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I think I scripted everything, including the jokes and the pauses. It's pathetic, but I'm an editor. So there you go. Hello, thanks. Must go to my esteemed fellow queer parenting panellists for sharing with us today. I didn't know I was going to be talking first. There you go. Can I just say by way of confession that I was raised as a Mormon, and thus we were encouraged to regularly bear our testimony testimonies [00:00:30] in front of the whole church congregation on fast and testimony. First Sunday of every month here, we discussed any spiritual insights we had had over the previous month and gave thanks for simply everything, often while crying. This will not be that, by way of introductions is I don't get out on the queer scene to socialise much. My slightly ludicrous name is Squad, which I've had for a very long and interesting 31 years now since the age of 13, when I joined [00:01:00] a friendly girl gang with fellow Fitz. I'm part of this queer parenting panel for two very obvious reasons. Being fully queer since age 14 and fully a mum to two little girls aged almost seven and almost 10. I volunteered to write this and to make myself vulnerable in front of you all in this way, because I really wanted to be forced to have to seek out the tension between parenting and being queer in this highly exa examined and embodied life of mine. So [00:01:30] where is the tension? I'm not dynamo and I can't actually read your mice. But I'll throw this stuff out there. Queer and parenting. Yeah. So what? And what's the problem? Kids? What the fuck? What were you thinking? I hate kids So the world doesn't need any more Children. Why do you have to do what straight people do? Aren't you just another breeder? What's the point? Isn't it selfish to have Children? Couldn't you just adopt like us? Queer people who rescue animals [00:02:00] from shelters? Oh, I get it. You were straight. And you So you popped out some sprogs on automatic pilot before realising you were actually gay. So just come out and bring your kids with you if you have to. Sperm is gross, and I would not do that to my body. My vagina is a sacred space and will not be peered into or stretched open with forceps, and while I'm at it, my tits need to stay above the equator line and [00:02:30] breast feeding looks like a form of parasitism. Isn't giving birth just the worst thing possible? And aren't kids too expensive? I mean, I don't have a choice about where my hard earned tax dollars go, but I know that I'm indirectly supporting your lifestyle choices with your tribe of Li infested, food splattered Children in your minivan. And another thing. I can't bear it when kids are sitting behind you on a plane and they kick your chair. And don't start me [00:03:00] on the topic of crying babies on long haul flights to the UK Planned Parenthood. No thanks. Yeah, so all of that aside, as I'm guessing you are mostly actually interested in the idea of queer parenting. And if you're not parents already and I'm not even looking for queer people support or approval for my parenting endeavours, Although that would be nice. No, The tension for me in being a bisexual mother of two is holy and being neither within nor [00:03:30] without wherever I find myself. I am always a foreigner and interloper and unwelcome guest to use a metaphor made famous by an Austrian quantum physicist in the 19 thirties. I feel like Schrodinger Cat, which in the original fictitious experiment is both simultaneously dead and alive inside a radioactive chamber. OK, so that's obscure. But you get it. I always feel as if I'm occupying [00:04:00] two states of both both and neither, like two hearts of one person who has different lights going off on the panel of her brain, depending on where she finds herself. But this happens simultaneously. In short, I feel as if I'm always spying for the outside group, like right now. Even. Is that creepy or eliminating? See me as your queer ambassador with a special backstage pass onto the stage of conventional mainstream family life. [00:04:30] For it was me who attended those endless monthly kindergarten parent Teacher committee meetings for four years. I did this not just because one of my kids' teachers had an obvious crush on me, and I wanted to see if I could touch my knee to hers while sitting around a snack table that evening, or even if she would mimic my lesbian cock hand, which I would do on purpose while sitting across from her it be such fun? My big girl's current teacher is also crushing on me. How do I know this? [00:05:00] Believe it or not, and this may happen to you, too. But every time I walk into a room of mothers and Children with my Children and looking like I do, there is always one woman who sits up straight and gets all shiny eyed around me. Anyhow, back to my girl's teacher, who looks every bit like a nineties sport dick, right down to the frosted tips in her hair, I thought I would help her along the joys path to her own bisexuality by sending her a discrete [00:05:30] invitation to join a closed social group on Facebook for queer women in our area. Since then, she has called me that strange woman and all her overly friendly. Seeking me out has stopped no more. I contact people. That's what you get for stepping out, and my role is queer interloper in the straight world of mainstream education. In the process of justifying this exercise and self reflection, I've had to ask myself, What exactly is square about my experience [00:06:00] of parenting? And what could my audience possibly gain from hearing all of this. Can I throw some light onto some new terrain and point out opportunities for Intersectionality between mine and their lived experiences? Can I adequately expose my own privilege and subject position so as to get a little sympathy from my listeners rather than just boredom or contempt? Are they interested in my existential struggle? Am I struggling? Am I queer enough? I certainly feel queer enough. I've done 30 years of being [00:06:30] defiantly queer and looking like a tomboy freak, and I take every opportunity to disrupt others. Expectations about me. But what about my family? My male partner is only queer and that he lives with me. My kids, queerness or otherwise, is a complete unknown. Are we a queer family at all? According to the tick boxes in the recent national census, I'm married with kids, and I am in the process