Mardi Gras Memories

by Jill Hooley

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For the second time in a few years, I found myself at the very front of the Mardi Gras Parade. The first time was with Aidy Griffen, on the invitation of Em Owen, when we were part of a contingent representing the diverse strands of the "Queer Community". But 1998 was truly special to me. I was one of those people who came to be known as the 78'ers. The people who took part in the first Mardi Gras, and/or the demonstrations following that momentous night twenty years ago. Yes folks, there were some tranys at the original Mardi Gras (which ended in a violent riot, with 53 people being arrested, and some bashed by the police).

I read about the arrests at the first Mardi Gras parade, and felt a sense of outrage that the Sydney Morning Herald printed the names of those arrested.

But that was then and this is now. On the early evening of March 2 1998, a throng of mostly forty something people is gathered at the top of Liverpool Street. I feel a state of heightened anticipation. Still dazed and disbelieving, I am greeted and hugged by Gay activists who I knew in the 1970's, or from more recent times. I recognise faces I haven't seen since 1978. On my way here tonight, accompanied by my friend Joan, (a heterosexual woman who was a supporter of gay rights at the first Mardi Gras), two young boys see us in the street. Joan is wearing my tiara and I'm wearing my Trany Pride t-shirt. One of the boys exclaimed to us "they're both blokes"! Joan and I laughed conspiratorially at their confusion. Further on we meet norrie wearing next to nothing on Newtown station. Queer commuters pack the platform, dressed in outrageous fashion. It should be as colourful as this everyday, rather than so grey and dreary.

We stand in Liverpool Street waiting for the parade to start. Joan is deep in conversation with some of the lesbians. I ponder that it's a bit overwhelming and hard to believe that the police, who were profoundly homophobic and tranyphobic twenty years ago, are marching in support of queers in the parade tonight. At last a marshal tells us to standby, as the dykes on bikes tear away from us with a roar. The crowd milling around Museum station begins to cheer, as we stride up Oxford Street under an oyster grey sky fading into twilight. We chant, stridently and loudly, as we did back in 1978. "Stop Police Attacks on Gays, Women and Blacks". My dear friend David, a gay activist wearing retro seventies drag tonight and whom I've known twenty years, seems to have started this. It continues. The feeling coming at us from the crowd as we pass Whitlam Square is very positive. We scream and wave and touch people in delirium. We chant continuously. The experience of being cheered applauded and revered by a huge crowd does great things for your ego. Feelings of love and solidarity flow between the crowd and we 78'ers. A man among the 78'ers comes up and hugs me, telling me that I am "amazing" and "fantastic". (I forgot to obtain his telephone number). It is an unforgettable night.

Back in 1978, I wasn't out as a trany, although a few trusted friends knew about or experienced my cross-dressing. In 1978, I used to visit Oxford Street venues like Cappricio's, the Tropicana and yes the Taxi Club. On my way to work one Monday morning, I read about the arrests at the first Mardi Gras parade, and felt a sense of outrage that the Sydney Morning Herald printed the names of those arrested. Some were to lose their jobs because of this. Two weeks later, looking androgynous in overalls and a jumper, I find myself following the gay march and demonstration. We chant "Stop Police Attacks ...", outside Darlinghurst Police Station, and some people at the front of the rally are arrested for throwing things at the Police Station.

Some years later, the sodomy laws are repealed and Anti-Discrimination laws in place. I have to say that I didn't feel much solidarity at the time with some in the gay and lesbian movement. Tranys in those days of sexual fundamentalism, were seen to be ideologically unsound by numerous gays and lesbians. Such rigid ideas are falling into the dust bin of history. The passage of the Transgender Amendment Bill of 1996 is evidence of this.

Are things changing? How are they different? There is a movie showing in town, in which the principle character is a child who seeks to change his gender. Ma Vie en Rose (or My Life in Pink), is the story of Ludovic, a young "boy", who sees nothing problematic about his feeling that he can be a girl and that he will one day marry the boy next door. This film is really about the violence of families and the straight jacket of gender conformity that heterosexual norms enforce. It is about the terror and fear of the border lines set up around gender, for most "normals". Ludovic's behaviors, "his" cross-dressing, "his" innocent challenge to these rigid ideas of a strict two gender world, becomes a trauma for his parents. Rather than accept "him" as "her" and face social opprobrium, their solution is to send Ludovic to a psychologist, to "cure" or normalise him. They fail, and Ludovic, who faces the blame for bringing "his" parents into disrepute, undergoes a series of abuses, violations and mob violence for being "different". Ludovic responds to "his" situation by referring to himself as a "girlboy". He can't know that in modern cultures, gender is constructed in terms of a dichotomy and that it is compulsory to be either one or the other. No overlapping is permitted under compulsory heterosexuality and the gender norms that social institutions demand.

Ma Vie en Rose is a sad and stirring film. Mostly it made me very angry. I re-experienced some of the childhood trauma and persecution of many years ago; in the scene where he has his hair cut, when the soccer team bashes "him" and when various people humiliate "him". This film is as much about the constraining and destructive effects of middle class hetero-gendered conformity, as it is about the experience of feeling different from the rest. Sadly, Ludovic has no one who validates "his" reality or tries to understand, except his grandmother, whom the family leave behind. Perhaps many years of isolation await Ludovic. "He" learns, like we do, to clam up, to wait, and not to disclose or trust, for fear of abuse, violence or persecution. He is not however, without hope at the finish. He is by then wiser, or well appraised of gender bigots.

Just before the 1998 Mardi Gras, I also managed to catch the show by brilliant cabaret artist Paul Capsis at the Enmore Theatre, Burlesque Tour. Paul's character "Melissa" based on William Street girls, powerfully evokes the continuing exclusion of many tranys from "mainstream" culture - from society, from basic human rights and respect. Tranys have an ongoing struggle on our hands. Awareness is slowly and continuously being raised about issues affecting tranys in films, through the media and in community events. Perhaps we are slowly educating people that loosening up gender categories nurtures a freer concept of identity for everybody.

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