GAY LIBERATION

Image credit: Australian Queer Archives 

 

My name is Barb Creed, and, um, I was involved in the very beginnings of gay liberation in the early 70s. I was working at Coburg Teachers College, um, and teaching film and media. And around that time, in the early 70s, a colleague in the office who was also a lesbian told me there was a meeting – I think it was the first meeting of gay liberation – at Melbourne Uni in the student union. A dozen of us there – it was pretty small, but it was fantastic, because suddenly you felt at home. Um, there were guys there as well, of course. And I think all of us probably remained pretty close friends for years afterwards. My first encounter with gay lib was at Melbourne Uni, which I mean, when you don't – when you come from a marginalised community, you have to create your own spaces. So, we took over this space once a month for a fantastic meeting and get together, and we did quite a few things at Melbourne. Another thing we did there, we used the Beaurepaire Centre for dances. I remember one night it must have gone around the straight community – the straight male community, um, the toxic male straight community – that we were all there because afterwards, around midnight, we were leaving and about four guys jumped out of the shrubbery next to the Centre, trying to terrify us. But I'm very happy to say we chased them up, I think. 

 

The Brunswick street, um, gay center was at the top of, um, another building, of course, the top. We had the whole top floor. So it was a very long, big room. And that was a bit later on in the 70s, we had meetings and, um, probably went to Mario's for coffee, so I can't quite remember. In between that there was the Davis Street Centre. It was single fronted, lots of classic terrace rooms. The relationships between the lesbian and gay men came to a bit of head there, because just at that time, um, there was a feeling amongst that came from from overseas, actually, that the lesbians really should be spending their time in the women's movement, um, with other women, um, and politicising women more, and that we shouldn't be in a joint, sort of, um, community with gay men. Uh, I didn't actually agree with that, but some of the women did, and they left the Davis Street Center. Particularly, I think one evening some of the women came in and there were a few guys having sex on the couch or whatever in the meeting room, and they were not impressed. Um, so they left and did go to the Women's Center. I kind of did both. I stayed part of the Davis Street Center and also went to the Women's Center. And that was another story, again, because that introduced a different kind of sexual tension into the women's movement. But the lesbian groups stayed within the Women's Center, which was in the city, um, maybe in Lonsdale Street, it was a big building that was rented. Um, where we also held dances and so on. So it became a very, um, interesting space. Lots of arguments and lots of good times, though. Um, and, with the lesbians joining together with straight women – not all women in the women's movement probably were straight – but it created lots of space for argument, discussion and politicking. And of course, every time there was a Women's March, we would join in with our banners, um, and give support. 

 

My house actually probably became the first centre for a while. That was at 252 Rae Street and um, we had lesbian meetings there. Uh, we had a CR group there. I remember one night we were all sitting around talking about sex and how the guys all had beats, and men could do this because their sexuality was more out there than women's sexuality, because we'd been conditioned to repress it all our lives. So we thought, “Let's set our own beat up!” So one night we plunged into the Edinburgh Gardens. [Laughs] It didn't work, I mean – because, we all knew each other, so it was kind of [laughs] but it became the idea of this lesbian beat – which never really happened – became quite famous actually, at the time. But that's what you did. You had an idea and you thought, “oh we'll act on it.”

 

But if we hadn't had those spaces where we could sit and talk and plan our next move, nothing much would have happened really. I mean, we had to have spaces not just in our own homes, but we also wanted spaces out in the public arena, too. And we thought, “Well we've got a right to claim a room at the Melbourne University Union, a lot of us are students.” And we did, and we set it up and called it Gay Liberation Meeting Night, etc. and we rented spaces for the conference and um, that gave us a visibility with without which, um, we may never have got together to have all the activities, and demonstrations, and television interviews we had in Gay Pride Week. Um, and then we wouldn't have been invited to appear on television, and we wouldn't have had the picnic, and we wouldn't have ended up on the front page of newspapers. And all that visibility was crucial, really. 

 

When I grew up, I knew I was different. I remember I was having a very intense emotional relationship with my girlfriend. We were together for a long time and we said to each other one day, “Do you think we're lesbians?” And we thought about it and I said, “No, I don't think so,” because I was looking in this book by an author called Anthony Storr, and it was called Homosexuality. It was about men mainly, but there was a little bit on lesbians and it said women were men trapped – lesbians were men trapped in women's bodies. So we thought, well, we can't be because we don't feel like men trapped – women trapped in men's bodies. So, that was the only, that was as much visibility as I had found growing up, this book by Anthony Storr in the library, really. I didn't know of any other lesbians on the media, um, socially, at school. So we didn't even think we were, because there was no visibility. Um, so when gay liberation happened, that's why I went to the first meeting, because suddenly the movement was beginning, and here was a place where I could meet other people like myself. So we were becoming visible. So if gay people aren't visible – queer people, LGBTIQ people are not visible – not in the media, not in the papers, not in movies, and films, and books and so forth; then other people who feel the same way have got no way really, of understanding their own sexuality, their identity, um, their culture, their history. You don't have a history, actually. Um, and this is what you're doing? You're recovering our history in a way. I mean, it's a really important idea to document, um, spaces from the 70s where this movement really began in that decade. Because otherwise it'll all be lost.