of buying my own home. Oh, dear. A quick survey of the results of a Google search based on the keyword, queer and parenting [00:07:00] reveals the following hot topics. Number one. How do you conceive? Will your queer conception be medically assisted or something else? As for my experience with conception, we did this the way you know, when a man and a woman love each other very much so, Yeah. Nah, there was no queer there. Number two. How did you state a pregnancy inside a gender variant body? I don't feel any gender dysphoria despite having a thing for Butch, but I can report that pregnancy was a fascinating, embodied experience [00:07:30] so exhilarating and yet so tedious and apart from a frightening and lonely two months with hyper extreme version of morning sickness. Both of my pregnancies were textbook healthy and according to plan, I did end up with swollen feet like inflated surgical gloves, scarily wounded abdomen, actual tits and the whole thing also got two wonderful baby girls at the end of it. Number three, partner rights. Get these sorted under the law. Um, yeah. [00:08:00] Married Opposite sex partners inherit the whole raft of parental rights as a matter of course. So there's no queer there. Number four. The common thing for Number four was coming out to Everybody is queer and the straight worlds you will be newly inhabiting with your Children can be very hard work. Here's the crunch for me And where being bisexual really kicks in and intersects with my parenting ethos and practise trying to eke out a space for your personal queerness at Plunket at kidney kindy at your kids' friends Birthdays [00:08:30] Parties on the various educational committees you may be serving on or just in the school grounds, generally under the cold glare of the fellow parents, can be draining in my life. As a queer parent, I'm coping with everyone's assumptions about who I am all the time. To be honest, if I were dressed to conform and let people think what they want of me, their life would be much easier. Although I think much less of an authentic experience disrupting others, expectations of my personal experience of queerness can become quite the hobby. [00:09:00] How could I forget the stony silence as the women on the Kindy committee were doing the rounds excitedly talking about their wedding anniversaries this year, when it came to my turn to speak in the circle, I was like, I don't know when we got married. Clang. Then there's the recent friendly welcome I got from the administrator at the library page on Facebook, which quickly became an outright and very public refusal to allow me to join the group as despite being the requisite non heterosexual status. I admitted to her that I had a male partner, and she replied, rather tersely, [00:09:30] that she was pleased that I understood about their membership policy. She also mentioned something about how the cookie crumbled. Ouch. I cannot begin to imagine what kind of prurient collective imagination cooked up those admission criteria for this particular bookish social group. I mean, what could I possibly be doing at home to negatively influenced my experience of using a library service? The mind boggles as far as throwing out the widely used and cherished LGBT acronym for the awful apartheid [00:10:00] era non heterosexual, where you were defined by what you are not and when you fail to live up to the dominant culture version of normal G. Yuck. So, yes, I think I may have managed to expose the Lilac Library's default. Don't ask, don't tell membership policy criteria. So how do I actively go about queering my family without them realising it? Even well, I have conspired to name both my daughters after transgressive women, my almost 10 year old was named after Marlena Dietrich, the German bisexual [00:10:30] actress and singer. She had the naval hat and long cigarette vein. My seven year old cosy Eden is named after Mozart's opera Cosi Fan Tutte. Well, that's what I tell people. Truth is, and keep this quiet. But I actually named her after cosy Fanny Tuti, a kick ass performance artist from the industrial music scene in the nineties who was associated with throbbing gristle. What a legacy. Also, I have none of the jewellery associated with romantic attachment. I kept my dear old dad's last name as my own, and me and Flamers [00:11:00] certainly don't celebrate the anniversary of our awesome UK visa enabling wedding ceremony. Although I think we are coming up to 17 years together this New Year's Eve, all that stuff there's like so much blah and heterosexual baggage. Something happened in the car park the other day in the car park, a pack and save that, I thought could serve as a sweet little metaphor for what it is to be a member of our subtly queer little family. When returning from a quick mission inside the supermarket, I found all three family members and our new dog still [00:11:30] in the car, but shifted into new seats and were in the others accessories and everybody laughing like drains. I was amused to find the dog in my seat and wearing my scarf. Our youngest girl, Cosy, was now in the driver's seat with her dad's glasses and hat on. All three humans were cracking up and putting on new voices and really enjoying this role. Piece of impromptu theatre. The dog looked confused but happy to be sitting on my cushion and high up on the front seat. So there it is, folks. Roles in our family seem to be noticeably [00:12:00] fluid, which tailors nicely with the fact that we each have two distinctly different names that we use whenever we need to shift the dynamic and find some space to be somewhere new. Although having said that while our girl cosy actually talks often about thinking of herself as a flying pig, we don't mock her. We are quietly hoping that this is a phase. So just to recap, girls who wear blue at the start of their lives go on to enjoy wearing pink and indeed seem to need to get their pink on for a good chunk of their childhood. years. [00:12:30] Nappies, blah, queering Your family is easier than you think, as this can be done in all sorts of subtle ways. If you can honour your Children's uniqueness, play games endlessly, speak softly to them and let them know that you are in fact, not just weird, but good. Weird. Then hopefully they will honour you back when the time comes. Right now, we are just trying to make sure that our kids know that nobody is ugly to look at but can behave in ugly