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Um, the session is really a summary session. Um, a report back from each of the streams. Um, so we've got a report back from Ian from Queer Avengers and also from William, who will do, uh, the legalised love stream. Uh, we'll have a look at the quick look at the action points, and also, uh, the white board, You know, the the different tasks that some of the the major tasks that some of the different groups are going to be doing over the next, um, 3 to [00:00:30] 6 months, and then we'll, uh, say a few. Thank you. And, um, feel well until next time so I'll start off and hand over to Ian, who's going to quickly talk about, um, the Queer Avengers Stream and give us a detailed report, I suppose, on the first half. And could you you You wrote some notes on the second half? Do you want to report back on that? Yeah. So, um, so, Yeah, just be, um the the first two sessions were [00:01:00] a trans forum and a Pacifica forum. Uh, the, uh the Trans forum was, uh was, uh it started with, um, Sally presenting on, um uh particularly on, um, uh, the su suicidality and that, um and, um yeah, suicidality among marginalised groups in general, Um, and then sort of moving into, um, good ways to address that. So, for example, um, where, [00:01:30] Um, uh, surgery has been made much more freely available. It's had a huge impact on suicidality. So So discussing some of the basic things where if the concerns are addressed if, um, like, uh, again as Joseph mentioned, if surgery isn't seen as just an elective thing for a very small, uh, group who have the money, uh, that that actually has a huge impact on, um, on that. So, um, And then, uh, Chase talked about experiences in high school and, uh, having relatively [00:02:00] ok experiences. But, um uh, especially compared to other people who have been kicked out of home and all this, but, um, that, um, still having issues with the lack of education and constantly being faced with questions kind of thing. So So, yeah, we also talked about the need for education. Um um and yeah. So I think those are both big things to return to, Like, um, I think, yeah, the, um, expansion of, uh, consistent across, uh, across the board health care for trans people and [00:02:30] then also education on on gender and sexuality. So, um, and then, yeah, we ran through some of the crow schools demands along those lines. Um, yeah. And other people can possibly comment on that. I might not summarise it perfectly. Um, and then we did the, uh, Pacifica forum. Uh, which was, um uh, from, uh, she's from box events, which is, um, sort of queer woman of colour group. Except she was there pretty much as an individual. Um, just speaking [00:03:00] on, uh, some of the problems of, um uh, the the the phrase was beyond queer liberation, and so, sort of that, um, a lot of articulations of queerness are in sort of in a colonised space. And at the same time, colonisation is what's eroded. Um uh, previous forms such as, um and so the the thing of articulating something that deals with those sorts of different strands, Um uh, and [00:03:30] takes up both spaces similar to how is an integration of those things? Um, yeah, and I possibly, uh, could speak to that better, but she's not here. Um, so yeah, that's something we're going to revisit and keep having dialogue on. So that was the first half? Um Yep. OK, so the first afternoon one was, um, a talk about gay liberation movement that was done by Ian, um, which started talking about the Stonewall riots [00:04:00] in the US. And that was, um when a group of game. Well, the police raided this bar where, um, Gambian and Trans people hung out, I think mostly Gambian and transsexual women. Um, and one time they decided to fight back. And, um, these were actually people who have been active in other new left movements and, um, sort of like against racial segregation and, uh, get [00:04:30] the war in their arms and fighting for women's rights and so on. And they thought, Well, hey, let's stick up for ourselves as well. So they started fighting back. And, um, yeah, apparently the, um at the time the, um, the most dispossessed gay and trans people were really big and that they were the ones who were most passionate about fighting back. Yeah, strangely enough, um, it actually it was maybe the the ones who were least dispossessed, who actually [00:05:00] got the most boost in their rights from it. And yeah, uh, they formed this group called the Gay Liberation Front, which then split into a gay activist alliance and a, um, street transaction revolutionary group. And because they sort of, um, it's like they they are different ideas of what to focus on. And the gay group was successful in, um, getting, uh, so it was no longer considered, [00:05:30] um, a mental illness to be gay. And so, yeah, it was interesting that you got that sort of split. And then, yeah, the gay group, which was perhaps the more mainstream one they got what they wanted. The trance group kind of didn't really. And so this kind of posed the question of how do we be together in a a unitary that is emancipatory rather than sort of press it by sort of saying you conform to this so that we can be together and yeah, we learnt about [00:06:00] how the, um how The gay rights activists, um, had alliances with various people, including the, um, like to truck drivers union in San Francisco, which I found surprising. I mean, stereotypically, um, this was a gay man being allied with the truck drivers. I would have thought, You know, maybe some of the female truck drivers might have been in favour of gay rights. But you don't stereotypically think of the male truck drivers as [00:06:30] feeling that way. Well, that was mediated by Harvey Milk doing sort of the the community work with both groups. And, um, so we started