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As we approach the 24 June anniversary of the first Mardi Gras in 1978, we are in unprecedented times. We are constrained from all but small gatherings, disgusted by police brutality both here and overseas and see an extraordinary upsurge in Black Lives Matter protests around the world.
With hundreds of Pride marches and events cancelled, the 24-hour, online Global Pride 2020 on 27 June will be the world's biggest Pride celebration.
In this edition of the First Mardi Gras Inc. Newsletter, we have:
- our joint statement with First Nations Rainbow
- Ken Davis on The new pandemic
- Robyn Kennedy on Global Pride 2020 and its Black Lives Matter focus
- Robert French with updates to Fifty fabulous years of LGBTIQ visibility and achievement events
- notice of a Regional and Rural Outreach meeting from SGLMG 78ers Committee members Helen Golan and Sallie Colechin
- sad news of the death of leading Egyptian activist Sarah Hegazi.
Diane Minnis
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Joint Statement on Black Lives Matter protests
First Nations people and 78ers looked on with disgust at the police behaviour following the first Black Lives Matter rally in Sydney, earlier this month.
After a legal, approved rally proceeded without incident, police forced a crowd at Central Station into the narrow suburban concourse on Eddy Avenue and surrounded them. The crowd was not allowed (or even ordered) to disperse.
Instead these people were forced in upon themselves with no regard for the social distancing that the police claimed to be upholding. The result was panic and outraged resistance – exactly the response that the police had intended to provoke.
Police then used violence and pepper spray on innocent people and some officers even laughed.
This long standing NSW police tactic is one 78ers remember well – when protesters were trapped, bashed and arrested in Kings Cross by police on 24 June 1978. It wasn’t right then, and it isn’t right now.
78ers have now received an apology from the Police Commissioner for the behaviour of NSW Police in 1978. But the NSW Police have demonstrated that they have not changed.
First Nations people were there rallying in protest, as we have many times before, calling for justice, calling for freedom, demanding that the police and justice systems stop killing us.
First Nations people experience individual and systemic racism, discrimination and injustice throughout our lands. We endure over-policing of our communities and suffer from the disproportionate incarceration rates of our people. We witness the ongoing destruction of our sacred and cultural sites. We grieve the more than 400 deaths in custody since the Royal Commission. We have not seen justice for these crimes against our people.
Despite so many of our people at the rally being personally impacted by these injustices, the Black Lives Matter protest in Sydney proceeded without incident. People committed to social distancing and other infection control measures.
Our communities were passionate but peaceful. The police were not.
The NSW Police Force’s actions added trauma and further injustice to a day where our communities were exercising their human right to protest against the lethal racism we face.
As LGBTQI First Nations people, we know the compounding of discrimination puts us at further risk from police. The fear for our communities, our loved ones and us in relation to the police and justice system’s discrimination and violence is real, ongoing and current.
Those protesters at Central Station deserve an apology. First Nations people deserve apologies and need urgent systemic change to stop the targeting of their communities by police and the justice system and to stop deaths in custody.
First Nations Rainbow and First Mardi Gras Inc. stand together to say that Black Lives Matter!
The slogan of the 78ers – STOP POLICE ATTACKS! ON GAYS, WOMEN AND BLACKS! – is still relevant today and just as urgent.
First Nations Rainbow First Mardi Gras Inc.
admin@firstnationsrainbow.org.au info@78ers.org.au
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Membership renewals
Thank you to all those who have responded to our renewal drive for First Mardi Gras Inc. membership and to those who have updated their contact details.
Many have moved to distant locations. Our ‘diaspora’ is spreading far across the country and overseas. We would like to maintain strong contact with all 78ers so that we can properly represent your interests when working with Mardi Gras and other organisations.
One of our members, Ross Smith, was recently in hospital for more than 2 months. Anyone who knows Ross might like to contact him, though he has no email address at present.
The Committee send their best wishes to Ross for his full and speedy recovery.
