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Caterina De Nave walks at a gay liberation event in 1972 (Images by John Miller, design by Tina Tiller)
Caterina De Nave walks at a gay liberation event in 1972 (Images by John Miller, design by Tina Tiller)

SocietyFebruary 28, 2022

50 years of gay liberation in Aotearoa

Caterina De Nave walks at a gay liberation event in 1972 (Images by John Miller, design by Tina Tiller)
Caterina De Nave walks at a gay liberation event in 1972 (Images by John Miller, design by Tina Tiller)

Queer life in Aotearoa today is a result of work that began 50 years ago at a small student forum.

This article is part of a series marking 50 years of gay liberation in Aotearoa. Click here to read more.

Sometimes a movement needs a firebrand, a charismatic person who will step up and ignite a flame. On March 15 1972, Ngāhuia Te Awekōtuku (Te Arawa, Tūhoe), an out and proud lesbian, strode onto the stage at the University of Auckland’s student forum and laid down a challenge for her fellow students: “Who out there is crazy enough to come and do this with me? Let’s start gay liberation!” The spark came to Ngāhuia after she had been awarded a scholarship to study in the United States and was denied a visa by the consul, who labelled her a sexual deviant to her face after she stated that one of her aims was to study gay power in the US. Straight after the meeting she stormed to the weekly student forum and made a fiery speech, rousing her fellow students to action. At a meeting held six days later attended by over 40 students, Auckland Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was born.

Radical and provocative, GLF activists fundamentally altered queer life in Aotearoa, and 50 years later, we are still benefitting from changes they fought hard to make. It’s important to resist popular ideas that Gay Liberation started with the 1969 New York Stonewall Inn Riots (a nonetheless seminal event in the history of global queer activism) and suddenly changed the world overnight, and instead work to understand and uplift the radical histories on our own shores, and to tell the stories that extend back many centuries.

In Aotearoa, the Gay Liberation movement of the 1970s sought to free people from the homophobic shackles imposed by British colonisation following the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840, which led to the adoption of British laws, including the law which criminalised sodomy. The closed, heterosexual rigidity of the incomers, heralded by the arrival of the missionaries two decades earlier, could not have been more different to the fluid sexualities of te ao Māori, in which sex was openly celebrated in waiata, stories and carvings, intersex babies were taonga, and gender diversity and same sex attraction and encounters were acknowledged.

These divergent worlds were on vivid display in 1830s Pēwhairangi, the Bay of Islands, in what seems to have been broadly reciprocal sexual relationships between Pehi, Tohi, Kohe and numerous other Ngāpuhi youths and the missionary William Yate. By engaging in mutual masturbation and oral sex with the lads in exchange for rings and tobacco, Yate had committed unpardonable sexual sins and was dismissed from the missionary society after a public scandal. For Pehi and the others, this was unremarkable sexual behaviour only slightly complicated by the fact they received gifts. There was no shame. Yate shows us that colonial Pākehā were no strangers to same sex attraction either, notwithstanding what British law and society at large dictated, yet the shame was vast.

Despite the chilling effect of criminality and social oppression, people still lived what we would understand today as queer lives. Throughout the 19th and for much of the 20th century, it was much “easier” for men to have same-sex relationships than it was for women due to social, economic and legal inequalities – few women were financially independent and thus able to live a life of their choice. The public world was open to men and closed to most women, whose lives were confined to private and domestically-centred worlds. A far greater degree of freedom meant that men could have sex with each other in public and private places, in towns, cities and the country, in a way women could not. This male freedom was nevertheless highly mediated by the illegality of male homosexual acts. It is no coincidence that court records are a goldmine for historians of queer lives.

The 20th century saw a gradual loosening of social restrictions and the increased entry of women in public and independent life, particularly after the second world war. Queer communities began to quietly flourish. Gay liberation could never have occurred in Aotearoa without the prior existence of these communities, the “kamp men and women, the fairies, butches, queens, dykes, transsexuals, transvestites, and hustlers” who risked imprisonment, physical abuse and social condemnation in order to live their authentic lives. Community building was itself an act of survival and resistance and laid the groundwork for future activism. There were the kamp Māori women of 1960s Wellington (they didn’t call themselves lesbians back then), who banded together for safety, solidarity and socialising; the femme fairies in beautiful dresses dolled up with wigs and false eyelashes on the arms of butches clad in masculine attire, breasts strapped – female couples passing as heterosexual to avoid a hiding; the queer trailblazer Carmen Rupe, who employed transvestites, transexuals, drag queens, gay men and lesbians at her famous coffee lounge and other Wellington establishments in the 60s and 70s. Or many decades earlier, the circle of beautiful men gathered by chemist Robert Gant and photographed in homoerotic splendour in late 19th and early 20th century Masterton.

