An application to grant a NSW gay beach state heritage status has been rejected, as debate over the site’s future intensifies.
Kings Beach, located just south of Byron Bay, holds longstanding significance for the LGBTQIA+ community and has long been treated by many as a clothing-optional beach – despite not officially being one.
The beach served as a refuge for queer communities during the HIV/AIDS crisis, becoming a site for memorials, ash scatterings, and other informal gatherings.
It’s for this reason that local community members sought to have it listed as a heritage site, to “recognise and celebrate” its sandy shores.
“This is the best gay beach in the world and NSW Heritage should be proud of it. It’s hosted everything from AIDS vigils to funerals and the scattering of ashes and has huge significance for the community,” Rohan Anderson, who lodged the application, told The Sydney Morning Herald.
Anderson said he met his husband at the beach and said heritage status was needed to give the queer community a “seat at the table” in ongoing discussions about the site’s management.
“For too long we have been treated as a problem to be managed rather than a community and culture to celebrate and protect,” he told the Herald.
The Heritage Council of NSW, which assesses heritage nominations, rejected the proposal, stating the beach did “not meet the threshold” for listing.
Anderson said he had been given no specific reasons for the rejection.
The future of the beach’s unofficial clothing-optional status remains uncertain after the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) erected signs and published online material stating nudity is not permitted.
Despite this, an NPWS spokesperson told the Herald “staff are not directing people to dress”.
In a recent meeting, NPWS said it had received numerous complaints relating to safety and discomfort from members of the public due to “public sexual activity and inappropriate behaviours”.
NPWS told the Herald the department recognised the LGBTQIA+ community’s connection to the beach and “does not wish this to dimmish”.
However, it said the signage reflected that the beach is not designated as a clothing-optional area under the Local Government Act.
Gay Sydney News reporter