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Jaden doesn't want us to use his full name in this story. He's worried it will be a beacon for homophobic trolls to harass him online and in real life. He's concerned because he was punched by a stranger in a homophobic attack, in Canberra, while on a night out with his friends nine months ago. He still gets anxious about returning to the party strip. The one exception to that rule is Cube, an icon in Canberra's nightlife scene and safe haven for the LGBTQIA+ community. But at the end of this year, after 20 years in business, Cube is closing, ending an era that the venue says "helped define Canberra's nightlife and LBGTQIA+ culture". "I have plenty of friends — including myself — who are just far less likely to go out now because it doesn't feel like I'll be able to guarantee a safe night," Jaden said. Cube isn't the only club shutting down. In Darwin and Hobart there have been no dedicated queer venues for more than two years. Last month, the Sydney suburb Redfern hosted an unconventional funeral procession as loyal followers eulogised "living queertopia", The Bearded Tit, which "pushed through a plebiscite, licked out lock-out laws, and pounded through a pandemic". In major cities such as Sydney — sometimes controversially — other venues targeting queer partygoers are cropping up. But in Darwin, Hobart and now Canberra, permanent, dedicated queer venues have disappeared from the nightlife scene all together. What's filling the void? Despite Canberra's reputation as Australia's most progressive city, Jaden said he has regularly experienced and witnessed homophobic and transphobic discrimination on nights out. He said that included being denied entry into (non-queer) clubs for wearing sleeveless tops, crop tops and tight-fitting outfits like those of his female friends. "I have been catcalled many a time when I've gone out … both in a traditional sense and also in a very intentionally bigoted, almost humoristic catcalling as a way to try to humiliate people in a very public way," he said. In recent years, Australia's nightlife has been hit hard by pandemic-era lockdowns, skyrocketing costs and changing consumer behaviours. Alison Wong thinks queer venues have been hit particularly hard. They said nightlife is an intrinsic part of LGBTQIA+ culture. "OK history lesson: historically queer culture has been pushed to the outside of society because maybe people aren't out yet, maybe they don't feel safe dressing outside of social gender constructs and expectations," Alison said. "Queer people have carved out their own spaces for that in nightlife — that's how we get drag culture, that's how we get ballroom culture." Earlier this year, Alison co-founded a semi-regular queer party night called Effulgent to help raise funding for transgender Canberrans to receive gender-affirming surgeries. But they can only afford to run that night because the venue, a local café, donates its space and the DJs and performers donate their time. Darwin also has a semi-regular queer party night. Mads McIntyre co-founded Peachy Party, with their business partner Chloe, because there were almost no other queer spaces in Darwin. Mads believes part of the appeal is the organic, community-led nature of party nights. "There's this deep culture here [in Darwin] around queerness that we learn from the Tiwi sistergirls and brotherboys as well," they said. "It's all local performers, local DJs, local queer community — it's a community event, that's why it's so special," Mads said. But Mads believes party nights alone can't replace permanent queer venues. "Peachy's only every three months — where do we go in between? "I can't do more than that, I'd be too tired — where can we just go when we're not even planning to go out to feel good and feel like this is our space?"
