‘A state torture centre’: LGBTQ museum’s location in old Sydney police station sparks anger
- The choice of the old Darlinghurst Police Station to host Sydney’s first dedicated LGBTQ museum has prompted a backlash from many who were maltreated there
- The museum’s CEO says the project will not shy away from the more painful or challenging aspects of LGBTQ history
It is a place some older Australian LGBTQ people remember with horror – where they were detained and say they were even brutally beaten, just for being who they are.
Now, the old police station in Sydney’s gay village of Darlinghurst will host the city’s first dedicated LGBTQ museum, called Qtopia Sydney.
Supporters say the museum is reclaiming a space, while critics say the former lock-up is too tainted by a history of violence and the project should be halted for more community consultations.
“It’s a building of absolute horror for some,” said Greg Fisher, Qtopia’s CEO.
“We’re claiming it because we were maltreated there. And it now should be ours. We should be able to have a better future with that property.”
Gay sex was not decriminalised in Australia’s New South Wales state, of which Sydney is the capital, until 1984, well behind a wave of countries that made consensual gay sex legal in the 1960s and ’70s. A nationwide bill was not passed until 1994.
