The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is an annual pride parade in Sydney, New South Wales attended by hundreds of thousands of people from around Australia and overseas. Mardi Gras is the largest gay and lesbian event in Oceania. It first began as a protest for gay and lesbian people in 1978. In 2019, an attempt was made to alter the name to include more groups under the queer umbrella, but this was voted down by the gay and lesbian members, who wanted the event to remain exclusive. This decision was met by disappointment from especially bisexual Australians, who consider it a form of Bisexual erasure.

The Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras is one of Australia's biggest tourist drawcards, with the parade and dance party attracting many international and domestic tourists. It is New South Wales' second-largest annual event in terms of economic impact, generating an annual income of about 30 million for the state.

Since the mid 1990's the parade has had an average of around 200,000 to 250,000 people viewing it along the parade route with around 150 to 180 floats and around 10,000 to 12,000 participants in the parade each year. The entire Mardi Gras festival, which runs for around 2 to 3 weeks in conjunction with the parade each year, has around 30,000 visitors who travel from outside Sydney to attend each year. In 2023 when Sydney also hosted Sydney WorldPride the Mardi Gras festival had 310,000, people attend its events, which included large scale events such as the WorldPride opening ceremony in the Domain, Fair Day, the Mardi Gras after party and Bondi Beach party. In 2023 there were also 103,800 people who visited Sydney for the festival and 21,000 of those people were international visitors.

The event has grown from gay rights parades that were held annually since 1978, when numerous participants were arrested by New South Wales Police Force. The Mardi Gras Parade maintains a political flavour, with many marching groups and floats promoting gay and lesbian rights issues or themes. Reflecting changes since the first Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras, participants in the Mardi Gras Parade now include groups of uniformed Australian Defence Force personnel, police officers from New South Wales Police Force, as well as interstate and federal police officers, firefighters and other emergency services personnel. However, this remains a controversial topic among the community, with many objecting to the inclusion of police. Marriage equality was a dominant theme in the 2011 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade with at least 15 floats lobbying for same-sex marriage.

Since 2009, the NSW government Labor and Liberal have both given funding to The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

In 2019 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras submitted a bid to host WorldPride 2023 competing against Montreal, Canada and Houston, Texas. InterPride chose Sydney, Australia to host WorldPride 2023 at their Athens October 2019 Annual General Meeting of three hundred delegate organizations, the first time WorldPride was held in the Southern Hemisphere or Asia Pacific region.

History The term Mardi Gras The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, or Sydney Mardi Gras, is a celebration of gay and lesbian history and culture. It was named after, but is unrelated to, the Christian holiday of Mardi Gras.

When the first event was organised in 1978, it was conceived as a street party in an effort to host a more "positive celebration"; the term Mardi Gras had become synonymous with street festivals and so became the name for the event. Mardi Gras derives from the celebrations held on Mardi (French for "Tuesday") when Gras (French for "fat") is eaten prior to the Christian abstinence period of Lent preceding Easter.

1971 to 1973

The first LGBTQIA+ demonstration in Australia was organised by CAMP (Campaign Against Moral Persecution) and occurred on the 6th of October 1971. CAMP, which had first been established in 1970, organised the protest to take place outside the Liberal Party’s Sydney headquarters in the Sydney CBD and around 70 people turned up to protest in support of Tom Hughes, a pre-selection candidate who supported homosexual law reform.

Following this first demonstration in October 1971, CAMP continued to participate in further demonstrations for law reform challenging discrimination against the LGBTQIA+ community.

In July 1973 another LGBTQIA+ group, Sydney's Gay Liberation, came up with the idea for a Gay Pride festival to be held over one week in Sydney and they spoke about their ideas for the festival in their August 1973 issue of the Sydney Gay Liberation newsletter and after contacting groups in Melbourne, Brisbane, and Adelaide similar LGBTQIA+ festivals also occurred in these cities. The festival in Sydney took place in September, and it included a festival in the Domain, a public meeting and a speak out. The final event at the end of the week was a demonstration which included about 200 LGBTQIA+ people who marched from Sydney Town Hall to Martin Place and the 200 participants held black and pink balloons, banners and streamers and yelled out chants including "Out of the beats and onto the streets" and a total of 18 people were charged for taking part in the demonstration.

It has been commented that " ...the events of 1973, with its melding of pride and politics, formed the model on which Mardi Gras and similar pride festivals around Australia are based."

1978 to 1979

The first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras occurred on the 24 June 1978 and it consisted of a series of events that called for an end to discrimination against homosexuals in employment and housing, an end to police harassment and the repeal of all anti-homosexual lawsSydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Information Kit. 1997. and these events included a morning protest march in commemoration of the Stonewall riots as part of a global network of Gay Solidarity events as well as a night-time celebration that began on Oxford street in Darlinghurst.