Barry Charles - Membership Coordinator
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Congratulations to Frank Howarth AM
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Congratulations to FMG Inc. member Frank Howarth who was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
Frank told us: I've always been someone who thrives on change and doing my little bit to make the world a better place. This was what motivated my participation in the 78 Mardi Gras, and drives my work in the arts, museums and galleries sector.
I'm extremely chuffed to have received the AM in recognition of that work. Creativity is at the heart of the cultural sector, and interestingly, the most creative people I know are in the LGBTI community. And I could not have done this without the support of my partner Peter McCarthy!
Frank Howarth (left), Peter McCarthy (right)
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Jakub and David (@jakubidawid) wandered the tri-city towns of Gdańsk, Gdynia and Sopot on a mission to remove the stigma of homosexuality after 30 LGBTQ-free zones were declared around Poland in August 2019. Photo courtesy of Sydney Star Observer.
The day after our 43rd Mardi Gras parade, Australia saw its first COVID-19 fatality. Within a brief period, travel and work and schools and social life closed down.
COVID-19 is a global emergency riding the top of the waves of the climate crisis, and the existing economic and geo-political crisis.
Most 78ers are particularly vulnerable because of age and health status, so the imposed and self-directed isolation has been intense. For those of us living with HIV, COVID-19 poses particular issues; see 78er, Ross Duffin’s article: https://napwha.org.au/positive/covid-19-vaccines-treatments-and-people-with-hiv.
For most of us the sudden change has been very profound: not going to work, not seeing friends or family, not being able to access face-to-face services, not going to restaurants, films, concerts, sports, funerals or demonstrations. Our meetings have gone online. For those of us cohabiting, lockdown might have caused increased interpersonal tensions, for those living alone, unprecedented social isolation may be a bleak experience.
Mainstream guidance on social distancing was silent about personal intimacies with people who are not your cohabitants or monogamous partners. Initially LGBTIQ and HIV community organisations were reticent to talk explicitly about casual sex and drugs in this pandemic. Gay businesses, sex on premises venues and sex work closed and even the apps wound down.
The economic impacts on our 78ers’ generation/s are as yet uncalculated: loss of working incomes, superannuation, assets, entitlements, services or security. Some sectors, such as hospitality and the arts are devastated. On the other hand, the wealth of the super-rich has massively increased in 2020.
With migration, labour and student migration, partner and refugee applications frozen, the situation of LGBTIQ non-residents is critical, either in Australia or overseas.
COVID-19 reawakens our collective trauma and grief of the four decade long AIDS pandemic, which kills 800,000 globally each year, despite treatments. Comparisons with HIV require caution. HIV is transmissible but not contagious (and therefore more easily prevented through behaviour change), has a potentially very long period of infectivity, has higher fatality rates over much longer timescale, but is now treatable. Unfortunately our friend Trump “mis-spoke” about having an HIV vaccine already. Fortunately for us, apart from some fringe Christian extremists, this is an epidemic not being blamed on sexuality and gender identity minorities.
But there are lessons for this pandemic from AIDS about community and mass mobilisation. There is a need to build on the victories about keeping the intellectual property of the virus, testing, treatments and vaccines freely available internationally in public ownership, so that Big Pharma cannot profiteer and restrict access to those who can pay. COVID-19 highlights health access inequalities and reinforces the need for public health to be in public control.
The Coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated racism and xenophobia in Australia and globally, eliciting strong fightbacks. On a deeper global level, the pandemic comes at a time of receding democratic space, a world controlled by science-denying, religious, ultra-nationalist, demagogic monsters – Trump, BoJo, Bolsonaro, Modi, Xi Jinping, Erdogan, Duterte, Sisi, Netanyahu, Orban, Bin Zayed, Duda, Bin Salman…. and our own Pentecostal Scomo. This reactionary and authoritarian climate poses existential threats to the freedom of LGBTIQ people and communities in many countries. Think of what is happening in the legislative agenda right now in USA, Poland, Indonesia and Hungary. We must gear up our international solidarity activism, much like we did at the time of the first Mardi Gras in 1978.
