Karl Zlotkowski, writer and artist

“Gail’s perspective and mine are two parts of the same story. The 78ers fall into two broad groups: the people who were caught up with the events in Kings Cross on the night of the June 24, and those of us who joined the Drop the Charges campaign in the months that followed. My involvement was in a single rally on July 15, 1978. There were around 2,000 people involved, protesting against the arrests on June 24. That rally ended up outside Darlinghurst police station and degenerated into a brawl with police. I and many others managed to get clear and run away.

“The important thing though, is that my involvement, along with those other thousands of people, was a kind of turning point in our lives. Most of us had not been political and, in fact, many people were very opposed to the politics. There was a feeling abroad in the gay world that you shouldn’t upset people. You shouldn’t be too overt – keep your head down and you’ll be left alone. But that first Mardi Gras essentially dragged many of us into the open. ‘Out of the bars and onto the streets!’ was the rallying call of the time.

“We had to decide that our personal lives were now political. The police with their heavy-handed tactics forced the issue, and this happened to coincide with a change of attitude that was underway in society at large. The visibility of all those people on the street helped people in the suburbs to view homosexuality in a different way. They began to see us as people who looked remarkably like them – though some of us were better dressed!

“In the late 70s, there was a growing sense that society and the law should ease up on minorities; the events of 78 were a kind of catalyst that accelerated a change that was already underway. My memories of that single rally are oddly enough limited to a couple of snapshots.

“I can remember walking along George Street and admiring the shoes I was wearing – they were spectacular pearl-grey runners with white stripes and cost a lot of money. I was behind a banner carried by a very loud group of lesbians. I didn’t know them then, but I know them now, because they, like me, are all part of the 78ers. I remember being outside the police station when things degenerated and police came from everywhere. They weren’t visible up until that point; they’d been hiding down the side streets and then came from everywhere, boxing us in so we couldn’t get away. There was no question of telling us to disperse – we weren’t allowed to disperse. There were scuffles and I managed to get clear and run. For 20 years I remembered this as just another demonstration. But then one night at dinner someone said. ‘You realise that was that demo, don’t you?’ And I realised that demo had been a turning point for me. In 78, I made up my mind about where I was on the gender spectrum and in my own way I politicised my personal [story] from that point forward.

“I decided I wanted to be part of an emerging, new alternative society where traditional social arrangements were to be relaxed. Like many of us, I decided to pursue an alternative social and sexual life and support the politics that flowed from that. But then in the early 80s, HIV came along and that skewed everything.

“If we’re talking about the evolution of Pride in Western societies, the response to HIV is a critical part. For Sydney, at least, Mardi Gras had been a kind of spark that drew together quite diverse groups of people, both political and non-political, into what was the beginning of a community. And then in 83 and 84 that community came under a massive threat. “The vilification and the violence began to reassert again. The response of our community to that challenge through the 80s into the 90s evolved into the expression of Pride we know today. Pride is about self-respect, mutual support and political expression. It’s also about personal expression and the sheer exuberance of a Mardi Gras. That party aspect – the fun – became more and more important during those years as a new generation entered onto the scene.

“The 78ers are baby boomers – gen X were the party kids in 90, as the millennials were in 2010, and the zoomers are now. Each of our Pride generations has a different set of memories. The violence and overt discrimination that the earlier generations rebelled against in the 70s and 80s has receded, though the threat has never gone away.

“The pressure of hate in our society still comes from all directions, and this is particularly potent in the US at the moment where the pressure for LGBTQIA+ people to abandon their identity and revert to a closeted lifestyle is particularly strong. When you see things like the shootings that recently happened – and which are not the first in the US – this is the kind of thing that is constantly in the background. Here in Australia we have gun control so we don’t have that level of violence facilitated by the law, but if individuals or groups in this country had the chance, they’d go for it. They’d do it. And we in our community have to remember that implied threat is always going to be there. It will take generations to breed it out of our society through education, awareness and understanding that the freedom we have now can be taken away in an instant.

“So the expression of Pride is vital for all of us. Which is why the 78ers now lead the Mardi Gras parade every year, always following the First Nations group. I’ll be there again in 2023, on the street. Though I lost those sneakers in a house move years ago, I will be wearing some particularly dramatic jewellery that dates from 86. And we all wear our black and pink 78er T-shirts – the colours of our movement long ago.”