Based on the statements given before the Supreme Court of
the Northern Territory in Alice Springs, several things seem
certain. On the evening of Thursday October 21, 1943 a small
group of soldiers had been drinking in the beer garden of the
military canteen shortly after it closed at 9:30. After the
rest had retired two troops remained behind to finish their
drinks. Exactly what happened next was the point of
substantial disagreement between the pair, but when the
corporal on canteen duty went out to investigate the noises,
it seems he found the two soldiers engaged in some sort of
struggle on the ground with their clothing in disarray.
Whatever the truth of the matter, the outcome would be charges
and a conviction for 'assault with intent to commit buggery'
for one of the men, with 12 months hard labour and a court
martial. His partner would be cast as the victim of the piece.
Whether one soldier had sexually assaulted the other or both
were willing participants but, faced with discovery, one
turned against his mate to save himself, remains unclear.
Constable Bill Whitcombe probably thought he had a
watertight case. There were two witnesses who had both sworn
statements that the cook from the Alice Springs aerodrome had
made unwanted advances towards them and had sexually assaulted
one of them not once, but twice. The fellow even had form,
with a few counts of stealing, receiving stolen goods and
railway trespass on his record, although they were from many
years before. A conviction would have seemed certain. However,
it was not to be, and the case would collapse in court when
the key witness retracted his statement admitting it had all
been a lie.
I first met Jimmy Bergengren in the late 1980's through a
mutual friend. A younger guy named Kym who had been living
with Jimmy between stints in Adelaide invited Paul and me to a
dinner party at his house in Raggett Street. The meal itself,
laid out on the table that formed the cellar trapdoor, was a
Swedish smorgasbord in recognition of Jimmy's heritage but
also featuring little Australian toothpick flags to indicate
those dishes of more local origin for our benefit. Jimmy
entertained us before and after dinner with tales of his youth
in Sweden and his 30 or so years in Alice Springs; the guys he
had known and some of the events he had witnessed. His
conversation was peppered with the names of several prominent
local families and veiled hints of scandal.
This story appeared on page 15 of Campaign issue 57,
printed in 1980. It describes the trials and tribulations of a
young, newly-graduated gay male teacher who made the clearly
unfortunate career choice of taking up his initial placement
in Tennant Creek. As much about the foibles of life in the NT
public service in the late 70's as it is about being gay in
the Territory of the time, it provides a fascinating
insight into the attitudes of queer city folk to the idea of
trying to function in remote Australia. There is also a
reference to the formation of an Alice Springs Gay Society at
the time, which has not been previously recorded, as well as
some commentary on an early battle between good Christian
women and those of suspect sexuality, centred around staffing
the Alice Springs women's refuge.
I clearly remember the first time I met Eric. It was the
same day as I arrived to live in Alice Springs; August 11,
1984. Not that we were strangers. We had been corresponding in
the months before I left Sydney and established that not only
would we both be gay men living in Central Australia, but that
we would both be researchers working with Aboriginal people.
Quite a coincidence! Eric was so keen to meet me that he
appeared at my hosts' house within hours of my arrival and
dragged me round to the Gap Hotel for a drink. I can still
vividly recall watching the replay of the Los Angeles Olympics
closing ceremony while listening to his critique of his own
American culture. That night I couldn't possibly have
predicted that four years later I would be helping with
arrangements for Eric to make one last trip back to Alice
Springs to die.
My mother - English, living on Sydney's North Shore and not
at all 'out' about my sexuality - had an eighty-year old
friend who came to Alice Springs on holiday. After her visit,
my mother, interested because this is, after all, my home
town, asked for her friend's impressions. "Oh, lovely," came
the reply. "I really liked Alice Springs. You know, m'dear,
there seems to be something of a sisterhood in that town."
"Something of a sisterhood" - I love that phrase to describe
the visibly large, some say socially and economically
powerful, community of single women and lesbians who live in
the Alice. If the rest of Australia has a ten percent gay
population, then 15 percent in Alice are lesbians, with a few
brave gay men hanging on at the fringes.
By late 1996 conversations between Jim, Paul me turned to
entertaining possibilities of overcoming our shared isolation.
Between the three of us we were able to identify a growing
group of known or, at least, suspected gay and lesbian people
in and around the town and were sure that most of them knew a
few more. On that basis we thought we'd take a chance and
organise a social function to see who turned up. Although we
were probably anticipating a meeting rather than a celebration
we thought the idea of calling it a party was a more appealing
way to get people to attend. When the night finally came we
weren't too hopeful of a big attendance. So we were very
surprised when about 50 people came through the door within a
couple of hours of the designated time.
After the success of the first Central Network party in
January 1987 it was only natural that people would want more.
