The Canberra SpringOUT Pride Festival started in 1999 with just two volunteers and a pride rally. The 300-strong crowd marched down to Glebe Park, rainbow flags held high, to celebrate Canberra’s LGBTQIA+ community.
SpringOUT and our community wishes to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the Country upon which the Festival takes place, the Ngunnawal people. We also wish to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the Country upon which we live, learn and work. We honour their Ancestors and pay our deepest respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging.
We extend that respect to all First Nations Peoples, for they hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples across the nation. We honour and respect their continued cultural and spiritual relationship to their traditional lands, seas and waters and recognise their unique and valuable contribution to society. Sovereignty was never ceded.
We also acknowledge, honour and pay our respects to our gender and sexually diverse Elders who have fought for the rights and freedoms we have, to be our authentic selves.
