Harry Potter 's Miriam Margolyes Attends Her First Pride Celebration at Age 81: 'I'm Proud'

ABC

Miriam Margoyles is proving that it's never too late to join in on Pride celebrations!

In a new docuseries, titled Australia Unmasked, the 81-year-old actress shares her coming-out story and dives into the history of LGBTQ+ rights in Australia.

The program features the moment when Margoyles attends her first Pride parade in Hobart, Tasmania, per PINK News. There, she is seen sitting in a wheelchair while holding several rainbow flags.

"The bigoted state that so many of my new friends grew up in has all but vanished … Tassie now boasts the most progressive LGBTQI laws in Australia," Margoyles says in the episode, according to the outlet. "Although the struggle isn't over, I'm proud to march — or roll rather — right along with them."

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Elsewhere in the episode, Margoyles also shares that her mother was heartbroken when she came out to her as a lesbian. The Harry Potter star has been with her partner Heather Sutherland since 1968.

"I told my mother, and she was utterly devastated," she shares. "My Parents were Jewish. My father was a doctor, so you'd think he would be a bit clued up."

"But no, not when it was his daughter. It wasn't possible," Margoyles adds.

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According to Rodney Croome — a Tasmanian LGBTQ activist whom the star met up with in the docuseries — Tasmania was the last place in Australia to decriminalize homosexuality in 1997.

"When we were trying to decriminalize homosexuality, there were large anti-gay rallies in Uvelstone," Croome explains. "Hundreds of people came from all over in the civic center to protest against LGBTQI people in the late 80s. … The speakers were inciting the crowds to even higher levels of hatred. The crowds were shouting, 'Kill them! Kill them!' "

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However, PINK News reported that the island state has since progressed and now possesses several laws to protect the LGBTQ community, including removing requirements for transgender people to undergo surgery to have their legal gender recognized in 2019.

After the episode aired, Croome expressed his gratitude towards Margoyles, writing on Twitter, "It was a privilege to have Miriam Margoyles highlight how Tasmania has gone from worst to best on LGBTIQA+ human rights."