And providing a social outlet for the desert's queers had been
the primary aim of forming the group anyway. So, over the next
two years there began an irregular circuit of parties in
people's homes around town. Normally the events were mixed,
although some were 'boys only' based on the householder's
preference and the separatist mood of queer politics at the
time. However, by the middle of 1988, most of the welcome mats
were worn out and it was Paul's and my place in the old
Eastside that had become party central. That was alright for a
while, but growing problems with bad behaviour, gatecrashers,
and complaining neighbours soon made the situation untenable.
Paul always enjoyed dressing up. On occasion this took the
form of some fairly spectacular drag that was always
guaranteed to turn heads. A six foot plus woman in six inch
heels usually wearing little more than ladies underwear was
pretty hard for most of the locals to ignore, whether it was
in the Sheraton cocktail bar or the beer garden of the
Memorial Club. Fluffy too could easily be talked into a drag
outing. And so it was in August 1987 when they decided to make
an appearance at the then Ansett Bindi Ball; a charity event
billed as a costume ball. A good night was had by all and the
boys received plenty of attention from friends, strangers and
the usual throng of confused and excited straight men. There
was even someone there from the social pages of the local
press who flattered the 'ladies' by snapping a few poses and
taking their details. So, it wasn't too much of a surprise
when Fluffy and the bunny girl made an appearance in both the
Centralian Advocate and Sunday Territorian in the following
weeks.
By early 1987 things were really starting to take off for
Central Australia's queer community. We had just held our
first party and were organising regular gatherings in people's
homes and dining out together. In this context it seemed like
a good idea to rally the troops and provide a means of letting
others know what was happening. Thus Hot Gossip was born in
February of that year. Although it only managed four slim
issues between then and the final one in August 1988, it is
the earliest known record of an attempt at regular queer
publication in Central Australia. It would later be well and
truly surpassed by Desert Dykes; the lesbian newsletter
published by Desert Rose from 1993 into the next century.
AIDS has never been a gay disease. However, throughout the
early years of the epidemic in this country it was clearly gay
men who were most affected and accordingly took up the first
positions in the front line against it. Central Australia was
no different and throughout the late 80's and 90's a small
group of gay men, lesbians and their friends played an
instrumental role in shaping the local response. Perhaps the
single greatest act in this regard was the establishment of
Australia's only regional AIDS council.
The decision to be in the 1988 Mardi Gras was a very
spontaneous one. As was often the case a group of Sydney
expatriates were regaling some of the other locals with tales
of our former lives in the Australian gay mecca. I guess, like
in many isolated communities, this was the normal way that we
passed on our myths and culture. There was a lot of wishing
that we could be there for it, but we also knew that the
airfare to Sydney was outside the reach of most. In those days
there were no discount fares. I can't remember who, but
someone came up with the wild idea that if we could find the
time and pool our resources it might be possible to drive
down. Within a short space of time we had worked out that we
had the means and enough interest to make a go of it. Once the
decision was taken to get there it didn't take long before we
decided we had to be part of the parade. The idea of a group
of us driving roughly 3,000 kilometres to Sydney for the event
and not making sure to let them know what we had done became
inconceivable.
This document is an electronic copy of an information sheet
that was provided to people contacting Central Network for the
first time; locals, new arrivals or just visitors passing
through. It appeared in a few different versions over the
years. This one is from the late 80s when the organisation
still viewed itself as being primarily for gay men. By 1991
coverage had been formally extended to the Centre's lesbian
community, although most activities had actually been mixed
from the outset. Then, as now, it provides an insight into how
we viewed ourselves and what we were trying to achieve.
Rose Connolly; a.k.a. Desert Rose, moved to Alice Springs
to live in 1989. After five years of dealing with the
isolation and a lesbian community that she felt could be a bit
more organised, Rose determined to do something about it and
together with a small group of helpers began producing the
newsletter; Desert Dykes, that continued to inform and
instruct local women for the better part of a decade.
By 1990 the Central Australian AIDS Action Group (CAAAG);
precursor to the AIDS Council, was becoming increasingly
concerned that the message about HIV was not being heard in
Central Australia. Gay men and lesbians, the straight
community, and the Aboriginal population all tended to view
the disease as only relevant to the big cities and then still
only a gay men's problem. Few had any direct experience of
AIDS and most of the public health effort nationally was being
directed to major population centres. Such were the times. To
remedy this situation CAAAG joined with the local NT
Department of Health & Community Services and the Central
Australian Aboriginal Congress to seek funding for a local
conference that would give HIV/AIDS a higher local profile and
provide an opportunity for potentially affected groups to meet
and discuss. A key purpose of the event was to bring leading
community and public health experts from the cities into the
desert so that they could gain an appreciation of isolated
communities and their needs and present local people with the
latest developments in the field. It was also decided to bring
a prominent PLWHA spokesperson to the event, and incorporate
an unfolding of the AIDS Memorial Quilt.
The first AIDS conference in Central Australia was held in
1990. A feature of the event was the display of panels from
the Australian section of the Quilt Project. On that occasion
quilts commemorating the lives of three local residents were
presented for inclusion. Images of them are displayed below
with brief notes about the lives they represent.
