As we were so busy in February, and a number of us have had Covid, this March edition of the First Mardi Gras Inc. Newsletter, covers events in February 2023 including:
- David Abello, Diane Minnis and Karl Zlotkowski on Voices from 1978 The first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
- Robyn Kennedy on Key to the City Presented to LGBTIQ+ Activists
- Richard Thode on Fair Day at the 78ers Tent
- Diane Minnis on Pride Pioneers Bus Tour
- Ken Davis on 78ers Cocktail Party
- Karl Zlotkowski and Sue Fletcher on Mardi Gras Parade
- City Hub report on Protest at George Pell’s funeral
- Ken Davis and Diane Minnis on the Lord Mayor’s Plaque Commemorating the First Mardi Gras
- First Mardi Gras Inc.’s Pre-Mardi Gras Lunch
- Photos from Woollahra Council’s Progress Pride Flag Raising
- Robert French on the 34th Annual Sisters of Perpetual indulgence Living History Walk
- Rebbell Barnes and Bill Ashton on How to get your 78ers badges
- Calendar of Events.
Instead of a Lunch on Sunday 2 April, we will have a Brunch at 11am, Klub Satellite, corner Brown and Wilson Streets Newtown. RSVP: davidpabello@gmail.com.
The next First Mardi Gras Inc. General Meeting is at 4pm, Saturday 22 April 2023 by Zoom. The next 78ers Lunch is on at 12pm, Sunday 7 May 2023, Terminus Hotel, Pyrmont, downstairs room, RSVP: info@78ers.org.au.
Thanks to Sandra Gobbo for additional photo research.
Diane Minnis
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| We are taking the 78ers banner to this Pride in Protest organised march and rally. Join us at the Newtown Hub (opposite the station) on Sunday, 2 April, from 1-3pm. |
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We were delighted to launch our book Voices from 1978 The first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, from the main stage at Fair Day on Sunday 19 February. We wove together the stories of over 30 people with photos to tell the saga of the first Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and Drop the Charges campaign.
This was an opportunity to thank our other writer Ken Davis, editor Graeme Head and designer Hannah Evans as well as all those who contributed their stories and photos.
We couldn’t have done this without financial support from sponsors Box Bar and Prohibition Liquor Co and their special edition Spirit of Pride Gin, and Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
At the 78ers Tent, we sold nearly 100 copies of the 104 page, A5 book. You can get your copy for $15 plus $5 postage from Orders — First Mardi Gras (78ers.org.au) or buy it from The Bookshop Darlinghurst for $19.99. The Bookshop also does overseas orders, but best to email info@thebookshop.com.au for a postage quote.
The next day we received this lovely message from Betty Hounslow: Just want to say congrats and thanks for all your work in writing and producing the book! I read it last night and it's fantastic. Puts the four ‘formal 78er’ events in their political context – both before and after – and is a much more comprehensive and sophisticated account than we're ever had before. And the seamless weaving in of the voices adds to its compelling history. So...a thousand bouquets!
William Brougham’s launch video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJjluceXa90
David Abello, Diane Minnis and Karl Zlotkowski
78ers and First Mardi Gras Inc. Committee Member, Co-Chair and Secretary
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On Friday 17 February Lord Mayor Clover Moore presented the Key to the City to Robyn Kennedy who accepted it on behalf of LGBTIQ+ activists. Here is Robyn’s speech.
It is a great honour to accept this key, which I accept on behalf of past and present heroes of the Pride movement; on behalf of our pioneer activists, our advocates, our AIDS carers, our community historians, and photographers who have kept our lived experience relevant and vital.
And our creative community who continue to drive a vibrant and unique queer culture of inclusion, diversity and of course, over the top fabulousness.
Who else could have started a party that’s still going 45 years later?
It was only a little over 50 years ago that CAMP was founded, here in Sydney. The organisation that staged Australia’s first gay and lesbian rights demonstration right here in the city in 1971. And what a very different world it was then – and what courage it took to refuse to stay hidden in the shadows, to refuse to feel shame, to step out shouting proudly, I am What I Am.
