TasmaniaTM GAY AND LESBIAN VISITOR’S GUIDE www.discovertasmania.com/gayfriendly A Gay Travel Guides publication www.gaytravelguides.info Welcome Tasmania is the heart-shaped island at the bottom of the world, a place you have to stoop to see on a desk globe. It is one of contents Australia’s six states, but thanks to its beauty, fertility and history Queer History 4 Arts & Crafts 18 it is another country. Language & People 8 Hobart & The South 20 In the words of Oxford Professor Peter Conrad, writing of The Queer View 10 Launceston & The North East 22 the land of his childhood, “Tasmania is Janus-faced. On the sunlit east coast you can feel you’re the first man on earth, greeting Wilderness & Wildlife 12 The North West & West 24 it in wonder; on the west’s storm-swept beaches, you’re the The Adventure Island 14 Special Things to See & Do 26 last of your race.” Wine & Food 16 Listings 30 The truth here is that Tasmania is a land of incongruous contrasts: sleepy towns with world-renowned cultural festivals, hedge-rowed Editor: Dominic O’Grady Publisher: Gay Travel Guides Pty Ltd English farmlands enclosed by the ethereal rainforests dinosaurs trod, Design: McGill Design Group PO Box 121 Blackheath NSW 2785 stately Georgian mansions amidst barbarous nineteenth-century penal Text: Rodney Croome Australia Photos: Courtesy of Tourism Tasmania, Ph: +61 2 4787 7905 camps, winter drought and snow storms in summer. Allport Library and Museum of Fax: +61 2 4787 7020 People come from around the world to enjoy these many different Fine Arts, State Library of Tasmania Email: [email protected] faces of Tasmania. and National Library of Australia. Visit: www.gaytravelguides.info Lovers of wilderness, adventure, culture, and food and wine Published in partnership with Tourism Tasmania – www.discovertasmania.com/gayfriendly flock to the island in search of the unspoilt places, beautiful views, exciting challenges and exquisite tastes. But they also find, emerging Wherever you are in the world, a holiday in Tasmania is easy to book. from between Tasmania’s contrasts and contradictions, something Visit your local travel agent or call in to a Tasmanian Travel Centre. much more. In Australia: Sydney – 60 Carrington St; Melbourne – 259 Collins St They find an island whose natural beauty and ecological diversity Phone: 1800 672 169, Fax: 1800 550 345 stands witness to the depth of humanity’s interconnectedness with Visit: www.tastravel.com.au all living things. They find a society whose past is a tangle of stories For international travellers: www.discovertasmania.com which are in equal measure brutal and tragic, uplifting and inspiring, and which expose the hidden springs of modern Australian and global history. They find a people to whom sincerity and a real connection to others is dear and precious. In short, they find themselves. My hope is that you will too. – Rodney Croome, TASMANIAN GAY WRITER AND HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATE 4 5 Queer History Tasmania's gay and lesbian history is rich and dramatic. loving charming spectacle. Dear (see p26–29 for more on Historic extremes of repression and freedom have Jack I value Death nothing but it convict homosexuality). culminated in recent world-class social reforms. is in leaving you my dear behind Reformation and no one to look after you… Reformers like Rev John West The only thing that grieves me Despite significant contact Partly thanks to Bass and thought a better solution was love is when I think of the between Aborigines and Flinder’s discovery colonial the end of convict transportation pleasant nights we have had Europeans before and after first outposts were soon established altogether. In 1846, West together. I hope you wont fall in settlement in 1803 we know in Tasmania as dumping grounds published this poem as a part of love with no other man when I nothing about the place of same- for England’s overflowing gaols. his campaign to discredit the am dead and I remain your True sex relationships in traditional In the 50 years to 1853 convict system by associating and loving affectionate Lover.” indigenous Tasmanian culture. 