Gay Guide to Melbourne
Victoria repealed its sodomy laws in December 1980, four years ahead of New South Wales, which did not stop what came next. On 7 August 1994 police raided the Tasty nightclub and held 463 people for seven hours, strip searching them one by one. The patrons sued as a group, the state paid out around six million dollars, and in 2014 Victoria Police formally apologized for it. The other end of that story opened in July 2021: the Victorian Pride Centre in St Kilda, the first purpose-built home for Australia's LGBTQIA+ communities.
Melbourne does not have a gay strip, which catches people out. The scene is spread across inner suburbs and you pick a pocket rather than a street. The densest is Smith Street, running along the Fitzroy and Collingwood boundary: Sircuit, Mollys, The 86, UBQ and Yah Yah's sit within a couple of blocks of each other, with Evie's Disco Diner around on Gertrude Street. The Peel and the Wet on Wellington sauna are deeper into Collingwood, and The Laird out in Abbotsford has been a men's bar for decades.
South of the river, Prahran and South Yarra take the club end. Poof Doof runs its Saturday nights at Chasers on Chapel Street. DT's keeps Richmond covered, and Eagle Leather supplies the rest.
St Kilda is where the institutions went. The Pride Centre on Fitzroy Street now houses Hares & Hyenas, the Australian Queer Archives, the Melbourne Queer Film Festival and the Victorian Pride Lobby, which is a remarkable amount of a city's queer memory under one roof. Midsumma Festival runs from January into February, with the carnival and a Pride March through St Kilda.
Melbourne runs on trams and rewards knowing where you are going. Treat it as three or four small scenes rather than one, and it opens up.