For decades Barry Charles was best known across Sydney’s gay and lesbian community by one word: “troughman”, a cheeky moniker earned for his in-depth knowledge of the social role played by the city’s public toilets, knowledge which extends well beyond ablutions.
Barry Charles at Thursday’s state apology for historic homosexual crime laws in NSW.Credit: Louise Kennerley
Today, he takes tourists on guided tours through the former men’s urinal at Taylor Square, once one of the city’s most notorious “beats”, a place where consenting men gathered for illicit assignations – which put them on the wrong side of the law. The old urinal is now part of the new QTOPIA museum and features an image of Charles in all his glory, along with a gift shop.
Charles’ career path, along with the evolution of the urinal, reflects the dramatic change in societal attitudes in this city and state towards the queer community over the past four decades, one which weighed heavily on Premier Chris Minns on Thursday.
Charles sat in the packed public gallery of NSW Parliament listening to Minns deliver a historic apology to generations of the LGBTQI community impacted by “discriminatory laws” on the eve of the 40th anniversary of homosexual decriminalisation.
“We are sorry,” Minns told the room, to which Charles, who had met with the premier before the apology, and his peers nodded in unison.
“Yes, this apology is an emotional thing, yes there are tears, but for me, I see this as a culmination of 53 years of work,” Charles said. “I first got involved with gay rights at University of NSW … that morphed into gay liberation. I always knew I was right and that these laws and attitudes to homosexuality were wrong, and if we fought hard enough we would get them changed.
“The stroke of a pen in 1984 didn’t automatically alter our lives. The apology sets a tone, sets a momentum for change … this is to push further social change and acceptance of LGBTQI people.
“I think that is just as important today as it was 40 years ago.”
‘I lived in fear’
Anthony Venn-Brown was a teenager in the 1960s still discovering his sexuality.
“I lived in fear because I knew the consequences of the only place I could experience anything would be a park or a public toilet, and that was really frightening. Those laws meant I was in this incredibly vulnerable situation. I was bashed, robbed and raped, but I couldn’t go to the police because I was considered a criminal,” Venn-Brown said after listening to the apology.
Anthony Venn-Brown at Thursday’s state apology for historic homosexual crime laws in NSW.Credit: Louise Kennerley
Lance Day is about to turn 85, he admits he didn’t expect to see the day he would be in NSW Parliament House hearing the premier apologise.
“My brother was a policeman back then, he quit the force because he didn’t want to be used as bait to catch gay men … at the time he didn’t know his brother was gay. The world has changed a lot, back then I never advertised I was gay, and avoided the beats because I was scared. But we survived, we learnt how to live.”
Almost 40 years to the day since NSW decriminalised homosexuality, Minns delivered a historic and “unreserved” apology on behalf of the people of NSW to those convicted under the “discriminatory laws”.
Terry Goulden (in maroon jacket) listens to Premier Chris Minns.Credit: Louise Kennerley
The impact of his words were writ large on many in the gallery who had survived such a dark chapter in NSW history. Some were moved to tears as long-forgotten ghosts of shame and stigma were revisited; others started dozing off as politicians from all sides spoke to the motion.
“It’s all been quite overwhelming … to be honest I am looking forward to being forgotten about again,” said Terry Goulden, who had become the unsuspecting public face of the apology over the past month, being one of the few surviving men who had been convicted under the old laws.
Minns also recognised “the trauma people of diverse sexualities, their families and loved ones, have endured and continue to live with”, and that “there is still much work to be done to ensure the equal rights for all members of the LGBTQIA+ community”.
Following tea, cakes and sandwiches, the leader of the government in the upper house, Penny Sharpe, one of the key drivers behind the apology and an openly gay MP, spoke in the Legislative Council.
The minister had tears in her eyes, and had to pause, when she said these lines, adding, “my son Red is here today”.
“Today we say sorry. Today we take responsibility for the lives ruined, and permission for prejudice that our laws created. It was our parliaments who were wrong, and we are truly sorry.”
On June 8, 1984, a year after the first death attributed to HIV in Australia, amid growing mainstream hysteria around the virus, homosexuality was finally decriminalised in NSW, after former premier Neville Wran introduced a private members’ bill. NSW was four years behind Victoria and nine years after South Australia. On Thursday NSW became the last state in Australia to formally apologise for such laws.
Sitting in the audience was Wran’s widow Jill, who lived in the Woollahra home opposite where equal rights activists had set up a gay embassy featuring members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence armed with loudspeakers.
“I think he would have loved to be here to celebrate this moment; we had a lot of gay friends, personally, for him, it was an issue he cared about,” she said.
Law reform had been a long time coming, the seeds planted in September 1957 by The Wolfenden Report released in Britain, which recommended homosexual decriminalisation.
Australian activists, including Robert French and the late Lex Watson, spent years campaigning, and were both mentioned in parliament.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.