Comments on: 78ers Ask Qtopia To Reconsider Old Police Station As Location For Sydney LGBT Museum /news/78ers-ask-qtopia-to-reconsider-old-police-station-as-location-for-sydney-lgbt-museum/223588 Setting Australia’s LGBTI agenda since 1979 Fri, 12 May 2023 07:40:56 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 By: Trevor Reeve /news/78ers-ask-qtopia-to-reconsider-old-police-station-as-location-for-sydney-lgbt-museum/223588#comment-653880 Fri, 12 May 2023 07:40:56 +0000 https://starobserver.com.au/?p=223588#comment-653880 I think it a very appropriate building for Sydney to finally have a Gay Museum/Pride Centre. . QTOPIA has previously stated how it will operate for the community. I spent a night in there on the Saturday night of Queens Birthday weekend in 1975 arrested for drinking on unlicensed premises with about a hundred or so gay men, It was also a scene of barricade of the cops after the Club 80 raids in 1983. .I can’t think of any where better for the centre. Of course naysayers didn’t offer an alternative of where they would like the centre to be located.
We should be happy that the Government has come along and made sure we have this centre and it will be great if more big donations come in.
I am looking forward to the grand opening and hopefully very soon.

]]> By: Julie Bates AO /news/78ers-ask-qtopia-to-reconsider-old-police-station-as-location-for-sydney-lgbt-museum/223588#comment-653844 Fri, 05 May 2023 01:22:49 +0000 https://starobserver.com.au/?p=223588#comment-653844 Agree this project needs a broader consultative approach and a clearer vision of its purpose. Will it be just a museum for past relics, which is important, but will it also create opportunities, as Michael Kirby has noted, for a cultural hub or institution, much like the fabulous Pride Centre in St.Kilda. The later has been tried before in Sydney but failed I think because it did not get sufficient vollie support nor government/financial support but maybe now’s the time to try again and with sufficient funds, support of the government (in monetary and property terms) volunteers and community/philanthropic money, it can better ensure this possibility. Overall however it will require collaboration across the broader GLBTI + communities.

As for using the old blood soaked cop shop, it is not a matter of ‘reclaiming’ this building, as the commentator has rightly noted, it never was ours to be reclaimed. It’s not like reclaiming the use of terms/words previously used to denigrate us. And, yes there will be people whose experience, including my own, will find it difficult to enter that building due to past trauma and the triggering entering such a space may cause.

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