Out of informal community building came the earliest recorded gay organisations in Aotearoa. The Dorian Society was the first, founded in 1962 as a social club for gay men in Wellington. In 1963, the Dorian established a legal subcommittee to work on public education and law reform, which later evolved into the New Zealand Homosexual Law Reform Society (NZHLRS). Cautious about privacy, the gay activists behind the NZHLRS remained largely anonymous, instead relying on prominent heterosexual allies to advocate their message of tolerance. Gay liberation marked a radical departure from the politics of groups like the NZHLRS, who in their early years never preached full support of gay life. It was part of the broader radical ferment that coalesced in the 1960s and was of a piece with women’s liberation, peace movements and locally, the tino rangatiratanga movement, all of which sought total societal revolution.

GLF groups were formed in Christchurch and Wellington later in 1972, and more around the country sprang up in the years following. Auckland GLF’s core aim was to “fight for liberation so that people are not only permitted to explore their sexual identities but are actually expected to”. They felt sexual oppression began in the “suffocating tightness of the nuclear family” and the rigid gender roles needed to uphold capitalism, arguing that “consequently anyone who doesn’t act according to the male or female roles defined by society is looked on as unnatural, and subjected to discrimination and suffering.”

Auckland GLF prioritised education and visibility, urging queer people to come out. They marched down Queen Street, donned sandwich boards reading “I support GLF, ask me about it!”, crashed meetings of fundamentalist groups, lobbied for legal change, picketed conferences, had “heaps and heaps of parties”, and did lots and lots of talking: to schools, rotary groups, the media, government organisations and more. Meetings were a central feature of the movement, ranging from annual nationwide conferences through to a bevvy of local weekly meetings. Consciousness-raising workshops aimed to educate activists as they explored what it meant to belong to an oppressed minority group and how they could fight against it, and a “Welfare Cell” was established to counsel queers through the collective trauma of oppression.

Ngāhuia speaking at Albert Park during Pride 2020 (Image: Richard Orjis)

“Zaps” were a popular form of protest adopted from the US and defined as both confronting and humorous. At the first GLF action – “Gay Day” held on April 11, 1972 – activists took to the streets dressed up as Batman, Robin, Shakespeare, Queen Victoria and Oscar Wilde and enacted a mock court trial. Santa Claus condemned each defendant, chanting “ho ho homosexual, sodomy laws are ineffectual!” Zaps, like guerrilla theatre, were a fun way to engage and challenge the public. Other forms of zaps included taking vanloads of activists to flounce around towns outside of the main city centres – places like New Plymouth, Napier and Palmerston North – in order to disrupt the heterosexual dominance of the streets. Activist Judith Emms recalled that they would “strut down the main street trying to be as obvious as possible, and hold hands and try and get followed to the pub”.

Actions like this were scary: being out could lose you your job, your friends, and your family, not to mention expose you to physical violence. Emms remembered attending her first Gay Pride March in Wellington in 1972, “and the fear was indescribable…there were six people on this march, and I think 40 police. I had a duffel coat, a hat, a muffler and for this whole period I used another name.”

Burn-out was real, and turnover high. At one point, there were only four activists involved in Auckland GLF. By 1976, many groups had folded, and divisions grew stronger. The National Gay Rights Coalition was founded in 1977 by activist Robin Duff in an attempt at unity, and though it had a significant impact on the movement, it too had all but dissolved by 1982. What happened to the energy that characterised the beginnings of the GLF? Perhaps, as with other GLFs overseas, pursuit of a single issue and pressures for unanimity meant movement splits had big repercussions.

Although in theory activists sought inclusivity – the word ‘gay’ was used broadly to name a community that was racially diverse and involved homosexuals, bisexuals, asexuals, intersex people and trans people (though they used different terms, such as “non-sexual” and “trans-sexual”) – in practice GLF was a predominantly white, middle-class, cisgender movement. GLF encouraged members who suffered “additional oppression to that suffered because they are gay (for example, women, Maoris [sic], Pacific Islanders, transvestites and trans-sexuals, and blatant gays)” to form their own caucuses within the movement. However, the extent to which this actually happened was limited.

