Sydney Beats Montreal, Houston to Host WorldPride 2023

Sydney has won its bid to host WorldPride in 2023.

The Australian capital beat out Montreal and Houston to host the international Pride celebration, which occurs every two years in a different city around the globe.

The news was announced Sunday in Athens at a meeting of InterPride, an international collective of Pride groups that organizes WorldPride. Sixty percent of its members voted for Sydney, as compared to 36 percent for Montreal and 3 percent for Houston.

This marks the first time a WorldPride will arrive in the Southern Hemisphere. Begun in 2000, the LGBTQ celebration has been held in Rome, New York City, London, Toronto, Jerusalem, and Madrid. The twin cities of Copenhagen, Denmark, and Malmo, Sweden, will host in 2021.

WorldPride in Sydney will run through February and March of 2023, which will coincide with the 45th anniversary of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras -- the country's largest LGBTQ gathering.

Themed "Fearless," the event aspires to "celebrate and shine a spotlight on the unique challenges faced by the LGBTQI community in the region," Giovanni Campolo-Arcidiaco, a cochair of Sydney Mardi Gras, told ABC News.

"LGBTQ communities in the region experience some of the worst human rights abuses in the world, but the region is very under-represented in InterPride," said a statement from Sydney Mardi Gras, which hopes to draw attention to the struggles of the LGBTQ movement in the Asia-Pacific region.