I was 21 when I found CAMP. CAMP not only changed my life; it saved my life. And that reality of our existence is as true today as it was then.
And how much we have achieved – we forced decriminalisation of homosexuality, we made governments face the AIDS crisis, we fought until discrimination against us was illegal, and until our children could not be removed simply because of our sexuality. We won the right to have our relationships treated equally. We paved the way for evolving definitions of gender and identity.
And we haven’t stopped yet. Just yesterday our first Pride Museum opened its doors.
All these victories have been hard fought, often at the cost of significant personal sacrifice, but being fearless is at the heart of everything we do – our 78ers are shining examples of standing your ground against overwhelming odds.
We created a society where every single year since 1978 sequined dancers, drag queens and revelers across age, nationality, gender, and identity come together to celebrate our community, while also breaking the world record for the number of stilettos discarded in one night.
Let’s also remember that our achievements have always drawn on the support of allies – an ever growing list of allies – including unwavering supporters over decades, individuals like our Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, who, with the counsellors and staff of the City of Sydney, have contributed to making the Sydney Mardi Gras Festival the best of its kind in the world, and to making what will be the best WorldPride ever held.
Our role now is to continue to live the motto that has carried us through the decades – an army of lovers and allies can never be defeated.
Happy Mardi Gras! Happy World Pride!
Robyn Kennedy
78er and First Mardi Gras Inc. Committee Member
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For this year’s Fair Day at Victoria Park, SGLMG’s 78ers Committee negotiated a much-improved 78ers tent location with the organisers and we were in the thick of things, adjacent to Pride History Group and Mature Aged Gays … and very close to toilets, a definite bonus for some of us!
All 78ers were of course welcome at the tent and we enjoyed both our own company – catching up with old friends – and the company of many enthusiastic visitors both young and old(er), including many overseas visitors here for Sydney WorldPride. The tent became very hot and stuffy early on, but an enterprising 78er opened the rear flap of the tent allowing a decent airflow.
Richard Thode
78er and First Mardi Gras Inc. Treasurer
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Our Bus Tour with Sydney Pride Pioneers was an event in the Pride Amplified program – a fringe festival during the Sydney World Pride and Mardi Gras season. We were thankful for the fee waiver for Not for Profit organisations, box office ticketing services and our event listing in the printed guide and website.
The event was a two-hour tour of the route of the first Mardi Gras with talks outside the bus at Taylor Square, El Alamein Fountain, Kings Cross and the old Darlinghurst Police Station. We conducted two tours a day for four days – on 23, 24, 27 and 28 February.
Our advertising seemed to strike a chord with participants, many from interstate and overseas. There was a good roll-up, particularly on our last few tours. We had lots of positive feedback from participants.
Join the 78ers, the activists who fought back against Police in 1978, for a unique bus adventure touring significant historical sites from the first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. You will hear from activists who took part in this event, on 24 June 1978, and the protests and Drop the Charges campaign that followed.
There was a good roll-up, particularly on our last few tours. We had lots of positive feedback from participants which translated into book and badge sales and requests for photos and book signings.
It was hard to tell the story of what happened at key first Mardi Gras sites and several presenters became emotional at times. Big thanks to those who worked with me to present the tours, those who added commentary and people who sold books and badges and wrangled the box and sign – Fiona Hulme, Ken Davis, Robyn Kennedy, Rebbell Barnes, Richard Thode, Karl Zlotkowski, Barry Charles, Bob Harvey, Michael Fenaughty and Fabian LoSchiavo.
Barry McKay videoed out last bus tour and edited it into this one-hour YouTube. 78ers tour of key sites of the 1978 Mardi Gras, Sydney World Pride, March 2023 - YouTube
Diane Minnis
78er and First Mardi Gras Inc. Co-Chair
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In welcoming people to the 78ers Cocktail Party on Thursday 23 February, I spoke about celebrating eight things.
Firstly, our pioneers who have died: Sue Wills, Sandi Banks, Lex Watson, Richard Wilson, Kendall Lovett, Ron Austin, Lance Gowland, Marg McMann, Peter Bonsall-Boone, and others.