In response to GLF’s rampant sexism, many lesbian feminists formed their own organisations; Sisters for Homophile Equality formed in 1973 and the Gay Feminist Collective in 1974. Racism, classism, and cissexism were superficially acknowledged by GLFs. Ngāhuia herself only remained in the movement for a year, directing her energy instead towards Māori activist group Ngā Tamatoa. Ngāhuia reflected that for takatāpui, Māori self-determination was the priority. For trans people, especially working class, Māori and Pasifika trans women, the necessity of focusing on survival meant that their resistance and activism occurred in more unconventional ways than in joining formal organisations like GLF, and their membership was often unwanted.

Ultimately, GLF was unable to acknowledge and work with the power of the communities that had already formed. Gay liberationists tended to view the working-class communities led by takatāpui who had made gay liberation possible as apathetic to political work. And with increasing focus specifically on homosexual law reform, those who were not cisgender lesbians and gays were soon neglected. Burn-out, in-fighting and discrimination within the movement meant that many of the original ideals of Gay Liberation got lost, as newer groups formed and replaced the GLF as the central pillars of gay organising.

In spite of these not-insignificant issues, Aotearoa’s GLFs fundamentally altered the relationship between queer New Zealanders and public space. These activists shattered the veil of silence and secrecy, forcing New Zealanders – queer and “square” alike – to reckon with gay liberation. Homosexual law reform in 1986 wouldn’t have happened without them. We stand on the shoulders of the gay liberationists, the lesbian feminists, the trans trailblazers, the kamp folk, whose bravery in the face of very real violence and oppression deserves our recognition and honouring. There is no linear road to progress – the struggle for liberation for all peoples wages on. In this struggle, it is important that we look back on our history, learn from our queer ancestors, and feel strength knowing that just as they fought and failed and succeeded and tried again and created change, so too will we continue to fight, learn, and build.

Keep going!
Photo: Maya Ando, additional design by Tina Tiller
Photo: Maya Ando, additional design by Tina Tiller

SocietyFebruary 28, 2022

‘We don’t deserve this’: Wellington students kept away from school by parliament protest

Photo: Maya Ando, additional design by Tina Tiller
Photo: Maya Ando, additional design by Tina Tiller

They’ve been cornered, harassed and had eggs thrown at them by anti-mandate protesters. Now two students from a school forced to close explain what it’s like to have your rights curtailed by people claiming to be fighting for theirs.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock or deliberately avoiding the news lately (no judgement, proud of you for returning), you’ll have heard about the anti-vax, anti-mandate, anti-other-stuff protest at parliament, which seems to be getting more and more insane by the day. A tent city, so-called “freedom fighters”, comparisons to Nazis; as Wellington students, we’ve watched it all play out before our own horrified eyes, unable to do anything as businesses and schools close in an attempt to keep people safe – the very reason the mandates exist in the first place.

Making our way to school in the first few days of the protest was difficult. Many students had to walk several extra kilometres to avoid the protesters or face harassment that included being yelled at and having eggs thrown at them. They described their trips to school as “scary”, saying, “you don’t know what the protesters are going to do, you have no idea what’s going to happen. They’re all staring at you because you’re wearing a mask and you only really feel safe if there’s lots of police around.” Buses were often surrounded and roads blocked.

Concern for safety only increased as the protest drew on, with teachers having to walk students between the train station and school to ensure their safe passage, until it got to a point where neither the students nor the teachers felt safe on our way to school. But due to Wellington Girls’ College (WGC) being in the prime location of a stone’s throw from parliament, even inside the classrooms we couldn’t escape. Maths, English, sociology and so many other classes have been interrupted by the insistent beeping of car horns, shouts of “freedom!” breaking the silence of a study period. Leaving school at lunchtime, a prized privilege for our senior students, was heavily discouraged, lest we run into any potentially dangerous protesters.

Protesters from the parliament occupation (Photo: Birgit Krippner/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

This protest has now escalated to such a degree that we are no longer safe at school – WGC has moved online in order to avoid the violence and harassment staff and students were subject to on the daily. The fact that we have to stay home, that we are scared to go to school because a bunch of people feel so threatened by the prospect of being vaccinated and wearing masks that they feel the need to threaten others, is just ludicrous. 

