‘Celebrating Diversity’

Few of the 1,000 lesbians and gay men who gathered at Taylor Square at around 10 pm on 24th June, 1978 could have imagined they were giving birth to the worlds largest night time gay and lesbian celebration. They had come together for a festival and street parade down Oxford Street, then becoming the centre of Sydney’s gay night life.

The parade was the final event of the Sydney gay movements participation in International Gay Solidarity Day. It began as a festive occasion, with people, some in costume, dancing and marching down Oxford Street. At Whitlam Square it transformed itself into a protest march when police prevented the parade from entering Hyde Park. It ended with a police blockade and riots in Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross and lesbians and gay men chanting and singing gay liberation songs outside Darlinghurst Police Station in support of the 53 arrestees inside. So the Mardi Gras tradition began.

Celebration, Visibility, Diversity. The fight for rights. By defining Mardi Gras in these terms, the 1980 public meetings laid the foundations for Mardi Gras spectacular growth throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s, and not just in the parade. In the early 1980’s a post parade party was introduced as a vehicle for fund-raising and crowd dispersal. In 1983 the Our Lives Ourselves Festival was held to coincide with Mardi Gras. That paved the way for the first Mardi Gras Festival in 1985. By the early 1990’s one Festival event, Fair Day, had established itself as the largest lesbian and gay daytime event in Australia.

With growth has come evolution. In 1988, the Sydney Gay Mardi Gras became the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. By the early 1990’s Mardi Gras appeal was moving beyond Sydney as lesbian and gay groups from other towns, other states and other countries began taking part. In 1994 the parade was televised nationally for the first time.

Of course, Mardi Gras has had its enemies. In 1984 the Sydney Anglican diocese unsuccessfully tried to prevent Mardi Gras assembling in Town Hall Square. In 1985 there were calls to cancel the parade because of the AIDS crisis. And there has always been Fred.

Mardi Gras remains a potent symbol of our resilience and determination. Mardi Gras, by bringing together the gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual and queer communities, demonstrates there is unity and strength in diversity. In celebrating Mardi Gras 25 years, we should also look towards the next quarter century with confidence and optimism.

Courtesy of Larry Galbraith - New Mardi Gras, PO Box 956
PETERSHAM NSW 2049, Ph: 02 9568 8600,