As someone who was there, I’d like to talk about some aspects of Mardi Gras that the media has not reported on. Ideas and opinions within this post are my own, and do not necessarily represent the views of associated organisations.
Background info
Mardi Gras:
In 1978 a group of gay & lesbian people marched through Sydney to commemorate the Stonewall riots. During the day this march was peaceful, but at night the police brutally bashed and arrested the marchers, despite them having appropriate permits for the event.
This awful mistreatment solidified the march as an annual event. But over time it has become less about marching for our rights. Instead it has turned into a party, a media spectacle, an opportunity for rainbow-capitalist advertising, and a tourist attraction.
Pride in Protest:
Pride in Protest is a queer activist group that campaigns against kyriarchy.
Pride in Protest marched in Mardi Gras this year not to have a party or advertise beer. We marched to raise awareness and demand change around two main issues.
The genocide in Palestine.
The Australian government is complicit in this genocide, with Australian companies supplying many of the weapons used by Israeli forces.
Australia also hosts the US Pine Gap military base, which provides logistics support for the Israeli genocide of Palestinians.
Cops in Mardi Gras (and police brutality and lack of accountability in general)
Given the history of Mardi Gras, cops should never have been allowed to march with us. Historically they have been the boot that the state has crushed us with. Now that being queer is more socially acceptable they have to act nice around us, but if the laws changed you know they’d gleefully resume their oppression of us.
The police have not changed. If you look back through my page you’ll see my recent post about Veronica Baxter, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. If you talk to queer folk, sex workers, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, unhoused people, and victims of domestic violence, they’ll tell you how useless and actively harmful the police are.
The murder of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies by a cop using his service weapon has brought issues with the relationship between police and queer folk back into the public eye. The murderer had previously aggressively tasered Kris Bradshaw, an Aboriginal man. The victims had also reported that they were being harassed and threatened by this cop in the weeks prior to their deaths. The police failed to take any measures to keep these people safe from their own, despite all the evidence to suggest that this cop was dangerous.
In response to this high-profile case, the Mardi Gras board requested that police do not march this year. But the government and police applied pressure, and the Mardi Gras board caved and allowed police to march provided it was not in uniform.
What the media failed to report
“Out of uniform”
Police marched “out of uniform”, but wearing matching all blue outfits, and with large police badges on display. It might not have been their typical police uniforms, but it was still a uniform of sorts.
Police shouldn’t have been allowed back in at all, and they spat in the face of the “out of uniform” compromise that they were given.
You can see this in the ABC footage of the event. If you don’t want to look through hours of Mardi Gras footage looking for it, it’s also visible in the short video that Canberra Times released.
The crowd loved us
The government has tried to paint us as distracting from the purpose of Mardi Gras, as being a nuisance. Media paints us as being a loud minority group within the queer community. But the truth is that we were one of the few floats that really stood for something. We were (to my knowledge) the only float doing chants. These chants invited crowd participation and we got it.
As we marched, the crowd would see our Palestine flags and cheer three times louder than they had been before. People waved at us and high-fived us. People in the crowd enthusiastically bellowed along with us “FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE”.
Honestly I was quite astonished by the percentage of people in attendance that joined in. Admittedly fewer people joined in on our “too many coppers, not enough justice” cry, but still quite a few did. There’s still work to be done in raising awareness of police misconduct and corruption among Sydney’s white and wealthy queers.
Some friends and I went to a queer bar a few days later, and when we spoke to people about our involvement in Pride in Protest they were stoked. The queer community at large stands with us.
Even some of the volunteers for Mardi Gras were very supportive of us as we passed.
Transphobia is still rampant
Some (privileged) people seem to think that the work is done. They’ve got their rights, the time to fight is over, and it’s time for them to party and reap their rewards.
Unfortunately the work is NOT done. Many members of our float were subjected to transphobic hate from people on other floats within the parade. One of my non-binary friends was told that they “shouldn’t exist”.
Fake 78ers
One of the floats is called 78ers, and is supposedly comprised of people who were present at the first Mardi Gras. Our interactions with people from this group were mixed. Some of them were very supportive of us and our message. Others were transphobic and hostile.
Apparently there’s no real vetting process for joining the 78ers. It’s not like there are records of who was and wasn’t present back then. It is my understanding that many of the people making hateful comments were probably not actually there in 78. (Stolen valour) If they were there, they have forgotten what they stood for and what they stood against. They have pulled the ladder up.
But I do want to emphasise that many of the 78ers were lovely. Just a mixed bag.
Scumbag pollies
Also participating in the parade were some politicians who have been dragging their feet on the Equality Bill, and even some who have supported the Religious Discrimination Bill. Politicians who refuse to help us or even actively hinder us have no right to pretend to march alongside us. Shame!
I’d just like to reiterate that I am writing about my own experiences, this post has not been reviewed or endorsed by Pride in Protest organisers.
Were any of you attending Mardi Gras this year? What did you see?