discussing. We talked a bit about New Zealand also, but then we started discussing What does this tell us about our campaigns now? And, um, one point that Bill made was that there was this clear division between [00:07:00] the, um with the division between the more mainstream. And the more sort of off to the side thing was actually, um, matched by the, um, architectural context of this conference with the maybe the more mainstream group meeting in this room and the after the side and network. And, um so but we worked out that, um that actually they been thinking [00:07:30] both in a way, had been important to moving forward. And, um, another thing we learned was that, um a lot of these groups that popped up in the sixties and seventies and so on, they were sort of it was sort of like a new way of people standing up and saying these things publicly and getting in the public eye. But they weren't the first movement saying these things that you can actually look back decades and find academics writing these [00:08:00] things and people having these discussions. And so what changed was the sort of public the making it public site. And, um, yeah, somebody commented that actually gay people who want to get married and maybe not the most depressed people in the queer community and that, uh, there's a concern that maybe shifting same sex marriage that maybe the same sex marriage campaign might be shifting [00:08:30] marriage from the same sex marriage from being in the category of abnormal stuff to being in the category of normal stuff while not actually changing anything about the fact of there being these two categories. And, um so there was sort of this tension, I think, also between, um, but sometimes you can draw the more controversial stuff and get the less controversial stuff [00:09:00] through. And you might think, Oh, that's a good deal because at least we got something through. Otherwise we weren't going to get anything but on the other hand there was. Well, then, once you've got the more popular bit through, maybe you lose the impetus to campaign so that that actually stops the other bit getting through. So not sure where that leads to as to how you should work. Then we took We had the [00:09:30] beyond Marriage forum With where, um this was basically talking about this concept. What Bill suggested? Um, what if we abolish marriage as an institution and, you know, people could just do what they want, but not be. You know, they could live like they're married if they want to, but not be influenced by this being sort of an institution that have certain advantages and [00:10:00] so on. And, uh, and talked about, um, free love, which didn't necessarily mean a sort of hippie style, uh, having like lots of sex or, um, free of emotional connection or anything. But what it meant was love. That is free from, um I guess free from expectations as to [00:10:30] what is the right sort of life or the right sort of sex life, so that you're free to find what is the best thought for you. And, um, she said this. She said that we live in a sex negative culture, she then clarified, was a sex negative culture that's disguised as a sex positive culture by which meant that we have this sort of media and advertising in our culture. The sort of promoting sex is a good thing, [00:11:00] but then promoting it, along with youth and conventional ideas of beauty and physical perfection, as if to maybe sort of imply that, um that without that it's not a good thing. And, um, that sends, you know, messages that people's own love, life or sex life maybe isn't good enough. And so the idea of free love would include being free from that. And, um, yeah, she talk about [00:11:30] So she wasn't I mean, she was into the idea of, um, you know, polygamy and polyamory and sharing sexual and emotional partners if if that's what you want. I mean, it wasn't about necessarily doing that, but it definitely included the freedom for people to choose that if that's what seems to suit them. And, uh, what's your name? Sorry. What's [00:12:00] your name? Shelley mentioned some examples mentioned that in the B DS M community, they have this this sort of negotiation system for how, um where people negotiate, what they can get from one relationship and sort of say, Oh, and if you need more from a relationship than this, I recognise that you might get that other thing from another relationship, so that might be part of it. And, uh, Bill [00:12:30] then sort of ended this by saying, Well, and this wasn't really a disagreement, but just an extinction and tying back to what he said at the beginning. You can't argue for free love. Instead, you have to argue against various things that are barriers to freedom and love. And you got a list of, um, books for further reading that, um, that you can get from me if you're interested in this. There's some about sort of political stuff [00:13:00] about free life. Some about, um, sort of interpersonal relationship issues in free. Then the third one was the diversity for, um So, uh, we first talked about queer relationships and, uh, disability and, um mentioned, you know, think about how disabled people, whether they're straight or queer, might [00:13:30] find it harder to leave a relationship. Um, but disabled people specifically disabled queer people might be affected. Also by homophobia by their carers or family who are caring for them. Um, and yeah, that under immigration law, Um, because there is discrimination or New Zealand immigration law that isn't really about, you know, same sex versus [00:14:00] sex relationships. But there is on the grounds of disability. So, um, you might find that, um, so that if if you're in love with somebody from a different country who is of the same sex as you and they have a disability and maybe they can't come here. So you