2026 Spring Edition Newsletter
This newsletter was written and produced on the lands of the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation. We are deeply grateful to those who have preserved the rich history of Aboriginal custodianship of these lands.
Pride History Group’s next general meeting will be online on Monday 16 November at 6.30pm. We currently meet online on the third Monday of each month. Membership details can be found here https://www.pridehistory.org.au/membership
What are we working on?
The Defiant Genders Oral History Project
Inner West History of LGBTIQ+ families project
Planning the 50th anniversary conference with First Mardi Gras 78ers
Holding a stall at Parramatta Pride Picnic
Providing access to LGBTIQA+ voices for the Sirens Collective contribution to the Golden Mile Grotto: An interactive, underwater-themed sanctuary installation created for the City of Sydney's Art & About Festival.
Reorganising our website to present our oral histories by theme
The Defiant Genders Oral History Project
You can hear EJ talking about their experience here.
The Defiant Genders Oral History Project is gathering momentum, with strong interest from potential narrators and interviews underway. Funded by the Pride Foundation of Australia, this trans led project records and preserves the experiences of transgender and gender diverse people with a connection to Australia who have been involved in activism, advocacy and community organising. These conversations explore the richness of people’s lives, from finding community and challenging exclusion to the creativity and everyday experiences that shape their journeys. Together, they offer a valuable record of the contributions trans and gender diverse people have made to our community’s rich political history.
Thank you to everyone who has expressed interest, shared their story or supported the project. Your contributions are helping ensure these histories are preserved for future generations.
If you would like to get involved, please complete our Expression of Interest form available here:
History of Inner West LGBTIQ+ families project
Work continues on the project to document the history of Inner West LGBTIQ+ families. So far we have conducted nine oral histories with parents, parent activists, teachers and donors. We’ve also organised some beautiful portrait photographs of participants, and dug through the archives for some wonderful material which covers the struggles and joys of LGBTIQ+ families over the years. We’re aiming to publish a booklet in the first half of next year. Thanks to all involved.
© Photograph by Jamie James
A conference to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Mardi Gras
First Mardi Gras 50th Anniversary Conference planning continues apace, with input from Pride History Group. The Conference Working Group has been working towards securing funding to help cover the costs of venue hire, while the Conference Curatorial Group has been advising the team on potential speakers, and the development of the themes and structure of the conference. The conference is likely to take place on 11-12 February 2028.
Parramatta Pride Picnic
Holding a stall at Parramatta Pride Picnic has become an annual event for Pride History Group. On Saturday 10th October we joined our 78er friends in showing off some merchandise and chatting to many people about the work of Pride History Group. It’s also a chance to get to know what many of the other groups are doing, and share stories and ideas for community involvement.
LGBTIQ+ history snippets:
The campaign continues to recognise Kings Beach, a site near Byron Bay with more than fifty years of significance to LGBTQIA+ communities across New South Wales. Read more here.
The Australian Queer Histories Conference will be held at the Victorian Pride Centre in St Kilda on 7 and 8 November, 2026. More information here.
A Blue Plaque has been installed at the Armidale Folk Museum celebrating the legendary Peter Allen. More information here.
Congratulations to Todd Fuller, PHG member, who recently won the Cayte Latta Memorial Award from ACON in recognition of his distinctive practice of exploring and reimagining queer histories, places and experiences through drawing, animation and performance.
Newcastle news
MEMBER TALK: “The indecent assault case of labourers James Screen and Daniel McCarthy in the Market Wharf Toilets, Newcastle 1923“
Long time PHG member John Witte recently gave a talk to the University of Newcastle’s Living Histories monthly meeting. This account is from his unpublished “Policing Love and Sex in the Hunter”. But there were loose ends - like how did two labourers afford a solicitor to overturn their convictions of indecent assault? Who was the judge Hugh Montgomerie Hamilton?
The two men faced Judge Hamilton, a very eminent person in UK and NSW legal circles who had co-written the NSW Crimes Act of 1900 .
