Graham Willett

Before Mardi Gras:Lesbian and gay activism in Australia, 1969-1978: Lesbian and Gay activism in Australia, 1969 - 1978

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Expected release date is 3rd Jan 2025

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In the more than 40 years since the first Mardi Gras, Australian society and the lives of all those who live here have been transformed. Reforms, from the decriminalization of sex between men to marriage equality, mean that lgbtiq+ people no longer live the kind of lives that they did in the 1950s and sixties.

What is less noticed is the decade before this. This is the story of the 1970: the Homosexual Law Reform Society of the ACT (1969), the Daughters of Bilitis (1970) and the Campaign Against Moral Persecution launched a movement that challenged laws, regulations, professional policies and public opinion, which laid the foundations for all that followed.

But the movement that they founded spent its first decade in the streets, in the corridors of power, in the schools and the union and churches. Activists published newspapers and flyers and ran radio programs. They graffitied and pasted up posters. They lobbed eggs and lobbied. They danced and kissed in public; produced and wore badges.

The Seventies were a decade of struggle for recognition, reform and respect. It was a decade that changed Australian society. When the NSW police attacked the first Mardi Gras in 1978, they were taking on forces that they barely knew existed.

This book examines the often-overlooked first decade of lesbian and gay rights activism in Australia, when the foundations for our communities were laid.

Author: Graham Willett

Paperback  Published 24 December 2024  244 pages

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