There was an atmosphere of keen anticipation in early 1992
concerning the impending introduction of anti-discrimination
legislation in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly.
Many expected that they would finally be provided with some
protection from the kind of negative treatment that had been
prevalent over preceding decades. But, the hopes of the
Territory's queer community were dashed with the announcement
that sexuality was to be explicitly excluded from the grounds
on which discrimination would be unlawful. Fortunately some
public and private lobbying, and likely pressure from the
federal government, saw its complete omission overturned.
However, while sexuality would now be included, the draft
legislation still had a sting in its tail and proposed
exemptions were announced in the areas of education and the
care of minors. The Country Liberal Party government was
clearly having some difficulty balancing the relaxing moral
views of the broader community with those of its own more
conservative supporters.
Edward John Milera (John Cross) was an Aboriginal man who
lived and worked in Alice Springs from 1992 until he ended his
own life in 1995. He made significant contributions to the
fight against HIV/AIDS in the Aboriginal communities of
Central Australia, the participation of Aboriginal men in
Central Australian gay social life, and the profile of
Indigenous Australian queers nationally.
By 1993 the AIDS Council of Central Australia had
identified a significant issue with its inability to access
younger guys who were not attached to the local queer
community and unlikely to be fully appreciating the risks of
their own behaviour, especially if they didn't see themselves
as homosexual. To try to deal with this issue ACOCA had lodged
a successful application under the Commonwealth AIDS
Prevention and Education grants scheme. The project that was
funded had several aspects, but the main one was for a local
media campaign to communicate directly to young men who were
potentially engaging in unsafe behaviour with other men. Being
a bit of a photographer, I agreed to help Chris with the
images for the ad. He recruited a couple of straight
backpackers from a local hostel who were keen on some cash and
we headed to a local park to take some shots. There were lots
of variations in poses and the final one chosen was quite
demure; one guy leaning on the other's knee with his arm
across the former's shoulder, but no eye contact - absolutely
nothing risqué. Similarly the text was pretty
inoffensive, or so we thought.
I often wondered if I would ever get around to writing some
of my story since I came to live here in Alice Springs. Buoyed
by the success of the Queers of the Desert I guess now is the
time to put down for posterity, or pure indulgence, some fond
memories of my time here - the people, the magic of the
country and the essential spirit of the land that has left
such an indelible impression and impact on my entire life. No
matter how much longer I have left to live; being now in my
51st year, there is nothing that could ever come more close to
heaven for me than this place. I can't begin to express the
joys that living here has brought me - the adventures, the
experience, the wonderful memories and the fantastic
opportunities that Alice has provided for me. She has opened
many doors, presented me with a few obstacles, supported my
dreams and created a brilliant reality that I will cherish all
the days of my life.
Desert Dykes was published by Desert Rose Connolly from
July, 1993 until the final edition came out in 2002. Although
initially provided as a free newsletter for the Central
Australian lesbian community out of Rose's own pocket, it was
later sold for a nominal price to cover costs and had a number
of subscribers in Alice Springs and across the world. Over the
years organisations such as Central Network and the AIDS
Council of Central Australia occasionally came to the rescue
and provided modest subsidies to keep the presses rolling. And
while she tried to make it regular, varying levels of
contribution and support from others meant that there could be
extended periods between issues. Each one canvassed many
relevant topics, but Desert Dykes always had a strong local
focus, keeping women in the Centre in touch with events and
informed on matters of interest and importance.
The idea of a national conference for Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander queer men was born out of the interest groups
at the Central Australian AIDS Conference held in Alice
Springs in 1990. It was here that many of the organisers first
met and, withdrawing from both the Aboriginal discussion
groups dominated by heterosexuals and the gay men's group
dominated by non-Indigenous Australians, determined to take
some action for themselves. After many conversations and
meetings a national organising committee was formed that
together with people on the ground in Alice Springs, such as
John Cross, brought Anwernekenhe into being at Hamilton Downs
in 1994.
In 2001 local queer entrepreneurs Phil Walcott and
Kalikamurti Suich decided on a bold undertaking, to develop an
Alice Springs link into the lucrative Sydney Gay and Lesbian
Mardi Gras festival. The idea was to integrate a local dance
party and associated events with Phil's Rainbow Connection
hosted accommodation to produce a local season of community
festivities that would draw national and international
tourists and stimulate the development of a queer tourist
market in the Centre. In celebration of that other famous
Alice, the festival was christened Alice IS Wonderland.
Although the festival was notionally linked to Sydney's Mardi
Gras there was never any intention to hold a parade. The
organisers had also rather astutely decided not to invite
local antagonism and only promoted Wonderland amongst the
queer communities in Alice, interstate and overseas. So, it
was with some horror that that they learned, just one month
out from the event, that the Centralian Advocate had obtained
copies of their promotional material and was intending to run
a story.
