Queer Trans-Tasman Mobility, Then and Now

This article situates queer mobility within wider historical geographies of trans-Tasman flows of goods, people and ideas. Using case studies of women’s and men’s experiences during the early twentieth century and the twenty-first century, it shows that same-sex desire is a constituent part of these flows and, conversely, Antipodean mobility has fostered particular forms of desire, sexual identity, and queer community and politics. Particular landscapes, rural and urban, in both New Zealand and Australia, have shaped queer desire in a range of diverging and converging ways. Shifting political, legal and social landscapes across New Zealand and Australia have wrought changes in trans-Tasman travel over time. This investigation into the circuits of queer trans-Tasman mobility both underscores and urges wider examinations of the significance of trans-Tasman crossings in queer lives, both historically and in contemporary society