Musician James Lees’ journey from being ‘quietly queer in 80s Caloundra,’ to coming out and enjoying a creative career in new millennium Brisbane, reflects the transformation the entire state experienced during that era.
The 1980s and 90s saw Queensland voters replace Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s corrupt, conservative National Party Government with a progressive new Labor Government, ushering in an epoch of progressive social change.
A time of massive change
It was massive for every Queenslander, particularly the queer community whose very existence had been outlawed by the conservatives.
This chapter in Queensland’s queer history has largely been untold until now. Queersland, a new anthology of queer writers reflecting on ‘the struggle to survive in a culture that barely tolerated difference and at times violently suppressed it’, fills that gap in the history.
James Lees contributed his short story: ‘Welcome to Brisvegas’.
‘I had an inkling of a queer identity in about Grade Ten but definitely got the message that being queer was not something I could do at that time and place,’ says James.
‘I had fairly progressive parents and there were a couple of interactions with gay friends of friends, so I didn’t really feel a sense that this was a bad thing.’
‘At school it was seen as a very bad thing.’
James moved to Brisbane in 1989 to attend the Queensland College of Art: the year the National Party government was toppled and the Goss Labor government elected.
James Lees in 1991 IMAGE Cedric Ingra
‘The new government fairly quickly decriminalised homosexuality and for me it felt like the sun had come out,’ he says.
James (now 53) went on to found the Melt Festival Of Queer Arts at the Brisbane Powerhouse and produce events for Brisbane Pride Festival, the Queensland Cabaret Festival and the Brisbane Festival.
James Lees today IMAGE Kate Johnson
‘People my age grew up experiencing the tail end of the bad old days of Queensland as children and teens. When we came of age it was the 1990s, so I was fortunate time-wise. People older than me may have had a rougher time at that formative age.’
Rough times
Those rough times are documented in Queersland with stories spanning the past 80 years. While there are raw and heartbreaking accounts of abominable suppression of LGBTIQ people, overall the book carries a positive tone of rebellion, creativity and direct political action leading to the more diverse and inclusive society Queensland is today.
Edited by Edwina Shaw and Rod Goodbun (who had the original idea for the book), with a foreword by Darren Hayes (Savage Garden), Queersland is dedicated to much loved and missed queer pioneer and Brisbane Pride co-founder Jeff Cheverton.
Brisbane Pride co-founder and queer pioneer Jeff Cheverton. IMAGE supplied by North West Melbourne Public Health Network.
Jeff was a champion of inclusion and diversity so he probably would have approved of the diverse range of authors in the book.
Jarowair, Waka Waka and Yuggera elder, Aunty Dawn Daylight, tells of being an Aboriginal woman in the 80s under Joh, when ‘for Murris it was really bad. You never knew if you would get bashed, raped or rolled.’
‘There was only a handful of us Murri lesbian women in Brisbane then. It wasn’t safe to be out at that time.’
IMAGE of Dawn Daylight supplied by Brisbane Writers Festival
ABC Black Comedy star Steven Oliver’s ‘Your song’, tells a heartbreaking story of racism and homophobia when: ‘…a young boy, who’s dancing, they say, brought people joy’ while the ‘taunts and torment have them believe that the world we have made is a world they must leave’.
Editor Rod Goodbun’s ‘The Long Walk’ remembers a kinda successful 1991 queer activist ambush of a Christian seminar in Fortitude Valley on ‘turning to God’ to ‘recover’ from homosexuality.
If I can’t dance, it’s not my revolution
In ‘Cramped Space and Queer Time,’ performer and writer Shane Rowlands describes how Queensland’s 80s and 90s queer nightclub scene could be (depending on the venue) a little daggy and deflating or involve ‘raising our soft-knuckled fists to air-punch the jubilant beats higher into sticky elation’.
Whether she was at a 4ZZZ Joint Effort, The Terminus, Patches, Options, or The Beat: ‘On the best nights, dancing was loosening myself from careful self-conscious constriction into raving testimonies of finding-tribe, into our bigness, into constellations of being many, many more.’
Shane Rowlands at the 1993 Brisbane Pride March. IMAGE: by Angela Bailey.
Steve MinOn’s ‘Saturday Night Poofta’ remembers going alone to Proserpine’s Eldorado cinema and thrilling to John Travolta’s Tony Manero character strutting his stuff in Saturday Night Fever.
‘As if to confirm the potency of his Italo-American machismo, the camera panned south to frame a portrait of his hairy chest, seemingly just for me,’ writes MinOn.
IMAGE of Steve MinOn at the Brisbane launch of Queersland SUPPLIED.
Young writing student Ollie Lanagan’s story, ‘He’, demonstrates the courage many trans teens muster when ‘cementing my identity’ with actions like entering high school in 2019 wearing the boy’s uniform for the first time.
Queersland ends with ‘A note from the designer,’ Susi Blackwell, whose gentle, powerful reflection on ‘growing up queer’ in 80s Goondiwindi, says the town ‘…wasn’t cruel exactly, but it was small and narrow’. Some will relate to the way her parents, country folk, took a while to accept her sexuality but ‘Mum’s prejudices fell away when she met the people behind the label. My girlfriends: kind, funny, creative, smart women. Real people, not ideas.’
Political bent
Whether you are a member of the queer community, an ally or curious to know more about Queensland history, Queersland is a recommended read. Unlike many anthologies of gay fiction and non-fiction, Queersland has an overtly political focus which gives it a strong backbone. Co-editor Edwina Shaw says the political focus was ‘inevitable’.
‘We needed this social history of queer life in 80s and 90s Queensland to record these pioneering voices and stories for posterity and educate young queers about those who came before them and fought for the acceptance they now (hopefully) enjoy.’
Most anthologies of queer writing are solidly weighted with Melbourne and Sydney writers and an occasional Brisbane contributor, so Queersland is also unique in its platforming of 35 talented Queensland authors. Only seven of those authors are sampled in this review so there are plenty more to discover.
Queersland is published by AndAlso books and retails for A$40.00. It’s available at AndAlso Books, Queensland’s Gallery of Modern Art store and selected bookshops including Avid Reader
Special events with the authors and editors are planned at:
RANGEBOW FESTIVAL Maleny
Rosetta Books / Saturday 11 October 2025
https://therangebowfestival.org/event/queersland/
BRISBANE WRITERS FESTIVAL
Brisbane Powerhouse / Sunday 12 October
https://brisbanepowerhouse.org/events/queersland/
MELT FESTIVAL – Brisbane
The Avid Reader / Sunday 9 November 2025
https://www.melt.org.au/events/readings-from-queersland/
IMAGE of Queersland book at top of story: Vivienne Wynter
