‘Free to be': participants and spectators fill parade route before start of Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras

The Guardian

01-03-2025

A bedazzling band of floats and dancers are waiting in the wings ready to snake their way into Australia's grandest celebration of queer culture.
Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras participants and a crowd of thousands decked in splashes of florescent pink and yellow, alongside trademark bright rainbows, began filling the parade route in Sydney's queer-capital of Darlinghurst late Saturday afternoon.
'I've been coming since I was 17 … seeing the community gather throughout the evening is enjoyable on its own,' Jed Piasevoli said, as he watched the activity from his street-side camping chair.
'It's a night to embrace all of the queer energy,' his friend Timothy Trisic said. 'It's a chance to let loose and be ourselves for at least one night.'
Among them will be Bhushan Joshi and co, who will be decked out in summer gear with 1980s and '90s vibes, as medical group GLADD's float pumps out a remix of Olivia Newton-John's Get Physical.
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'We want to challenge the shame and guilt that the queer community sometimes feels towards their body or keeping fit,' the emergency consultant said.
Another group marching to a Newton-John hit – Xanadu – will be the Peacock Mormons, a group founded by Brad Harker and husband Scott in 2018 to protest policies enforced by church leadership.
About half of the group's 100 members are from religious backgrounds, including formerly devout Catholic and straight-living Brian Dunne.
He came out at the age of 65 after a cancer diagnosis. Nine years later, he enjoys the full support of his former wife, five children and 13 grandchildren.
'To me, that's more of a Christian attitude than unfortunately what some church people have towards LGBTQIA+ people,' Dunne said.
The 2025 Mardi Gras theme is 'Free to be', a message Harker and Scott work to reinforce to young LGBTQ+ people through the Peacock Mormons group and simple actions such as holding hands on the street.
Mardi Gras was a celebration of how far the community had come while sadly marking an uptick in verbal abuse, threats of violence and assaults, Equality Australia said.
'It's a reminder that for many people in our communities, particularly trans people, such targeted acts of hate are a year-round occurrence and that despite our gains we are still fighting for equal rights and protections in the law,' chief executive Anna Brown said.
Another float will carry a Rocky Horror Picture Show theme, with members of Free, Gay and Happy performing the Time Warp.
The group was founded by Teresa Leggett after she supported her former husband, Michael, to come out.
'He thought it would be better to be dead than gay,' she said, 'so I took him to his first Mardi Gras to show him how amazing the gay community was.'
They attended their first Mardi Gras together more than two decades ago and have returned every year since with an elaborately crafted float.
Being part of the parade was surreal, Ms Leggett said.
'It's a sound you've never heard before, 250,000 people at that very moment wish they were you,' she said.