This year we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first national Gay Pride Week in 1973, when I came out in school uniform. I met Penny Gulliver, Diane Minnis, Katy O’Rourke, Terry Batterham, Richard Wilson, Dennis Freney, Lance Gowland, Richard Jessop, Terry Rolfe, Jeff McCarthy and others. Australian psychiatrists ceased to view homosexuality as a pathology. The Builder’s Labourer’s Federation strike for Jeremy Fisher at Macquarie University was the first time in the world a union went on strike to defend a homosexual who was not a member. Later that year there was a similar struggle at Macquarie Uni when Penn Short lost her teachers’ scholarship for a lesbian poem.
We mark the 45th anniversary of 24 June1978 and the first Mardi Gras – inaugurating a new level of struggle for freedom, and looking forward to our 46th Parade in a couple of days.
We are also remembering our unfinished agenda; our struggle goes on – not only about law reforms but about power and about defeating the structures of class, sexism, heterosexism, racism, colonialism and ecocide.
It’s time to celebrate our 78ers generation and our diverse commitment and contributions to social justice in all its forms, through our working and political and artistic lives.
And we celebrate the vitality of the current international struggle. Wherever democratic space is diminished by autocracy, queers suffer: Iran, Afghanistan, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Uganda, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines, China. But at least Trump and Bolsonaro have gone.
Let’s celebrate the contributions of the elected 78ers committee for SGLMG past and present, currently: Sue Fletcher, Diane Minnis, Penny Gulliver, Karl Zlotkowski, Rebbell Barnes, Helen Gollan and all their work on Fair Day and Parade.
Tonight, we are celebrating our organisation. First Mardi Gras Inc. is politically diverse, with volunteers working hard on achievements in social media, website, newsletter, the new book and bus tours. Our Annual Reports show democracy, transparency and accountability. If you are a 78er and not a member, join up! Thanking Sandra Gobbo, Em Cunningham, Anne Morphett, Robyn Kennedy, Karl Zlotkowski, Richard Thode, David Abello, Sue Fletcher, Diane Minnis and Rebbell Barnes.
The First Mardi Gras Inc. 78ers Cocktail Party would not have been possible without Diageo Australia who kindly hosted us in their function centre in Macquarie Street, Sydney and provided most of the drinks. Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras supplied the beer and Sydney WorldPride contributed to the cost of food catering. We thank these organisations for supporting our Cocktail Party on the 45th Anniversary of the first Mardi Gras.
Ken Davis
78er and First Mardi Gras Inc. Co-Chair
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2023 Parade – the Good and the Bad
This year our parade was back where it belongs on Oxford Street after two years at the Sydney Cricket Ground. This was something we all looked forward to, especially given that it was our 45th anniversary, and a near record number of 78ers turned out to celebrate.
The SGLMG 78ers Committee spent months beforehand working with the SGLMG Workshop and Parade teams to deliver an event that presented the 78ers front-and-centre as the elders of the Mardi Gras community. Our parade entry is about celebrating the 78er contribution to the struggles of the past and our leadership in the struggles of the present. It is also a chance for later Mardi Gras generations to demonstrate their acknowledgement and respect for those who have gone before.
In 2023 we achieved this, but only just. The Parade itself was as fabulous as ever, because we made it so – after all the 78ers know better than anyone else how to march on Oxford Street. There were over 150 of us, out of the 220 who registered, and we continued with our ongoing theme of celebrating 50 Years of Visibility with placards highlighting events from 1973.
This year we added some big political slogans on the side of the bus: Unsolved Hate Murders - Why?, Russia Out of Ukraine! and Indigenous Voice – Yes!. And a few personal contributions made an appearance, including a scaled up colour reproduction of the famous Love Has No Discrimination placard from the night of 24 June 1978. A small Hello Woy Woy! sign also appeared.