One of our friends walking home from school was cornered by three men who yelled profanities at her, repeatedly calling her “dirty” simply because she was wearing a mask. The whole incident affected her immensely, increasing her severe anxiety. She told us, “There’s currently no place I can go where I’m not surrounded by protesters, so I don’t feel safe existing in my own city. It’s crazy to see that they’ve caused many schools to shut down. While fighting for their rights, they’ve stripped rights from thousands.”

Another of our friends, walking to get her lunch, was yelled and beeped at by protesters and had eggs thrown at her. She said, “Thankfully, they missed, but I was absolutely terrified at the time. If my friend hadn’t been with me, I would have just turned around and not eaten lunch at all. I’ve been harassed three times by these protesters. I think that I am continually picked on by them due to the fact that I am a young woman who is small in stature and not very assertive. It makes me wonder, would these people pick on a 6ft 4in man who was big, white and bulky? It’s unfair that they pick on people like me, or anyone. I hate that I had to bear the brunt of a political division. So much for freedom – if I don’t have the freedom to wear my mask, what the hell are they even protesting about?”

WGC students are no strangers to protesting, either. We are part of an opinionated and passionate community, often involving ourselves in movements such as the School Strikes for Climate and the Black Lives Matter marches. With the current protests, however, we are struggling to find personal truth within their messages the way we so easily could with the protests that came before. The protest itself doesn’t seem to make any sense; there’s a bouncy castle for the kids and there are police being sprayed in the face with acid across the street. All the protesters seem intent on getting their so-called “freedom”, regardless of how that affects other people. And it is affecting people. These protesters cry about how they’ve lost their jobs, yet their protest is causing shops to close, customers to turn away. 

WGC students are no strangers to protesting – here against the abduction of Nigerian schoolgirls in 2014 (Photo: Marty Melville/Getty Images)

The hypocrisy, in fact, is one of the most infuriating things about this protest. These people are walking around holding signs demanding “FREEDOM” and “leave our children alone” yet they harass passing schoolchildren wearing masks and exercising their freedom by doing so. It’s almost as if the protesters don’t quite understand what their words mean – they’re comparing the government to Nazis yet calling the prime minister “Jew-cinda”, they declare “freedom over fear” yet appear to simply be a crowd of scared, confused people.

How is it fair that we have to wade through crowds of protesters and face abuse and threats on a daily basis and then turn around online and see those same protesters claiming time and time again that it’s completely peaceful? Our experiences did not and still do not feel valid in this environment. Even if there are people there determined to protest peacefully, the presence of those who turn to violent and aggressive means undermine the “peaceful” part of it. Those who claim the media is “twisting” the truth only seem to be twisting their own reality.  Some of their messages seem so outrageous that they only make students laugh – “So I don’t wear sunscreen and you get skin cancer?” one sign questioned of passersby, either unaware or wilfully ignorant of the key difference between cancer and Covid. Spoiler alert: one of those things is contagious and the other is decidedly not. 

How do these protests make us feel? Yes, scared and unsafe. Yes, threatened and abused. But also, unimportant. Like our education and our role as students in this country is not valued. We and our friends are in the last year we’ll ever have at school and we can’t even be there, because people have decided that the past two years of lockdowns weren’t enough – they want to take away even more of the limited time we have with our friends and peers. This protest may not be about us but what the protesters refuse to understand is that they are making it about us. Their messages have become so lost in the insults they hurl that we simply cannot see this protest as anything but a complete roadblock to our education and wellbeing. All we can do is read the headlines, refresh the live updates, and wait for life to go back to normal – something that seems impossible enough as it is. Honestly, we’re all just so sick of it all.

Our message to the protesters? We know you’re scared. Everyone is. But this is not working. This is not a peaceful protest, as much as some of you might like it to be. Please, go home, read something other than Facebook. You are not changing history, you’re not standing up for what you believe in, you’re just hurting other people and, frankly, making everything worse. As one of WGC’s head students, Alice Thompson, said, we are mad. Mad that we felt unsafe enough to close the school. This abuse from a “peaceful protest” shouldn’t be tolerated any longer. 

The police don’t deserve this. The public doesn’t deserve this. We don’t deserve this. 

Go home.

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