Many gay men leave the bush and head for the city, looking for love, acceptance and good times. What is life like for those who are left behind, though? Alana Valentine travelled to Broome to find out what it’s like to be a gay man in regional WA.
Ever since Jimmy Sommerville sang his plaintive falsetto anthem ‘Small Town Boy’ we’ve been familiar with gay men leaving the regional towns where they grew up and travelling to the city looking for love, liberation and an all round gay good time.
When I told a homosexual friend of mine from Sydney that I was travelling to Broome and I intended to seek out the gay community for their opinion on life in regional Australia, he could barely control his laughter. ‘I’ll be surprised if you can find anyone who will even come out to you,’ he said.
My instinct is always to want to go and see for myself, speak to the locals and make my own judgment. Even so, it was with a certain amount of nervousness that I boarded the plane for Broome, armed with a probing set of questions about survival as a gay man in the Kimberley coastal region, famed for its long beaches and languid lifestyle.
‘My Melbourne friends are not interested,’ local gay man Damien told me. ‘They’ve Googled Broome and they’re not in the least bit tempted to come here. They’re all party people and they’re still busy rocking their white vinyl hipsters.’
I wondered whether they might also be reluctant to visit regional Australia because they’re scared of being discriminated against or vilified in some way. Damien told me it’s not a problem.
‘I’ve never experienced a single bit of homophobia in this town,’ he said. ‘I’ve never even felt that it’s been around. Growing up in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, I’ve been called lots of names in those cities but I’ve been here for seven years and totally accepted into the community and it’s not like I’m going to die with a secret, you know. People can see it and they don’t care.’
Damien isn’t the exception, I spoke to many men who agreed that in Broome they feel accepted, valued, and that they can be themselves and live diverse and fulfilling lives.
‘I moved here to get away from a very busy social life,’ said another local gay man, Terry. ‘But the thing is that it follows you, if you’re that way inclined. So where I used to go to the opening of department stores and nightclubs, in Broome I find myself going to the opening of Chicken Treat and Red Rooster. So it’s still a very busy social life!’
Has the hard fought struggle for gay rights succeeded even in the remote north of Western Australia? Was I, perversely, more prejudiced about life in a small regional city than its inhabitants?
Well, yes, no and maybe. What I found was a lot of love, a lot of tolerance, a lot of laughs and a bit of actual hatred; tales of tedious, real, boring old bigotry from siblings, ex-school friends and parents; community members still clinging to outdated discriminations but knowing not to be public or overt about it; and occasional examples of overt, raw, brutal fear and violence.
‘We get on the bus and the guy in the front seat says to me, “We don’t allow poofs on this bus,” said local man Adam. ‘You just don’t expect to hear it said to you face.
‘Once I got on he sat in front of me and he apologised. I was like, “I don’t want your apology, your apology means nothing. You’ve humiliated me, yourself and this town.”
‘It never goes away. It will still be there always because at the end of the day it’s not as tolerated as you think.’
Sadly, I also found internalised homophobia, which has persisted long past any legal or rational reason for it: the legacy of discrimination, the secrecy of shame, the habit of self-hatred that many are still struggling to break. And getting old in a place that doesn’t have an openly gay bar can just be impractical.
‘If I go up and talk to someone they might get offended,’ one Yawuru man told me. 'I’ve seen that happen. You gotta be a bit discreet about yourself. You can’t go up to somebody and ask if you can buy them a drink.
‘You don’t know who is gay. I guess that’s the difference, when we were young we knew who was gay but now we don’t know, so we have to be careful.’
Above all, I found beautiful, humane, vital men who are living with courage and generosity in a community which can, for the most part, live and let live.
‘Someone I know went to the Roebuck Bay Hotel and he said to the guy standing next to him: “Where’s the gay bar up here?” The guy next to him said, “Where you’re standing, mate.”
‘So that was the local’s appraisal of it,’ said Terry.
Amidst the smell of diesel fuel and the hum of air conditioning units and the slap of thongs, I could sense on the breeze the scent of real, generational change: acceptance that goes beyond tolerance, freedom that goes beyond tokenism, understanding that celebrates difference and diversity.
