It might be fun and fabulous on the outside but the Sydney Mardi Gras always has a serious heart, and this year tackling homophobia in sport was firmly on the agenda.
Australia’s national cricket Vice Captain Alex Blackwell made her Mardi Gras debut as an openly gay women, supported by team mates Ellyse Perry and Elyse Villani.
Rugby, AFL and hockey teams also joined the festivities, taking their athletic skills from the pitch to the parade route.
More than 10,000 participants frocked up to take part, while some 200,000 spectators lined the parade route along Oxford Street.
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Saturday's celebration kicked off - as always - with a convoy of Dykes on Bikes.
As night fell, the riders were followed down Oxford Street by this year's lead float, the First Australians Freedom Riders bus, designed to celebrate Australia's indigenous people and the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides.
Among this year's partiers was Gaston, from Argentina, who told AAP he was nervous about his first march in the pride parade.
His beau Bruno, a Sydneysider, already has four parades under his skimpy belt.
He joined the festivities clad in little more than green body paint and liberal dashes of glitter.
"I'm a gaylien," he said.
He then gestured to a cod-piece decorated with a mosaic of mirrors and announced: "Disco balls, see?"
Other revellers had politics, not partying, on their minds.
Biscuit went as a Ganja Fairy to call for access to therapeutic marijuana for HIV sufferers.
She said the medical cannabis campaign in Australia had centred on camera-friendly causes to the exclusion of others.
"Everyone's talking about medicinal cannabis for little kids with cancer ... but they're trying to exclude the rest of us," Biscuit said.
"The Tony Abbotts and conservatives of this world would close all this down if they could, but we're here tonight and we'll be here next year."
Sydney's gay and lesbian Mardi Gras honoured former NSW governor Dame Marie Bashir and her husband as chiefs in the colourful parade.