The crowd this year were very close – just an arm’s length away. The path up Oxford Street was narrower than in the past, in order to accommodate a larger crowd on the open roadway, and this unexpectedly brought us all closer together. There was an intimacy (a very loud intimacy) that we could never have felt at the Cricket Ground. Viewed from the air there are moments when the parade almost seems lost in the embrace of the crowd.
All this was wonderful, which made up in part for several totally avoidable stuff-ups before the Parade began and (notably) at the end. The event was ticketed, with tickets promised to be released three days before the event, but they didn’t arrive till that afternoon - why? Access, security and crowd control in Hyde Park were, as usual, chaotic if non-existent despite years of experience - why?
It was at the end of the parade, though, that SGLMG failed the 78ers absolutely. We have a reserved seating area at the end, from which we can catch our breath and watch the rest of the parade. This year a decision was taken to limit this to 100 places, despite the fact that more than this could surely be expected in an anniversary year. When 220 people registered to march SGLMG refused to change their plans and our parade group was split, with the remainder obliged to stumble on to be lost in the darkness of Moore Park with no signage or guidance from SGLMG marshals to help them on their way.
The parade ended, as it began, in chaos that was entirely predictable and avoidable. The disrespect shown towards the elders of the Mardi Gras community by SGLMG has been noted, and the 78ers Committee have made this clear to Mardi Gras and will make sure this doesn’t happen again in 2024.
But all of this was worth it to be back on the street again!
Karl Zlotkowski
78er and First Mardi Gras Inc. Secretary
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Taking care of each other – do we need to do better?
One of the things I think I realised in my youth was that mostly, we were good at taking care of each other. We took care of each other at the first Mardi Gras and during the Drop the Charges Campaign. We took care of each other in subsequent parades and political action, we took care of each other if we were drunk or out of it. We took care of each other with HIV/AIDS. We are a very broad community with divergent opinions and passions, but we mostly take care of each other when we are under attack.
The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade often can see over-policing or police officers being overly enthusiastic (tongue in cheek commentary). For many years we have read about post-parade heavy-handed policing. I witnessed some during the parade and the outcome surprised all of us. Let me talk you through it.
During the parade directly opposite the Sideshow 78er seating area we could see two Koori women and one Koori male spectators being ‘talked to’ by police. The police had been standing right in front of them and blocking their view of the parade. We could see that it was escalating and one of the women was becoming quite agitated. The police started to remove them from the spectator area. I looked around and saw a senior police officer and a younger female police officer in our seating area so I approached them. I asked them if they could de-escalate the situation happening with their officers and the Kooris on the other side.
Police response: “that is what our officers are trying to do”.
My response “the Kooris are reacting to the uniform”.
Police response: “the officers are de-escalating, they are dealing with it”.
My response: “are you sure the Officers are de-escalating or are they escalating. We are watching this”.
The police officers removed the three Kooris. We opened our barricade and were able to get the most agitated woman in. The police I spoke with allowed the other two into our area. The man had a panic attack and was extremely distressed. We stayed with him and reassured them being with us was safe. We encouraged them to sit with us and view the parade. Shortly later the young female officer I spoke with walked up to me and thanked me for resolving the situation. I saw the senior officer speak with the younger police that had removed the Kooris – in effect evicting them from the viewing area. We didn’t get badge numbers, but the officer that was the most aggressive had an Irish accent and pale hair, so he was easily identified. To our utter amazement he came up to the Koori woman and apologised to her and said ‘he was being reactive and he was sorry’. It was strange, but clearly he had been reprimanded.
The woman was crying; she was scared for her male relative and what the police might do to him. They stayed with us and their night went from being scary to a good night, because we created a safe space for them. Because we know how to look after each other, because we could identify that a situation could turn really ugly quickly, but we also have a responsibility to intercept it.
Taking care of each other means respect for everyone, whether it is someone you don’t know or someone you may vaguely know. All 78ers marching received an email with Parade instructions. While there were issues with some things communicated from Mardi Gras, those instructions included a message of respect and acceptable behaviour. I acknowledge there are members of our community that may have mental health challenges, but respect and taking care of each other doesn’t include abusing organisers or yelling at Committee members. We can be better than that.
