Karl marched in the first Mardi Gras. News this week took him back to that night

Karl Zlotkowski remembers the horrors of the first Mardi Gras in 1978, when Sydney’s gay and lesbian community came out onto the streets and were met with violence.

One of the “78ers” who took part in the protest that spawned the city’s annual pride parade, Zlotkowski said reports this week of gay and bisexual men being lured off dating apps and beaten in Sydney parks were eerily reminiscent of a violent past from decades ago.

“It’s appalling,” Zlotkowski said. “It’s revisiting horrors many of us had to deal with going back to the 1970s.”

Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras chief executive Jesse Matheson – who himself was brutally beaten as a teenager for being gay – said it was more important than ever to carry on the legacy of the parade as it turns 48.

Tens of thousands of revellers and up to 200 floats will descend on Oxford Street on Saturday. This year’s theme, ECSTATICA, promises to be a celebration of euphoric rebellion, capturing the feeling of collective release when queer communities freely move and gather in public spaces with joy, pride and defiance.

“That night changed this city. It helped shape Australia into a beacon of love, diversity and inclusion. Nearly five decades later, we are not simply staging an event; we are carrying a legacy,” Matheson said.

Amid reports of violent hate crimes against LGBTQ people, Premier Chris Minns has faced pressure to broaden the government’s hate speech laws – originally designed to combat antisemitism – to include protections for LGBTQ people.

Earlier this week, Minns said the government was investigating creating tougher penalties for hate speech against LGBTQ individuals and communities.

Sydney MP Alex Greenwich welcomed Minns’ reforms, but said that more needed to be done to prevent hate crimes before they occurred.

“We need to make sure that we’ve got laws that stop hate when it starts – not just laws that are there to sentence perpetrators once someone is harmed,” Greenwich said at the parade’s launch on Friday.

He pointed to laws that make it legal to discriminate against someone based on their sexuality or gender in private and religious schools in NSW. Greenwich has long advocated for a crackdown on this gap.

“I will be seeking to advance these reforms again as soon as possible, whether it be by working with the government or through my own legislation,” Greenwich told the Herald.

“The sad and honest truth is that private and religious schools are harbouring hate in NSW.”

A government spokesperson said the NSW Law Reform Commission is “reviewing anti-discrimination legislation to ensure it is fit for purpose and balances protections the community expects and deserves with the right of religious organisations to carry out their work”.

“Everyone deserves to feel safe and respected for who they are. The attacks we have seen on members of the LGBT community are abhorrent.”

City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said it was a “real pity” that LGBTQ people were still victims of violent hate crimes.

“I thought we had progressed such a long way, and then we find that we’re having these attacks happening now. It is absolutely shameful, and I want to say it is not who we are in our city,” Moore said.

Compared with the heights of the parade that coincided with Sydney World Pride in 2023, the 48th Sydney Mardi Gras will be a scaled back affair.

Stepping into the chief executive role last year, Matheson promised to rebalance the organisation’s troubled finances. The annual after party, attended last year by 10,000 at the Hordern Pavilion, has been cancelled to save costs after it went into the red for six years.

“We’ve heard a lot of emotion about the cancellation,” Matheson said. “We want to understand what’s behind that, what brings people to party – and moving forward, what does party look like for the future and for the next generation.”

But after two days of deluge in Sydney, nothing will rain on the parade of thousands of partygoers at this year’s march.

With more than 80 choreographed dancers and 50 marchers, Colours of Our Community will be one of the largest floats joining the procession. Their theme – Club EcstatiKIKI: Sanctuary of Queer Joy – blends Greek mythology with KiKi culture, a ballroom dancing subculture originating from New York City’s black and Latin youth.

“This year will probably be our biggest float ever,” said Paul Savage, who will march alongside 50 refugees from 26 countries.

“We’re going back to the time of the Greek gods, when all love was accepted and all strangers were welcomed.”

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