Worldpride Sydney Shows Its Most Festive Side With Mardi Gras Parade

Sydney (Australia) - The World Pride festival WorldPride 2023, which is held in the Australian city of Sydney, showed its most festive side this Saturday with the extravagant Mardi Gras parade before a crowd of some 300,000 people, including thousands of tourists who have traveled to Australia for this great event.

"It's about being proud and being gay and we love Sydney because the whole city celebrates (this party)," Paul, who traveled with his friends Joe and John from London for WorldPride's Mardi Gras, which drew dozens of people, told EFE of thousands of visitors.

These three Londoners melted into the hubbub of the people who flooded Sydney, whose public ranged from young people to older adults and where the participants paraded in their multicolored costumes -or even almost naked- to proclaim their diversity along Oxford Street, the epicenter of this massive party "This is freedom, it is what people want to express," shouted proudly Jessica Lorena, a Colombian dressed in rainbow-colored angel wings, commenting on the importance of WorldPride, while her compatriot Jenny lamented that in her "culture There is not so much respect for sexual diversity.

A PLATFORM TO AFFIRM DIGNITY The 45th edition of Mardi Gras, framed by the WorldPride world event -which periodically celebrates diversity in various cities around the world, including Madrid in 2017- had 12 500 people in about 200 troupes full of colorful costumes, proud and flirtatious drag queens, lesbians on motorcycles, flags and rainbow colors.

The groups of the military, police, lifeguards and firefighters were also represented, as well as First Nations (indigenous Australians), the Latino community of Sydney, organizations for the disabled, immigrants and refugees, or those of sex workers, among others A party like WorldPride "is important because it helps us to be seen and heard," Gurav, in a green sequined outfit, stressed to EFE, adding that this massive event represents an opportunity to "have a platform to express your opinion and gain the dignity they deserve.

" The festival "gives hope to many people who cannot be themselves," added Gurav, recalling that, to this day, the LGTBIQ+ community still remains marginalized in many parts of the world MARDI GRAS RETURNS TO ITS ORIGINS IN AUSTRALIA The celebration of the iconic Australian Mardi Gras takes on special significance this year, since it is the first to be held on Oxford Street since the covid-19 pandemic and, also, it has been the first time that had the parade of a country's leader among the comparsas in the street.

The Prime Minister, Labor Anthony Albanese, was cheered by euphoric spectators as he marched in one of the street parades that marked this great party Mardi Gras - "Fat Tuesday" in French, which refers to the Christian tradition that allows meat to be eaten before Christian Lent and puts an end to the Carnival celebrations - was strongly guarded this year by the Police, in contrast to the harsh repression by the authorities in 1978, when the first march of the LGTBIQ+ collective in Australia.

At that time, the security forces violently repressed the attendees who were marching through the emblematic Oxford Street and Sydney's Hyde Park, in an action that resulted in 53 people being arrested, including the Argentine-Australian Carlos Avzarradel, who at the time had 18 years But since that turbulent first Mardi Gras, the LGTBIQ+ community has made important strides in claiming their rights in Australia, such as the legalization of same-sex marriage, in 2017, and the possibility of adoption by homosexual couples, in 2010.

THE WORLDPRIDE IS NOT OVER And it is that within the framework of the great open party that it represents, WorldPride 2023 will host an intense program, which started on February 17 and It will culminate on the morning of March 5 with the Pride march across the Sydney Harbor Bridge, where an estimated 50,000 people participate It also includes concerts by various personalities and music stars, including the pop icon Kylie Minogue, who along with other artists made the crowd that came to the Live and Proud concert vibrate the day before.

WorldPride (World Pride) is an event created by InterPride, an international organization that coordinates Pride Day organizers in different cities, and it has been held periodically since its first edition in the year 2000, when it took over the streets of Rome Since then, WorldPride has taken place in Jerusalem (2006), London (2012), Toronto (2014), Madrid (2017), New York (2019), Copenhagen-Malmö (2021) and, in the future, is planned in Washington (2025) and Amsterdam (2026).

EFE.