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It is my absolute pleasure to introduce some people, some amazing people from inside out. And that obviously is Tabby, Tobias, Julie and Val who are going to come out and answer some hard hitting questions that I've got on a piece of paper. Come on out guys. Now look, I've been given beautiful, um, bios for all of you. Um, but I feel like I'd much rather hear you guys introduce yourselves in the way that you want to introduce yourselves. But don't leave out any of the cool stuff that I've got written on my piece of paper. Okay, Tabby, you [00:00:30] start with an amazing intro for yourself. No pressure. Yeah, no pressure. Kia ora tātou, ko Tabby Besley tōku ingoa. I'm the Managing Director at Inside Out, kuaro a ishi her pronouns. Today I am dressed as a broccoli. Um, it's a promotion for our, um, Broccoli x Queer Joy exhibition that closes at Thistle Hall today. So, after you're finished here, head on down to Thistle Hall and see Celebrate your queer joy with broccoli. Why broccoli? You'll have to go along to find out. I'm intrigued. Uh, what else? [00:01:00] Um, I grew up between England and Whakatū Nelson, um, now live in the beautiful Te Awa Kairangi. Um, yeah, been doing the inside out thing for the last decade plus. Very lucky. And I also work as a counsellor in, um, rainbow communities as well. Yeah. Thank you, Tobias, over to you. Sure. , um, called Tobias Aho. Um, my name's Tobias. Um, I use he, him he pronouns. Um, I [00:01:30] UA on my mother's side and on my father's side, a little saffron farming village in the, um, north of Greece called, uh, ko. Um, I am the volunteer and community engagement coordinator at Inside Out Koaro. Been in my role for about three years, before that I was a volunteer for five years, and then before that Inside Out was helping me get a QSA at my school. Um, yeah, kia ora. I'm also studying at, um, Victoria University doing Te Reo Māori and Anthropology. Woo! [00:02:00] Yeah, woo! Um, kia ora koutou. Um, my name is Val. I use she, her, they, them pronouns. Um, I am a recent addition to Inside Out as the working as the schools coordinator for Te Ipuku o Te Ika. So covering the Wellington um, um, And Wairarapa, um, areas. I've only been there for three weeks, I think, so, um, I won't be asked, answering any difficult questions about what I actually do. Actually, well, I've got seven here with your name [00:02:30] next to them, Val, so. Um, yeah, so I, I am a first generation Tauiwi, um, with Welsh and Scottish, um, Ancestry, uh, and I live in Paikakariki with my beautiful wife, who's sitting down here, uh, with our dog and cat. Uh, we run the Paikakariki Pride Festival on, uh, Labour Weekend every year, so come up. It's the most wholesome, beautiful little pride festival. Uh, [00:03:00] what else? I'm an elder. How did that happen? Jeez. Um, so yeah, been out forever, um, and seen a lot of, uh, I guess, and here we are again, seeing more. It's awful, but anyway, um, my goal by the end of this year is to have a revolution. And a t shirt that says the queers are revolting. Anyway, I'm gonna stop talking and pass it on, and it's lovely to see everybody. Kia ora, I'm Julia DeBress. I am a [00:03:30] former board member of Inside Out, but I still like to hang around them, as you can see. Um, I'm also a lecturer at Massey University, um, and my research focuses on family support of trans kids. Um, I'm queer, my partner's queer, my kid's queer, there's a lot of queerness in our family and, um, Um, yeah, so I guess that's what brought me into that research area and I'm super passionate about supporting families to support their kids in a difficult environment. I'm also a moderator of the main national [00:04:00] support group for parents of trans kids, um, New Zealand Parents and Guardians of Transgender and Gender Diverse Children. Thank you. Kia ora. Um, well, thank you so much for being here to talk to us and to answer, like I said, my very hard hitting questions that you provided for me to ask you. Um, so you probably should know the answers, I'm presuming. Rosie, who's not here, provided the questions. Oh, right, okay. Great work, Rosie. The first one is, what's your star sign? Oh, I love that question. We have to do that one. Oh, you want to do it? Yeah. What's your star sign? You're messing with the wrong [00:04:30] person when it comes to astrology. We could have a guess if you want. Yeah. So if we just have a No one that knows me. No one that knows can guess. If you don't know this person, on the count of three, shadow what star sign you think they are. One, two, three. Two Pisces. Incorrect. No, but I do have my Mars and Pisces. Um, Taurus, Sun, Aries, Moon, Cancer rising. You can only choose one. No, you can't. Okay, right, all of those ones. So you could have [00:05:00] chosen many if you got the right, the right one. Tobias, what about you? I'm an Aquarius. That's the song about that. Do you know how to sing that song? No. Okay, good. Um, Val? I'll give you a clue. Taurus. Oh, wow. Yes, I've got that one. I've got more points than you guys. Sorry, what? Sagittarius? I don't know if I know any Sagittarius's. