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A. A group of us started talking about having some Auckland archives to try and send things to the Wellington archives. I'd been involved in the Wellington archives and then in 2003, we didn't get very far. And then 2003 was the outlines conference, and I took the quilt there with all the t-shirts sewn together and the badge collection down, thinking that'd be wonderful And the lesbian and gay archives in Wellington. But oh, no, The National Library collects paper. [00:00:30] I know I didn't realise that they're real paper focus, and it's also quite hard to get access to the things so they don't have a permanent display or anything. So I sort of came back to Auckland, lugged them back and thought, What about all those art things like open the cabinet there they would all just disappear. Um, some people might keep them and hand them on to relatives and so on. And they think, Oh, that's quaint or whatever, but they really wouldn't understand the the lesbianism of things. And I thought [00:01:00] it'll all vanish. So I talked to the group, the archive sort of group, which changed a bit Um and we came up. Well, let's have a museum, lesbian museum and then, well, what's in that other museums? Surely there's some lesbian stuff in New Zealand museums, so that's what the Internet is good for. We punched it in and we got four things. We got a picture of two women in a picture of them in Siberia. Two [00:01:30] English women in Siberia. They were obviously lesbian, but they had visited New Zealand. And so that was the New Zealand component of the Yes, And there were three cartoons of Helen Clark. And I thought, If that is the history of lesbians in New Zealand and all we have achieved over more than a century, then it is really sad. So that was an impetus. I mean, I was so angry. That was an impetus to give me a lot of energy. So when was that? That was 2003. [00:02:00] 2004. So I set about investigating setting up a trust and those sort of things. And by 2007, we had our first exhibition at the D Thing at Marco Trust and waited for our, um, our trustee. We did in 2006 to get registered, and and that was a thing in itself because I rang up to see how it had progressed, and he said, Oh, it's illegal And I said, Well, it shouldn't be a problem illegal. [00:02:30] It's a standard trusted form written half, half Maori. It's, um we all we've done is put our our aims in it. We haven't changed almost anything else except put our name through it. And then I said, But we're used to discrimination. It'll be sitting on someone who can't cope desk. So he said, Oh, I'll ring you back And by three o'clock in the afternoon, he rang me back and said, It's passed that little magic word all we used to discrimination [00:03:00] seems to actually pay off sometimes. So we set about finding premises, finding money and setting it up. Has that was that a real mission? Has it been a real mission, or has there been quite a lot of support? There's been some support from people in the community, some very good support, and a couple of women put in about 14,000 the first year and and then another 6 7000. I think it was last year. Um, so each year, [00:03:30] there have been some backers, um, who've put in, you know, several 1000. Um, other other people put in, you know, several 100. Um, pay a bit. But But if everyone in the community paid, as I say, a latte a month, like less than $5 a month, that to be a friend of the museum, that would make a big difference. In fact, we're just trying to do an outreach now for that. So there's heaps of, um, really fantastic visual stuff here, [00:04:00] Um, which I guess some of it would be paper, but yeah, just like you said before. There's the, um Is this a quilt with a whole lot of t-shirts? Two of them. We've got two of them, so we alternate them because they start to sag after a while, hanging them up. So we have, uh we have another one that we bring out every six months, and there's heaps of posters and, um, old photographs, big photographs, little photographs. Um, yeah, just a whole whole heap here. How did you come about all this? Did you put a big call [00:04:30] out or was it all sitting in your basement. It was around my house. My house was renowned for having masses of women's images and things and some of the things I acquired, for instance, that lovely glass jar of ours by Done by Karen Hope, the one that's sort of quite yes, there's the one about her, her grandmother wanting to be a doctor but married one instead. Um, the other one. So it's a more feminist one, but this one is very essential. And, um, [00:05:00] that, uh, pale one. I saw that in the Waikato Museum for sale, and I couldn't bear the thought of a man buying it. So, um, I just had to buy it. And now we have had a very generous donor who's brought, um, replicas of museum items from Crete about the ancients. So there's things with laris on that beautiful silver egg cup. There's, um, pieces of ceramic. There's a snake goddess, the snake goddess there. That's one she donated the other [00:05:30] snake gods I brought back from Crete. Um, there's a ceramic. They have two punk girls kissing that was made by a lesbian psychologist in the Waikato. So this each one has a little story about it. Um, there's some lovely pieces of, um, ceramics by Cornell, and she also did the weaving of the up there. Um, those are pieces that Auckland Museum quite like the look of and would like to put their hand get their hands on them. But I mean, again, [00:06:00] they wouldn't label them as lesbian maid or anything that would just disappear into, um, an exhibition of work, Not not what we're about, Really. The lovely