Gay activist Gary Wotherspoon reflects on the rise of Sydney Mardi Gras

GARY Wotherspoon remembers being one of just “a couple hundred” people who gathered at Taylor Square for the first-ever mardi gras in 1978.

Historian Garry Wotherspoon, Woollahra Mayor Toni Zeltzer, councillor Peter Cavanagh and Greens Sydney MP Alex Greenwich raise the rainbow flag at Woollahra Council to kick of Mardi Gras. Picture: Craig Wilson

• Real Housewife know real estate
• The most beautiful house in Bondi

GARY Wotherspoon remembers being one of just “a couple hundred” people who gathered at Taylor Square for the first-ever mardi gras in 1978.

“But as we marched down Oxford Street chanting: ‘Out of the bars and into the streets’, people did come out from the bars to watch and many of them joined in,” said Mr Wotherspoon.

“So the numbers had swelled somewhat by the time we got to the bottom of Oxford St near Hyde Park.”

A public brawl ensued when police tried to disband the march, forcing it up to Kings Cross.

Now one of Sydney’s most loved events, about 12,000 people are expected to march in this year’s parade on Saturday, March 4, while hundreds of thousands of people cheer from the sidelines.

Mr Wotherspoon is a renowned LGBTIQ activist and author of Gay Sydney: A History, which provides a fascinating account of Sydney’s gay past, from underground drag balls early in the century to the burgeoning gay scene in the 1960s.

Garry Wotherspoon and Robert Aldrich in a gay street March in the early 1980s.

The Darlinghurst resident said Kings Cross was the main home of Sydney’s “camp life” in the 1960s with venues like the Jewel Box, the Annexe, Les Girls and Rex Hotel.

“But from the late 1960s, life at the Cross became increasingly unpleasant with US soldiers on R & R, drunk and on drugs and not very sophisticated about dissident sexualities,” he said.

“So Oxford Street started with places like Ivy’s Birdcage, Cappriccio’s, then Flo’s Palace, Tropicana, and then Patches.”

He said Sydney’s history was “glittered” with fascinating events which have shaped the gay community.

Talking in the history stream of the 1986 Gay History Conference: David Hilliard, the late John Lee, Garry Wotherspoon and Robert French.

“There have been many societal shifts over the last 100 years that has seen Sydney transform into the global hotspot for the LGBTI community which it now is,” he said.

“For people of dissident sexualities, a sense of being different and a willingness to explore that — this was certainly true for camp men and women from the 1920s in Sydney, many of whom lived a very full life under the radar.”

He said WWII was also a turning point in history as many men, who had experienced strong emotional attachments to other men, continued with these relationships after the war.

“(Also) a growing sense from the 1960s, with the counterculture, that our difference didn’t mean we should be lesser citizens,” he said.

“And from the very early 1970s, a political activism that forcefully pursued our goals, whether they were law reform or dealing with the AIDS crisis.”

MARDI GRAS THEMED QANTAS PLANE TOUCHES DOWN

Woollahra Council last week raised the rainbow flag in support of Mardi Gras.

More information on mardi gras events: mardigras.org.au.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTERS AND NEWS ALERTS