In the northern hemisphere, the annual LGBTIQ freedom/pride season around the Stonewall anniversary in late June or early July has gone virtual. Global Pride 2020 is online, and focussing in solidarity with Black Lives Matter. See the following article for our engagement with Global Pride. Despite COVID-19 restrictions, and spurred by anti-police and anti-racism mobilisations, several alternative Queer Pride demonstrations are planned, or have been held, for example in Hollywood, Denver and Brooklyn. This is addition to visible queer participation in Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Australia, Europe and the Americas.
Ken Davis
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Global Pride 2020 – Black Lives Matter
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on Pride organisations worldwide with hundreds of marches and events cancelled or postponed. On Saturday 27 June, Pride organisations from across the world will celebrate Global Pride 2020.
#BlackLivesMatter will be the central focus of Global Pride. Global Pride leaders have said they will amplify black voices, acknowledging the international response to the death of George Floyd and the unprecedented demand for racial justice by working with founders of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Co-Chair of the Global Pride organising committee, Natalie Thompson, said: “As a Black woman in the LGBTQIA+ community, I feel we must confront the systemic racism and violence facing my Black brothers, sisters and non-binary siblings, in the larger culture and within the LGBQIA+ community. I could not think of a larger platform than Global Pride to do this.
“I am proud to work beside so many diverse colleagues from around the world. Our community knows well that we must confront hate and prejudice head-on. We have been watching an epidemic of violence against trans people of colour – mostly women – in the past decade and this larger discussion must be inclusive and all encompassing. All Black Lives Matter.”
Global Pride is a 24-hour stream of music, performances, speeches and messages of support, hosted by Todrick Hall on his YouTube channel on 27 June, as well as on iHeartRadio’s YouTube channel and on the Global Pride website.
Key speakers include former US Vice President Joe Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Icelandic President Guðni Jóhannesson, Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, UN Independent Expert on Protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity Victor Madrigal Borloz, and European Commissioner for Equality Helena Dalli.
Artists including Adam Lambert, Kesha, Rita Ora, The Village People, Mel C, Leann Rimes, Pussy Riot, Calum Scott, Natasha Bedingfield, Bebe Rexha, Stephen Fry, Leslie Jorden, Russell Tovey and Mary Lambert have joined the already-impressive line-up.
More than 500 Pride organisations submitted more than 1,000 pieces of content for Global Pride, and the volunteer production team are now editing the content to pull the 24 hour stream together. Global Pride is supported by partners YouTube and We Are Social, and media partners DIVA, Q.Media and Time Out.
Executive Producer for Global Pride, Michelle Meow, said: "Fifty years ago, grassroots organizations came together to plan the first Gay Liberation Day that changed the world, incuding the Daughters of Bilitis, Gay Liberation Front, Mattachine Society and Lavender Menace. The production of Global Pride has been planned in the same grassroots manner, but with a 21st century technological twist. LGBTQIA+ people from around the world will come together virtually during this crisis of racial injustice and a pandemic.”
I am the Global Pride Producer for three times zones – covering East Asia, South East Asia and Western Australia. We are bringing previously unheard Pride voices from Asia, including Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Malaysia, Myanmar, Indonesia, onto the global stage. We have content from every continent – even from Antarctica!
For an Australian perspective on Black Lives Matter, we have First Nations contributors including First Nations Rainbow and Aboriginal deaf gay artist Daniel McDonald.
We hope you're as excited as us for what is shaping up to be the world's biggest Pride celebration!
Robyn Kennedy
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Fifty fabulous years of LGBTIQ visibility and achievement
Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the postponement of several events planned to celebrate our 50th Years of LGBTIQ Visibility and Achievement.
The HomoHist Conference due for November now can’t go ahead, though it may be reprogrammed for February.