carving of the two women. And I haven't got that story yet because I can never get anybody at home with a telephone number. I was given for that piece. So it takes a while to get the stories for things. And then there's the carving of Chrissy Paul that was always in my house, and I always felt my house was very safe with that, and I thought, I really need to donate it to the museum, [00:06:30] but it's on loan because that piece needs to be handled in a particular way when we put it up and take it down. So I've kept it as a loan. That and those pieces are the only pieces just because I want to make sure that they are very secure and handled in an appropriate way for Maori artefacts. So, um, everything else has has been donated. Lots of t-shirts, some fabulous ones, um, with great, um, slogans on [00:07:00] some very historical things. Like the early gay pride from 1980 I think it was or 79 a soccer t-shirt. There's, um of course, there's some labs. Uh, and the lab, the gold ones. Some of them were used for cheerleaders. They used to run around in tutus and gum boots and wave labs. Come on, you lovely lesbians. You know, great cheerleading team was the soccer team. [00:07:30] Um, there was also a softball team, but we don't have any of their uniforms yet. We've got various coming out stories on DVD that we put on for people to listen to. Um and I'm busy trying to get some more money so we can have a smaller screen so people can just put earphones on and do them individually when they come in. And that's what I'm working on now. And I want to use clips of films so they wouldn't be so long. Just three or four minutes. I saw it in Brisbane at an exhibition there, and I thought, [00:08:00] That's what we need What's been some of the when you said that you were sitting setting up the Charlotte Museum Trust or some of the responses, I guess, of lesbians in particular about who? Mostly positive, Um, one or two people found it difficult They didn't want to be in a museum. Yeah, um, and they didn't want their photos to be in a museum, or they they didn't like the idea of lesbianism in a museum. Um, so, you know, perhaps [00:08:30] perhaps weren't out and proud as much as some of the rest of us. A little bit of pride. You mean kind of worried about turning it into a spectacle or just uncomfortable about it, or I'm not sure what we put in. So that seems to be, uh, was a bit of a problem for like, Papa, when they heard about it, came up to my house to see what we had. Um, they were a bit suspicious, but they also of course, then saw some of the things that I had [00:09:00] in my house and they were keen on them for their museums. And that's one of the problems that museums are always eyeing other things and other people's museums. Because I think that they've got a goddess in Auckland Museum that I think that we should have. They could just do trades. So, um, the general feedback we've just done a, um, feedback survey. Um, we did it online and sent PDF S around the country to our, um, mailing list. Um, [00:09:30] and we also, um, gave them out the big day out, and we've got sort of 50 or so. You know, you never get a really great response from these things, But the we asked how important was the lesbian museum and almost everybody took it? Almost everybody, even even the bloke. I think we've got one guy who responded who has visited the museum. So basically, um, there's an awful lot of lesbians, and I think they are sort of, you know, just the tip of the iceberg who think that this is a really important place. Can [00:10:00] you talk a little bit about I guess, the importance of a museum historically wise. And I guess I guess lesbian history, intergenerational as well. Well, for me, I I knew I was homosexual. by the time I was 14. Because that was when I looked it up in the Encyclopaedia and it said homosexuals had arrested development. So I thought they were all short and spent years looking for short people. And then, of course, realised I'd grown so tall that I was a freak. I was the only tall homosexual in the world. [00:10:30] So you weren't in the Encyclopaedia? No, and sadly, I mean, I was training as a singer and sadly, I swallowed poison and burned all my throat so that that I never want that to happen to anybody else to be so feel so bad about themselves. And I didn't have any mentors. Sure, there was a short teacher at school who lived with with a tall teacher. But, I mean, I didn't really, because I was into horses at that stage. When I was at high school, I didn't really click about the nature of their relationships. [00:11:00] So bucket and spade were always bucket and spade. That was our nicknames for these two teachers, and it was much later before I realised that these pair of teachers who lived together were actually my mentors. But I was so naive and into horses that it didn't occur to me into horses. And my girlfriend, um, whom I really wanted to marry. So I was devastated when I'm in straight because I wanted. So you managed to find you. You did manage to find a girlfriend. Who was She was. She was short [00:11:30] and she was straight. And she in fact, wouldn't talk to me. We went to teachers college together, and that's the reason I went to Teachers College and left the farm. But she, uh, met a guy in my, uh, the athletic team that I was friendly with, and she never really spoke to me much after that, um married him, and she's still with him so very straight. But what else? I mean, that's what lesbians and small communities [00:12:00] do fall in love with straight women because they can't find other people like themselves. It's quite quite difficult. Visibility is really important. And having mentors, I think, makes