ways. And everyone is normal, you know, in their own beautiful way. Privilege is something [00:13:00] that can be used with grace to make other people's lives that a little bit easier. As our big girl is almost 10 I as the mum, I'm about to launch into lots of candid talk about sexuality and puberty with both girls in an ongoing and surprise attack kind of way, which may be less embarrassing than the sit down for the awful talk method favoured by many parents. Here we will be learning that same sex attraction is normal but less common than opposite sex attraction, but that all warm exchanges between humans with bright eyes [00:13:30] and open hearts is to be welcomed. And one of my own beautiful future is the currently only queer in industry. In this four pointed, oddly Shak family, I am looking for new ways to have that authentically and visibly queer lifestyle that I want. It would be good to put Schrodinger's metaphorical cat back into its box to enjoy its endless state of particle flux while I do something else that feels more whole and more authentic as far as my two wonderful daughters go, all the evidence [00:14:00] says that statistically, my Children are no more likely to be queer than anyone else's. But it would be nice to have that conversation with one of them one day. I'm not sure how much of my queer journey needs to become their queer journey. That is totally up to them, of course, the more and rope between me as their mother and then becomes longer and longer by the day. While researching this presentation, I found this amazing website called Offbeat families dot com, whose brief is to support parents and caregivers who are moving beyond mainstream visions of [00:14:30] parenting. The contributors are so queer, and they're also so not queer and everything and everyone's take on life is so unique and presented as equally valuable. The site seems to be pointing the way. I'd just like to finish up my hilarious joke that I do. I have a hilarious joke. Well, I think so, that I tell when I'm out in queer company with people who I haven't come out to as someone with kids. Yet it goes like this. And it's all about playing on the assumptions fellow queer people make about me because I like to really work the whole kinky butch look [00:15:00] and will take any opportunity to show off my belly. I know it's sad, but it's all I've got. Anyhow. I lift up my shirt and I show my C section scar and I say, See this scar? I had this terrible abdominal pain, and the decided to do some exploratory surgery to see what was wrong with me, and you'll never believe what they found inside of me. What says the shiny eyed dukes? Listening to my story a human being? I exclaimed before laughing like a drain. Thank [00:15:30] you. Uh, well, uh, welcome everyone who hasn't been welcomed before by some of the panellists starting themselves as a few minutes late to opening the session. So thank you guys for starting off, um, before us. We have Chris over there who is part of the three. So with another Chris and Andy who couldn't be here today, and between them, they have seven kids. Um, with a wide range of age, Uh, with three or four months, uh, with three or [00:16:00] four months, Um, and the interest in extreme sports and travel and all those interesting things. Uh, S squares, is it SS? Uh uh is a 44 year old bisexual, uh, mother of two feral princesses, age seven and 10, and she appears married with Children in the census, but, whoa, what the fuck? Not even, um, And, uh, Joe here is the mother of John, George, Rosemary, and Bethany. And we'll talk about being a queer mother raising Children, [00:16:30] uh, raising crew Children and family life in an extended rainbow family. Um, so thank you everyone for coming, and, uh, we welcome the next speaker. Um, what I think they've decided is that they would each speak, and then we would open up for questions. Um, so who is next amongst the two of you. Marvellous. Um, I just need to get a bit of background about my situation. Um, I haven't got a such a well researched talk. That was great. Um, [00:17:00] I. I was married for nearly 13 years and had one child through that marriage who's now in his early thirties. But my two partners and we've been together since 1996 15, 16 years. They've both had, um, kids with different lesbian couples as donor dads. And Andy's got four kids with a lesbian couple in Christchurch. And Chris has got two kids with a local lesbian couple [00:17:30] here in Wellington region. So between us, we've got seven kids, which my parents are quite interesting when people meet you as a gay not as gay couple or great gay threesome. The kids is so another level, which they don't quite anticipate. We don't, um, apart from me, I, I, of course, live with my son until I split up when he was about 13. Um, the other six Children don't actually live with us. They can spend time with us. [00:18:00] They they have holidays with us, and, um so they've been around all their lives. Um, but we don't actually have that sort of household full of kids all the time. Um, yeah, I think as a as a parent, I suppose I was the one who had that transition from being a heterosexual married guy with a son who lived half his time in Wellington with his mother and half with us. And he, [00:18:30] at the age of 13, was introduced to Chris, one of my two partners who I was with for three or four years before I met Andy. And so that was an interesting transition for him as well as it was for me. And I think that, um it was very it was a very easy transition. I had a period of about two or three months living on my own where he got used to coming and spending time with me, Um, without Chris around. [00:19:00] And then when Chris moved to Wellington, um, we were flatting together, And so, um, my son turned up with both of us there, and it was quite interesting at the, um, meeting of his friends. I remember his first friend he met, um, we met of his was after only about two or three weeks. So I think he got quite confident quite quickly. He came to this school here when I was in high school, and there were a lot of other kids who had different sort of types of family [00:19:30] situation, which I think helped, um so that transition for him as a 13 year old seemed to work quite well, and And he spent well, it seems like forever living in our house. I mean, he was still living in our house in his late twenties, on and off. Um, like they do. So