Meet Kyriakos Gold
Kyriakos Gold is one of nine candidates vying for the four open positions on the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras (SGLMG) Board of Directors.
Kyriakos is a long-standing Mardi Gras volunteer, advocate, and director with over 15 years of governance experience. They have experience in law, strategy, and social impact.
Electronic voting opened Friday, November 7 and will close Tuesday, November 25 at 5pm. In-person voting is available at the SGLMG Annual General Meeting on November 29.
In an interview with Gay Sydney Australia, Kyriakos spoke about police marching in the parade, what they believe is the most important issue facing SGLMG, and their first Mardi Gras.
Read for yourself…
Why do you want to be on the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Board?
I want to continue the work I started: stabilising the organisation, strengthening governance, and bringing our community back into the centre of decision-making. Mardi Gras is more than an event. It is one of the most powerful cultural, political and emotional institutions in Australia. It shapes identity, visibility and belonging for people who have nowhere else to go.
In the past few years, the organisation has struggled with internal tension, structural instability and external pressure. Too many important issues have collapsed into factions, binaries and noise. Mardi Gras deserves leadership that can step above that, understand complexity, resist reactionary politics and guide the organisation with integrity and long-term thinking.
I want to preserve the culture and history that held me when I needed it most, while building a sustainable future that keeps us visible, relevant and safe — not just for one night in February, but all year.
Describe your first Mardi Gras. What year, what did you wear, what were the highlights, what memory stands out the most?
It was Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, 1998 — the 20th Anniversary. The late Mogadonna stood tall, high on a podium, completely still as the music swelled. She didn’t sing — she didn’t need to. She mimed Somewhere, and it felt as if every word was being spoken directly to me.
There’s a place for us… I was young, far from home, autistic without knowing it yet. Loneliness was a constant companion. Even in a crowd, I felt invisible. But that night, under Mogadonna’s gaze, something shifted.
For the first time, I wasn’t on the outside. For the first time, I was part of a family. A time and place for us… The tears rolled down as I felt my body lift, held by the crowd around me. It was revelation.
A promise that drag, art, and community could give us belonging when the world wouldn’t. That night was the beginning of my love affair with Mardi Gras. It is the reason I have given myself to it ever since — as a volunteer, as someone who knows how much these moments matter.
What do you believe is the most important issue facing SGLMG?
The biggest issue is the combination of stability and relevance — and you cannot separate the two.
Without stability in governance, finances and organisational culture, the organisation becomes reactive, political and fragile. It cannot protect its staff, volunteers, or members. It cannot negotiate major decisions confidently. It cannot plan beyond the next crisis. Stability is the foundation that keeps everything else upright.
But stability alone means nothing if the organisation loses relevance. Relevance requires ongoing, year-round engagement, trauma-informed practice, genuine inclusion, and a deep understanding of how diverse and intersectional our community truly is. Mardi Gras must reflect who we are becoming, not who we were ten years ago.
The true challenge is doing both at once: strong governance and strong community connection.
Without that, we risk becoming either a hollow brand or a divided collective. Neither is acceptable.
What can you bring to the role that no one else can?
Everyone who steps into Mardi Gras — from marshal to performer to board director — is a volunteer. That is the beauty of this organisation. The difference lies in what we each carry with us into the role.
What I bring is a unique combination of long-term community involvement, professional governance expertise, and intersectional lived experience. I have spent decades inside this organisation in almost every capacity possible: training volunteers, coordinating accessibility areas, producing content, advising on culture and inclusion, and now serving on the board.
Professionally, I bring more than 15 years of governance experience, supported by a Juris Doctor, an Executive MBA, and a career in social impact, community strategy and organisational design. I understand risk, legality, policy, ethics and operational reality — not in theory, but in practice.
As an Autistic, non-binary, culturally diverse leader, I understand identity, culture and community through lived experience. I can bridge worlds — governance and artistry, policy and lived experience, systems and human impact.
What I bring is the capacity to hold complexity without losing sight of people.
What is your position on police marching in the parade?
No queer person should be told they do not belong in their own community. That includes LGBTQIA+ police officers who have often fought for safety and change within their institution at considerable personal cost.
We must acknowledge the harm policing causes, especially to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, people of colour, trans people and sex workers. That harm is real, and we cannot ignore it.
But banning LGBTQIA+ police will not fix policing. It removes visibility from those working inside the institution to make change and does nothing to address the systems we are trying to reform.
My position is grounded in trauma-informed practice, accountability and consultation — not erasure. Inclusion must be based on good faith and must prioritise community safety. We can hold harm and hope at the same time.
How can the SGLMG board come together to serve and support all LGBTQI communities?
A board must function as one body, not as factions. The responsibility is not to win arguments but to steward one of the most significant cultural institutions in the country. That means governance first, personalities second.
To serve all communities, the board must engage in proper process, rely on evidence rather than emotion, and respect the lived experience of people across the entire LGBTQIA+ spectrum. It must listen deeply, communicate transparently, and make decisions that centre the long-term health and safety of the organisation and its communities.
Community deserves a board that is united in purpose, even when opinions differ. That requires maturity, discipline and a shared commitment to stability and inclusion.
If you were not running, which of your fellow candidates would you choose for your first preference? Why?
I would support a candidate who demonstrates integrity, understands governance, and is genuinely committed to stability, inclusion and good process. Someone who can rise above factional dynamics and treat Mardi Gras as a community organisation with real responsibilities, not as a battleground. I would support someone who brings genuine diversity of thought, and lived experience that broadens the perspectives of the board. That includes candidates with unique cultural insight, such as First Nations leadership, who can strengthen the organisation with experience the rest of us simply don’t have.
The most important quality is not ideology — it is the ability to think long-term, act responsibly, and guide the organisation with clarity and purpose. That is the kind of leadership Mardi Gras needs now.
In the lead up to the SGLMG Annual General Meeting, Gay Sydney Australia will be interviewing several of the candidates running for the board. To read more from Gay Sydney Australia, please click here