Record turnout for Mardi Gras

By Angela Matheson
Photographs by Lisa Iley

SYDNEY — A record crowd of up to 40 000 people jammed the route along Oxford Street in inner city Darlinghurst on the night of February 29to watch the 1992 Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

The parade's 75 groups and floats included a contingent of dykes on bikes, marching boys with white pompoms, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and, for the first time — a small group of MPs who support the community.

The parade paused for a minute of silence at 10 p.m. in remembrance of those who have died from AIDS.

Over $20,000 was donated by the crowd, which will go to the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby and the Quilt Project, in which a patch is sewn into a memorial quilt for each person who has died from AIDS.

Sydney has one of the world's largest gay and lesbian communities — second only to San Francisco.

From GLW issue 47