I think that, uh the whole living in a queer household for him was was actually put it on. It was all all set up on the right footing right from the start. And I think that he [00:20:00] always talks about us as his three gay dads, which he was doing at school because when Andy came to join us, he was still at high school here, Wellington High School. And, um, yeah, I don't think I had any much of a problem trying, you know, going from a position of having a now a gay dad with one partner to a gay dad with two partners. Although I remember at the time when he was about 16 17 and got to hear about Andy and how he was going to join our relationship, saying, Well, I'm not sure I think we should have any more than [00:20:30] two partners Oh, um because we always Yeah, we always I. I think that I mean, this is more about parenting, but I mean the whole thing about relationships. I think that our feeling is that you know, many, many people based relationships on the fact that there's lots of elements of society. You think that love is a very limited thing that's only only really, um, able to be a fixed to one other person or one partner. I think none of us believe [00:21:00] that That's true and probably to some extent in human society never has been true. That love and a loving relationship, which you know, is the essence I suppose of of our relationship is is something that is very freely distributed and can you know you can love as many people as you want. So the idea of limiting the numbers of people in a relationship beyond practicality and you know what works in the community you live in, I think is is to us not? Not really. A, um [00:21:30] I think that we subscribe to, um I think I might just leave it there. I think that Joe do her intro questions later, Tina. Fine. [00:22:00] Cool. [00:22:30] Joe talking. My name is Joe. I come from a place in the Eastern Bay of plenty of privileged to have been born in a in a place in the country that, um is [00:23:00] and to have lived there and loved my heart. I moved to the far north and married a Maori man of origin. Um, when I was 18 years old [00:23:30] and we had four Children, their names are John George Rosemary. Actually, we had three Children because then there was Bethany, and I'll explain how Bethany arrived in this. You know, little bit through this, this table in my life I have identified as a married heterosexual woman. I was a debutant because of my English heritage. My English grandmother thought [00:24:00] that was very important and that I needed to be a leader, and they tried hard. Um, and of course, I married my husband after the because that's what you did. I got presented for marriage and then got married. And my mother cried because she hadn't expected. She was hoping for a doctor, an accountant rather than a Maori boy who was a mechanic down the road. But we can't have everything that we want. [00:24:30] My husband and I moved to Australia and we went from Kaita to Oxford Street, all bright eyed, our world changed. We experienced our first gay parade Pride parade very quickly, very loudly. And, um, a whole new world opened up to both of us. So we had some colourful years in Sydney, Australia, and, um, [00:25:00] and so began the rest of our lives. We moved to Perth and we had our first child. His name is John. John is now 24 years old and he is a gay man. He's, uh, had a civil union this year, and his husband's name is Glenn. Um, I remember when John came out to me, it was an interesting experience in itself. Um, [00:25:30] he took me out for a cup of coffee, told me he had some news for me. I thought he was going to tell me that he was living in a port at the time I was had my I, I will admit, I had my fingers crossed. I thought he was going to tell me that some girl was pregnant. Um, and that this was just going to not be true to his soul, because in my mind, that wasn't going to be the right thing for him. He [00:26:00] told me he was gay in a public place. I keep asking him what he thought, What he what he thought why he did that. It was an unusual to Why don't you just come into the kitchen and say, Mom, I'm gay, And, um and he said I. I just thought it would be safer. He said I didn't want you to cry, which was sweet of him. I was like, I know I get a bit, you know, sometimes, um and he, um [00:26:30] what he'd heard me say at some stage, while talking to some people, I can't even remember the conversation. But evidently, at some point, I said to, um, a friend that I hoped that my son would not be gay. And my rationale for that was and I I heard the story earlier today from somebody else. My rationale for that was that I feared, for [00:27:00] his safety was pure motherly bias and fear for the safety of my son. I feared that he was going to be bashed and killed. And I didn't think that that was a safe choice for him. So evidently over a tea cup some time when he was growing up, I said that to somebody. Me Somewhere in our journey, you know, [00:27:30] I got divorced. Wasn't right for me. Oxford Street really was a delightful place. Um, but I You know, my husband and I separated. We tried hard. We were a couple of country kids. We thought, you know, we were doing the right things. And actually, we didn't until we went to Australia. Definitely not When we came back to New Zealand, we didn't know anybody who, um, was queer of any other Any other title. We only knew heterosexual people, and we lived on farms, so we separated and got [00:28:00] back together a few times. And we did that great thing that all heterosexual couples do, which is we bought some new furniture and had two more babies to try. No, um, which was, uh, George and Rose. Then finally we separated proper when Rosemary was one year old. And, um and I moved into town and then, you know, after an appropriate mourning period, started taking lovers as you do. And, um, I never ever [00:28:30] came out to my Children. My Children grew up. Um, just kind of understanding that sometimes, you know, ladies come out of Mum's room. Um, and that was all cool. Sometimes they came out more than once, and that was awful truth. Um, and we went to school. It would never really was, um, a a big issue for us. I sent my Children away. Um, no. They went to stay with their father for for New Year Eve. For the first time in in a number of years, [00:29:00] I've been at university. I went to a party. I took a few things. Months later, I felt a