Same-sex love between convicts bloomed in the prison colony of Van Diemen's Land — now Tasmania — despite brutal repression from authorities.
While transportation only lasted from 1803 to until 1853, the legacy of queer repression continued throughout the 20th century.
In 1997, Tasmania was the last Australian state to decriminalise sex between men and until the year 2000 there was a law against men wearing articles of women's clothing after dark — this was used to criminalise transwomen and other gender-diverse people.
Long-time LGBTQIA+ rights activist and historian Rodney Croome AM traced Tasmania's history of homophobia and transphobia back to the suppression queer sexuality among convicts — and the shame that many Tasmanians carried about their convict past and its association with homosexuality.
So, what was love and sex like between convicts of the same gender?
"As in any prison that is divided by sex there was a lot of sexual activity between men and sexual activity between women," said Mr Croome, who is also president of LGBTIQIA+ advocacy organisation Equality Tasmania.
While sex between convicts was suppressed by officials, what they found "particularly offensive and threatening" were romantic connections.
Convicts outnumbered their guards and one of the ways authorities tried to control their captives was to set prisoners against each other.
"Catholics against protestants, Irish against English," Mr Croome said.
"The strategy was to divide and rule, but the bond between convicts that they could not break was the bond between two men who were in love or two women who were in love," Mr Croome said.
"If you look at the records of rebellions, escapes or mutinies in Van Diemen's Land prisons there was more often than not a same-sex couple at the centre of those mutinies or escapes."
A letter of undying love
The desire to break up loving couples was one of the motivations behind a crackdown that led to the Cooking Pot Riots on Norfolk Island, a convict colony that had frequent prisoner exchanges with Van Diemen's Land.
Prisoners were allowed to garden in small plots and cook for themselves until the appointment to commandant of major Joseph Childs, who started his iron rule of the prison in 1844.
"Some of the men gardened and cooked for each other as couples," Mr Croome said.
Major Childs was determined to wind back these freedoms and by 1846, men were no longer allowed to cook for themselves.
"He felt that it was against prison discipline and in particular he didn't like the fact that there were same-sex couples who had a degree of independence," he said.
This decision sparked a bloody uprising that was eventually quelled by a military regiment.
At least 12 convicts were hanged in the aftermath, including Dennis Pendergast, who left behind a letter to his partner:
"I hope you wont forget me when I am far away and all my bones is moldered away I have not closed an eye since I lost sight of you your precious sight was always a welcome and loving charming spectacle. Dear Jack I value Death nothing but it is in leaving you my dear behind and no one to look after you ... The only thing that grieves me love is when I think of the pleasant nights we have had together. I hope you wont fall in love with no other man when I am dead and I remain your True and loving affectionate Lover"
The letter never reached Prendergast's beloved; it was intercepted by authorities and sent to London as evidence of same-sex relationships between convicts.
"It shows that there was deep love between two men in a convict prison in the 1840s, but it also shows that even in the 1840s love won," Mr Croome said.
"Nothing the convict officials could throw at them could stop them being in love, even from beyond the grave."
A 'gay gulag'
Authorities would send desperate reports to London detailing "inveterate sodomites" and "people persisting with unnatural vices" in an effort to gain more resources.
In the 1840s, assistant superintendent of Maria Island's Darlington Probation Station James Boyd sent a letter to British authorities detailing a surprising encounter he had upon entering a prison dormitory.
"He walked in on eight men who pushed their beds together and were sleeping in each other's arms," Mr Croome said.
Boyd knew this story would horrify the prime minister.
"And then came the ask: I can stop this happening if you give me the resources to build a prison where every inmate is separate 24/7 and you put me in charge of it."
"So the next thing we know, Boyd is commandant of Port Arthur and we have the Separate and Silent Prison where every inmate is separated from every other [inmate] 24 hours a day, seven days a week, often for months at a time.
"That prison was built to control men who were in same-sex relationships and people who were perpetually escaping … It was Australia's first gay gulag."
Homophobia and the end of transportation
The fear of same-sex sexuality was used as a talking point by the anti-transportation movement, who wanted the Australian colonies to stop being a prison.
"To some extent they were a progressive movement because they wanted civil rights, self-government, colonial parliaments and ultimately they wanted the Australian colonies to get together as one country," Mr Croome said.
"In the minds of the anti-transportationists 'unnatural vice' was synonymous with convictism.
"They whipped up homophobia in the public … they used homophobia as their tool to bring convictism to an end."
The association between convicts, queerness, rebellion, and subversion lasted for generations — well after transportation ended in 1853, Mr Croome said.
After the end of transportation, official documentation of queer relationships become scarce as people who did not fit within the sexual mores of the time went underground.
Tantalising hints of what life for same-sex couples was like, have been uncovered by Mr Croome.
He has found that there were an unusually large amount of land titles held by either two women, or two men in the late 1800s and early 1900s on the mountainside suburb of Fern Tree.
This could be evidence of the countries early "gaybourhoods", just outside of Hobart.
"It's close enough to the city that you can get in and get what you need, but far enough away from the city to be away from prying eyes," he said.
Homophobia in modern Tasmania
In 1997, Tasmania became the last state in Australia to decriminalise sex between men, and Mr Croome was one of the leading voices in the campaign for decriminalisation.
He believes prejudices from the state's convict past were behind its slowness to become more accepting.
"For generations, Tasmanians were very ashamed of their convict ancestors and that shame is compounded by this association with homosexuality," he said.
This history was front of mind for Mr Croome when he was campaigning for gay law reform from 1988 to 1997.
"I'd think about it every day because it was impossible to understand what we were going through unless we were aware of that history," he said.
"In no other states were parliaments so resistant to change, in no other state were there anti-gay rallies of the kind that we saw," Mr Croome said.
Over seven Saturdays in 1988, about 130 activists were arrested at Hobart's famous Salamanca Market for setting up a stall and soliciting signatures.
Hobart City Council cracked down on them because "they didn't want homosexuals at their family market".
"We had to have an historical perspective otherwise it would have been too overwhelming and too demoralising."
