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THE BOOK

SYDNEY'S FIRST GAY MARDI GRAS - what brought it on and how it changed us revisits two tumultuous days that began with Sydney’s first gay Mardi Gras, followed by many in-your-face events of 1978.

 

The book

 

  • explores the decade that churned out a significant moment in our history that was so different from the rest, one that would capture the imagination of gay men and lesbians like no other,

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  • explains how Sydney’s first gay Mardi Gras came to be included in the program for International Homosexual Solidarity Day,

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  • sketches the narrative of Sydney’s first gay Mardi Gras—from Taylor Square to Hyde Park, to Kings Cross and to the Darlinghurst Police Station,

 

  • delves into the character of the event, and asks whether it was ‘political’,

 

  • deals with other public and highly political events that followed and stemmed from Sydney’s first gay Mardi Gras,

 

  • examines, among other things, the impact of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras (as it was later known) on gay men and lesbians and our movement, and

 

  • turns its focus on 2016—if 1978 was the ‘year of the homosexual’, 2016 was without any doubt the ‘year of apologies’, three apologies to be precise … one from the Sydney Morning Herald, followed by apologies from Australia’s gayest parliament and the NSW Police Force.

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