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. There's a Sagittarius. Okay. Okay, have we, has anyone done any research to find out whether there are [00:05:30] actually equal numbers of all the star signs? There aren't. There aren't, are there? Because there's been more, whatever September is. Yeah, there's more, um, Libras and Scorpios. Yeah, right. Okay, nine months from Valentine. Without even being on track, we're already off track, so. But what's yours? Mine? It's obvious. Jim and I? Who said that? Yes. Yeah. Very obvious. I am a Jim and I. Yeah, well done. Alright, now look. We mustn't dilly dally. We've only got a certain amount of time, three hours we've allowed for this conversation, so let's [00:06:00] get, and you guys can't leave, the doors are locked. No, they're not. Um, alright, so for people that don't know, and I'm sure lots of people do know, but maybe some people don't know, who would like to just give us a brief overview, or an in depth overview, of um, what your work actually involves? I can give the over overview and then the others might like to chip in a little bit extra about what they do. But, so for Inside Out Koaro, we're a national charity. Our vision is to support all rainbow and takatapui young people to have a sense of safety and belonging in their schools and [00:06:30] communities. Uh, we've been doing that since 2012. Lots of work still to go. Um, We often talk about our work in like four key areas, so schools and education is a really big focus of what we do. So we have schools coordinators that go into every region of the country to provide that support on the ground. Education for workplaces, so we do training on rainbow competency in a range of workplaces for mental health and addiction services and consultation to help them with policies and things like that. And then we [00:07:00] do lots of, um, advocacy work, so trying to, yeah, feed into kind of social policy changes, legislation, um, just make things better for our communities, um, and also youth development, um, programs, which I'll let Tobias talk a bit more about. Yeah, Kia Ora. Um, so we have a wonderful little volunteer program, um, which is sort of one of the ways that we do youth development. So we, um, offer volunteering opportunities to, uh, rainbow people age 15 to 27. Um, [00:07:30] so we consider rainbow youth. Um, we go a little bit older than some, uh, people may consider youth, um, cause we know that um, Rainbow people, um, often have experiences of realizing that they're rainbow, um, a little bit later in life. So we like to sort of, um, make some room for that. Um, we have other things like Shift Hui, um, which is a national hui for Rainbow Rangatahi, um, for a weekend. We bring together a bunch of young rainbow, um, young people and, um, put them up in a marae and we've got activities, we've got workshops, we've got just [00:08:00] like safe connection and lots of wholesome stuff. Super duper. Anyone else want to chip in with anything else? I think Tabby's covered the schools coordinator role, yeah? Uh, so yeah, just making sure that the schools are safe. In terms, can I just butt in with a question of my own? In terms of schools, and obviously what's happening with our current delightful government, and I, that was, do I have to what? I didn't vote for them. But I, obviously, I'm just wondering, especially in terms of, Um, [00:08:30] schools and for that to be encouraged and for schools to be, you know, saying we want you. Of course, we want you to be here is what's happening with our government going to affect that in any way. Tabby probably knows more about that, but I would expect so I think some schools would back off. Um, but then I think some schools might come forward and go. No, we want involved in this stuff. So it's yeah, it's hard to really to gauge time will tell. Time will tell. Yeah. Um, I think something that's really [00:09:00] useful there is also the resources that Inside Out has already made. You know, Inside Out is a really amazing source of information for things like your kids rights at school, legal rights of young trans people, your own rights, um, and those kind of, whether or not, um, that reflects official government aspirations. Um, you know, our legal rights are, um, Uh, enshrined, and often schools might, um, try to, you know, if they're not on the right side of history, shall we say, say that, um, you know, people [00:09:30] can't do certain things, aren't allowed to do certain things, but in fact we do know that, you know, there's support out there for what people need, um, for their, their gender affirmation or sexuality at school that is, you know, protected by law, and often the issue is people don't know where to find that information, so I always send people to Inside Out's website to, you know, get the backing they need when they can't always count on getting it from the Um, as well as when, um, I was at high school and, um, my school was doing some stuff that was not [00:10:00] technically allowed, um, Inside Out was really supportive, um, and helped me get some movement, um, within my school. So Inside Out can support anything, um, that your, your young people may need at school. So you can, so the, the young people themselves can access the support, not, it doesn't have to come through the school, obviously, which is, yeah. Do you wanna name the school, your school, your old school? Nope, I know which one it was. I won't say it though. Um, so now obviously we just talked about that, you know, touched on obviously one of the potential challenges. But what would you [00:10:30] say are some of the, you know, the key challenges