70,000 convicts were it with sodomy: transported to Tasmania, Early explorers “Pseudo-males” “Shall Tasman’s Isle so many for sexual offences Tasmania’s “gay history” Women discovered in same- famed, so lovely and so fair, including sodomy. began when Europeans first sex relationships in places from other nations be estranged, like the Hobart and Ross encountered the island. Convict love the Name of Sodom bear?” Female Factories were labelled Matthew Flinders, together with In the island’s gaols coercive and It worked. The transportation “pseudo-males” and assigned George Bass, proved Tasmania power-based homosexuality was of convicts ceased soon as servants to farmers in distant an island by circumnavigating common. But so were love after. The new Australian corners of the island. Some it in 1798-99. bonds between men and national identity that the anti- misbehaved so they would be Flinders wrote of Bass, between women, as shown transportation movement gave returned to gaol and their “there was a time when I was so by this letter written in the mid birth to, was tainted by profound lover’s arms. completely wrapped up in you, 1840s by a convict sentenced to homophobia well into the Separation was also used to that no conversation but hang for mutiny: “I hope you twentieth century. punish men. As concern about yours could give me wont forget me when I am male homosexuality rose, prisons Imprisoned pleasure; your footsteps far away and all my dorms were re-designed to keep Repression of homosexuality bones is moldered away upon the quarterdeck inmates separate and under remained a feature of Tasmanian over my head took me I have not closed an eye constant surveillance. Eventually life. The last hanging for sodomy from my book and since I lost sight of you the hated Separate Prison was in the British Empire was in brought me upon the your precious sight was built at Port Arthur as the final Tasmania in 1867 at the deck to walk with you”. always a welcome and solution to convict homosexuality Penitentiary Chapel 6 7 historic site. In the subsequent same-sex couples in Australia Group’s stall at Salamanca for gay and lesbian rights rise 100 years Tasmania had the were taken of young loving male Market was closed down by the from 15% below the national highest rate of imprisonment for couples in the secluded Hobart City Council and its average in 1988 to 15% private consenting male sex mountain-side Hobart suburb of supporters arrested by police. above when reform finally anywhere in Australia. One of Ferntree in the 1890s. Painter After two months of protests occurred in 1997. the men imprisoned was Bert, Isobel Oldham and writer Marie the stall was allowed but not Public support quoted here in a 1976 article Bjelke-Petersen lived openly with before 130 people had been Tasmania was the last titled “Why Noel Shot Himself their same-sex companions. By arrested in Australia’s largest Australian state to decriminalise and Bert Went to Gaol”: the 1960s Hobart’s cruising areas ever act of gay rights civil homosexuality. “If there had been reform in had become social spaces with disobedience. A few short years later it has 1958 I would have been saved car bonnets spread for picnic Times of change the best school anti-homophobia from the worst period of my life. lunches. Men were spotted The Salamanca arrests programs, Anti-discrimination I was 21 and living in Launceston across the city wearing black sparked a nine year debate Act and same-sex relationship with another man of the same armbands the day a popular over the decriminalisation of laws in the country, all with age. The police came to the beat was closed. homosexuality, which saw public support. house and asked who lived there. With this legacy full of the issue become the defining In 2004 Tasmania became When we said we did, they asked contradictions and extremes it’s social reform of the 1990s the first Australian state to where we slept and we pointed no surprise that the history of and Tasmania dubbed “Bigot’s allow same-sex couples to to the only bed in the house. We Tasmania’s modern gay and Island” by the world’s press. register their relationships. were taken to the police station, lesbian movement is also The campaign for and against Tasmanian history reminds us interviewed and charged with dramatic. change mobilised thousands that the potential for great gross indecency. In the Supreme Civil disobedience of people across the state. repression and great freedom Court I pleaded guilty. I had no Inspired by the globally Reform proponents enlisted can exist in the one society. legal representation. The case It also shows that significant Tasmanian the support of Amnesty was over in 10 minutes. I got which prevails environmental campaigns of the International, the UN three years.” depends in large part 1980s, including the successful Human Rights on the courage and Unexpected freedom campaign to save the Franklin Committee and the determination of Ironically, there was also greater River, the Tasmanian Gay and Federal Government. ordinary people. freedom in Tasmania than Lesbian Rights Group formed Incessant public elsewhere. The first photos of in 1988. Within months the discussion saw support 8 9 Language and People Tasmania’s half a million people have a distinct outlook outsiders. Don’t be afraid to start a garrulous person, “nointer”: and character which charms visitors if acknowledged a conversation with a gay a naughty child), whaling and respected.