, ‘rehabilitate him’.”

Ms Turnbull once only wore make up at home. But even presenting as a man did not protect her from violence.

At the Albert Park public toilet in Spring Hill, a well-known gay beat, Ms Mather says she was assaulted by two police officers.

“They kicked me in the backside and sent me home,” she said.

With her Cleopatra-inspired make up, Ms Turnbull is now a colourful sight in the inner Brisbane suburb of New Farm, which the queer community consider a sanctuary of sorts.

Same-sex couples increasingly living openly

With a growing numbers of queer people now living openly, the 2021 Census shows 14,888 same-sex couples counted in Queensland, a jump of more than 77 per cent from 2016.

That makes the Sunshine State home to Australia’s second-fastest growing population of same-sex couple households after Tasmania. The national increase was 68 per cent.

Gabrielle Reiher and her then girlfriend were among the same-sex couples counted in the latest census.

Raised in a religious family, Ms Reiher had Bible verses drilled into her from a young age. Now she cuts them up for her glitter art.

One work is a bedazzled re-imagining of the same-sex marriage postal ballot form, with ‘Yes’ circled in glitter.

The 2017 survey, which the Turnbull government controversially used to gauge Australia’s support for marriage equality before allowing parliament to vote on it, changed Ms Reiher’s life.

“I felt empowered to come out to my family because of it – because they’re religious,” she says.

“I felt like there was no longer an argument of the laws of the land. I felt like I was allowed to express myself.”

Ms Reiher was married to a man for 10 years before coming out as lesbian. She still does not know how her family voted.

“I have never asked — I think out of fear.”

She says while her family were supportive “to the best of their abilities”, they still believed homosexuality was sinful.

“A lot of people I know who’ve left religion are gay.

“I think it’s because we’re innately not accepted. And we can’t change.”

Ms Reiher moved from Melbourne to Brisbane in 2020 and was surprised to find Queensland’s capital so accepting.

“Since I’ve been in Queensland, I’ve felt nothing but comfortable.”

‘Strength in numbers’

Artist and photographer William Yang says the legalisation of same-sex marriage has helped boost acceptance.

“That kind of gives people more confidence to be gay and to be visible,” Mr Yang says.

“I think that’s one of the main things that changes people’s minds, is normalising homosexuality. And people being visible and not making a big deal about it.”

Born and raised in Mareeba, on the Atherton Tablelands, in Far North Queensland, Mr Yang studied at the University of Queensland in the late 1960s.

“I didn’t really know any gay people when I first came down from north Queensland,” he says.

“There was quite a high level of homophobia at the college that I stayed at.”

It was not until Mr Yang moved from Brisbane to Sydney that he was “swept out” of the closet, as the gay liberation movement began.

“People tend to leave the country, the regions and come to the city and find company in the city.

“There are still quite large areas, I’m sure where there’s quite a lot of prejudice in Australia.”

Mr Yang says visibility is key to reducing queerphobia.

“These attitudes are cultural, like you’re kind of born into a cultural set of beliefs,” he says.

“If you know a gay person, that will eventually change your mind. But if you don’t know any gay people, you just stick to the beliefs you have.”

Yorick Smaal, a senior history lecturer at Griffith University, says while the 2017 postal survey showed majority support for marriage equality, the result indicated ongoing prejudice.

He says the numbers of same-sex couples counted in the census was rising well before the same-sex marriage vote, with the group more than doubling in size from 1996 to 2001.

Dr Smaal cautioned against generalisations that south-east Queensland was more accepting than the rest of the state.

“Even in Brisbane, you can find places that aren’t especially supportive of same-sex relationships,” he says.

“Smaller regional areas are sometimes very closely knit and supportive.”

The legacy of former premier’s ‘passionate friendship’

Queensland’s queer history stretches beyond the fight for equal rights and back to colonial days, according to Dr Smaal.

The state’s first premier Robert Herbert and his school friend John Bramston owned and lived on a farm together in the 19th century.

They named the property “Herston”, a portmanteau of their surnames.

It’s now the Brisbane suburb of Herston – a legacy of their “passionate friendship”.

Dr Smaal says Mr Herbert was a “handsome dandy” who bred prize poultry, while Mr Bramston was involved with rifles, horses, and sailing.

“We have documents that speak to their friendship and to their close emotional connections,” he says.

Mr Bramston eventually married but had no children. Mr Herbert never married.

Dr Smaal says another same-sex pairing with a surviving legacy in Brisbane was that of Queensland’s first female doctor Lilian Cooper and her “lifelong companion” Josephine Bedford.

They moved to Brisbane in the 1890s, lived together, and were often mentioned together in the social pages of newspapers.

“We have here two women who chose to spend their lives together for an extraordinary amount of time,” Dr Smaal says.

Dr Cooper bequeathed their Kangaroo Point home to Ms Bedford, who donated it to the Sisters of Mercy. It is now the site of St Vincent’s Private Hospital.

The women are buried together at the Toowong Cemetery.

“I think what we have is evidence of a romantic friendship,” Dr Smaal says.

‘It’s just as hard for young people to come out’

While the state has witnessed significant legal and social change, Mr Rutkin says queer Queenslanders continue to endure prejudice and stigmatisation.

“There’s probably as much homophobia around today as there was back then,” he says.

“It’s just as hard for young people to come out as it was for us.

“There’s still a long way to go,” Ms Turnbull says.

“There’s an openness to it, but I mean, there are still some people out there who’d like to get rid of us.”

Ms Turnbull says she wishes she could have lived openly when she was younger, and she urged young queer people to “be themselves”.

“If you want to be a girl, be one. You want to stay as a guy, stay as a guy, but don’t let anyone tell you what to do,” she says.

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