have to go there to their country where, um maybe you can't actually get in on where? Maybe your relationship isn't recognised as it would be in New Zealand. [00:14:30] And yeah, there was also this idea that, um that there might be more pressure to sort of prove your normality in terms of sexuality. If you've got a disability and therefore perceived as abnormal in that respect that it's maybe easier to sort of be different. Be openly abnormal in a way, in one respect, if you're clearly normal in another, [00:15:00] and then we got on to, uh, trends issues as the middle of the second of the three parts of this uh, diversity thing. Uh, so we discussed this marriage equality an issue for trans people. So, Brooklyn, who is presenting that? It is, um, partly. Well, it can be because you can be trans and, um, homosexual as well. [00:15:30] But it can also be, uh it's also, um because the legal definition of what sex somebody is can be a bit messed up for transsexual people and can change over time. And so, like, uh, in New Zealand at the moment, if you have particular irreversible transsexual surgery or medical treatment, you, um you go from [00:16:00] being the opposite sex of your legal partner to being same sex with your legal partner. Then your marriage is annulled because I'm not sure whether it's annulled or if it's E value weight. But if it is, it ceases to be legally valid. So, um so yeah, that's it's because of the sort of confusion around legal legal definition of sex and change, and legal definition of sex makes a special transsexual [00:16:30] angle on removing gender from, um Well, sorry. I'm removing the role that you have to be a man and a woman to be married and also talked about this idea of trans women being hyper sexualized in some people's imaginations. Uh, which apparently, um, means that, um, make marriage difficult to because it leads to the sort [00:17:00] of idea that you're not gonna, um, be wanted that nobody would want to marry you. And, um so this means that, uh, well, there are some cases of, um, transwomen being married to regular sexual men. There were also, uh, a lot, but just as many Trans women being married to trans men or being in lesbian type relationships, uh, and [00:17:30] that that means suggest, actually, considering there were way more men that trans men, that actually that there is that those relationships with men are difficult to form. And then there's discrimination against trans men being, uh, sometimes physically beaten up by lesbians who saw them as traitors to the a radical lesbian sephra cause or something wouldn't know. I'm not often in this course. I don't think they'd let [00:18:00] me in, um, discriminate. And then, yeah, there's discrimination against trans people, which is not explicitly prohibited. It's It's kind of a weird one because there's a legal opinion that it is implied under sexual discrimination in the Human Rights Act. now, but the fact that it's not actually explicitly stated means it's kind of it's hard to know really whether you would actually [00:18:30] get protection. And um also mentioned that trans women have a high rate of mental and neurological disability, which, um well, I'm sure has negative effects. It also had positive effects in terms of developing relationships between the trans community and the community of other people with those conditions which has meant that at least those two [00:19:00] communities accept each other. Then thirdly, we talked about that or basically Maori queer identity, where Gareth said that basically the written Maori history is heterosexual Maori men's history. And this has meant that, um, there's like 300 year old stories of which, um have only been written down [00:19:30] in the last 20 years or so. And a lot of members of the Maori establishment sort of frown on these stories and kind of don't really accept them as part of their inheritance, but uh, stories that have always been passed down through Maori people. And part of this was due to also missionaries who came along and burnt all these carvings, which suggested, um, same sex relationships and uh, there was a point that have [00:20:00] actually been back in the campaign for reviving the Maori language. So, um, so that's quite a good sort of, I guess. Alliance there between the campaign for Maori language and the and, um yeah, some of the This whole thing of the missionaries is destroying the, um, the evidence of the relationships that lead to some people like, um, John Tahiri and Brian [00:20:30] mentioned as Maori people who thought that those traditions didn't exist because they hadn't been passed down to them. And finally, I got this interesting comment from Brooklyn who said that she thought that, um, we should see all forms of oppression is basically this one sort of oppression thing that's divided into these different forms and that therefore, [00:21:00] if you get somebody who's part of one group, where they're the oppressed and the other another group where they are sort of the oppressor, that that's actually a sort of divide and rule thing, pitting them against each other, which is also sort of part of what she sees as this big conflicts of oppression. Thank you. So I'm gonna keep this, uh, quicker because [00:21:30] I'm aware of the time. Um so to start off the legalised love stream yesterday we had Conrad Ray, um, who's leading a lot of the media work around the campaign and a lot of the lobbying talk to us. Um, so we started with a quick overview of the process that's happened so far. And what we've still got to go, Um, as far as 2nd and 3rd reading and when our lobbying, um, is going to be most effective? Um, the people we were encouraged to target are the 80 voting [00:22:00] in favour at the moment and keeping those those people yeses, Um, and that that is, is going