bit queasy. I went to the doctor and they went You're pregnant. Yes, you are. So after I recovered from that shock, and I realised that I had, in fact, you know, strayed to the other side again and obviously enjoyed it and got pregnant. Um, along came Bethany. [00:29:30] So I also had the joy of telling my Children that I was pregnant, which, you know, um, my eldest son was 15 at the time. There were a couple of things about that conversation. That was really interesting. One. He was like, Mom, I thought you were a lesbian. How does that happen? Um, and the second one was, Mom, I thought you'd been fixed. I I'm were part of that conversation, but, you know, bless him. He was trying to pretend that none of this was happening. [00:30:00] Um, anyhow, moving forward, we moved back to Hamilton, and this is where sort of life got interesting. My eldest son came out. My next son was a young teenager. My daughter was in, you know, 10 or so and I had a three year old by that stage, and we, um we moved into a big rainbow house. In fact, it was called Rainbow House, and some people from Hamilton may have heard of Rainbow House in that house with seven Children. [00:30:30] Four of them were mine, and three of them belonged to a friend of mine. And, um, he was also a drag queen. We lived with another drag queen as well. And then I became a drag king. So these Children who were predominantly teenagers and and a young young one, lived a very colourful life. We had all sorts of people in, and now they have that house. [00:31:00] I can tell you that all Children, regardless of gender or sexuality, love practising drag shows. Um, and life It all became normalised for them. Our our only challenges were actually there weren't any challenges. It was a joy to have their friends. They brought their friends to stay. It was kind of like for the teenagers, it was it was almost like showing off, you know, because they only ever brought their friends [00:31:30] to play on the drag performance nights. Mhm. It was like scoring points. We often talk to the to to all of the Children around problems at school because you'd hear about bullying and homophobia and that at school. And, um and we had a concern that they might be experiencing this. Um and so it was a regular part of the conversation, and they, you know, we all watch Facebook. It's the best way of stalking teenagers. Um, and [00:32:00] they, um they were really straight up. All of the Children each time said, Well, actually, if anyone gives us any shit, they're actually not our friends. If they care that much, that they're gonna comment. We don't have anything in common and we don't share their values. So I thought, you know, that's really cool. Why don't I ever think of it as simplistically, I think. And I guess that's depending on on where you come from [00:32:30] recently had an experience with one of my daughters. Who or home a a boy, Um who identifies as a boy. Um And then they approach me and and and the man that they call Auntie Daniel, who's a KA a drag queen. Um, because he had always wanted to wear high heels and a dress. [00:33:00] So for the first time in my life, I I found myself sitting having a cup of tea with a couple of teenagers and talking about the difference between gender identity and sexual identity. And, um and I kind of think you know, the universe for the journey that I've had in my life to be able to have that conversation. But I know that that boy is going to face a prejudice and is going to face labels because they exist within the queer community. [00:33:30] One of the struggles that we had, especially when we were entertaining we we lived in a community house. There were always people through our house. There were always people that crashed because it was a safe place to stay. However, one of our challenges was dealing with transphobia and biphobia in the community. I know myself from the beginning of my journey. Um, I first came out as buy because it seemed like a really safe option. And it's, you know, [00:34:00] I I I've been married to a man, so I couldn't be a lesbian. Um, and the sense of shame that some people was in the queer community caused me by their comments. Because, of course, you know, um, as a lesbian now, you'd be amazed how many people go. Well, you know better now then, or you you know, they have a SER and they say, Well, actually, I used to identify as by then and, um and we laugh. [00:34:30] Other gays, lesbians will actually laugh about that. It's like you learn And, um so the language we use, I think, is really important. It's an important part of parenting. I just wanna, um I'm not an expert parent. I throw my Children in there and see if they you know, say, what do you think of that? Um, and we have really honest and open conversations, and I think that's what's important. I remember taking my youngest daughter, Bethany, [00:35:00] to her first day at school. And, um, dance was the, uh, the theme that they were talking about in this new entrance class. And she is a very outgoing drag queen. Five year old, um and, um, she listen to everybody in the group and they all said So you know, what are you going to to do for this project? And it was Bethany that said, Well, I'm going to be a drag queen and the little boy said, You can't do that. It's [00:35:30] about dancers. And, um she was she was not going to lose that argument because in her mind, the most fabulous dancers in the world were drag queens. If this was if this was about dance, then she was going to be a drag queen. It led to an interesting conversation with the teacher because we said I said, Do you have any questions because, she said, you know as they do, Do you have any questions about your daughter's first day? It was like, No, no, I don't do you, [00:36:00] Um And And she said Yes, the drag queen thing. My daughter is raised in a rainbow family by the Rainbow Village. She's lucky she has a mother. She has her mother's partner. She has a father. She's got Auntie Daniel. She's got Auntie Jake. She's got Auntie Josh and she's got a set of drag queens who will, like, you know, anybody that looks sideways at her. And I said, But the thing [00:36:30] is, is this rainbow community She actually doesn't understand homophobia because it hasn't occurred to her yet. I think the most brilliant thing and the thing that sold me on that school was they said to me straight away, we are going to have to manage that and I said, I