Can an LGBTQ+ museum redeem a notorious Sydney police station?
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 Darlinghurst Police Station in Sydney’s gay village 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 lockup 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,” Greg Fisher, Qtopia’s CEO, told Openly. “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 New South Wales until 1984, well behind a wave of countries that made consensual gay sex legal in the 1960s and 70s.