Ken Davis one of the organisers and participants in these events has described what occurred on that day as follows "We sought and received police permission and hired a modest sound truck. Press publicity for gay liberation and the planned Mardi Gras was prominent in the campus and socialist newspapers, and in the then-progressive Australian. The organisers relied on letters to groups, phone calls, posters, leaflets and word-of-mouth. The Saturday morning march from Town Hall to Martin Place with 500 people was larger than any previous gay protest in Australia... ...By 10.30 pm, outside the court at Taylor Square on a cold night, we were unsure if we could get critical mass for our experiment in celebration, but eventually we set off with the small sound truck..." and as the group marched down Oxford street towards Hyde Park, the number of people rose to around 1,500 as revellers in Oxford Street bars and clubs responded to the call "Out of the bars and into the streets!".

Ken Davis further comments that "...Apart from the truck, there were no typical protest placards or banners. Only a small percentage of participants were dressed in carnival costumes..." and then "...the police decided to not observe the permit... ...The police pushed the parade fast down Oxford Street and arrested Lance Gowland, the driver of the sound truck, to prevent the planned dispersal into Hyde Park, so the 1500-strong crowd spontaneously marched down College Street and up William Street to Kings Cross. By the time the crowd was dispersing near El Alamein Fountain..." in Kings Cross 53 people were arrested. Two people who were arrested were fined. The rest were released without bail and the charges dismissed.

Although most charges were eventually dropped, The Sydney Morning Herald published the names of those arrested in full, leading to many people being outed to their friends and places of employment and many of those arrested lost their jobs as homosexuality was a crime in New South Wales until 1984.

The police response to a legal, local minority protest transformed it into a nationally significant event which stimulated gay rights and law reform campaigns and it has been commented by Ken Davis that "...the first gay Mardi Gras... ...on Saturday 24 June 1978 was a pivotal moment... ...Though there had been gay and lesbian groups and protests after 1970, for the first time gay and lesbian rights became a significant public issue, creating a momentum for reforms."

A documentary, Witches and Faggots, Dykes and Poofters, produced by Digby Duncan in 1980 tells the story of the first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and in 2018 a restored version of the documentary was screened at the 25th Mardi Gras Film Festival in Sydney, Brisbane's Queer Film Festival and at the National Film and Sound Archive's Arc cinema in Canberra.

The second Mardi Gras Parade occurred the following year in 1979 despite receiving opposition from gay media, businesses and groups and it again recognised the Stonewall Riots of 1969 as well as commemorating the first mardi gras the previous year. It had the theme of Power in the Darkness and there were 3,000 people who participated in the second parade. While there was a large police presence for it there were no arrests made. In 1979 the Labor Government of New South Wales, led by Neville Wran, also repealed the under which the arrests in 1978 were made.

Senior elected officers 1978 Garry Bennett (Spokesperson) 1981–82 Brian McGahen (Chairperson) 1982–83 Brian McGahen (Chairperson) 1983–84 Brian McGahen (Director) 1984–85 Bill Whittaker (Chairman)Damian Furlong (Chairman) 1985–86 Bill Whittaker (Chairman) 1986–87 Bill Whittaker (President, until September 1986)Murray McLachlan (President, from September 1986) 1987–88 Murray McLachlan (President) 1988–89 Murray McLachlan (President) 1989–90 Cath Phillips (President) 1990–91 Cath Phillips (President, until November 1990)Colin Fawcett (President, until June 1991)Richard Cobden (President, from June 1991) 1991–92 Richard Cobden (President) 1992–93 Susan Harben (President) 1993–94 Susan Harben (President) 1994–95 Rob Patmore (President)Source: A history of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Poster designers 1978 Chris Jones 1979 Fine Arts Workshop, Sydney University 1980 Prue Borthwick 1981 Sheona White, printed by Lucifoil Posters 1982 Andrew Short 1983 Allan Booth 1984 Allan Booth 1985 Peter Tully (Parade), Allan Booth (Party), Phil Jacobs (Festival) 1986 David McDiarmid 1987 Michael Fenaughty 1988 David McDiarmid 1989 Phillip McGrath 1990 David McDiarmid 1991 Geoffrey Gifford 1992 Phillipa Playford 1993 Kendal Baker 1994 Glenn A Moffat 1995 Pierre et Gilles 1996 Darian Zam (Illustration), Brendan Williamson (Design) 1997 Suzanne Boccalatte (Art Direction and Design) 1998 David Corbet, Andrew Medhurst and Bryce Tuckwell, Design Nation 1999 Wendy Neill and Tanja Dunster, 10 Design 2000 Marita Leuver, Leuver Design 2001 Marita Leuver, Leuver Design 2002 Norman Edwards 2003 trigger design (Greg Anderson) 2004 Brett Bush 2005 Guy Campbell 2006 Guy Campbell 2007 Francisco Fisher 2008 Joel Wassermann, Gwarsh 2009 Lewis Oswald 2010 Scott Elk (season creative) Helen White (Photography) Lewis Oswald (designer) 2011 Ethel Yarwood (design concept), Techa Noble and Benja Harney (artwork) Lewis Oswald (designer) 2012 Lewis Oswald 2013 Lewis Oswald 2014 Lewis Oswald (creative director), Peter Novotny (season creative)Source: A history of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras

1980 to 1999