Herald senior reporter Andrew Hornery has spent several weeks talking to some who found themselves on the wrong side of the law against homosexuality in NSW.
In 2024, going to prison in NSW for being gay is an unthinkable concept. For many, though, the unthinkable was once a harsh reality.NSW courts recorded up to 1000 convictions a year before homosexuality was finally decriminalised in 1984. Along with fines and prison, many suffered the ignominy of court-endorsed “treatments” from electric shock and potent drugs to brain surgery to “cure” their homosexuality, all of which are now considered medical quackery.
“I know that to many, this apology will not remedy discrimination of the past, but I hope that it brings some semblance of closure to those that were unfairly targeted by laws of the day that criminalised gay and lesbian people for being who they are,” Minns told theon June 8, 1984, a year after the first death attributed to HIV in Australia, and four years behind Victoria and nine years after South Australia became the first state to do so.
The world-first special commission of inquiry into the handling of dozens of deaths between 1970 and 2010 produced 19 recommendations, 15 of which were directed at police.
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