The Friendship as a Way of Life exhibition at the UNSW Galleries in Paddington, running from 8 May to 21 November, is currently a virtual exhibition only. However, it is hoped to have the Gallery opened for visitors shortly, and the proposed history walk(s) of the Taylor Square area will still go ahead. Meanwhile checkout Mother Inferior’s exorcism.
The good news is that the Being Seen and Heard: early gay and lesbian activism exhibition will open in late November and go through to 25 April 2021. The State Library will mount the exhibition in a larger gallery than was first planned.
And, Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is being approached with the proposal that the theme of next year’s parade, even if only virtual, reflect the beginnings of Visibility and Achievement. To pay homage to the early pioneers who founded CAMP Inc., the Daughters of Bilitis, the two early and independent, University Campus groups, and Sydney Gay Liberation.
Robert French
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Regional and Rural Outreach by SGLMG 78ers Committee
Dear 78ers
This is Helen Golan and Sallie Colechin from the 78ers Committee of Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Many older 78ers say they would like to be more connected to our communities, so we thought we would run a Zoom meeting to talk specifically about what support might be available especially in rural/regional areas.
If you are a 78er over 60 and live in a rural or regional area, join us on Zoom at 2pm on Saturday 11 July 2020.
We will hear from Russ Gluyas from ACON's LOVE Project - Living Older Visibly and Engaged - and social work academic, Virginia Mansel Lees. And there will be plenty of time for discussion.
Email us on helengollan@yahoo.com.au OR salliecolechin@icloud.com. If you are interested in participating and we will send you a link to join the meeting.
Cheers
Helen and Sallie
on behalf of the elected SGLMG 78ers Committee
Photo Manning River, Wingham. Copyright Sallie Colechin
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Mourning a leading Egyptian activist – Vale Sarah Hegazi
Sarah Hegazy’s death is a terrible blow to Arab and Muslim lesbian and gay activists in Australia, particularly for those who knew her personally, and for networks of queer activists across Africa and West Asia. It is a globally significant loss for the LGBTIQ freedom movement.
Sarah was found dead in her home in Toronto on 13 June. Sarah took her own life at age 30, leaving a letter that reads: “To my sisters and brothers – I tried to find redemption and failed, forgive me. To my friends – the experience was harsh and I am too weak to resist it, forgive me. To the world – you were cruel to a great extent, but I forgive.”
Sarah was a revolutionary socialist, feminist and queer activist. Sarah was transformed during the 2011 people’s revolution that overthrew Mubarak: “I never felt so alive as during the revolution”. She was dismissed from her job because of her opposition to the Western supported dictator, Sisi, who she described in an article in January as “the most oppressive and violent dictator in our modern history”.
She exuberantly carried a rainbow flag at a concert in Cairo in September 2017 by Lebanese band Mashrou’ Leyla, whose lead singer, Hamed Sinno, is gay. After the concert Sarah and 74 men were arrested for promoting sexual deviancy in a major crackdown against lesbian and gay rights. She was imprisoned and tortured for three months. She was trying to survive PTSD after she went into exile in Canada in 2018.
Hamed Sinno tweeted: irwahik alhuriat, “your soul is free”, but Sarah’s friends are distressed at the wave of denunciations in Arabic on social media, blaming her death on her politics, lack of religion, and lesbianism.
Sarah’s death underlines the urgency of solidarity with activists in countries facing deepening repression, and the specific needs of queer asylum seekers. Our condolences to her friends and comrades. Thowra mustamira Sarah rafeqa, the revolution will continue.
Ken Davis
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Graffiti in Amman, Jordan - now removed.
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OutStanding Short Story Competition
The OutStanding LGBTQIA+ short story competition 2020 has officially begun. The theme for this year is ‘Reconnection’.
For Competition Rules and Entry Form, go to: https://outstandingstories.net/entry-details/
Entries close at 11.59pm Tuesday 1 September and winners will be announced on Sunday 27 September.
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