Zoe Coombs Marr uncovers the queer history of Australia

Comedian Zoe Coombs Marr has dug deep to reveal Australia’s queer history in a new landmark documentary.

Ask most of us about Australian history, and we’ll easily reel off facts about Captain Cook, or convicts, or the Anzacs – the lessons we were taught in primary school.

But there’s another hidden history. It’s the stories of gay Diggers, lesbian convict gangs, trans entrepreneurs, cross-dressing bushrangers, legendary drag acts and the modern-day heroes who have fought for change and acceptance.

Award-winning comedian Zoe Coombs Marr was tasked with bringing viewers those tales in a landmark three-part docuseries, which will look into the untold and “frankly fascinating” queer history of Australia.

Zoe Coombs Marr in a scene from the ABC documentary Queerstralia.

It was 2020 and the self-confessed nerd – who studied history as part of her double degree in performance studies at UNSW – was stuck in her home in freezing, locked-down Melbourne, when Guesswork’s John Kasimir came calling with the idea.

Given Coombs Marr had a fair bit of time on her hands, she started researching not really thinking it would go anywhere.

“But once we started it was just like ‘Whoa’,” she says.

“It was like an avalanche of stories I had never heard before.

“And so then it just kind of snowballed from there.

“It’s the work of so many people who have been archiving these things and cataloguing and finding and searching out this history.

“I’ve been able to use their hard work so I feel very, very privileged and lucky that it landed on me when it did.”

As the doco shares, colonial Australia was essentially founded on homophobia. In 1787, Captain Arthur Phillip wrote that in the new colony “there are two crimes that would merit the sentence of death; murder and sodomy”.

So, queer people living with the constant threat of persecution – or worse, have long known it made sense to stay out of the spotlight. Consequently, their history has stayed hidden.

Thankfully, the times they are a-changing.

“We’ve definitely come a long way in a very short time,” Coombs Marr says.

“Just in my lifetime even. When I was growing up, there were no queer characters on television. And certainly not on mainstream television. You really had to seek that stuff out.”

8er and founding member of Campaign Against Moral Persecution Peter De Waal and Zoe Coombs Marr look at archives for Queerstralia. Picture: Supplied

But while there’s been huge progress, Coombs Marr isn’t ready to say it’s easy for young queers these days.

“I think we have this tendency to say ‘Oh, it’s all better now and it’s all changed and it’s much easier for them’,” she explains.

“But, I think with that visibility comes a lot of vulnerability.

“People who might have sort of flown under the radar a bit more especially like trans kids.

“Trans people just in general are very much in the firing line of very big public debate button topics.

“That’s sort of the way that homosexuals have been treated in the past – like some kind of very hot button political issues of debate. And so I think in some ways it’s harder.”

There’s a huge roll call of talent in the three episodes – from activists, writers and historians and Coombs Marr’s fellow performers including comedy television writer Nayuka Gorrie who is a co-presenter, actor Magda Szubanski, comedian Hannah Gadsby, 78er and founding member of Campaign Against Moral Persecution Peter De Waal, descendant of the Kalarie peoples of the Wiradjuri nation and the Victorian Commissioner for LGBTIQA+ communities Dr Todd Fernando and former professional rugby league footballer Ian Roberts. Plus her own parents.

Zoe Coombs Marr says it was great working with all her great queer mates like Magda Szubanski ... but at times she wished it was them doing the show. Picture: Supplied

Gadsby tells Coombs Marr in the first episode she’s so glad it’s not on her shoulders.

“She was great, that was another thing that was really great about creating this – the people who were involved,” Coombs Marr says. “It was really nice to work with all these mates and people who I really respect as well.

“There are so many great queers out there, none of whom had to make this show.

“I really took one for the team.”

As if the burden of shouldering that huge responsibility wasn’t painful enough, Coombs Marr actually broke a bone while filming. Somewhat ironically, it was her shoulder. She fell off a horse during filming.

“Embarrassing? Yes. Painful? Very,” she shares. “But they did give me some good drugs.

“Did I also get swooped by three different birds, get stuck with a flat tyre in Nimbin, learn that old drag queens don’t have phones and … other shenanigans? You betcha.

“Did I keep doing interviews with my sling hidden? Uh huh.

“Why? Because I care. As a comedian, is it hard for me to admit that? Of course. But this project has been years in the making. What started as a conversation grew to a big queer snowball of the biggest, queerest kind. It’s a labour of love, and sweat and tears, and all of those cliches, made by a team of queer legends – and some token straights, who we love regardless.”

Coombs Marr is “s--t-scared” ahead of Queerstralia hitting our screens this week.

“Just like anything I put out in the world, it’s terrifying,” she shares.

“But also, I’m really proud and really excited for people to see it.

“I hope that the people who were in it and the stories that we’re telling, that we’re doing them justice. Because I do really care about them. And I hope that people get as much out of them as I have.”

So are there any more docos burning to get out?

“Look not anytime soon – there’s a big nap in me after this,” jokes Coombs Marr, who was still in the thick of editing at the time of the interview.

Queerstralia, Tuesday, 8.30pm, ABC

Originally published as Zoe Coombs Marr uncovers the queer history of Australia