Out of the shadows... and back again?

It is sometime in the late 1980s. We're strolling along Norton Street, Leichhardt (Sydney). 'Spotto!' mutters one of the younger dykes in our group. The rest of us smile in agreement. Yes, we have recognised a familiar, but we are not about to embarrass her with our acknowledgement.

I'm thinking back to the days of Lesbian Code. Lesbians were not exactly popular; rude teenage boys would yell 'Lezbeeens!' as we passed. At one stage, hostile young men were harassing the Lesbian staff at the Feminist Bookshop in Lilyfield. Some us rostered ourselves on vigilante watch, standing outside the shop watching for and discouraging trouble-makers.

Later, when my companion and I moved to a regional village we endured the 'humour' of the young men who gathered at the local pub. Once they sent a newcomer to town to visit us  requesting servicing from the 'lovely teenage women' we had on offer. One night the pub boys drove up and down with a loud-hailer declaring 'lezzos'.  Still, at that time we had a resident policeman and a Gay-and-Lesbian taskforce in the regional city, and we trusted them to prevent us from serious harm. And, in the end we succeeded in befriending the leader of the trouble-makers (which is a story in itself).

So, in the 1980s and early 1990s we were far from complacent. We knew to use code-words to communicate with and about one another. We knew not to take risks. But we also knew the law was on our side.

In January 1990 American Lesbian singer Alix Dobkin sang about Lesbian Code at her sell-out concert in Glebe. The concert was advertised openly; you could buy tickets for $15/$10 at the Feminist Bookshop at Lilyfield. How different the times were then! On the night there was no protesting crowd outside, trying to stop us entering the hall, no-one yelling, banging drums and sounding sirens to drown out the singer, no men claiming to be Lesbians and demanding the right to attend our event.

Alix Dobkin had collected Lesbian Code words from all around the world. If you listen to a recording of the concert you can hear the crowd roar when Alix acknowledges our own code words: Spotto, She wears sensible shoes and, for those of us who lived in Leichardt, 2040 . . . Dykehart.

Now it is 2023, and Lesbians all over Australia are mourning the loss of our freedom to meet without being invaded and harassed. We are angry that under Tasmanian law Lesbians are not permitted to advertise single-sex events. We deplore the need for Sall Grover to undergo the stress and expense of a court case to assert the right of women to enjoy a female-only online meeting space.

We remember when we could meet openly, talk, sing, dance, enjoy one another's company, hatch plans for future events and advertise them openly. Of course, in those days we advertised on paper -  in magazines, newsletters, in feminist bookshops, on coffee shop notice boards, with posters we glued to telegraph poles. Some of us long to have those days back.

Now we can only meet as Lesbians if we invite one another in person, or by way of dedicated sites, never openly advertising venues. Males who claim that their new identity as 'transwomen' converts their heterosexuality into ‘lesbianism’ assert their 'right' to participate in any gathering advertised as Lesbian - and the law supports them. We have lost our freedom of association and, indeed, our right to name ourselves.

As we protest, we can remember that we have been here before. In the 1970s most of us were closeted. Even in feminist groups where we consciousness-raised over the words of Germaine Greer and Mary Daly, we did not declare ourselves. It was only at weekends that we ventured into "our own world", which, was not really our world at all.

In Sydney, we sought our element in Dawn O'Donnell's flashy clubs, which attracted crowds of gays and Lesbians, safeguarded by security men and co-operative police. At Ruby Red's, in Crown Street, Lesbians endured the scrutiny of the burly bouncer before climbing the stairs to the bar room where they danced and drank, sat and talked, or retreated to the toilet area for more illicit activity.

Lesbians who sought less frenetic social spaces, created and controlled by themselves, not by commercial interests, without benefit of strong-man protection, needed to be circumspect. I remember going with friends to a nondescript office building in North Sydney, where the lift delivered us to a corridor with an ordinary office door leading to an ordinary office space. Except that this space had a bar, a few chairs scattered about and an area where twenty or thirty Lesbians could dance to recorded music. This was the Clover Business Women's Club. The name made us sound sedate and to some extent we were.

Later the Clover Club moved to Drummoyne with a larger space, bigger crowds, louder music, more vigorous dancing, more cough-inducing cigarette smoke, and, some would have said, more fun. I cannot recall men ever bothering to attend, but I suppose the place was so well known they could have.

At North Sydney a passerby would never have suspected. Our activity was truly occult. In those days some young Lesbians discovered one another in feminist gatherings, some by playing softball, some by accident. To try to reach one another by advertising now exposes us to crushing invasion and exploitation. It is now unthinkable that we would advertise a Lesbian event on a telegraph pole.

So, in the space of fifty years we have emerged from the shadows into the light, only for aggressive gender-ideologists trying not just to shove us back again, but to erase us altogether. In the face of that we are drawing on determination and solidarity that is growing stronger by the day.

Our challenge now is to find ways of welcoming Lesbians who are young and/or isolated, on our own terms. It has never been easy, but perhaps it has never been so hard.

Disclaimer: The image used is a cover of Alix Dobkin’s album ‘Yahoo Australia! Live from Sydney’. We do not own the copyright to this music.