Outside the glamour and the machismo of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, it's still a lonely road for many Indigenous people who identify as anything other than heterosexual.

Carnival theory holds that transgressing social boundaries, with the kind of florid expressions of diverse human sexuality that typify the festival, can sometimes destabilise power structures and lead to radical cultural transformation.

But as the streets around Darlinghurst are filling for the 40th anniversary parade — buoyed by the results of the postal vote that proved the majority of Australians agree everyone should have the right to marry regardless of gender or sexual identity — many seasoned Indigenous gay and lesbian rights activists are asking why the cultural transformation hasn't hit outside the inner-Sydney parade route.

Keith Ball, Ray Delaney, unknown, Lewis Lampton march in the 1988 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. ( Supplied: Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives/K Lovett )

"Outside Oxford Street it's a nightmare to live," says Noel Tovey, an actor, dancer and choreographer, regarded as an elder in the Indigenous LGBTI community.

Noel, now 86, was the first Aboriginal person to officially launch the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in 1996.

"It's the one night when people pretend they're gay," he says of the parade.

"I no longer think that it's political. It stood for a lot more than just corporate Sydney. It stood for equality and having a voice."

In 1951, when he was 17 and homosexuality was still a crime, he was arrested and thrown in jail "for the abominable crime of buggery" after a party he was at was raided by Victorian police.

For many, the 40th anniversary parade is bittersweet

After the excoriating postal vote, you'd also be forgiven for thinking that homophobia is rampant.

As the debate raged interminably for months, friendships crumbled and families splintered.

We often think of equality in legal terms.

But for the 'rainbow mob' — Indigenous people who also identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex — social and political equality is still a long way off.

Indigenous Australians taking part in the 1995 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. ( Supplied: Jamie James )

"Our struggle is totally different to non-Aboriginal people," says Esther Montgomery, a Mardudhunera woman from the Pilbara, who attended her first Mardi Gras in 1980 after crossing the Nullarbor as an out 17-year-old.

That year, a group of Aboriginal men paraded with a simple banner boldly declaring their visibility as a community seeking acceptance within a marginalised community as 'Black Gays'.

Community member Tim Bishop has documented the history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participation in official Mardi Gras parade entries on his website.

"To me it's the beginning," he says of the 1980 Black Gays banner.

"In this day and age it seems non-inclusive, but I just can't let any of the current politics take anything away from their courage."

Two years later in 1982, activist Roger McKay from the sandhills of Narrandera marched silently in the parade wearing the Aboriginal flag like a cape, tied around his neck.

Esther, his old comrade, remembers it clearly.

"It was a pioneering moment. Roger used to get around town like that all the time. It was quite funny actually because he used to wear a Superman sloppy joe, he'd have the Aboriginal flag draped around his neck, his boardshorts on and barefoot, and that's how he used to get around," she says.

"In 1982, he also ended up in Queensland to protest the Commonwealth Games and he got escorted by police to the New South Wales border. Roger was full-on."

She says several key people led the push for an official presence in the Mardi Gras in the mid-1980s in the lead-up to the Bicentenary.

"Malcolm Cole, Percy Jackonia, Josie King and Libby Clinch were the four main people that pushed for an Aboriginal float," she says.

In 1988, the first official Indigenous community float made its way along the parade route with dancer Malcolm Cole dressed as a black Captain Cook, with an oversized bicorne hat and enormous powder wig.

Paying the price for being out and proud

During the 1980s, the activists saw off the threat of the AIDS epidemic, which impelled and focused their political and social activism.

Esther recalls how Aboriginal men were treated when they sought support from Aboriginal-identified medical services.

"Our brothers who were dying — who were HIV positive — ended up down at St Vincent's Hospital [in Darlinghurst]. Aboriginal health workers wouldn't touch our brothers. They wouldn't go anywhere near our people," she says, matter-of-factly.

"We were called man-haters, sexual deviants, AIDS carriers ... This is how bad it was."

In 2006, opera singer Deborah Cheetham was the first Aboriginal person to be named chief of parade, an honour reserved for leading gay and lesbian rights advocates.

Deborah Cheetham as chief of parade, at the 2006 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. ( Supplied: Paul Gosney/Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras )

"That actually led to me losing my position at one of Sydney's private schools," she says.

"So, even in 2006 that kind of discrimination was rampant. It still is today. Private schools can pretty much do what they like … I just hope that's going to change in my lifetime."

But Deborah is far from bitter about Mardi Gras itself.

"There is nothing quite like it, particularly when you're on a motorbike," she says, of the famous parade route, led by the Dykes on Bikes.

A member of the Stolen Generations, Deborah regards her acceptance in the gay and lesbian community as being crucial in her search for Aboriginal identity.

The late Malcolm Cole, dressed as Captain Cook in the 1988 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. ( Supplied: Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives/K Lovett )

"It was the lesbian and gay community in Sydney that first allowed and encouraged me to celebrate my Aboriginality, and I've always been grateful for that," she says.

"I just feel honoured to have spent so much of my life being able to draw strength from it," she adds, of the long participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Mardi Gras parade.

"To see that representation grow from year to year, it just gives me such a sense of belonging and strength."

The first float you'll see in the parade each year belongs to Australia's First Nations people, and Noel says it should always be remembered that this place in the parade was hard-fought and hard-won.

"I would like people to remember the difficulties that Aboriginal people had joining the Mardi Gras. We wanted to be treated like human beings," he says.

Esther doesn't hold back when asked about the future.

"It's all very well to be in Sydney, but the thing is you've got to understand [is] that people out there in remote areas don't have the same acceptance and acknowledgement," she says.

Marchers at the 1996 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. ( Supplied: Jamie James )

She has no doubt that young Indigenous LGBTI people are represented among the extremely high rates of suicide and self-harm in remote communities.

"We need to get community organisations like Black Rainbow and IndigiLez funded," she says.

"But with the amount of trauma and mental illness and suicide, those organisations are not going to cover everybody. We need them all over Australia for our people.

"We have a long, long, long way to go."