things enormously better for people to have to know that someone's done it before to know that that you come from a history that you know that you know where you've come from and where you might so then you can know where you're going because I always [00:12:30] think if you don't know where you've paddled your canoe from, how do you know where you're paddling to? That's what some of the feedback is. Um, that, um, I wanted to One of the young women said I wanted to see the stories of the older women that made it possible for me to be out and gay. Um, and and so many of them say, um, it's just really important that this place exists, you know that these stories are gathered in one place, Um, that that lesbian history is valued and told, [00:13:00] Um and it's just really neat to see these women up on the walls. Um, because a lot of the women up on the walls were women. Um, uh, people in their sort of to fifties would have heard about, um growing up. You know, um, they are well known women, you know, founders of organisations like the Country Women's Institute, you know, various. Uh yes. And that's really important to know that these women were like me, you know, [00:13:30] and knowing that they managed to avoid most of them, married a avoided getting married uh, some of them didn't, but and they managed to lead their lives like the theologian Rita Snow, and lived quite openly. She died about 1947 but there's a picture of her with her partner, Renee, and they lived quite openly together. Um, they belong to different churches. On Sunday, they went off to their separate churches, so they didn't quite clone as much as, um, lesbians today might do. So you think, [00:14:00] um, visibility is still an issue today? Ah, in some areas, it is. There are still plenty of areas where people choose to be more closet. Um, people in the media are one because they get such a hard time. Uh, sports people is another. We've just been doing research on sport. Um, and it's amazing the number of people who find it really difficult to to really tell us how it was as [00:14:30] a lesbian in in, uh, a sporting the sporting field that were in because they don't want to be out of, even though they're no longer participating in that sport. Um, yeah, it's so there's still, um, there's still the stigma, and I think a lot of internalised homophobia, but among older people that still exists. Like for years. You thought you were no good and terrible. It's very hard to overcome that when you've been thinking that every day for your life for 40 or 50 years to suddenly [00:15:00] turn around and think, Oh, everything's honky dory Now I can skip around amongst the days. Yes, you know, it's not so easy. So the Charlotte Museum does some research. I mean, it has a lot of artefacts and pictures and and books and magazines and does research. Does it have a mentor thing as well? Or what's some other stuff? That it? No, we We try and fundraise and get and pay people to do some research. So we've done some research on Early [00:15:30] Lesbian Theatre early lesbian music, and that's going to be put together into a film and also a little book. Um, the Theatre one is up on that board there, and we've got a book about that. Um, we're currently working on early lesbian sport, early women's networks and groups of lesbians in the Auckland area, um, and and early in Auckland. So, you know, we're going as fast as we can with the with the resources that we have, but we [00:16:00] never get very much money to do these things. The other thing we're doing is organising events. Um, and we've we've, um, done a range of events. Um, since the beginning of this year, Um, the first one was, um, an ANZAC Day event. And And this time, instead of inviting lesbians from armed services, we invited some lesbians who'd been in peace groups. They were the pre and they'd walked around the east cape, Um, for, um, sort of 23 months in the middle of summer, 1983. And they were [00:16:30] a little sort of, um, discombobulated to find themselves now the subject of a museum because they were only in their forties, you know? But they were lesbians and feminists, and they did this amazing action, you know, And it was a peace action. And there's so many lesbians involved in peace, um, activities over the last 30 50 years that, um I think we'll have lots of ANZAC day events like that. Um, another event we had was, um, the Centenary of the birth of who was a N songwriter. Extraordinary [00:17:00] woman of of huge mana acknowledged right across Maori who only had relationships with women and and was, uh, a bunch of Children. And, um, whenever get up and sing, it's practically, you know, they practically always sing one of 20 songs, and we have some here, um, who spoke about her. And it was a really neat event. Um, we had, you know, a bunch of Maori and lesbians came to to that one. [00:17:30] and we also had the two intergenerational events. Um, one was organised for youth week. Um, and we got a lot of really positive feedback about that, and the first one was completely inclusive of all G LBTT people. Um, and, um, the young gay men, particularly were, um young queer guys were really interested in. And the sense of anticipation when that event started was just tangible. You know, um, there was this really expectant silence, you know, it was [00:18:00] it was just wonderful. And where there were 60 more than 60 young people or people there and 40 of them were, you know, probably under 25. And it was just, uh, a really positive event. Then we had the follow up event, um, with women and that sort of um showed quite a few differences in the community, but I hope people, um, felt it was a good event. It was