that you have in sort of in, in doing the mahi that you do? Yeah, right now definitely the government is probably the biggest one. It makes it, you know, it feels like we're fighting for things not to get worth, not to go backwards rather than progressing our rights. And kind of that's the strategy over the next few years is, okay, how do we fight this to ensure that, yeah, those, the RSC guidelines do stay in schools and trans women can continue to participate in community sports and things like this. So, [00:11:00] um, yeah, that's very frustrating when over the last, uh, Yeah, a few years before this, you know, we've been making really good progress. Um, definitely the education stuff is really big, big for us and a really key message that we have for schools is that, uh, the relationships and sexuality education guidelines were only guidelines to start with. So that's why not all schools already teach amazingly about the queer. community as they, you know, as the guidelines kind of say that they should. Um, so it means even if they do replace [00:11:30] them, uh, schools don't actually have to follow that because they're not mandated. Um, and we're really hoping schools that are already doing great and amazing in this area will just continue, um, to do that. And when we have a new government again, we will sort it out again. Um, but in the meantime, we'll be working hard to, yeah, to prevent, um, more conservative guidelines from coming in place. Um, I think also funding is a big challenge, um, particularly at the moment. A lot of our government funding comes up for review next year, which is very scary with the current government. Um, and [00:12:00] so yeah, that's a very terrifying possibility. So any support, um, in that way is always helpful. Um, I think, um, just general struggles that are facing us is, um, The rise in transphobia, um, and transphobic extremism, um, last year we saw like a record number of people commenting on our social media, um, with terrible transphobic things, um, and just, yeah, the, the, some of the harassment that some of our staff have been facing is [00:12:30] pretty terrible, I think as well, the, um, The, uh, this sort of dovetails with a question that we've got coming up, but, um, the struggles that, um, certain parts of our communities are facing, like our Takatāpui communities, um, I think the, the degradation of, um, government protections of Te Tiriti, um, are really affecting, um, Takutapoi communities, which as a whole means that the general well being of our rainbow communities are sort of, um, [00:13:00] affected because we know that what is good for Takutapoi, what is good for Māori is good for all of us. Um, and I'll just add that I think with the current climate that we've got, Not just here, but globally, that people are emboldened to say really awful things now, and I feel like we need our allies more than ever before. So I think that's a really important part of our mahi as well as to make sure that there's people, not just queer people, standing up to this stuff, but our allies are there [00:13:30] too. Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking about the international context as well. We have our local context, but that is, um, also influenced by the, the broader international context, what's happening in the UK with gender affirming care and so on. Should be something that's just happening in the UK, but because we, I guess because we are still, uh, A colonized nation, then people pay more attention to what's happening in the UK than they need to because we can, we do things differently here and we can keep doing that, we should, um, so I think [00:14:00] there's the challenge of trying to assert, yeah, that New Zealand is and can be a rainbow inclusive country and just because things are getting worse elsewhere doesn't mean we need to be, yeah, following that line. And what about the, the kaupapa that you would say are closest to your heart at the moment? Broccoli. Broccoli person forward. Um, that brings a good point though, which is finding that joy amongst all the difficulties and the challenges that we've been going through. That [00:14:30] has been important to me, um, and to our team. Particularly with what we, yeah, the hate kind of we were receiving last year was to find ways to be silly, um, and to be joyful with each other. Have some distraction, whether that be broccoli or something else from, um, all the difficult stuff. So that's absolutely important. Um, definitely this, yeah, the, the coalition agreement, what's going on with the government and the education and sports stuff in particular. Um, and then yeah, thinking about these, um, [00:15:00] yeah, all these other issues that are affecting people. Um, when we look at, yeah, the attack on Te Tiriti o Waitangi or, um, what's You know the changes they're wanting to make for beneficiaries or the use justice system and all these things We can't look at any of them alone because they all you know Our communities are part of all of those communities and will be affected So yeah, I think I'm rambling now, but oh super good rambling super important. Um, yeah, we're not seeing it as like Only these [00:15:30] two things in the coalition agreement affect us. But for instance, most of that affects our communities. And so how can we, yeah, stand in solidarity with those other movements as well as internationally with