I hope people like this Australian Gay and Lesbian History article i found:
*On January 26th, 1788, Australia's First Fleet* arrives at Sydney Cove.
The 11 ships carried 717 convicts, including 180 women. Some of the
convicts had been convicted of sodomy and other homosexual acts, which
normally carried life imprisonment on the "hulks" - the prison ships
anchored in the Thames, or even the death penalty.
From the early 18th Century, the United Kingdom had developed its own
distinct underground gay subculture, with men gathering secretly in
so-called "Molly houses" - illegal bars and taverns that were the
precursors of modern gay bars. Molly culture was closely associated with
cross-dressing and drag, and rather than seeking out 'rough trade', most
Mollies seemed to have preferred other effeminate men as partners. Of
course, when civil society found out about the existence of the Molly
houses, they were outraged, and a vigorous police crackdown ensued. When
Mollies were arrested and thrown into London's floating prison hulks,
they would have encountered an entirely darker kind of male-to-male
sexuality - prison rape and sex traded for protection and favours.
During the First and Second Fleet sailings to Australia, little effort
was made to segregate the young and vulnerable from the older men, and
with prisoners sleeping six to each tiny cell, it's not hard to imagine
what must have gone on. Later fleets corrected this problem - placing
the younger men and teens in separated lodging.
The term Molly has been found in early accounts from the colony while
others commented on the unseemliness of a certain class of convict -
young men who gave themselves feminine nicknames and wore their hair in
women's styles. With only 189 women convicts amongst the 1,373 British
to land at Port Jackson, both would have found themselves in
considerable demand - and this gender imbalance would not be corrected
for many decades. Lesbianism among female convicts, kept mostly
segregated from the males, is also recorded, but was viewed simply as a
curiosity - girl-on-girl action not being viewed as real sex at the time.
These early days of the colony seem to have included a fairly lax
attitude to male homosexuality. Although it's first governor,*Arthur
Phillip*, stated the only two offences deserving death were murder and
sodomy, the first trial for such a crime did not occur until 1796 and
that penalty was not prescribed. Phillip even went so far as to say that
sodomites should be given to cannibals to be eaten, writing,
/"I would wish to confine the criminal until an opportunity offered of
delivering him to the natives of New Zealand, and let them eat him. The
dread of this will operate much stronger than the fear of death."/
Despite this, the first recorded execution for a homosexual act did not
occur until 1828, when *Alexander Brown*, chief officer on the whaling
ship Royal Sovereign, and crewmember *Richard Lister* were ordered to
hang by the neck by a Sydney court. Lister was given a last minute
reprieve and deported from the colony, but Brown did not fair so well.
Gay convicts lucky enough to be sent to Norfolk Island (an otherwise
notoriously harsh and remote penal settlement) during the rule of the
prison reformer *Alexander Maconochie*, led a much different life. On an
island known for its food shortages and harsh punishments, Maconochie
instituted a regime based on reward and tolerance rather than cruelty.
According to *Robert Stuart*, a magistrate who visited the island during
Maconochie's rule, it was common for convicts to live together as
couples - referring to each other as "husband and wife", and there may
have been well over 100 such pairs on the island at any one time. Stuart
observed, "These parties manifest as much eagerness for the society of
each other as members of the opposite sex." Under Maconochie, convicts
caught having sex still faced flogging but, compared to the rest of the
British Empire, the punishment was mild.
Around this time, the colony's first known beat [cruising spot] was
mentioned in the Sydney Gazette as being located at Mrs Macquarie's
Chair [now a famous and respectable landmark in Sydney's Royal Botanical
Gardens]. Formerly the favourite ship watching spot of Elizabeth, wife
of the colony's sixth Governor, *Lachlan Macquarie*, by the 1830s it was
reported to be unsafe because of the unsavoury acts occurring there.
Reportedly, gay men were still cruising each other at the spot over a
century later in the 1950s.
The last gay execution occurred in Tasmania in 1863, when a black South
African convict named *Hendrick Witnalder* and an unnamed 14-year-old
boy were charged with sodomy. The boy was eventually set free but
Witnalder, of tiny stature, was hanged with weights tied to his feet in
case his body was too light to break his neck.
Surprisingly, Australia's highest-ranking gay leader to date may have
predated this. In 1859, *Robert Herbert *became the first Colonial
Secretary (the equivalent of Premier) of Queensland. His Attorney
General was *John Bramston* and both had lived together since meeting at
Oxford University as students in the early 1850s. The two most powerful
men in the state shared a grand house and gardens they built together
named "Herston" - a combination of their last names. Their friendship
lasted over 50 years during which they were rarely apart. Herbert's
explanation for his lifelong bachelorhood:
/"It does not seem to me reasonable to tell a man who is happy and
content, to marry a woman who may turn out to be a great disappointment". /
Looking back, it seems odd people didn't ask questions but during this
period, and right up until World War I, presumably straight men were
allowed a closeness and affection for each other rarely seen today.
Referred to by historians as "romantic friendships", it was not uncommon
for such men to write what would today seem like love letters to each
other and to pose for portraits together holding hands or embracing -
even reclining in each other's arms on couches. Many of these
friendships were only that but they must have presented the perfect
cover for gay men of the time.
And the "special friendships" were not confined to the ruling class. In
a harsh land, where men spent much of their time away from towns and
cities and women, alone with another man or two for company, the custom
of "mateship" arose. A man's friend was referred to as "me mate" or
"his mate," and it was tacitly understood that they were more than just
friends - more like friends with benefits. "Me good mate" or "His good
mate" was an unspoken acknowledgment that it was more than just a sexual
convenience the two were together - that they were lovers in the full
sense, real "mates."
Big brother is all about control. If the derro parents knew someone was watching and there would be consequences for their actions, they'd think twice.