very, um, what's the word? Um, there was a huge enthusiasm for that dialogue. [00:18:30] Um, it's not something that we would necessarily be able to do a regular, A regular thing, but we wanted to kick it off, you know, And And the role of the Charlotte Museum in holding that kind of community event, I think, is quite important because there's no sort of women's venue that focuses on queer lesbian issues, you know, in Auckland. And so the Charlotte Museum has become a sort of de facto, um queer Lesbian Women's Centre. Really? And so, for example, um, a couple of years [00:19:00] ago, when um, to died, um, there were women who weren't able to get to her house or to her, which was down the line. And so, you know, um, we organised, um, a sort of just a a memorial event, you know? I mean, it was just an opportunity for those women who contacted, um, Miriam and I in various hats that we were wearing at the time, um, saying, Oh, this is terrible. You know, I, I just really have missed having an opportunity to talk about it. [00:19:30] And so that was open. That was a, uh you know, like, all our events are open to the public we had, um you know, um, men, women, trans men, trans women. You know, it was, um uh, a really lovely event. And some came, you know, which was just I, I thought was enormously generous of them in their grief, You know, to do that a week after she died, Um, and and but they actually found it. A very positive event. There was just this huge, um, [00:20:00] you know, community grief about her early such an early death of such a wonderful woman. And, um and it was a really positive event talking about the meaning she'd had for all of the people there. And there were all these wonderful stories. So that was, um, a really neat event. And, for example, the Lesbian News centre holding its 20th anniversary. Um, here, um, this coming Saturday. Um, and so, um, there's, um, a bunch of events like that. We've [00:20:30] just had our first local history event. Um, and what we did was talk about Miriam talked about why she set up the museum and what was involved in the 52 policy statements and the standards and the the way in which you have to conserve things and the labelling and the the databases. That's the policy folder and a very large folder. Um, and, um, I talked about this sort of, um a really brief overview of the history of women loving women for the last 200 years and the way [00:21:00] in which Maori um, um, sort of acceptance of love between women, um, was completely disrupted by colonisation and and, um, missionaries and church, church denominations and the way in which attitudes changed markedly in the 18 eighties. Um, from an acceptance of passionate friendships and and women, you know, having those kind of intense public relationships to, um, you know, treating [00:21:30] lesbians a more love between women as something that was sick and to be hidden, you know? And that was quite positively received by by the sort of dozen, um, people from different local history societies who came. And so we're hoping to have sort of, um you know, uh, local history events every six months and we'll we'll bring up the results of our research in the sort of inner city in the West areas that we've been funded to do, Um, at the next event, Um, and the next, um, the one we're having in October is a a DVD [00:22:00] night, um, with, um, the BBC movie. The Secret Diaries of Anne Lister, um, which is about a woman in the late 17 hundreds, early 18 hundreds who, um, was had almost a contemporary sense of lesbian identity. She never called it that she didn't have that word. But she said, you know, her attractions were to the fair sex and and only the fair sex. And she had two long term relationships and lots of other, um, sexual relationships with [00:22:30] women. And she wrote it all down in code in a diary, um, 4 million words of it, which has only recently been, um, decoded and published. Um, and so the BBC did this, um, 1.5 hour movie about it, which will never get on the TV screens here. Um, and we're going to show it on October the 17th. And what are the kind of demographic of people who who visit the Chart Museum. Is it mostly? Is it mostly lesbians? It's mostly women, mostly young people, lots [00:23:00] of researchers, lots of older lesbians. Or it's mostly lesbian, not many researchers at all. Um, it's always disappointing that someone you know, there aren't more lesbians out there doing PhD S on the We can give them lots of topics. Um, the sports one would be a good topic. Um, so and then there's the other group that's just a variety of, um, of a variety of mixed people, [00:23:30] like men and women. Some straight people come because their daughter or, um, sister or somebody is lesbian, and they they want to come and tell them about it. Sometimes they bring a relative with them. Um, a lesbian brought her daughter and grandchildren once from, you know, out, out in greater Auckland. So she took her, You know, it was about an hour away. So came one day. So, yeah, for a whole variety of people. But that's the That's probably [00:24:00] the maybe the 10 to 15% the bulk of people come to events and on like Wednesdays during the week, we we get the odd visitor, but like yourself But some days, um, during the winter, we don't get so many visitors the most time we get most visitors are probably between February and, uh, about June, and then it sort of fades off with the damp weather I'm quite interested in. Um, [00:24:30] I think you talked a little bit about before when you had these intergenerational events or a youth week or something. And you were saying that the anticipation or the excitement of the young people is that