Gay and lesbian history now

Each year I have the good fortune to begin teaching my undergraduate history of sexuality course either on the eve or in the immediate aftermath of the annual Sydney Mardi Gras. It’s guaranteed that at least a handful of the students would have been or plan to go – not as part of the audience, waving from the sidelines, but as participants, proudly marching and dancing through the city streets and up Oxford Street, the former epicentre of gay Sydney, or the ‘Golden Mile’ as it was once commonly referred to. Most years, at least one of those students is from overseas, drawn to Sydney by its reputation as a gay mecca.