hope you're not going to manage my daughter and they said, No, we're going to manage the parents so that in itself was really wonderful, and every [00:37:00] teacher in that school did some diversity training. The following week, they called up the N CD I and they got a trainer in and they equipped the teachers to deal with the situation. We're gonna confess never to have been on the school committee. I think you're incredibly brave, but, um, I didn't do it when I was, like married, either. Yeah, but my motive was so it [00:37:30] definitely is an interesting journey, but I think it's a journey that we make of it. I have fun with my Children. I have Children who, um, are inclusive, who are conscientious who, um, love people who are not. Don't feel that, you know, And I've never experienced any of my Children feeling shamed by their family. And I have, um and I feel proud [00:38:00] when that they say that they come from a rainbow family and I think it's a really cool thing. And I'm grateful that they've been raised in this day and age, as opposed to how I was raised myself, which is I need to realise that queer folk existed, so thank you for your time. Yeah, I'm sure everyone will join me in thanking all our speakers for sharing some of those stories with [00:38:30] us. Um, I was going to open it up. So for questions or comments for anyone to share their own experiences. I just wanted to remind people that come to this discussion, which is with passing and marriage rights to same sex couples address some of the issues or adoption laws. These laws are still adequate and impressive. There's also been a little public discussion about the lived experiences of queer people with Children. How do your parents negotiate bringing up Children in the world? So thought an open discussion for everyone to speak about or to question about these people's experiences and also talk about [00:39:00] some of your thoughts on the subject. Um, did anyone speak? I am kind of wondering. I am a bisexuality student woman married to a heterosexual student man. And so my question is, my and I kind of came in sort of halfway through the I missed kind of. But But I like there was a discussion here earlier today about invisible [00:39:30] sexualities within the, um, and bisexuality was like a major one of them, and it also ties in with what you see when you get the the sneering sniggers from the queer community. Oh, well, you know better now, and I just kind of how have you been able to like that fucking really hit me really hard and like it's a way that I'm now realising it. In fact, just from this morning how much it's really hit me, um, and how much I've internalised it, Um, throughout my life and I am hoping to get pregnant sometime in the next year [00:40:00] or two, and I want to be able to bring my kid up knowing that their mum is queer. And then by definition, my relationship with my husband is queer because I'm in it and I like I'm kind of struggling with how to do it because it's so easy for me, like for that aspect of myself to very easily be subsumed into the general heterosexual expectation. And I'm just any tips or any ideas from anyone else. Like I said, I'm very subtly clearing my family. [00:40:30] But also, part of me doesn't want to. We have queer pride, and we're all working on that every day, every moment of every day. We're trying to feel proud about being queer, but the flip side of that is clear shame, and I want my Children to feel empowered. Give them some of that good pride without giving them the burden of the shame. So that's why that's what my talk was all about. About the subtle queering of of our family. And I'm not even sure [00:41:00] you know, I'm always gonna be mean. And I'm good. Weird. We're all good, weird. We're all beautiful. And so that's kind of the foundation of the queerness in our family. But it sounds like you want to do something more structured with your family. I think this all as an ongoing conversation is definitely gonna be necessary. Especially as like my in-laws are quite Christian in ways that I'm not happy with. And so there's going to be influences that I'm going to have to take a more structured [00:41:30] opposition to because, you know, my, me and my husband don't agree with their values, but they are still family, so that's going to be an influence no matter what we do. And so it's gonna be an ongoing conversation in our lives. So you don't have any kids yet? No, not yet. Oh, OK, yeah. Printed and speaking to today, I'm part of like giving a small group on Facebook, which is quite cool, and it was recently. She's obviously [00:42:00] they're still quite young. It's been a really good discussion recently about, like, body policing and fat negativity, and, um, especially when it's coming from an in-law. So someone was talking specifically about how to challenge your mother in law and as well as, of course, just being like if someone says something fat shaming or something, someone says something from a growing a cat just saying we don't use that language in our household. They talked about that as an approach, but also the fact that, um, you might be facing some of that stuff from In-laws. But also, [00:42:30] there is a likelihood that you're gonna your kids gonna face it from other places when you're not around. So I mean, they all talked and they've got kids for a variety of ages. They just talked about it being about the conversations you have with your child, you know? So like some moms and then this is all positivity stuff. Some mums take the approach that, like, you know, someone uses the phrase pigging out like, Oh, I am I going and turn it into like a bit of a fun game but also just like inside their own house, using fat in a [00:43:00] non pejorative way, you know, and, um and I and I and I've got a male partner, and I find I like my only involvement in structured childhood stuff is placed into the refuse to call my partner my boyfriend there. I always say party, because it's like there's a separate party and I don't want someone to contemplate the fact that I might not be straight and I'm living a very like a conventional lifestyle [00:43:30] at the moment. But, you know, yeah, there's someone that gets me. Even though she's only six months old, it's like, Will anyone ever think of me as a tool? That's but, um yeah, it's a hot one, Like a lot to be said to just focusing on how you talk to your Children about