Gay Sydney

A history of one of Sydney’s largest subcultures – one that’s been hidden from history despite gay men’s influence on Sydney’s social, cultural, economic and political life.

Garry Wotherspoon’s Gay Sydney is an updated version of his 1991 classic, City of the Plain, written in the midst of the AIDS crisis. Wotherspoon traces the shifts that have occurred since then, including majority support for marriage equality and antidiscrimination legislation. He also ponders the parallel evaporation of a distinctly gay sensibility and the disappearance of once-packed gay bars.

This book also tells the story of gay Sydney across a century, looking at secret gay life, the never-ending societal debates about sex and the role of social movements in the ’60 and ’70s in effecting change.

Wotherspoon gets personal too, writing about his own experiences and the changes he has observed in Sydney’s gay life, having been a long-time resident of Oxford Street at the very heart of Sydney’s gay community.