“Gay liberation demands that everyone have the right to their own lives, their own feelings, their choice of sexual partners and their own styles of expression, behaviour and dress.”
Written forty-seven years ago in CAMP INK, this statement is still relevant today as Sydney hosts WorldPride and the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. In celebration, the University of Sydney Library is proud to present Sydney Mardi Gras 2023: WorldPride showcasing a range of Rare Books & Special Collections holdings and recent donations highlighting the evolution of the LGBTQIA+ movement.
View an original 1978 Day of International Gay Solidarity poster which promoted the event that ignited Sydney’s first public protest in solidarity with gay and lesbian people around the world experiencing persecution. Consider the Sydney Gay Mardi Gras Association’s meeting notes from 1980 documenting early amendments to the organisational rules of Mardi Gras to prioritise inclusive representation and participation. Peruse a range of Honi Soit covers in solidarity with the LGBTQIA+ movement published by the University of Sydney Student’s Representative Council (SRC) alongside key Australian LGBTQIA+ periodicals. These include the ground breaking CAMP INK created by “Campaign Against Moral Persecution Inc.”, Sydney’s first lesbian and gay political organisation formed in 1970, to William and John, one of the first commercial gay porn magazines produced in Australia, and Lesbians on the Loose which has published content and promoted events for lesbians since 1989.
You can find this exhibition at Fisher Library foyer.
Want more? Check out our recommended reading list below for Pride Month from the Library’s collection. You can also check out our full reading list if you want more recommendations!
Exciting Times
Author: Naoise Dolan
When you leave Ireland aged 22 to spend your parents’ money, it’s called a gap year. When Ava leaves Ireland aged 22 to make her own money, she’s not sure what to call it, but it involves:
– a badly-paid job in Hong Kong, teaching English grammar to rich children;
– Julian, who likes to spend money on Ava and lets her move into his guest room;
– Edith, who Ava meets while Julian is out of town and actually listens to her when she talks;
– money, love, cynicism, unspoken feelings and unlikely connections.
Exciting times ensue.
Find this title in our catalogue here
Fourteen
Author: Shannon Molloy
Optioned for a major film, Fourteen is this generation’s Holding the Man – a moving coming-of-age memoir about a young man’s search for identity and acceptance in the most unforgiving and hostile of places: high school.
Tell me how to be
Author: Neel Patel
By turns irreverent and tender, filled with the beats of ’90s R&B, Tell Me How to Be is about our earliest betrayals and the cost of reconciliation. But most of all, it is the love story of a mother and son each trying to figure out how to be in the world.
The Lost Arabs
Author: Omar Sakr
Visceral and energetic, Omar Sakr’s poetry confronts notions of identity and belonging head-on. Braiding together sexuality and divinity, conflict and redemption, The Lost Arabs is a seething, urgent collection from a distinctive new voice.
Young Mungo
Author: Douglas Stuart
From Booker-prizewinner Douglas Stuart an extraordinary, page-turning second novel, a vivid portrayal of working-class life and a highly suspenseful story of the dangerous first love of two young men: Mungo and James.