what's happening, um, this week, just the NHS in the UK, you know, banning puberty blockers. Um, and then of course the horrific genocide in Gaza right now and how we can support, um, indigenous people around the world with what they're going through. Um, absolutely agree. I think all oppression is linked and, [00:16:00] you know, none of us are free until all of us are free. So I think, um, focusing on just like, small parts of what's going on, I think, misses the bigger picture. So I think some of the ones that, I mean, all of the, you know, horrific, um, human rights and violations that are happening right now are really sort of, um, weighing on, I think, most of us. But, um I think definitely Toitū, Te Tiriti, Mana Takutāpui and Free Palestine are sort of the ones that are taking up a lot of room in my brain and heart.[00:16:30] I have nothing to add, just tautoko. Um, about, yeah, things that are closest to your heart. I guess I always come back to, um, my, my whole kaupapa around family support and support of each other in general. That, um, you know, if we need to, we need to find the joy in our lives and we also need to support ourselves through these, these more difficult times. And so I feel like, um, it's, yeah, it's really vitally important that everyone finds what they need to do to help them feel better and okay, um, In the [00:17:00] face of things like transphobia, um, and we have, yeah, we all have, have our different things, but, um, there's just, you know, it's kind of a long game we're playing, and if we don't look after ourselves and each other, then we're likely to burn out, we're, we're not even, are we six months into the new government, you know, um, so, I think that's, yeah, that's close to my heart, now I know I need that to, to keep fighting myself. And what about, could you speak a bit about, please, would you be so kind to speak a bit about how Inside Out is supporting other social justice [00:17:30] movements? Yes. Uh, I think it's something we try to be conscious of all the time. So, for example, using our social media platform and following to uplift other kaupapa that are important. Um, things like taking part in the Wellington Pride Hikoi last weekend, um, across those different movements, um, and us, um, Some of our staff may or may not have stayed up till 2 or 3 a. m. making a beautiful sign that said None of us are free until all of us are free. Um, yeah, so, um, [00:18:00] showing up in those, like, really visible ways. Um, we're also, yeah, really, um, passionate about supporting young people with their ideas and movements. So, for example, um, maybe two years ago now we had, um, we supported a group of students, um, who were doing a petition to parliament around gender neutral bathrooms. And so Um, yeah, we offered to come on board and kind of support them through that process and able, were able to bring them down to Wellington to do that kind of handover to Parliament, um, of their petition, which is really cool. Did they get their toilet? [00:18:30] No. But you were still there trying to help them, which is the main thing. And just, yeah, I think showing them that they do have a voice and there is a way for them to engage with that system. Unfortunately, yeah, the select committee report didn't come back saying, um, Cool, there's a new thing, just kind of being like, Oh yeah, we already think we do enough of it. So that was bad, so we need to keep, keep fighting it. Um, things like the Make It 16 campaign, uplifting, putting in submissions for that, um, seeing, you know, again, that would, that would really help if we had lots more young [00:19:00] people voting, we'd get a much more queer friendly government. Maybe we should put a cap on how old you can be when you vote. Like, you have to retire from voting. If you're a certain kind of person. That's starting to get tricky for me to work out who doesn't get to vote. No, I don't want that either. Um, anyone else want to say anything else about that? Oh, that was very well covered by the way. Okay, great. We've got one official last question, but then I've got some random ones on my sleeve. One of them, one of my sleeves. How can this [00:19:30] amazing audience, who have been great all day, honestly, have you been here all day? Not some of you. Yep, okay, they don't want to talk to me at all. They're like, please stop talking to us, Karen, we don't want to talk back to you. Anyway, um, how can the audience, and or anyone, and so all the people here can go and tell ten other people as well, and I will tell as many people as I possibly can, um, except I've been fired from the television, so I don't really have a voice anymore. I've still got a voice, it's just not on the TV. Yeah, I know. Thanks. I blame the government on that too. They've cancelled the news. What are we going to do? Just [00:20:00] look at TikTok all day? I don't even know how to do that. Anyway, what was your question? How can the audience and everyone in the whole universe um, get involved and support the work that you do? Um, if you're age 15 to 27 and want to come volunteer with us, you're very welcome. We're always wanting more, um, passionate, um, rainbow people to come support our mahi. Um, I think. Follow us on social media. Um, we have some great posts. Um, thanks to the lovely River. Um, [00:20:30] Yeah, I think that's Can they give you money? And give us money, of course, of