Before Melbourne had a recognisable gay nightlife district, finding somewhere to meet could mean relying on rumour, discretion and a sympathetic publican. Pubs might tolerate gay patrons on a quiet night, but people were expected to keep a low profile. In Fitzroy, Mama Seka’s Key Club offered something different: a place where gay people could gather with greater confidence and meet one another openly.

The club was at 22 Gertrude Street, in the former Carlton Club Hotel. The Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives’ history walk describes it as a members-only club opened by Mama Seka in the 1970s, offering gay men safety and a chance to meet. A scholarly history drawing on the Archives’ records gives the more precise dates: it opened on 12 December 1978 and closed in June 1989. (latrobejournal.slv.vic.gov.au)

There is a small dating puzzle here. A 2015 ABC report places Melbourne’s first gay establishment in the early 1970s, while archival research dates the Key Club itself to late 1978. The early 1970s saw gay social life taking shape in several forms, including people meeting in pubs where staff turned a blind eye. The Key Club’s later opening date marks a particularly important step: a members-only venue where patrons could be openly gay. (latrobejournal.slv.vic.gov.au)

The club’s members-only arrangement was part of what made it feel protected. Its location was not widely publicised, and visitors had to buzz to get in. That careful entrance reflected the realities of the period. Privacy was not simply a preference; it could offer a measure of safety in a city where openly gay socialising still carried risks. (latrobejournal.slv.vic.gov.au)

The Key Club’s nights changed over time. In 1979, its disco nights ran on Fridays and Saturdays. By June 1980, the schedule had developed into Thursday nights for women, Fridays as mixed nights and Saturdays for men. The women’s night was associated with the name Squizzies, though the surviving accounts place that name and night differently at different points. Rather than one fixed programme throughout its life, the club appears to have adapted as its audiences and the local scene grew. (yarracity.vic.gov.au)

For many people, the Key Club was more than a place to dance. It offered the simple but powerful experience of being in a room where other people like you were present, where a night out did not have to be organised around concealment. The club became part of a wider change in Melbourne: from scattered, discreet meeting places towards a more visible social community, with venues, publications and activism reinforcing one another. That growth did not happen all at once, and the Key Club was one important part of it. (latrobejournal.slv.vic.gov.au)

One recollection captures the feeling better than a list of dates can. David Menadue remembered a crowded night in 1979 when the dance floor was so full that the men took off their shirts, put their arms around one another and moved together to Patrick Hernandez’s “Born to Be Alive.” It is a vivid image of a community discovering its own space: not only a night out, but a moment of ease and belonging. (latrobejournal.slv.vic.gov.au)

Mama Seka’s own story is harder to trace in the published record. The histories identify her as the operator who opened the club, but provide little biographical detail about her life. That gap is a reminder of how much community history survives through venue records, photographs and people’s memories, rather than through conventional biographies.

The building’s story has not ended with the club. The City of Yarra’s heritage study records the Key Club at 18–22 Gertrude Street as operating from 1978 to 1989, and notes that it hosted men-only, mixed and women-only nights. The former hotel is therefore not just an old Fitzroy building: it is a place connected to the work of creating a gay social world in Melbourne. (yarracity.vic.gov.au)

Mama Seka’s Key Club was not the whole story of Melbourne’s gay scene, nor was it the first occasion on which gay people met in public. Its importance lies in what it made possible: a members-only venue where people could gather more openly, find one another, dance, and begin to feel part of a community. For nearly eleven years, a door on Gertrude Street opened onto a wider world.

Tim Alderman ©️2026

Sources

Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives, Fitzroy: 2020 ALGA History Walk. 

“Aspects of Gay and Lesbian Life in Seventies Melbourne,” La Trobe Journal, no. 87 (May 2011). (latrobejournal.slv.vic.gov.au)

Simon Leo Brown, “Fitzroy walking tour to reveal queer history,” ABC News, 23 January 2015. 

City of Yarra, LGBTIQA+ Heritage Study, Part 2. (yarracity.vic.gov.au)