Let’s do better next year. Happy Mardi Gras!
Sue Fletcher
78er and First Mardi Gras Inc. Committee Member
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LGBTQ+ protesters took over College and Oxford Street protesting the late Cardinal George Pell while his funeral service ran on the morning of Thursday 2 March.
Prior to the rally, NSW Police sought a court injunction to attempt to prevent protesters from holding a protest outside Pell’s funeral at St Mary’s Cathedral on the basis of “safety” concerns. However, police backflipped on their initial decision after negotiations between them and Community Action For Rainbow Rights (CARR) organisers found an alternative route for the rally.
While Cardinal Pell was farewelled with a Requiem Mass at St Mary’s Cathedral, protesters gathered at Hyde Park yelling chants including, “George Pell, go to Hell. Take Dutton there as well!”
Co-Chair of First Mardi Gras Inc. Ken Davis criticised Pell as “not only outrageous in terms of what he did as an abuser” but also what he did by “enabling exploitation and sexual abuse in structures of church nationally and internationally”.
He asserted an importance in removing government funding from religious institutions, referencing the problem of Pell’s “relationship to real structures of power”.
“The solution is not simply to oppose legislation against Religious Discrimination. It’s not simply to say people in religious schools or religious health services or youth services should not be discriminated against. The point is to remove government funding from these services totally. These services should be in control of the community or the government and should be held accountable as public services,” Davis said.
City Hub
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First Mardi Gras Inc. was consulted by the City of Sydney about a plaque to commemorate the first Mardi Gras. Most of our suggestions were incorporated and we are happy with the final wording.
A temporary plaque was mounted on a pole in the Kinselas side of Taylor Square in time for this year’s Mardi Gras season. The permanent plaque is due to be installed on the 45th anniversary in June 2023. We have suggested that the plaque be installed near the courthouse – where the first Parade assembled.
Ken Davis and Diane Minnis
78ers and First Mardi Gras Inc. Co-Chairs
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On Saturday 18 February, the 34th annual Sisters of Perpetual indulgence Living History Walk on Oxford Street, saw a smaller crowd of 25, including my friends John and John from NY. But there was also a larger participation of Sisters in quite a while, some of whom, like Fabian LoSchiavo and Peter Mitchell, are activist colleagues who go way back. The heat was a bit much (and I did almost faint at one point), but the audience seemed to enjoy it. Despite health issues, I'm glad I did it but, honestly, I'm not sure just how many more of these presentations I have left in me.
Robert French
78er and First Mardi Gras Inc. Member
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78er badges and our new Always an Ally badges are $5 each and postage is $3.09 (total $8.09). Postage is still $3.09 for up to five badges. To order badges, email your name, postal address and the number of badges required to info@78ers.org.au. Then make your payment by funds transfer. Use your name as the deposit reference. You can also post a cheque to PO Box 1029 Glebe NSW 2037.
Rebbell Barnes
78ers and First Mardi Gras Inc. Committee Member
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Calendar of Events
- First Mardi Gras Inc. 78ers Brunch – 11 am, Sunday 2 April 2023, Klub Satellite, corner Brown and Wilson Streets Newtown. RSVP: davidpabello@gmail.com
- Pride in Protest Trans Day of Visibility March & Rally – 1-3pm, Sunday, 2 April 2023, Newtown Hub (opposite the station)
- First Mardi Gras Inc. General Meeting 4pm, Saturday 22 April 2023 by Zoom
- First Mardi Gras Inc. 78ers Lunch – 12pm, Sunday 7 May 2023, Terminus Hotel, Pyrmont, downstairs room, RSVP: info@78ers.org.au
- Tropical Fruits (Lismore) Easter Party – April TBC 2023, Events - Tropical Fruits
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Broken Heel Festival, Broken Hill – 7-11 September 2023, Broken Heel Festival (bhfestival.com)
- Sapphire Coast Pride, Bega Valley, www.Facebook.com/groups/sapphirecoastpride
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