course. Yeah, um, we have Money is a good one. People eat some money. Um, even though our communities don't often have very much money of their own. Um, I think, yeah, we have like a donation page. You can set up a regular donation. You can do a one off donation. Have you asked Christopher Luxon for a donation? He's got 52, 000 he doesn't need anymore. I don't know if we've tried yet, but maybe we should. I'll send him an email. What about we all send Chris an email? Yeah. Saying, you know what, that 52, 000, don't pay [00:21:00] it back, give it to Inside Out please. Yeah. Thank you very much. It's an entitlement and you're entitled to it. Right, good. Well that's gonna, I'm sure that's gonna happen. Absolutely, send an invoice. Um, I think in terms of if you're a parent, um, get involved in the school environment, um, join the boards, uh, give feedback to the schools about good things that they're doing for queer kids and the bad things that they're doing so that the school are aware of what's happening in their, um, in [00:21:30] their, yeah. Yeah, and I think as well what you were saying about it shouldn't just have to be the parents of queer kids. You know, anyone can be there to advocate for the things that they know are right, and I think, you know, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um, and I think, you know, calling out, just preaching to the converted, I'm sure, in this room, but, um, calling out transphobia and queerphobia whenever you hear it, um, and also, um, checking in on your queer and trans friends, I think, um, just sending a message and saying how are you [00:22:00] doing? Maybe it's hard for you this week because a lot of us are in quarantine. Hearing bad news about things that are particularly relevant to us at various times. Um, so supporting each other, um, yeah, and thinking about what you can do, um, that might be easier for you than it might be for someone else who's more directly affected. So that's like the role of an ally, where many of us may be part of the community here, but we're also always allies to other types of social justice movements or other parts of the community. And sometimes it's easier to help when you're not, um, So directly affected by the issue [00:22:30] yourself. So look out for the spaces where you can add value without and where others can help you when it's too hard for you. Fantastic. I had one more thing. Um, Your time's up. Sorry. Let's just go. Of course it's not. Go. Um, I think community care is really important. So banding together with other, um, rainbow people at this time. And I think an important one is calling out racism, both in and out of, um, rainbow communities. I'm going to do what Quack did at the Hikoi. If you don't already have us on your Instagram, and you've got [00:23:00] Instagram, get out your phone. Get out your phone, guys. And type in Inside Out Koaro with the beautiful rainbow karu logo. I think they're already all following because no one's got their phone out. Come on. Or Facebook. We're on Facebook too. Where else? YouTube? TikTok? We don't. No. Good. No. I don't know. I shouldn't know. If you like TikTok, that's fine. I just don't understand it. Um, yeah, there's often, when things are happening in our communities, we're often I guess we'll put out opportunities for people to support [00:23:30] and over these next two years there's going to be a lot of petitions to sign, a lot of submissions that will need to go to parliament, a lot of opportunities to get involved and turn up and show your support. So, um, yeah, unfortunately, following on social media is usually the best way to keep up to date with what, um, what's going on there. If you're following it for good reasons then I think it's great. Yeah. It's just, you know, but there are obviously for me like there's only so many Cat videos I should really be watching in a day, you know, or like babies and cats. Do you follow us? Puppies and [00:24:00] cats. Always. Do you follow us on yours? I thought I did. I'm just gonna check right now. What are you called again? Instagram. Hang on guys, just bear with me. I'm just checking something. Searching in Yeah, I know how to spell inside. There we are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the one. Yep. Follow back. We were following Karen and Karen wasn't [00:24:30] following us. That is outrageous. I tried to make you guys 12. 50 from my zero Leary beer on Petty Gower. You, you did. You also donated 500 to us when you went on Brain Busters. Yes. So, you've done more than most. Yeah, but now I'm following as well. But now you're following us too. We're going to make an even more amazing difference, positive difference. Um, thank you so much for coming here and sharing that kōrero, and um, like I said, I also, on behalf of everybody that I think is a good person, want to thank you for the amazing work that you do, and, yeah, I think [00:25:00] you make life, that can be really hard, a lot easier, as much as you possibly can for lots of people, so, kia ora, and um, have a lovely rest of your year out in the city. Don't forget to go and see the broccoli. I'm intrigued so I'm going to go as well after this if I ever get to finish. Um, but to do that I need to get on to the next thing. So I would like to say thank you very much to these guys. Have a lovely rest of your day. Kia ora.
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