Moments after a Sydney activist was bashed in what he believed to be an obvious gay hate crime in 1970, his attacker uttered a phrase he pondered for years: "No hard feelings, mate".
"It meant it was sport or something to them," Garry Wotherspoon said of the brutality at a special NSW commission of inquiry this week.
It was the first time the academic and historian experienced homophobic violence, as he and a companion left a gay dance at a Petersham hall and were set upon by a group of well-dressed men.
Police officers who said they were "busy", directed Mr Wotherspoon and his bleeding, broken-nosed friend to a station to report the incident.
He said "all hell broke loose" when his account of the violence and "cavalier" response was published in a newspaper, framing the attack as police accountability without reference to homosexuality.
Uniformed officers returned with him to the hall, in what he thought was an exercise in humiliation and embarrassment.
The entire experience was, if evidence before the inquiry is anything to go by, far too common for LGBT people at a time when they were targets of shocking violence and requests for help drew lacklustre responses.
The best and worst of times
The inquiry is examining unsolved deaths in NSW between 1970 and 2010 which are suspected of being the result of gay hate attacks.
During public hearings in Sydney which this week explored the social, cultural and legal factors that affected the LGBT community, a strikingly different picture of the harbour city emerged compared to what most people experience today.
The 1980s represented "the best of times and the worst of times", journalist Greg Callaghan said during his evidence.
It was a community "coming into its own" as a result of the first Mardi Gras in 1978, business and social growth and a "blossoming of LGBT culture", Mr Callaghan explained.
But in the '80s, young gay men — full of promise with much of their lives ahead of them — were dying during the HIV epidemic, and those who attacked LGBT people had a warped view of the situation.
"I have no doubt, I think in their minds they were given a kind of perverse, moral justification to bash and kill gay men because they were perceived at the time as the disease spreaders," Mr Callaghan testified.
The culprits "knew where to go" to find victims, the journalist said, like the exits of bars in Oxford Street's back alleys.
And the increasing number of attacks reflected in the gay press from the time was merely "a drop in the bucket" because most people knew approaching police was futile.
The Grim Reaper
It was also "devastating" for LGBT people with HIV to be represented as the Grim Reaper by an infamous 1987 advertising campaign, which to this day resonates in the Australian psyche, according to witness Brent Mackie from peak LGBT group ACON.
That campaign whipped up "hysteria", he said, as he partially laid the blame for the period's anti-gay violence on media coverage of the emerging HIV epidemic.
"I don't think it was the sole reason … but it certainly contributed," he told the inquiry.
The community response, including self-defence classes, illustrated a determination to fight back against attacks which had "all the hallmarks of what we call gay hate crimes now".
"It's about sheer, unbridled hate."
These were cruel, frenzied, unrelenting attacks which involved tormenting the victim and were described by one newspaper article as being of "A Clockwork Orange" style, the inquiry heard.
And in many unsolved cases, they resulted in death.
A civil rights struggle
Trans and gender diverse people were also "swept-up" in anti-gay violence because the delineation between groups within the LGBT umbrella was far less clear in the '80s and '90s, said witness Eloise Brook.
The writer, advocate and academic, who also works with support service The Gender Centre, says that community is now "in the middle of a civil rights struggle".
In official data, those who are trans and gender diverse are "invisible" because tools like Australia's Census struggle to identify anything beyond binary gender.
Dr Brook said in death, sometimes trans women and men are misgendered towards their birth gender.
"We don't have a clear way of being able to identify those community members that we lost."
She expressed concern about the degree of transphobic media reporting and the forefronting of trans identity being an aspect of political policy.
"Negativity that washes through social media and across our media in general has a wearing? effect upon the resilience of our community," Dr Brook said.
"In particular, a wearing effect upon our most vulnerable young people."
The danger at beats
According to this week's evidence, gay beats — public areas such as parks or public toilets where gay men would meet for consensual, casual sex — were also hotspots for horrific violence.
Long before the days of dating apps like Grindr or Tinder, these places facilitated discreet meetings.
The inquiry heard beat users knew they were "dangerous" places due to the risk of attention from not only attackers, but police officers more interested in questioning why they were at a beat in the first place than in perpetrators of violence.
Barry Charles, the first secretary of the UNSW Gay Liberation movement and a man who described himself as a "beat queen", was among those who learned these risks.
Growing up in Sydney's south-west in the '50s and '60s meant "finding your own way as a gay man", he told the inquiry.
"There was no knowledge of a gay community or visibility of gay people, certainly around our area.
"Even no knowledge of what it was to be a homosexual."
'Worse than a bank robber'
During this era, prior to the 1984 decriminalisation of homosexuality in NSW, Mr Charles had his details taken by police at beats on multiple occasions and was warned not to be seen there again.
"It was worrying, it was frightening," he said.
"But you understood that you were, in their eyes, a criminal and a very serious criminal …worse than a bank robber."
Another risk, as described by witness Les Peterkin, was police entrapment at beats.
At a public toilet beat in North Sydney Oval in 1956, Mr Peterkin said a "very young, good looking fellow in a dark suit" made "signals", prompting him to react.
"He grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and said 'You're under arrest'," he recalled.
Accused of soliciting sex in a public place, Mr Peterkin was overcome by fear and worry before police dropped the matter when he told them his father was a sergeant.
They advised him: "Put five pounds in your hand and go to Kings Cross and f*** a woman."
The inquiry heard the late '80s was also a time when the lesbian community became more visible.
Carole Ruthchild, former co-convenor of the NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, said there were many examples of gangs of men travelling to Darlinghurst, the known "centre of the gay community", to seek out men to bash.
"No one went out lesbian bashing in this way, that was more opportunistic," she said.
"They'd see someone and it might be they thought they were just women, and they could try and pick them up."
Ms Ruthchild said it was a different experience for women because if men don't agree with or like other men, they resort to physical violence.
"But with women, men target women usually in a sexual way," she said.
"They usually persist in that, in the way they might target lesbians."
After reflecting on his experiences living in both Sydney and regional NSW, Mr Peterkin said there now exists "a very good rapport" between police and the LGBT community — a sentiment also expressed by other witnesses.
Barry Charles, too, offered some positive reflections at the conclusion of his evidence, when he spoke of younger generations.
"It's always very pleasing to speak to people who come up to us during Mardi Gras, Fair Day, and Newcastle Pride," he said.
"To see that they understand that the rights they take for granted now came with a long fight and a lot of dedication by a lot of very brave people."
The inquiry continues next month.