it, and just Bye, I've got a question for the panellists. It's probably a little bit of a Monday and possibly, um, [00:44:00] I don't know, odd question, but, um, with unconventional families like this, I'm just wondering how you've negotiated things around. You know, the cost of Children, um, and responsibilities around childcare and, um, who has time with the Children in the debate in terms of the biological parents. Also, other partners that are involved and stuff. Um, well, I think with my two partners with their relationships with the women that they've had families with, it's it's always been [00:44:30] the women who look after the kids and, you know, pay for them and and, uh um, basically, just just operating as as parents would without a donor Dad in the background. But the kids always knew from, you know, really young age that they had a biological father who was part of the family. So I think, um, I mean, those things get. There's lots of ways that people have, you know, tied those things [00:45:00] into legal agreements, Chris, and don't have any legal agreements other than the non biological parent having a legal, um um, guardianship agreement. I forget what that's called years ago. Now that was all drawn up. But apart from that which actually secures the other woman in the lesbian relationship who's not the biological parent with a legal right of access and guardianship over their Children? [00:45:30] Um, yeah. I think all that financial side of things was very simple because it's all their responsibility. But I think the, um you know, they, uh the arrangement can be quite flexible, because if anything happens to one of the parents or, you know, the kids get to an age where I I mean, Andy's eldest daughter is now 18 when she actually left home when she was 16 and it has been flatting. But she could well have come [00:46:00] and live with us. You know, his oldest son is now 16 and probably looks like he's not going to be living in Christchurch once he's finished school, and he might end up living there. So I mean, I think all those things just depends on the kids, really, on what they want to do. And we've always been there and they, you know, for them. And they've always come probably spent, you know, at least a week or two a year in our house, all their lives. So I think they feel quite quite comfortable with the idea that we are parents also, [00:46:30] but we don't actually have that huge amount of time commitment with with them, but they seem that it's quite interesting. I mean, I'm out of the three of us. I'm the only one who's actually had that 24 hours a day being a parent. So when when the smaller Children are around, I get to do all those parent things like, you know, feeding and nappy changing. Because I'm because I you don't you only do it and you. It's like riding a bicycle. You can't not do it. It just comes naturally because I spent years doing it with just one child. [00:47:00] And I think that, um, yeah, it's interesting how even they without all that 24 hour a day care, there's a lot of what I've noticed is that a huge amount of genetics come through looking after kids. I mean, the kids know who their father is through. Just just almost like a. I'm sure it happens with, you know, all parents. You know, there seems to be that genetic link, even though they don't spend lots of time with us. So it's very It's very easy for them to, um to [00:47:30] come to us as as parents. So I think that those other things about who pays for the kids and all those illegal things actually are just things that some people would choose to do and other people don't. You know, I think the really important stuff is it all works anyway for most people, I'm sure at a a very, a very sort of, um, you know, innate natural level, linked with your with your offspring. So I think that yeah, I think whatever. Whatever works is fine. But if you don't do anything, it's fine, too. You [00:48:00] know, we, um we use the system of if the child is at your house, you pay for it. Um, and that works quite well on a 50 50 arrangement. You know, 50,000,050 day. If the child is at your house, when they do whatever thing requires money or you're going shopping, then you're paying for that. And that that's all. Cool, too. As far as childcare and stuff goes the 50 50 arrangement. But in my job, I was away a lot. So, um, the rainbow were the people [00:48:30] that looked after I will admit that we had a massive wall planner on the kitchen wall because we were coordinating drag performances, work and Children. You know, you had to We had to know. We know which parties we were going to when the Children were going to be here. There's enough teenagers in the house to look after the ones that weren't legally able to look after themselves. Um, somebody could get that child to school and pick that child up from school. [00:49:00] So we did it in a war planner. And I guess that's the advantage of an extended is that it was all hands to the deck. Um, I actually drew a lot of cars here because I'm from, um, quite a family. Um, and I have 44 brothers and one sister, and all of us have different and a lot of time different upbringings and ethnicities as well. Um, I guess what I wanted [00:49:30] to ask in a little, um, was, uh because it sounds like a lot of your reactions, I guess with the outer community, particularly the school one that you mentioned, you were quite positive. But, um, how do you deal with, uh, those more negative and hostile reactions? Because particularly because my mom's a teacher. Um, we've had the problem where people are willing to accept queer different families, but they I don't want them to appear like that. Um around Children, especially impressionable [00:50:00] Children. Um, because that's said to set a set a bad example. And other than trying to be a great role model, um, in all ways, I was just wondering what strategies you guys have to do. A lot of this thing, um, my Children got to experience, um, a first hand. Well, first they got to wake up in the morning and find their auntie Josie, um, being brought home from the hospital 11 o'clock at night. [00:50:30] Three people from our house were walking into town and they were bashed. Um, so the only way to deal with that with Children is to be brutally honest about what happened, and he was bashed before being a fag. That's the abuse that was being hurled at him while they tried to, um, kick his head