Tuesday 2 December 1727: the day queer people in Australia were first recorded by Europeans. A Dutch ship captain wrote in his journals of two boys who were found “committing the sorrowful and godforsaken act which, god forbid, shall afflict plagues over our peoples and island”. The boys refused to confess; as punishment they were left to die, marooned on separate islands.
Almost 300 years later, comedians Zoë Coombs Marr and Hannah Gadsby are chatting on national television. It’s a scene in Coombs Marr’s new ABC show Queerstralia: a sprawling and irreverently meta queer history of Australia that shows just how we went from two boys being left to die to watching two of our country’s most beloved lesbians pretending to play pool on the telly.
