Waltzing Matilda, opened in the late 1950s in Tsim Sha Tsui, is believed to be Hong Kong’s first gay bar – but that was never the plan.
An Australian couple started the bar to introduce Australian food, like fish and chips, to the city. Over time, it became popular among sailors – Hong Kong was a popular port of call back then – looking to meet other men.
The story of Waltzing Matilda is one of many on display at an exhibition on the history of Hong Kong’s LGBTQ community during the colonial era, said Connie Chan, who spoke to the founders’ daughter as part of her research on the city’s LGBTQ community in the 1980s and 1990s.
Her exhibition, in a Sham Shui Po walk-up building, is running for two weeks until November 2.
Chan said gay bars, bookstores and saunas dotted the city in the 1990s, after the British colonial government decriminalised homosexuality in 1991 and in response to demands for places where gay and lesbian people could meet.
“The internet was starting to take off then, but not everybody had a computer,” she told HKFP in Cantonese on Wednesday. “You couldn’t rely on the internet to make friends, so people really cherished opportunities to gather in person.”
According to Chan’s tally, there were around 60 LGBTQ businesses. The majority were bars and saunas often frequented by members of the LGBTQ community – mostly men – in the 1990s.
The researcher created a map to show the venues, which also include three public toilets and bathhouses that she said were unofficial places for them to meet.
Another way the LGBTQ community formed connections was through matchmaking profiles in magazines, like those in a quarterly publication by Lui Tung Yuen, a lesbian group Chan co-founded in 1996.
Readers could pay HK$20 to publish an advertisement about themselves, sharing their name, age and interests. To protect their privacy, the publication did not list their addresses – those interested in reaching out would do so by paying HK$20 to the publication and attaching a letter for the group to pass on.
“This column was very popular,” Chan said. “We started off devoting just one page to it, and then it grew to three pages.”
Decriminalisation of homosexuality
Ordered chronologically, the exhibition begins with a look into the MacLennan incident in 1980, in which a Scottish inspector with the Royal Hong Kong Police Force, John MacLennan, killed himself hours before he was due to be arrested for committing homosexual acts.
The law banning homosexuality – only in relation to men, not women – was rarely enforced. But MacLennan, 29, was said to have been targeted in a “high-powered police frame-up” as he participated in an investigation of gay officials, which included top-ranking police officers.
A government-ordered inquiry that saw 110 witnesses summoned, including pimps and prostitutes, found that certain police officers were “improperly motivated” in their actions relating to their pursuit of MacLennan.
The incident prompted public debate about revising laws on homosexual conduct. In 1990, the Legislative Council voted to decriminalise homosexual conduct, with 31 votes in favour and 13 against.
“The measures proposed in the motion today will ease the pressures, including blackmail, on those who exercise their sexual preference with other consenting adults in private,” Elsie Tu, a lawmaker who advocated for MacLennan, said in a July 1990 Legislative Council meeting.
After the decriminalisation, apart from the flourishing of LGBTQ-related businesses, Hong Kong saw a rise in civil society groups advocating for the rights of the marginalised community.
Some had already existed for some years before the law changed, like the HK 10% Club, which was formed in 1986. The club, formed by activist Alan Li, became the first LGBTQ-friendly registered society in 1992.
Chan said the rush to register societies was related to fear that after Hong Kong’s impending Handover to China in 1997, authorities would not allow LGBTQ societies to exist. Activists pointed to reports of oppression of LGBTQ groups across the border.
“People were very worried about what would happen after 1997, if there might not be freedom of assembly or freedom of speech anymore,” she added.
Progress, and lack thereof
Compared with the 1990s, society is much more accepting of the LGBTQ community today, Chan said. People are more likely to be open about their sexual orientations to their families and in the workplace, she added.
Yet, progress is not apparent everywhere – not least in the Legislative Council, where lawmakers last month voted down a bill to recognise same-sex marriages registered overseas.
Most cited Christian and traditional Chinese values, saying that passing the bill would threaten the heterosexual marriage system.
Chan said she compared lawmakers’ speeches about the same-sex partnership bill this year with those made in the legislature when debating the motion to decriminalise homosexuality three and a half decades ago.
Lawmakers’ rhetoric then was meaningful and “higher quality,” Chan said, touching on areas including impacts on societal development and the business sector. In contrast, the speeches last month were “emotional” and lacked substance, she said.
The bill for recognising same-sex marriages registered overseas was the result of a 2023 Court of Final Appeal ruling that required the government must enact a legal framework to do so. The court gave the government two years, with the deadline on Monday next week.
After the bill failed to pass, Chief Executive John Lee said the government would explore “administrative measures” to safeguard same-sex couples’ rights instead. No further details have been given.
Chan said Hong Kong’s LGBTQ advocacy was perhaps at its peak in the 2000s, with annual colourful events like the Pride Parade and International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) marches.
LGBTQ groups may have been less visible in the 1990s, but their work in creating safe spaces and communities was no less important, she said.
“What set the scene for the vibrant LGBTQ movement in the 2000s? We want to tell everyone that in the ’80s, ’90s, there were groups who worked hard to get here,” she added.