in. And, um, you know, we had to sit there as a family and look at that. Look at the damage that they did and just be brutally honest about that with the Children. This is what [00:51:00] happened. This is why it happened. It makes no sense to us either, you know, and made no sense to the Children and made no sense to us. There was no explanation for it. And and that's the way we dealt with that. Yeah, I think from from my experience of having son growing up as a teenager and a and a queer household is that when his friends came, we were just ourselves. I mean, we were never [00:51:30] I can't remember any. I mean, most of the time, they sat around computers and had big, you know, in the 19 nineties, a conversation with the old wasn't really part of how life was. Um so I, I think. I think, what Joe was saying, that complete honesty about what goes on in the house, you know who's who's in the house, you know? No, no secrets, no sort of hiding. You know what goes on or who sleeps with who or any of that [00:52:00] stuff, I think just works. I mean, teenage, they're all boys. Hardly. There were girls. They were just house full of teenage boys, a whole bunch of older, queer men, you know, just like interesting. But I mean I mean, some of those some of those people who are you know, I remember when they were 13. 14, I still, I still keep in touch with, You know, my son still lives in Wellington, and, you know, it's very interesting. Their recollections of those days are are are just It's amazing what [00:52:30] bits and pieces they remember. But there's nothing negative that I've ever heard them say about that whole experience. I think if you're straightforward and honest, kids are just great at just picking up on that. And they just get on and do what they want to do, you know, and and and, um, ignore you. And they used to spend all night, you know, sitting on the computers, I One thing I always I never had any troubles with bed times because it was always You have to stay up later rather than you know, that negative psychology thing. So at weekends, they often stay up all night sitting around in a circle. And no doubt all the computers plugged in together [00:53:00] in the 19 nineties rather than fancy WiFi stuff, and they had a great time and just did their own thing. But they were part of a house, and, you know, we did the usual parents thing and provide food and sort of clean up a bit after them, and that was all we did. And, yeah, it didn't seem at all complicated. I never thought about being role models. I just thought about I mean, in fact, one thing it was I was looking back at it must be a bit embarrassing is that there was this part [00:53:30] of our house which is on two levels and our main computer in the house. In those days in the nineties, different era computers, no laptops was up in the roof space and we would have all sorts of conversations down below and forget there's three teenage boys sitting up there and And you think, Well, no, none of us ever commenting because they probably were totally not listening to us because we probably just chatting you like No, just droning away, you know? I mean, what we were talking about was probably of zero interest to them. But, you know, if we'd have been conscious of what [00:54:00] sort of conversations we're having, they probably would have been listening because we'd have been reflecting that somehow. So I think, Yeah. I mean, just cleaning yourselves and just doing what you do, and they just get on and do their thing. Is it it? It seems to work quite well. And I think if you think too much about it, I think that's probably the answer is if you think too much about it, it's probably not good. I mean, you just You do what? Whatever. And it's like going to parents evenings at the school here. I. I never went along as a gay dad. I talk to the teachers. I mean [00:54:30] I mean, you know, I mean, it just never occurred to me to. But isn't it always wearing away in the background with my ex wife talking to a teacher? So I was doing I mean, I never even thought about it. I just thought, Well, that we're two parents and we're talking to the teachers where my son's at school. And so I think, if you if you if you want to construct all sorts of complications, it's it's very good you can you can do. But I think it makes it more difficult to act out the roles then. [00:55:00] Well, just to answer your question, I'm very My Children are seven and 10, and we have tribes of kids in our house now because we live in a really poor, low suburb and my friends, kids, my kids, friends don't actually get to go out because they're so poor. So we have them all round. We take them out all the time. But, um, I'm very, very wary of my Children getting some kind of notion that we're unacceptable to their peers. Parents [00:55:30] and we've got my my 10 year old's best friend is a fundamentalist Christian Indian family and that there's a we've been What's the word banished anyway? So it it is happening, and I'm very wary of it, and I know that I look like a freak, but I'm just well, trying to make us normal. It's quite hard. It's the normal project. It's hard. I think they live the life they're exposed to. And one of my one of our favourite memories that comes rocks [00:56:00] out at Christmas time when people are going to remember when or at birthdays is you know, a 10 year old old boy screaming sister doesn't look fabulous under the lights to, um, you know, just to Stephen, as as men rather than a drag, a drag queen. And when we like you know, But, you know, we were both frozen to the spot going. Oh, hell. [00:56:30] And all you could do was laugh because that was what this child had grown up with and and, you know, he was a boy. You know, um, he he found something shiny that was gonna look amazing under the lights, because that's what he knew. And that's what he'd seen. And to him, there was nothing wrong. The the, um the young woman behind the counter thought it was the most hilarious thing that she'd ever heard. And, you know, the only people who were frightened with the adults who all frozen to the spot [00:57:00] going Oh, no. And actually there was nothing wrong. Cool. Um, I think, um, it's probably about time that we close up the stuff for, um I think our next session in this room is beyond marriage. So I thank everyone for coming and thank the panellists for this.
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