The story of Albany Pride: Cofounder and president Annie Arnold on the journey so far

In 13 years, Albany Pride has grown from a monthly coffee at Kate’s Place into the force behind WA’s biggest regional pride festival, in no small way thanks to co-founder and president Annie Arnold.

Originally from the Wheatbelt, Ms Arnold moved to Albany from Melbourne with her now wife in 2011.

“We thought, let’s just do six months in Albany because we liked it here and then we got stuck and decided to stay,” she said.

Working at the Department of Communities in child protection and family support, Ms Arnold was approached by Albany headspace’s Andrew Wenzel to start “something for the local queer community”.

“At that time, one in four young people that went to headspace were identifying as not straight,” she said.

This was the birth of Albany Pride though the group was then known as “Albany Gay and Lesbian and everyone in between”.

They started with a monthly coffee at Kate’s Place, creating a safe space for Albany’s queer community, but there were growing pains.

“Sometimes we were getting 20 or 30 people along, sometimes we would get one or two,” Ms Arnold said.

The small group was also attempting to cater for everyone from those in their early teens coming freshly into their identity to 80-year-olds who had lived with the knowledge of who they were for decades.

“The main problem at the start was trying to figure out how we could all exist together in the best way possible,” Ms Arnold said.

“We realised that we needed more targeted support so we started the youth group spectrum in 2017, which now attracts about 30 young people along every time and then from there things just kind of snowballed.”

One of the early challenges was simply gaining the acceptance of the wider community, Ms Arnold said.

“This was way before the marriage equality in 2017 so in 2011 none of that was even on the table,” she said.

“We didn’t have much support at the start, we had no business support at the start apart from headspace.”

Ms Arnold said this had changed significantly in the past 13 years with growing support from local businesses, the City of Albany and the wider community having a huge impact.

This support has “meant everything”, allowing Albany Pride to run the group more effectively, put on bigger festivals and host more, smaller events year-round.

“It’s meant that we’ve gone from being a little group to a thriving organisation,” Ms Arnold said.

Thanks to Albany Pride’s efforts, the city is now home to the biggest pride festival in regional WA.

The organisation still holds its monthly catch-up — although now they are end-of-month drinks at the Prem rather than coffee at Kate’s Place.

It also convenes several peer support groups, including the Pride Social Support Group for people with disabilities, neurodivergence or mental health challenges, and Transverse for people who are gender diverse.

Ms Arnold said she was proud the community had maintained its unity while catering for a wide range of different experiences.

“I think it’s a real testament to the local community we’ve had,” she said.

“Although we’ve had all these little groups, we are always one big group as well.”

As the festival and organisation has grown in size and prominence, it has attracted unwanted attention with a small group speaking out against them but this opposition has been outnumbered by supporters, Ms Arnold said.

“What it’s really shown is that our community has come together, our queer community has come together,” she said.

“In fact, the whole broader community has come together, people have been coming out of the woodwork to step up and support us.”

Ms Arnold says she’s happy to see just how far Albany Pride has come from small meet-ups to one of the biggest regional Pride organisations in Australia.

“We’ve evolved a lot, we’ve learnt a lot, we’ve grown a lot,” she said.

“We’ve now got a sensational board of incredible volunteers.”

Looking to the future, Ms Arnold hopes that as Albany Pride continues to grow they’ll be able to offer a wider range of more tailored support to different groups but for now, she’s proud and thankful for what has been achieved so far.