The haydays of lesbian bars in Australia
would be, late 80s.
They kept on popping up everywhere, so it was a great time.
I think I started noticing that women's bars were closing down when we went,
"Hey, let's all go meet..."
"Where do we go?"
"Oh right ok, we can't go there anymore."
It would be sad if there was no place for young lesbians
or any lesbian to go to.
I think lesbian bars are becoming obsolete,
there was this kind of stereotype of who you had to be
and what kind of music you had to listen to
and whatever, to be accepted.
And generally that's not sustainable.
My name's Alison Fettell
and this is my partner, Jayne
and we met at Hunters in 1990
so that's 28 years that we've been together.
Hunters was spectacular.
-It was packed, always packed. -Yeah it was packed.
The music was good, the women were good looking, everybody was friendly.
And you know whether you were with somebody or not
it was lovely to see lovely women.
Yeah.
You know, it's just, you know, to see women dance together, is still thrilling for me
Prior generations, even 10, 20 years before that
would have been extremely difficult
because it was so much more closeted.
One it was illegal, in lots of states, people were being arrested and beaten up
-I didn't want to go to a mainstream bar -No
because I wanted to be with other women
and I wanted to be myself around other women.
Right, so if I wanted to kiss somebody, or dance together
-you couldn't do that in a mainstream bar. -No way.
Not in those days, I didn't feel safe.
I'd always liked the idea of somewhere like Hunters feeling safe.
The door closed behind us,
nobody could come in that was going to do the wrong thing,
you were going to be looked after.
Wow.
This is different!
We're in Frankie's now.
This used to be Hunters when I was here in 1990.
So over here the bar still is there
but totally different.
It was all for cocktails and things like that
and that's where my staff were basically behind here
Uh, it used to be packed, yeah.
The type of women that came down to Hunters?
A mixture of professional to society women,
to just Joe average.
And the music? Oh we had our Madonna, didn't we
We started noticing lesbian bars closing down
or having trouble, I would say maybe around 10 years ago.
I don't think that there are any bars around from the time
when I used to go out.
I think those bars have closed down because the need
for being part of the community has been met
you get your, we call it 'the lesbian fix'
through social media.
Business is business.
If you want to make a regular bar for women, it won't sustain
It will eventually fade out.
The gay scene for men seems to be very alive and well.
Very defined bars, clubs. Alway has been very strong.
But women, we always had this joke, right
if it's raining, a lesbian won't go out.
And it's true!
Get her hair wet!
20 years ago,
the traditional lesbian looked quite lesbian.
Today, they are very comfortable looking the way they would like to look like.
Being femme, being butch, they don't have to change their appearance to belong to a community.
A lot of those femme looking women are often turned away at lesbian bars.
Those women and their friends, they say,
"This is too extreme for me."
I went to a couple of lesbian nights
and parties in Sydney so Girl Thing, Bitch, Moist
and I'd wig the fuck out.
They were intense and they were really full on and kind of like,
hectic nightclubs and I was like 'eek' and then got out of there real quick.
People just wanna be who they are
and specifically, lesbian bars may not have been accepting to that.
Like turning away people because they didn't have a flat cap on and baggy jeans. You know what I mean?
I didn't feel very comfy with my heterosexual friends with me, males specifically.
And secondly the music was daggy so we were like
let's just start something that we wanna go to and have fun at.
So Heaps Gay happens once a month
and it has been happening once a month for the last 5 years
400 people turned up at the first one and it was so mixed
it was honestly 50/50 male/female,
there was probably 50/50 heterosexual to queer community.
It was awesome.
You can be any age, any gender, sexuality and just turn up and
you're coming to a house party and there's no judgement.
and that's kind of how it started.
I think that these spaces have definitely taken over from the old school gay bar idea.
I feel sorry for the younger generation
I don't know how I'd cope now, in the scene.
Everything's changed alot, everybody is so accepting
and yada yada yada yada, you know
it gets a bit, oh really, okay.
So, I think having that special place is important and having it all meld together
I think it's a bit confusing, really.
I do feel that the adding of the levels for our community, the LGBTQI
has overshadowed lesbian issues, there's no doubt about it.
It is sad that lesbian bars have disappeared.
But I think if we are smart and if we are doing it right it will resurface again,
just in a different way.
Do I think that women's bars are over?
Absolutely not. No.
I don't think we'll see anyone specifically buy a venue and tag it as a gay bar.
I think that, we're seeing a lot of them close on Oxford Street and I doubt we're gonna see any opening.
So, I think we're in it now.