The Risk of Fragmentation

In the years before the 1975 Conference, the homosexual community was divided on how to approach liberation. Groups found themselves ‘stuck’ in ‘consciousness-raising’, struggling to progress beyond increasing awareness and visibility.[1] This led to the emergence of groups with different goals.[2] This included law reformists who focused on legalisation, Marxists who believed in social reform through alliance with other left groups, ‘radicalesbians’ who rejected men, and effeminists, gay men that attempted to embrace women’s liberation. Further, gay men’s sexism was seen to be driving gay men and lesbians apart.[3]

The Conference Collective discussed these divisions. A primary motivation for the National Homosexual Conference was bringing the “fragmented and largely ineffective” community together. In suggesting that a “key question … is whether a working relationship is possible”, the Collective implicitly suggest that bringing these fragments together risked creating a dysfunction that could exacerbate their division.[4]

This approach was discussed explicitly when NHC was conceived at the Australian Union of Students Annual Conference. Motions supporting protections for homosexuals were sent to be voted on by student unions rather than conference delegates alone. Like NHC, they opened the door for division that could diminish the strength of their motions, but “belie[ved] that having these debates was more important than the risk of losing the vote”.[5] The risk of division was real, but the potential to create fruitful discussion among fragmentations of the homosexual community was seen as more significant.

[1] Arrow and Spongberg, “Living in the Seventies,” 159-61; and Bongiorno, The Sex Lives of Australians, 268-7.

[2] Reynolds, From Camp to Queer, 143-55.

[3] Fela and McCann, “Solidarity is Possible,” 325-9.

[4] See “Statement of the Homosexual Conference Collective”

[5] Willett, From Camp to Gay, 29.