A search in the Trove archive revealed a surprise - an early crowd funded campaign to free the two men. They were arrested for having sex with each other in a popular homosexual beat. (A galvanised iron mens toilet with police spy holes in the walls on the harbour.) Screen was a clean skin, a “Salvationist” with no convictions, with ties through his wife’s family to Newcastle’s Protestant organisations. McCarthy was a British sailor, 9 years in Australia, with a string of petty crime and vagrancy offences.
The two men appealed their three year sentences. The appeal Judge Scholes found Hamilton had erred quite badly. He had arranged for the jury and the police to visit the toilet without the defence present; the verdict was “against the weight of evidence” and Hamilton had directed the jury on the “question of character” (possibly referring to McCarthy’s vagrancy offences).
By July 1924, four months after the case against Screen and McCarthy had been dismissed, Judge Hugh Montgomerie Hamilton had retired. Family life continued for James Screen and he placed a thank you ad in the Newcastle Herald for the support during “my late trouble”. Daniel McCarthy seems to have disappeared. It is not rare for homosexual offences to be dismissed, but this was most likely a first for supporters to fund an appeal and for the defendant to publicly thank them for their support.
The case has parallels with the Douglas Annand case raised by Peter Trebilco in his PHG interview, https://www.pridehistory.org.au/100-voices-by-author/trebilco-peter
Recommended resources
Australian Queer Screens; Diversity and Social Change in Film and TV by Rob Cover, Whitney Monaghan, Stuart Richards, Scott McKinnon and Tinonee Pym.
This is the first book-length study of Australia’s rich history of LGBTQ+ film and television. It goes beyond simple discussions of old favourites like Priscilla, The Sum of Us, Head On or The Monkey’s Mask to ask big questions about the role and significance of gender and sexually diverse characters, themes and narratives on Australian screens.
The Memory Tapes, hosted by Dr Shirleene Robinson
Congratulations to our President, Dr Shirleene Robinson for hosting and creating The Memory Tapes, an extraordinary new podcast series from the National Library of Australia. Drawing on the nation’s most significant oral history collection, the series explores remarkable stories of resilience, innovation, creativity, migration, activism and everyday life. Shirleene’s careful curation and storytelling skills demonstrate her commitment to highlighting marginalised voices, including first hand accounts of the devastation of HIV and AIDS, and the many struggles towards gay and lesbian visibility and rights. Available as a podcast and from https://www.library.gov.au/learn/adults/podcasts/memory-tapes
The accompanying book is available here https://www.library.gov.au/discover/nla-publishing/memory-tapes-voices-oral-history-collection or order it from your public library.
The Trap by Fiona Kelly McGregor
Fiona Kelly McGregor explores the real police scandal and hidden queer lives behind The Trap, bringing 1940s Sydney’s drag performers, nightlife and targeted men back into a history shaped by persecution, class, survival and joy. Listen to the author talk about the novel here.
The LOTL Lounge
LOTL Lounge podcast celebrates the joy, resilience, and creativity of LGBTQI+ women and non-binary folks in Australia and beyond. Several of the episodes focus on our history, including Lesbian Involvement in Australia’s Early Gay Activism and the most recent episode which has segments on the history of lesbian nightlife in Sydney, and the history of drag king culture. Listen here.
Do you want to help?
Pride History members are always busy on a number of projects. Do you want to get involved?
We can always use some help to:
log oral history interviews
chase up permissions to publish interviews
work on one of our current history projects
Or do you have your own initiative you're wanting to work on? Get in contact!
And don't forget our website www.pridehistory.org.au for reading
Thanks to everyone who helped put this newsletter together - Garry Wotherspoon, Helen Caple, Warner Ward, John Witte, Sarah Midgley and Teresa Savage. Please let us know if you have any feedback about anything in this newsletter. We love to hear your views. Send your feedback to us here
Feel free to forward this newsletter to your friends and networks.
We are always happy to take enquiries for new memberships. Become a member of Pride History Group and get involved today!
And don't forget that members are encouraged to come along to monthly meetings to find out what's going on, catch up with friends and get involved. We meet online on the 3rd Monday of each month. We hope to see you soon.