This Woman Is Documenting The Lives And Loves Of Older Lesbians
North of the Border by Heather Faulkner tells the stories of eight lesbians, aged from their mid-fifties to their mid-seventies, who grew up in a deeply conservative and vibrantly radical Queensland during Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s three-decade-long reign as Queensland premier. Faulkner hopes it will fill a hole in Australia’s LGBTI history.
In Queensland, the control exerted by the state, particularly over demonstrators, provoked activism and solidarity from marginalised groups, including Indigenous Australians, women, gay men and lesbians.
The candid stories in North of the Border reveal how lesbians coped in the face of a hostile society – how they negotiated that time to find a belonging for themselves.
“What I intend for the book to do is to give older lesbian and gay readers a sense of agency that their stories are important. That they’re honoured, they’re respected and they’re recognised.”
To put together the book, Faulkner spent a week or two at a time living with her subjects, photographing them in situ. She wants North of the Border to counter established narratives about Queensland, lesbians, and the queer community at large.
“It breaks apart that generalised narrative that a lot of people have about lesbians or the LGBTIQ community, that we all vote one way, we’re all vegetarians, we wear Birkenstocks, etc.”
When she tried to find gay women to be in the project, many Brisbane “OWLs” (older, wiser lesbians) were supportive in theory, but too scared to put themselves forward.
Some cited fears of employment discrimination, others of the response from their families, says Faulkner. Some just hadn’t come out.
“All those old fears that were realities in the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, are still compounding the way they go about being in the 21st century.”
In the end, Faulkner only found eight women willing to go on the record.
“It’s a very big call [even] for a person who hasn’t experienced any discrimination because of their sexuality, but it’s much more compounded and scary for people who carry that history around with them.”
“We weren’t just worrying about marriage rights, we were worried about the right to walk into a bar or hotel because there was an anti-deviant law. Or you weren’t allowed to be served, or you weren’t allowed to walk down the street with more than one friend because you could get arrested, or you would get beaten up on the street for no reason whatsoever.”
The women featured in North of the Border share astonishing stories of fear, community, and survival.
Read more about North of the Border and support the project.
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