Sydney is awash with rainbows. They cover what feels like every available inch of retail and public space in the CBD, as well as on Oxford Street and its surrounds, with the word “Pride” adorning pet stores, gas stations and transport maps as Yassified brands attempt to cash in on the pink dollar.
We’re in the midst of Sydney WorldPride: a 17-day festival comprising more than 300 LGBTQ+ events including parties, gigs, arts and sports. Billed as a “party with purpose”, the festival’s theme is “Gather, dream, amplify” and it has been welcomed with open arms – and many hangovers – by Australia’s gay capital.
Most of the attention has fallen so far on the colourful parties, drag shows and last weekend’s Mardi Gras parade – but a distinctly more subdued event has also been taking place this week: the WorldPride Human Rights Conference, held at the International Convention Centre.
WorldPride usually takes place once every two years, in a different city around the world, and the conference is a core element. In Sydney, its lead partner is LGBTQ+ charity Equality Australia, whose chief executive, Anna Brown, hopes it will be the largest queer-focused conference ever held.
“Our hope is that the attention it generates will build support for LGBTQ+ equality, and a lasting legacy that gives protections for people abroad,” she says.
But Brown might be disappointed by the talks program’s reach, which appears to have been overshadowed by the festivities. Of people who spoke to Guardian Australia at various events around the city, almost no one knew a conference was taking place. In fact, very few had heard of WorldPride at all before it was announced last year – and many are unclear on exactly what it represents: politics, or party?
Dance, dance … revolution?
The tension between party and politics came into sharp focus this weekend, when the Aboriginal senator Lidia Thorpe momentarily blocked the Mardi Gras parade, laying down on the street in protest at police presence.
“Black and brown trans women started the first pride march as a protest against police violence,” she tweeted. “Today, we still face violence from police.”
Reactions to Thorpe’s activism underscores conflicting views about the role of a modern Pride event, with some suggesting it was not right to interrupt the celebration, and others praising a powerful act of protest during an event often criticised for putting commercial concerns ahead of its political history. The major Pride March for equality will take place on Sunday across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
InterPride, the body which licences WorldPride, says the event’s aim is to achieve “legal, social, and cultural equity” for LGBTQ+ people. Its membership is made up of Pride organisers around the world who vote for which city will host each WorldPride. It is a relatively new event – this is only the eighth iteration – which might explain why so few had heard of it.
Linda DeMarco, the co-chair of the InterPride WorldPride committee, says they hope the event will energise the next generation of activists. “There’s still a fight going on. You can celebrate good things but we still have a lot to do … it’s important that we have the human rights conference too.”
The conference includes speakers from around the world, programmed in consultation with various LGBTQ+ groups, and includes discussion of the biggest issues affecting LGBTQ+ people today including mental health, HIV prevention and trans rights. An attendee on Wednesday said the convention centre was packed on its first day, with a buoyant mood and engaged participants; delegates must pay a fee to attend but it is also being streamed free online.
Something for everyone – but some more than others
While the conference covers a broad range of global topics concerning LGBTQ+ rights, the large “official” WorldPride events are led by music, parties and dance music.
Last weekend, a circuit party took over the Domain, centred on house music but headlined by Kelly Rowland; Kylie and Danii Minogue headlined the WorldPride opening concert, with Charli XCX; the Sugababes played the Mardi Gras parade afterparty. Among the party highlights for closing weekend, meanwhile, will be the Bondi Beach Party, which sold out 12,000 tickets at $179 a head.
It’s not easy to program a festival that caters to the full spectrum of the queer community – but for some, these big official parties do seem geared towards a specific subset: moneyed gay men.
Teneille Clerke, who identifies as non-binary, has chosen not to attend the larger events as “those aren’t spaces I feel comfortable in”; instead, they’re heading to the more inclusive, smaller parties being run by queer promoters. Not all queer people want a large space to party at; the very act of gathering with those you feel comfortable with still feels like a privilege to many.
For the most part though, there’s been something for everyone, at all price points, with free street parties and concerts and a bunch of smaller-scale events, much of which fall under the “Amplified” fringe program. On 23 February, for instance, at the Sydney Opera House, panellists discussed the use of symbolism in queer poetry while behind them a boat floated into view with a hundred or so topless men dancing in the sunlight.
That night, a stone’s throw from the Harbour Bridge, was the Queer Sporting Alliance’s (QSA) event Ba-skate-ball Jam: an all-queer basketball game, followed by a roller disco. QSA was founded by Stella Lesic, who calls it an antidote to the highly competitive nature of team sport in Australia, aimed at “everyone who was picked last for sports at school”. There’s no alcohol, but the atmosphere was intoxicating: pure queer joy.
WorldPride Sydney has also made considerable efforts to foreground First Nations experiences, with a dedicated space at Carriageworks hosting six days of events, including a Miss First Nations drag competition; a discussion about the past, present and future of the Deaf First Nations community; and Nangamay Mana Djurali Poetry, featuring a reading from the Aboriginal writer Bebe Backhouse.
“To have such strong First Nations representation is phenomenal,” Backhouse says.
‘Depoliticised, ultra-hedonistic, and too corporate’
Australian-born Peter Tatchell helped organise the UK’s first Pride march in 1972 and has been a global LGBTQ+ rights campaigner for 52 years. He says that although WorldPride is a symbol of the Pride movement’s success, it has lost its core message.
“I’m all in favour of a party, but many Prides are sidelining our liberation struggle in the process,” he says. “They’ve strayed far from the roots of Pride, becoming depoliticised, ultra hedonistic and too corporate and commercial. A lot of them are more a PR and branding exercise for big business than a serious challenge to the abuse of our human rights.”
The intention is political, the arts program touches on big issues, and the talks agenda is impressive – but Tatchell believes that the conference has become a “sideshow”, siloed from the other events.
This is perhaps the biggest challenge facing many western Pride events: treading a thin line between party and protest, they face an uphill battle to be a catch-all for diverse communities, whose rights and lived experiences differ considerably.
For lesbians and gay men who live in countries where their love is legally recognised, Pride can feel celebratory; for others, such as trans, non-binary and intersex people, there are still huge battles for legal recognition and acceptance in Australia, let alone the world. As conference attendees heard on Wednesday, at least 67 countries still criminalise same-sex relationships – a state of affairs the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, described as “disturbing”.
Organising a festival of this scale is “a difficult task” says Linda DeMarco.“There are so many different people in our movement, who have their different needs,” she says. “It’s a tough thing to get it all done at once.”
The next WorldPride will be hosted in Washington DC in 2025, followed by Amsterdam the following year. Their curators will try to strike that balance between celebration and contemplation, and to satisfy diverse attendees who feel a strong stake in an event that’s inherently about their lives.
Perhaps activist Emma Goldman puts it best in her oft-quoted remark: “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution”.
Sydney WorldPride closes this weekend, with major events including the Bondi Beach Party on Saturday night, the Pride March on Sunday morning, and the Rainbow Republic closing concert held at the Domain on Sunday afternoon