to be the most effective strategy for us. Um, we talked about how we need to tailor our messages to those people. Um, so that the right people are lobbying different MP S, um, and lobbying them in the right way. Um, depending on their party affiliations, Um, and how liberal they are. We talked about speaking to the heart as being more effective [00:22:30] than speaking to the head. So as many logical reasons we have for marriage equality, um, to be passed they are should probably be secondary to the emotional stories Um and we talked about some of the risks which you can read about in the notes. Um, after that, we had Doctor Elsbeth Tilley from Massey University and who gave a really good, um, some really good advice around media. It's basically the way she put it is that the people we want to reach and not the media themselves, [00:23:00] but the end audiences of those publications, and we need to think about those audiences. But obviously the media is the intermediary intermediary, Um, with that. So we need to understand, you know who journalists are. And she talked about how they are predominantly young white women with a tertiary qualification and relatively little experience. And how we need to, um, bring them up to speed on some of the issues, um, so that they can provide effective coverage. We also got into some specifics about some media angles we might take over [00:23:30] the campaign. So, um, one advice was to create competition. And so we looked at, you know, New Zealand becoming one of the first countries in the world. We sort of have a, I suppose, an expectation upon us that we will legalise marriage equality after we were first to give women the vote. Um, and we looked at a lot of other angles, too, that we might, um, push in the media sphere. Um, and more practically, we looked at how we might write a media release, um, and handle issues with the media. Um, then we [00:24:00] heard from Tabby Tom and someone else whose name? I can't remember. Gryphon, um, on quest, straight alliances. And they gave a good overview of of what they're doing, um, in schools and the national network they're creating, um, and hopefully they can grab their slides and they'll be available. Um, for those who weren't in that session, um, we also looked at some questions that came from that, Um, you know, how can we make these groups a true alliance between, um, [00:24:30] queer people and straight people? Um, how we resource those people, But also resource teachers or the other big players in schools. Um, how we handle cultural issues. Um, and we looked at a couple of examples of people doing it right. Like Wellington High School. Um, and another nice point that was mentioned was, you know, the QS a is coming from the bottom up, um, creating these groups. But what can we do at the policy level to philtre down, um, and make [00:25:00] queer straight alliances and and queer issues a priority in our education sector? After that, we had, um a very informative, um, but also thought provoking session from Mary, um, about faith. Um, Margaret? Yeah. So I thought that name was wrong. Um, and I've written it down like that, and she she started off with, I guess an analysis of the key arguments we hear from religious factions and [00:25:30] and sort of broke some of those down for us. But we went further to sort of look at, um, some of the other sort of sideline issues within the whole faith. Um, domain, for example, the missing voice of people who are against gay marriage in a religious sense, but believe that there should be a civil right to marriage. Um, because of the general belief in equality. Um, that's what I was trying to articulate better in the notes. [00:26:00] Um, and also the fact that some churches do support marriage equality, and the current law is currently preventing them from exercising their religious freedom. That's a point case um, brought up a few times, and I really like that. Um we looked at some of the reasons that we have objection And where that comes from, um, and and some strategies to deal with perhaps ignorant people. Um, that we come across, um, then Kevin Hague, [00:26:30] Um, talked to us about marriage, adoption and human rights. And that was a really interesting discussion. We started looking at the international human rights instruments like, um, the UN declaration. Um, and it's sort of sister instruments, um, and how those filtered down to our domestic legislation and the effect that those have had, um, one of the really interesting things from Kevin's, um, session [00:27:00] was sort of the peculiar but compelling argument about the effect that so good social policy has on public health. And we look at the example of HIV A I DS, um you know, and it was found that the people during the epidemic of the eighties, the people who were being infected were typically, um, people with low self esteem, alcohol and drug problems, [00:27:30] poor communication skills, um, and in denial about their sexuality and how solving those problems would have the positive effect on health. Obviously, in that case, HIV infection rates. Um, so we looked at something called the Otway Charter and some principles around developing good human rights policy. Um, and we also looked at the issue of adoption Um, the care of Children Act and the adoption act and where we need to go with that, um, and some [00:28:00] sort of issues beyond the marriage equality campaign. But certainly the issues with that go far beyond, um, adoption of equality, Um, and go into some sort of interesting concepts that, like, adoption and, um, giving legal effect to open adoption, which at the moment is sort of done off the books. Um and yeah, it's right. I concluded. Cool. Thank you, William. Um [00:28:30] Oh, look at this.
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