Endangered territory, endangered identity: Oxford Street and the dissipation of gay life 1
2009; Routledge; Volume: 33; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/14443050802672551
ISSN1835-6419
Autores Tópico(s)African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues
ResumoAbstract Oxford Street in inner-city Sydney has been associated with gay identity, community and life since the early 1970s. In recent years, however, the street has declined as a gay precinct. This has engendered considerable anxiety among sections of the gay community, especially those activists and constituents with a substantial emotional investment in the idea of gay community and territory. These concerns have been especially acute around the issue of anti-gay violence on Oxford Street. The loss of gay space and the threat of violence are evocative concerns for they speak to the current dissipation of established patterns of gay life. Keywords: gay lifeOxford StreetSydneyanti-gay violencegay activists Notes 1. I would like to than Martin Holt and Elizabeth A Wilson for their comments on this article, as well as the two anonymous readers. 2. Harley Dennet, 'Sorry we can't help you', Sydney Star Observer, November 1 2007. 3. Dennet, 'Sorry we can't help you'. 4. Dylan Welsh and Joel Gibson, 'Gays on the march after a spate of attacks', Sydney Morning Herald, 19 January 2008. 5. Harley Dennett, 'Evening vigil of unity', Sydney Star Observer, 17 January 2008. 6. Dennett, 'Evening vigil of unity'. 7. Ruth Pollard and Dylan Welch, 'Politics and partying on Sydney's gayest day', Sydney Morning Herald, 1 March 2008. 8. The classic text on sexuality and space remains David Bell and Gill Valentine (eds), Mapping Desires: Geographies of Sexualities, Routledge, London, 1995. See also Jon Binnie and Gill Valentine, 'Geographies of sexualities: a review of progress', Progress in Human Geography, vol. 23, no. 2, 1999, pp. 175–87. Robert Aldrich has written a masterly review of literature on homosexuality and urban spaces, 'Homosexuality and the city: an historical overview', Urban Studies, vol. 41, no. 9, 2004, pp. 1719–37. In the same volume, Michael Sibalis charts the rise of the Parisian gay precinct, 'Urban space and homosexuality: the example of the Marais, Paris' "gay ghetto"', Urban Studies, vol. 41, no. 9, pp. 1739–58. For a more recent review of literature, with a specific concentration on Australian material see, Andrew Gorman-Murray, Gordon Waitt and Lynda Johnston, 'Guest editorial: geographies of sexuality and gender down under', Australian Geographer, vol. 39, no. 3, 2008, pp. 235–46. 9. Jeffrey Weeks, Sexuality (2nd edition), Routledge, London, 2003; Jeffrey Weeks, The World We Have Won: The Remaking of Erotic and Intimate Life, Routledge, New York, 2007. 10. Garry Wotherspoon, City of the Plain: History of a Gay Sub-Culture, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1991, p. 158. 11. Clive Faro with Garry Wotherspoon, Street Scene: A History of Oxford Street, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2000, p. 224. 12. Faro with Wotherspoon, Street Scene, p. 224. 13. Wotherspoon, City of the Plain, p. 191. 14. Interview with Ken Davis, 1 December 2004. 15. Interview with Paul van Reyk, 24 November 2004. 16. Interview with Ken Davis. 17. Interview with Ken Davis. 18. Interview with Anthony Schembri, 24 March 2005. 19. Interview with Stuart, 27 November 2006. 20. Interview with Christopher Harcourt (pseudonym), 27 April 2006. 21. Richard David Bitot, 'Shabby behaviour', SX News, 15 December 2005. 22. Maxi Shield, 'Reclaim the street', Sydney Star Observer, 26 January 2006. 23. Craig McGuirk, 'Pretty vacant in ghetto vacuous', SX News, 24 August 2006. 24. Interview with Christopher Harcourt. 25. Interview with Alan Graves (pseudonym), 26 March 2005. 26. Interview with Dave, 7 October 2006. 27. Interview with Damien, 7 October 2006. 28. Cara Davis, 'Oxford St safe place opens', Sydney Star Observer, 22 November 2007. 29. SX News, 4 October 2007. 30. Katrina Fox, '"We're not homophobic": police respond to media allegations over handling of gay attacks', SX News, 24 January 2008. 31. Shayne Chester, 'Another side', SX News, 31 January 2008; Graham Turner, 'Whose vigil?' SX News, 31 January 2008; Adam Johansson, 'Bias cut', SX News, 31 January 2008. 32. Fox, '"We're not homophobic"'. 33. Katrina Fox, 'AVP safe space a success', SX News, 20 December 2007. 34. Guy Morgan, 'All safe now', SX News, 20 December 2007. 35. Brad Ruting, 'Economic transformations of gay urban spaces: revisiting Collins' evolutionary gay district model', Australian Geographer, vol. 39, no. 3, 2008, p. 260. 36. Ruting, 'Economic transformations of gay urban spaces', pp. 259–69. 37. Brad Ruting, 'Oxford Street's identity crisis', http://www.ssonet.com.au/display.asp?ArticleID=7755. Posted 6 February 2008. Accessed 14 February 2008. 38. Patricia Leigh Brown, 'Gay enclaves face prospect of being passé', New York Times, 30 October 2007. 39. Lexington, 'Out and proud parents', Economist, 30 June 2007, p. 44. 40. Economist, 'Gay marriage: the guys next door', 24 May 2008, p.43. 41. Rodney Croome, 'The new "doctors wives"', http:// rodneycroome.id.au/other_more?id=2532_0_2_0_M5. Posted 1 November 2007. Accessed 6 November 2007. 42. Robert Reynolds, What Happened to Gay Life? UNSW Press, Sydney, 2007. Graham Willet has also speculated on the end of gay in his history of the Australian gay and lesbian movement, Living Out Loud: A History of Gay and Lesbian Activism in Australia, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, 2000, pp. 238–65. 