今日吃瓜

‘Marketing The Margins: Decades of Fighting For Sex Worker Inclusion in Mardi Gras’ is an opinion piece by Barbarella Karpinski, a 78er, journalist, and former striptease artist who is currently writing their memoir, ‘Confessions from a Queer, Tainted but Beautiful Life’.

The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade has long been a site of both celebration and conflict 鈥� a dazzling display of visibility for queer communities, yet often a battleground of factional fighting.聽

Mardi Gras just isn鈥檛 just about parades and floats 鈥� it鈥檚 about history, identity, and recognition. Mardi Gras, once a symbol of queer resistance, now mirrors inequities.

As Paris is Burning (1990) the legendary film about the House of Extravaganza, makes clear, when voguing was marketed to the mainstream and the world was 鈥渟triking a pose鈥�, the Harlem voguing community was still doing it rough.聽

I鈥檓 Your Venus (2024) which screened last week at Queer Screen, highlights the irony of living in the margins with the spotlight shining on you.聽

Is being marketed to the masses uplifting the marginalised, or are we destined to be historic curios wheeled out for the 鈥渕oney shot鈥� for world media? For the original gang, headlined as icons, legends and pioneers, the reality bite is that we are victims of crimes never tried.聽

As a teenager in 1978, I arrived at Taylor Square full of hope and defiance. Within two minutes, I was assaulted, violated and arrested by multiple police. History, I鈥檝e learned, is quick and dirty.聽

It鈥檚 about time for a Living Apology Bill. I propose the bill to give us the money that goes with the money shot and also preserve the authentic protest history.

The 78ers are a diverse group of protestors who fought for LGBTQIA+ rights. Some were political activists, and others were street people and sex workers who battled the police.聽

Queer history is about raw and complicated truths.聽

The long fight for sex worker inclusion in queer spaces

In 2012, this writer and others, including activist Elena Jeffreys, fought for the inclusion of the sex worker float. That year it was deemed by New Mardi Gras as not 鈥渜ueer enough鈥�. In 2025, I was sadly informed all the 80 spots were already gone. (At the time of publication, I was still on a waitlist.)聽

I have done interviews with those with lived experience from those times. Police claimed free sex from workers in exchange for not getting 鈥減inched鈥�, as well as cash in brown paper bags.聽

Indecent assault was a common practice used against female and trans sex workers, while it was often men who were grievously harmed with telephone books and fists as a form of homophobia, humiliation and control.

I wasn鈥檛 a sex worker in 1978, but others were. My journey into sex work in the 1990s was a liberating experience of dancing on table tops in queer and underground spaces. After a rough start, I found community in the margins.聽

In 2012, we pushed back against the exclusions of New Mardi Gras, which was a hard-won moment of recognition. My application to be part of the 2025 Sex Worker float, which focused on disability inclusion, said I wanted to include a banner that said ‘Remember the 78ers’, to honour the sex workers battling police as part of street life. 聽In 2012, we tried to push for change, even when the odds were stacked against us. We pushed for representation, for inclusion. We marched in jail-orange overalls, a visible protest against the erasure of our struggles.聽

The 鈥� a fellow 78er and ACT UP activist 鈥� hit hard this year. Robert and I had a ritual of wandering into the parade together. The number of 78ers with lived experience in sex work has dwindled to a heartbreaking low.

And the fight for legal protections is ongoing.

鈥淭he wins of yesteryear allowed some to move into the mainstream and enjoy prosperity. But that鈥檚 not the case for the rest of us,鈥� says Evan, an activist with . 鈥淚鈥檓 saddled with student debt, living in a rundown share house, underpaid at a job where I come home with bruises, watching the world burn.鈥�

Neyve, a 30-year-old F2M artist and sex worker, described the shift to gentrification in the sex work subculture. 鈥淚 noticed a huge influx of workers post-COVID entering establishment鈥檚 people from upper middle class backgrounds who had been exposed to the industry via social media. That was my first experience of economic disparities within my sex worker peers. I was gender diverse but passing as cis female for work, wearing heels and wigs. After my surgery, I was excluded as openly trans. I am looked down upon for my low rates.鈥�

If you鈥檙e still fighting for the under-represented voices you鈥檙e often left out in the cold. Like in 2022 at the SCG, I naively thought that Mardi Gras was about protest 鈥� I when a member of the VIP stand complained.聽

Gatekeeping and sex worker exclusion聽

At the 2024 Mardi Gras Annual General Meeting, there was a fierce debate about banning corporate sponsors such as Airbnb and Amex 鈥� companies that actively ban sex workers from their platforms.聽

While some worry about how much to rent their Airbnb for, others are fighting for hormones in jail or safety in men鈥檚 prisons while being trans. The divide is stark.

Though the motion didn鈥檛 pass, it received the highest affirmative vote yet 鈥� a small but significant step.聽

Intersectionality and prioritisation

Should OG 78ers have priority in parade floats? As the parade grows more corporate, spaces for fluid identities and intersectional struggles shrink.聽

Are we reduced to museum pieces, only visible when we fit the mainstream narrative? Or stick to our own lane, bus or disability-friendly buggy?聽聽

Preserving history and truth-telling

The violence we faced in 1978 has been sanitised. My life is not a sideshow alley for the masses.聽

I think back to the 90s, taking pole students on tours of Kings Cross, reminding them they were visitors in a place where real people lived and died. And some have friends who still mourn them, like I do.聽

The margins glitter, but there is an underbelly, and not just the one portrayed on TV.聽 Queer history is about raw and complicated truths.聽

In 2025, I feel like an exhibit on sideshow alley 鈥� a relic trotted out for a brief moment of nostalgia before being shuffled off.聽

When the revolution is televised, and you’re at the end of the queue, remember: hold on tight. One step at a time. Social justice happens quietly, without the circus. Happy Mardi Gras 2025.