Edward_Roper_-_Gold_diggings,_Ararat,_1854

Beyond Buggery

Beyond Buggery: Digging Up Stories of Sex Between Men on the Victorian Goldfields. An exploration of the language used for queer acts in colonial era newspapers, including many stories from the Victorian gold rush era.

map of new south wales, 1871

“The Gay Lothario of Wagga Wagga”

I was following a trail from an alleged diamond thief caught promenading in drag around Melbourne’s Exhibition Building, to a well-known gang of queer larrikins in Sydney, when somehow I wound up in Wagga Wagga. This story seemed too good not to share, so here’s an article from the Toowoomba Chronicle and Queensland Advertiser, circa 1871.