43. One spatial example of this transformation is the rise of Newtown and Erskineville in Sydney's inner-west as a queer space. Clearly cheaper property prices and rents in the inner-west are a factor, but the effects stretch beyond the economic. Whereas Darlinghurst at its gay peak was imagined and experienced as a gay ghetto, I suspect in the inner-west homosexuality is one strand of a thicker 21st century Australian cosmopolitanism. 44. Alan Sinfield, Gay and After, Serpent's Tail, London, 1998, p. 1. 45. Sinfield, Gay and After, p. 6. 46. Sinfield, Gay and After, p. 5. 47. Sinfield, Gay and After, p. 14. 48. Steven Seidman, Beyond the Closet: The Transformation of Gay and Lesbian Life, Routledge, New York, 2002, p. 89. 49. Seidman, Beyond the Closet, p. 89. 50. Henning Bech, 'The disappearance of the homosexual', in Steven Seidman, Nancy Fischer and Chet Meeks (eds) Handbook of the New Sexualities Studies, Routledge, New York, 2006, p. 152. 51. Henning Bech, 'After the closet', Sexualities, vol. 2, no. 3, 1999, p. 344. 52. Bech, 'After the closet', p. 346. 53. Sinfield, Gay and After, p. 16. 54. Stephen Tomsen, 'Queer and safe: combating violence with gentrified sexual identities', in Craig Johnston and Paul Van Reyk (eds), Queer City: Gay and Lesbian Politics in Sydney, Pluto Press, Sydney, 2001, pp. 229–40. For an historical analysis of how publicity on anti-gay violence was deployed in San Francisco and New York to claim gay space see Christina B. Hanhardt, 'Butterflies, whistles, and fists: gay safe street patrols and the new gay ghetto, 1976–1981', in Radical History Review, no. 100, 2008, pp. 61–85. 55. Tomsen, 'Queer and safe', pp. 231–32. 56. The current emphasis upon gay marriage is, I suspect, partly related to the decline of collectivist notions of gay life. This might help explain why many older and established gay and lesbian activists in Australia have been lukewarm in their support of gay marriage. Apart from feminist and leftist critiques of marriage as patriarchal, gay marriage potentially undermines existing configurations of gay community by privileging individual life arrangements. 57. Sean MacIntyre, 'Poor fellow my ghetto', SX News, 25 October 2007; Adam Takesce, 'Values system', SX News, 1 November 2007; MacIntyre, 'Poor fellow my ghetto'; Peter Cross, 'Why we need another plague', SX News, 20 March 2008; Mark, 'Stop the aggro', SX News, 13 March 2008; Nick, 'Pox on Oxford', SX News, 15 November 2007. 58. Nick, 'Pox on Oxford'. 59. Nick, 'Pox on Oxford'. 60. Takesce, 'Values system'. 61. MacIntyre, 'Poor fellow my ghetto'. 62. Grant Fraser, 'Copping it sweet', SX News, 18 October 2007. 63. Chris, 'Blame game', SX News, 3 April 2008. 64. MacIntyre, 'Poor fellow my ghetto'. 65. Welsh and Gibson, 'Gays on the march after a spate of attacks'. 66. Andrew M. Potts, 'Oxford Street options', Sydney Star Observer, 6 September 2007. 67. Adam Takesce, 'Values system'. 68. Chris, 'Blame game'. 69. Geoffrey, 'Street life', SX News, 4 October 2007. 70. Mark, 'Stop the aggro'. 71. Cross, 'Why we need another plague'. 72. Cross, 'Why we need another plague'. 73. Scott, 'Spot on', SX News, 27 March 2008. 74. Interview with Paul van Reyk. 75. Interview with Dave. 76. Author's field notes from the Reclaim the Right vigil, Harmony Park, Surry Hills, 26 January 2008. 77. Emily Gray and Peter Johnson, 'Rise above and conquer', Sydney Star Observer, 24 January 2008. 78. Grant Hutton, 'Don't give up', SX News, 31 January 2008. 79. Cross, 'Why we need another plague'. 80. Maxi Shield, 'More muggings', Sydney Star Observer, September 13 2007. 81. Shield, 'More muggings'. 82. Jeffrey Weeks, 'History, desire and identities', in Richard G. Parker and John H. Gagnon (eds), Conceiving Sexuality: Approaches to Sex Research in a Postmodern World, Routledge, New York, 1995, p. 43. 83. Weeks, 'History, desire and identities', p. 44. 84. Weeks, 'History, desire and identities', p. 44. Weeks is referring here to the classic 1988 text on individualism in postmodernity Le Temps des Tribus by the French sociologist Michel Maffesoli. This was published in English as Michel Maffesoli, The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society, Sage, London, 1996. Matthew Rowe and Gary Dowsett take a more optimistic perspective on the emergence of tribalism in gay life, viewing it as a potential new mode of homosexual sociality. See Matthew S. Rowe and Gary W. Dowsett, 'Sex, love, friendship, belonging and place: is there a role for "gay community" in HIV prevention today?' Culture, Health and Sexuality, no. 10, no. 4, 2008, pp. 329–344. 85. Even as I was writing this conclusion, a new American survey was released on the Internet which found 'a vast generation shift among LGBT people'. The majority of respondents wanted to live in suburbia or small-town America, with an astounding two-thirds of younger gay people expecting to be partnered with kids at some point in their life. Just fewer than 80% of gays thought it was important to integrate into the greater culture. News item: 'Study finds shift in gay demographic', http://www.365gay.com/features/080508-suburb-study/. Posted 5 August 2008. Accessed 21 August 2008. 86. Katrina Fox, 'One door closes', SX News, 18 June 2008.
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