Maybe the Broome boys’ sceptical city friends should get out of their inner urban gay ghettos and visit. Inner urban bigots might benefit from doing the same.
Ever since Jimmy Sommerville sang his plaintive falsetto anthem ‘Small Town Boy’ we’ve been familiar with gay men leaving the regional towns where they grew up and travelling to the city looking for love, liberation and an all round gay good time.
When I told a homosexual friend of mine from Sydney that I was travelling to Broome and I intended to seek out the gay community for their opinion on life in regional Australia, he could barely control his laughter. ‘I’ll be surprised if you can find anyone who will even come out to you,’ he said.
My instinct is always to want to go and see for myself, speak to the locals and make my own judgment. Even so, it was with a certain amount of nervousness that I boarded the plane for Broome, armed with a probing set of questions about survival as a gay man in the Kimberley coastal region, famed for its long beaches and languid lifestyle.
‘My Melbourne friends are not interested,’ local gay man Damien told me. ‘They’ve Googled Broome and they’re not in the least bit tempted to come here. They’re all party people and they’re still busy rocking their white vinyl hipsters.’
I wondered whether they might also be reluctant to visit regional Australia because they’re scared of being discriminated against or vilified in some way. Damien told me it’s not a problem.
‘I’ve never experienced a single bit of homophobia in this town,’ he said. ‘I’ve never even felt that it’s been around. Growing up in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, I’ve been called lots of names in those cities but I’ve been here for seven years and totally accepted into the community and it’s not like I’m going to die with a secret, you know. People can see it and they don’t care.’
Damien isn’t the exception, I spoke to many men who agreed that in Broome they feel accepted, valued, and that they can be themselves and live diverse and fulfilling lives.
‘I moved here to get away from a very busy social life,’ said another local gay man, Terry. ‘But the thing is that it follows you, if you’re that way inclined. So where I used to go to the opening of department stores and nightclubs, in Broome I find myself going to the opening of Chicken Treat and Red Rooster. So it’s still a very busy social life!’
Has the hard fought struggle for gay rights succeeded even in the remote north of Western Australia? Was I, perversely, more prejudiced about life in a small regional city than its inhabitants?
Well, yes, no and maybe. What I found was a lot of love, a lot of tolerance, a lot of laughs and a bit of actual hatred; tales of tedious, real, boring old bigotry from siblings, ex-school friends and parents; community members still clinging to outdated discriminations but knowing not to be public or overt about it; and occasional examples of overt, raw, brutal fear and violence.
‘We get on the bus and the guy in the front seat says to me, “We don’t allow poofs on this bus,” said local man Adam. ‘You just don’t expect to hear it said to you face.
‘Once I got on he sat in front of me and he apologised. I was like, “I don’t want your apology, your apology means nothing. You’ve humiliated me, yourself and this town.”
‘It never goes away. It will still be there always because at the end of the day it’s not as tolerated as you think.’
Sadly, I also found internalised homophobia, which has persisted long past any legal or rational reason for it: the legacy of discrimination, the secrecy of shame, the habit of self-hatred that many are still struggling to break. And getting old in a place that doesn’t have an openly gay bar can just be impractical.
‘If I go up and talk to someone they might get offended,’ one Yawuru man told me. 'I’ve seen that happen. You gotta be a bit discreet about yourself. You can’t go up to somebody and ask if you can buy them a drink.
‘You don’t know who is gay. I guess that’s the difference, when we were young we knew who was gay but now we don’t know, so we have to be careful.’
Above all, I found beautiful, humane, vital men who are living with courage and generosity in a community which can, for the most part, live and let live.
‘Someone I know went to the Roebuck Bay Hotel and he said to the guy standing next to him: “Where’s the gay bar up here?” The guy next to him said, “Where you’re standing, mate.”
‘So that was the local’s appraisal of it,’ said Terry.
Amidst the smell of diesel fuel and the hum of air conditioning units and the slap of thongs, I could sense on the breeze the scent of real, generational change: acceptance that goes beyond tolerance, freedom that goes beyond tokenism, understanding that celebrates difference and diversity.
Maybe the Broome boys’ sceptical city friends should get out of their inner urban gay ghettos and visit. Inner urban bigots might benefit from doing the same.
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