what do you think there is? I think there's a big stereotype with, you know, archiving and libraries and museums that it's boring and stuffy and all like, What do you think the anticipation was about? Oh, it was about dialogue, um, with people who'd gone before. And I think there's a big hunger for this among young people. We don't often get those opportunities. And one of the things that came [00:25:00] up was that, um in the really early days in the fifties and sixties, um, when there was just the beginnings of a community, um, everybody used to socialise together. Um, some of the lesbians are now coming out stories on on DVD say that they were part of that. Um And so it used to be the gay men, the lesbians, the trans, uh, transgender people that, um um the prostitutes that everybody you know was was in the same pub, you know, drinking together. And And what used to happen was that, [00:25:30] um that especially, um the gay guys talked about this at the at the, um in the for the youth week event. Um, was that there was actually a sort of informal but very sort of, um, organised, I guess, transferal of knowledge and and and, um, understanding about what it meant to be queer. How to be safe from the older guys to the younger guys. Um, women I, I think didn't do it quite in the same way. But that kind of informal passing down the knowledge [00:26:00] and and the the sort of socialising together has has stopped now because this the community is so big that, you know, gender queer can socialise with gender queer and and, you know, um, lesbians with lesbians and and never see gay guys, you know, and and gay guys did. I never see lesbians, So, um, it's so big now that we're all in our little, uh, sort of identity groups, and we don't socialise together. And so, especially with young people and older people, you know, the older people aren't hitting [00:26:30] the the young bars, you know, and would feel dreadfully out of place if they did. And so the young people don't actually meet, You know, any older lesbians or older gay men or or older Trans people. I think the community is still small enough that they do. But, um, that's how it is now. And so those kind of informal ways of of picking up how to survive survival knowledge and and an awareness that there are others like yourself and and what they've gone through, um, there isn't that kind of structure [00:27:00] for it anymore. So it needs to be organised. And so that's what the hunger for it was. Um and so I'm sort of still thinking about that about what role the Charlotte museum can play. We sort of the trust did talk about that. It's not sort of a core function, you know, Um, we've just got all our work cut out for ourselves. Um, doing the research, conserving, um, the the stuff, getting all the new stuff that people dump on our doorsteps and and they give us boxes off, you know, um and and cataloguing [00:27:30] it and sorting it, That's, you know, we're really still behind in cataloguing. So you know, the community organising is is a sort of second string. But delegate, Well, yes, we can. That's why we employed Jenny so that she could, because I just got exhausted. Well, it sounds like that's yeah, it's a real hub, and it sounds like it's been really successful in achieving things that even weren't really its aims or whatever is that raising the money has always been, you know, [00:28:00] the hard slog our rent last time killed us, it was 2000 a month. And so this it's hard. This is half the size, and it's half the rent. So, um, um, we will be tight in November. October November is always a difficult time, Um, for most groups, because the funding doesn't get very little funding and coming in at that time, particularly for operating costs and and and, um, admin [00:28:30] and rent. So how can people find you if they'd like to come and have a look at all the incredible things on the walls or give you some money for rent and admin and that kind of thing. Well, they can go online and see our website. They can, um, look, get our address off the website and or they could read the TML news. The address is there. They can pick up a brochure from the Women's Bookshop. There's a and there's usually some at [00:29:00] Garnett Station. A few venues around, like Rainbow Youth has our brochures as well, with the address on, and they can come along on Wednesday afternoon between 12 and four or Sunday afternoon between 1. 30 about 3 30. I mean, we'll stay a bit longer if someone turns up at three o'clock, of course, but use or Facebook find us on Facebook. And we, um, our, um, events. We're trying to advertise them more widely. So, for example, we had an article in the, um Central No, the Harbour News. Um, this [00:29:30] issue about the, um um, the local history event. And also it's on stuff. Um, and and we're going to be, um, putting out, like, for example, event finder. Some of the sort of, um, the the Auckland, the Auckland City Council, um, events website. You know, we put our events on that. So we're going to be We're gradually getting our marketing, spreading it around into more and more, um, avenues. So, um, we're hoping to, um, become [00:30:00] more visible as we go on. Um, but, um, mostly, um, if you want to, uh, see N, participate Wednesdays and Sundays in Mount Albert. Suburban Mount Albert is where it is. Anybody can be a friend of the museum. You don't have to be a lesbian to be a friend of the museum, and we have a number of friends who are not lesbian. So, um, I guess that's one thing I'd like to say. And unless people, um, support us financially, it will be too hard [00:30:30] to sustain. We have to be sustainable.
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