Cooma Jail With Its Kept Little Secret: The Only Gay Prison in The World

Patrick Abboud spent three years investigating the jail's dark past.(Supplied: Patrick Abboud)

 

ABC South East NSW

 / By Keira Proust and Simon Lauder

As celebrations ramp up ahead of Sydney's annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras this week, a dark part of Australia's LGBTQI+ history is being explored by a new podcast. 

Podcast The Greatest Menace has unearthed the truth behind the world's only "gay prison," which operated in the regional New South Wales town of Cooma from 1957 to house men convicted of homosexual offenses.

The historic jail and one-time asylum closed in the early 1900s before its reopening.

Investigative journalist Patrick Abboud uncovered the revelation after spending three years investigating the town's history.

"This story, in particular, had such a profound impact on me from the beginning," Abboud said.

"When someone tells you that there was a gay prison designed to incarcerate gay men that in itself was shocking enough."

Patrick Abboud spent three years investigating the jail's dark past.(Supplied: Patrick Abboud)

The Amazon podcast spends eight episodes exploring the history of the Cooma Correctional Centre as a "gay prison" in the mid to late 1900s and includes interviews with inmates from that time.

 Abboud said he also felt a strong personal connection to the story, as he had spent many years visiting family in the town while struggling with his own sexual identity.

"I'd walked past that prison multiple times as a teenager going through my own struggle with my homosexuality," he said.

"So, it's so crazy that this occurred ... in this very town, which I have such a direct personal connection to."

Consensual sex between men often carried the punishment of imprisonment and was not decriminalized in New South Wales until 1984.

And while many laws have changed since that time, including the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2017, Abboud believes there are still things that need to change.

Information from the podcast have been added to the jail's museum.(Supplied)

"I can't help but sometimes feel like it's still the 50s and 60s when the NSW government was trying to eradicate homosexuality from the face of the earth," he said.

"That shame is still so pervasive today and the origins of it came from what happened at this prison."

He says legislation like the religious discrimination bill proves there is still a lot of work to be done to improve the livelihoods of people in the LGBTQI+ community.

Abboud hopes the podcast will encourage others to come forward with more information.(Supplied: Patrick Abboud)

"The residue of that [time] is still here," he said.

"With this horrible religious discrimination bill being brought about, that sense of shame that was impressed upon people trying to live their lives at the time, it's still here and it still lives on."

Podcast shapes storytelling

The podcast has also shaped the way history is presented at the Corrective Services NSW Museum in Cooma.

Museum manager Andrew Weglarz said they had set up displays to reflect the history uncovered by the podcast.

"We've actually set up a bit of display regarding that matter as a result of the people from the podcast because they shone the light more on the situation," Mr. Weglarz said.

"And it shows how much society has changed so dramatically over the past few years."

Abboud hopes the podcast will help propel his investigation forward and encourage change.

"Once people hear it perhaps more people will come forward with new leads and different information," he said.

"Perhaps then the investigation can continue."

The Cooma Correctional Centre is currently used as a minimum and medium-security facility.