Growing up in a remote mining city, teenagers Abbie Kelly and Max Dawnn are no strangers to discrimination.
Abbie identifies as lesbian, but living in Broken Hill in far west NSW can be isolating for someone who is 13 and still in high school.
On her first day of Year 7, she decided a "cool" but "discreet" way to express herself was to add multicoloured beads to her shoelaces.
"I had them in the order of the lesbian flag and then just my typical rainbow beads," Abbie says.
But she was afraid of the bullying she could face at school for being openly gay.
"I ended up taking them off the first day of high school because I was too scared to wear them because of the amount of homophobia that is exposed in schools," Abbie says.
"[Some people] take their confusion out on you in really hurtful ways, call you slurs and swear at you.
"I felt alone and scared to be myself … but I was not the only one feeling this way."
Abbie reached out to her friend Max and together the students founded Prideful Broken Hill and then the Rainbow Shoelace Project in March this year.
"You never normally see rainbows looking down, you normally see them in the sky, but when you're experiencing homophobia, you hide yourself and look down," Abbie says.
"But when you see the rainbow beads, it can make you feel so much more safe being yourself."
'Hope left in humanity'
With Abbie's mother Sophie Angell, the pair began to share their rainbow beads with organisations and businesses around town and sent letters all over Australia spreading their message of inclusivity and hope.
When they began to create a presence on social media networks like Tiktok, the Rainbow Shoelace Project started to "blow up".
"We thought it was only going to stay local for a bit, and then we started expanding and all these content creators started reaching out to us and the support has been overwhelming," Max says.
"I thought we were going to get backlash and homophobia from people, but we've got more support, which is amazing."
Max, who identifies as non-binary, says the project made them "hopeful" remote regions could offer more support for LGBTQIA+ people.
"It just makes me feel like there's a bit of hope in the world, there's a bit of hope left in humanity," Max says.
Beads gaining 'worldwide' popularity
Comedian and Tiktok content creator Christian Hull found out about the Rainbow Shoelace Project through an Instagram message from Abbie and spread the initiative via his social media networks.
"She wanted to do a little video with myself, then she hand wrote this beautiful letter for me which I read out and filmed myself speaking about the project," he says.
"I think it's just offering that small bit of hope or bit of support to people within the queer community who really need it, because it can turn dark pretty quickly."
As a gay man, Mr Hull is glad a "fantastic, simple idea" for people living in regional communities has had such an impact.
"Cities are very progressive, and so are a lot of regional areas, but it can be harder to find your community," he says.
"It's a small little gesture, like in the 80s if you had an earring in your left ear, you'd think, 'He's gay' … I think it's just so important still.
"It could go global and worldwide so quickly and easily."
The beads are already gaining popularity in countries such as Canada, the US, UK and New Zealand.
Tour of regions to come
Abbie hopes this is another step in the right direction.
"Those beads went way faster than I thought they would, and yes, people are stopping, staring and laughing — but that is nothing compared to the amount of support and love that we get," she says.
"It would be absolutely amazing for this to be on World Pride in Sydney for 2023."
Abbie and Max plan on heading to to the Broken Heel Festival in Broken Hill this week, as well as other regional towns like Port Macquarie, Hay, Tamworth, and Port Pirie.
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