1978 gay mardi gras sydney

It all began on a chilly winter's night inwhen the police descended on a street festival bravely celebrating gay rights when homosexuality was still illegal. This oft-quoted term was popularised as early as by Dennis Altmanthe Australian academic who became a leading voice of the movement.

This timeline reveals over four decades of Mardi Gras passion, protests and pride. Little did we know then that, by the end of the night, many of us would be traumatised and our lives changed forever. The violence, unrest and resistance of the Sydney Mardi Gras of has clear parallels to Stonewall.

We were refugees in our own country. At Taylor Square, where we assembled, I was impressed by the turnout a report in The Australian estimated the crowd at about 1, people at this early stage of the night. We started off from Taylor Square in a festive mood.

I was one of them. The NSW Parliament is expected to debate a motion to offer such an apology in the first sitting of Parliament in To answer this question, some understanding of the prevailing oppressive social conditions affecting the lives of sexual minorities now termed LGBTIQ communities in Australia in the s and 70s is required.

The morning march The first Mardi Gras held on June 24, was planned as an addition to the morning demonstration to mark the anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York in At the time, the lesbian and gay community in San Francisco were fighting the Briggs Initiative, which was a push to remove anyone who supported lesbian and gay rights from the school system.

All through history, cities have offered people like me a measure of escape from oppression and persecution. Photo: Sallie Colechin Diane Minnis and Kate Harrison were among an "upswell of activism" in the first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Mardi Gras is one of Australia’s most famous and well-loved events, bringing tens of thousands of visitors to Sydney to join in the celebrations.

But what began one night in June,with a large.

The first Mardi Gras

The first Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney started in a way that now feels familiar: costumes, dancing and a pervasive sense of pride. The first Sydney Mardi Gras in was held during the nine-year anniversary month of the Stonewall riots in New York.

The early rainbow nature of the movement was evident, with transgender and Aboriginal people and people from migrant backgrounds all mixing in. Altman continues today to chronicle and interpret the movement. Sydney Mardi Gras in Image: Sallie Colechin Sydney Mardi Gras in Image: Sallie Colechin On April 27,Christine Foster, a Liberal Party councillor and the sister of the then Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, moved a motion at the Sydney City Council calling for a formal apology to the original gay and lesbian Mardi Gras.

We were a diverse and spirited group of a few hundred mostly younger men and women ready to march down Oxford Street to Hyde Park, along a strip that was becoming the centre of gay life in the city. The real unspoken tragedy of the times was the loss of the lives of so many wonderful young people who struggled with their sexual identities and, unable to deal with all the pain and shame inflicted on them, ended up committing suicide.

The lesbian and gay. It was passed unanimously. For the those who were subjected to electric shock treatment in the s at the old Prince Henry Hospital in Little Bay, it could even mean losing your mind. Chants rippled along the marchers, strangers joined hands and we sought to bring people out of the bars and into the streets to join us.

The atmosphere was more one of celebration than protest. But ineven in a big city like Sydney, refuge and security could not always be found and, without even basic human rights, we were always vulnerable. On a cold Saturday night in Sydney on June 24,a number of gay men, lesbians and transgender people marched into the pages of Australian social history.

Several protests and demonstrations were organised during June that year to commemorate the Stonewall riot in New York and to demand civil rights for Australian lesbians and gay men. Mark Gillespie was one of them. Having arrived in Sydney seeking refuge from the never-ending police state of mind that was life under the Joh Bjelke-Petersen Queensland government, I was renting a studio flat in Crown Street, Darlinghurst, at the time.

Some did come out of the bars and joined us; others lined up and watched the parade but did not join in. What is needed, too, is a better knowledge of the actual, momentous events that took place in Sydney between June and Augustwhen violent social unrest and public protests on the streets erupted with far-reaching effects for Australia that can now be seen in historical context.

Gay activists in San Francisco had asked the Gay Solidarity Group in Sydney for support in their campaigns in California and the word had got out.