When Sydney transformed into a queer-utopia as the host of World Pride last year, Jojo Hall felt full of optimism.

“It felt like a new era in terms of the [LGBTQ+] community’s place in the wider community,” she says.

But for Hall and many others, this year’s Mardi Gras has been mired in grief, despair and anger. “It has been a wake-up call,” she says.

The alleged murders of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies – both members of Sydney’s queer community – has cast a shadow over the annual Mardi Gras celebrations. The couple were allegedly murdered on 19 February by serving New South Wales police officer Beau Lamarre, also a member of the queer community, using his police pistol.

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Police allege Lamarre planned to kill Baird, whom he allegedly stalked after they had a casual relationship, and murdered Davies as he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The tragedy has prompted a backlash over the police handling of the case and a debate over whether police should march in the Mardi Gras parade on Saturday, when an estimated 250,000 spectators are expected to turn out to watch 200 floats pass down Oxford Street.

As Ben Riley, who believes police marching in the parade is inappropriate, puts it: “Mardi Gras is this really sacred thing.”

“This time is when we get to come together and celebrate and care for each other,” he says. “It’s a really horrible, horrible thing that’s happened … finding space to hold both that and celebrating is really challenging.”

A parade with mixed emotions

Brisbane-based Kyle Laidlaw has travelled to Sydney to attend the Mardi Gras parade for the first time. He has mixed emotions – he knew Davies when he was living in Brisbane.

“It’s challenging, but it’s nice to be able to attend the vigil,” he says, referring to the vigil held on Friday night for Baird and Davies. “If I wasn’t here for the parade, I wouldn’t have been able to attend.

“The same sentiment that has been echoed by a lot of people is: while I didn’t know Jesse, they both would have wanted everyone to be out and enjoying themselves.”

Davies – a Qantas flight attendant – will be honoured in the parade as part of the airline’s float.

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The New South Wales police will also be marching in plainclothes after negotiating with the Mardi Gras board after the force was uninvited in the wake of the alleged murders. The Australian federal police will not march, acknowledging “how some in the community are feeling about the blue uniform”.

The Mardi Gras events Hall has gone to so far have been a space to come together and share in grief. She had been considering going to the parade, but she’s upset the police are now marching, and plans to spend Saturday at home with a group of friends.

“The [alleged] murder of these two men who were so clearly loved, but the failure of the police writ large to understand the power dynamic at play – I think it’s just symbolic of the whole issue,” she says.

In Darlinghurst, the atmosphere at Friday night’s vigil seems a world away from Mardi Gras’ usual celebratory spectacle.

“This Mardi Gras is going to be different, because there are two bright souls who are not going to be here to celebrate,” Antonio Sneddon says. He is among hundreds attending a vigil for Davies and Baird in Green Park, where oppressive humidity and silent melancholy overwhelms the crowd.

“These two lovely bright people, they are part of the rainbow community,” Sneddon said. “It feels like we lost brothers.”

On large screens a slideshow featured snapshots from the lives of Davies and Baird set to music. As it came to a stop, silence stilled the crowd, embracing and wiping each others’ tears, before a procession of attendees began standing to lay flowers and candles by the condolences table. Among them were restaurateur Kylie Kwong, news presenter Narelda Jacobs, and MPs Allegra Spender and Tanya Plibersek.

Daniel Richardson-Clark attended the vigil not because he knew either Baird or Davies, but because he felt it is imperative for the queer community to support each other during both Mardi Gras and a time of grief.

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“I’m here today because when I saw that they were missing and then murdered, I saw them as people who could be me, who were living the same quiet life that we all live, and who were murdered despite that.”

“That has rattled me,” Richardson-Clark said.

Memories of past failures

For Hall, and many others in the community, the mood has also been affected by the findings of the inquiry into gay hate crimes, which came out just before Christmas. The inquiry examined cases in NSW between 1970 and 2010, and found police failed to properly investigate potential gay hate crimes.

“[The inquest] has brought a lot of memories back for people … it’s just a little bit too much at the moment,” says Deb, who asked to be identified by her first name only. “While we’ve come along way with the police … it certainly hasn’t come as far as we thought.

“I didn’t know [Baird and Davies] but I know people who did, so it’s been difficult to see how this senseless tragedy has affected them.”

At the first Mardi Gras march in 1978, protesters were met with police brutality. When Deb went to the Mardi Gras parade in 1998 – the first in which police marched – she didn’t want police there.

Deb says she was the victim of a gay bashing in the mid-80s on Flinders Street in Melbourne, and says police at the time told her it had been her fault for kissing her girlfriend in public. But in the early 2000s, she decided police inclusion was a positive thing – and this year, she thinks allowing police to march in plainclothes was a good compromise.

“I have a few friends who either have been in the police force or who had been in the police force, and who are gay and what it means for them to be able to march … seeing how it affects them made me really change my view.”

Police and Mardi Gras

As revellers crowded Oxford Street on Friday night, activists from Pride in Protest were preparing to rally at nearby Taylor Square.

“The queer community for so long has seen so many instances of police failure to address violence against our community, and police committing that violence as well,” a protest spokesperson said.

They said the initial decision of the NSW Police to not from march in Sydney’s parade was “correct,” but the community see the change in plans for police to march out of uniform as a “backflip” response to “a deliberate pressure campaign from the NSW Police and from the NSW Labour Government to accept the police back against our will”.

“They may be re-invited by the Mardi Gras board, but they certainly aren’t welcome.”

Latoya Aroha Rule, a takatāpui (queer), First Nations and Māori person, said they usually attend the parade, but this year they are boycotting over fears how the protest will be policed.

“I feel sick to my stomach this Mardi Gras. Every Mardi Gras that passes symbolises another year of brutality against LGBTQ+ people … this year has intensified this truth,” they said.

“The ‘not all police’ tactic being applied in these circumstances is resonant of the ‘white lives matter’ and ‘blue lives matter’ rhetoric of 2020,” they said.

Others will still be attending. Brian Parkinson, who’ll be marching in the parade with Sydney Queer Irish, is thrilled that it is finally happening after six months of preparation.

“You feel like you own the city for the fortnight,” he says. “Everything is drenched in colour and you feel like you can be yourself and that you have your place in the middle of everything.”

But the joy is conflicted with the tragic deaths of Luke and Jesse: “It’s hard to try and celebrate while also mourning their loss.”

To him, police not marching would have been a step backwards. He’s pleased they will still be marching in plainclothes, although he knows some people in the community have had difficult experiences with police.

Ahead of Saturday’s parade, Sydney’s Mardi Gras co-chair Brandon Bear acknowledged the grief and pain felt by the city’s LGBTQ+ community.

“For some people this will be a more sombre event, for some people they might choose to sit this one out,” Bear said.

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