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Hello. How are you today? I am absolutely fantastic. How are you? I'm absolutely fantastic. So who are you? My name is Alex Ray. I'm from Hamilton. How much of a description do we need? As much as you want. Um, yeah. I work in childcare. I am queer. Identifying. Identifying? Yep. And, um what was I going to say? Purple [00:00:30] favourite music. Oh, that's a toughie. Don't even get me started on that. It's I got too much time anyway. Oh, wow. That quite like alternative rock bands. Yeah, mixed it with maybe a bit. A bit of gaga Always got like the gaga like park going like what? A famous song like paper cut or not? No, I got a tangent now. Don't you know Lincoln Park? Lincoln Park are crap. OK, fine. OK, fine. 30 seconds to Mars or something. Oh, yeah, yeah, [00:01:00] yeah. Give me some of that. Yeah. So closer to the edge, going closer to the edge. That sounds good. I should make that. That sounds like a good remix, but closer to the edge of glory, I like that. It was cool. Ok, um, warm toast. So yeah, just give that give that um, So you work [00:01:30] at Wacky? I do. I am a youth mentor at Wacky and I have been for since February this year. So that's how long is that? Like six months. Six months? Not. Not bad. And I've been a member here since 2009. I believe that sounds about right. So how old are you? I'm 18 years old, and I was 15 when I started. So have you always been a Hamilton person? Yes, I was born here. I lived in Wellington for a small part [00:02:00] of my life, and I've been around various places in the Waikato but mainly centred in Hamilton split custody between, like, four different families. So that's fun to fun. So as you went to Wellington, I was like, No, too much politics around here. I was, like, seven. And it was just crap. My dad forced me to move there. That was cool. Like around the time with Helen Clark. Oh, yeah. May have been actually. Ah, it takes me back. I don't think I ever actually saw the beehive. The entire [00:02:30] time I lived there, I went to a pupa like once a Clark. Anyway, So what's your gender identity. Um, I am AC female and your gender expression. I express myself as mostly female. Mostly mostly. I'm known to occasionally bind when the mood takes me. Just come out and say hello. I'm Bruce. Yeah, well, I've always been interested in becoming a drag king, [00:03:00] but I'm not sure I'd be much good at it. What would you be? What would your song be closer to? The closest to the age of We have to make it first. Oh, you just you just go on a bit far. I don't think I can think of that right now. Have to be a classic. Definitely, Definitely Have to be a classic. A rock song. Oh, yeah, yeah. Um a CDC. I don't know about that. Oh, into sand, [00:03:30] man. Oh, yeah, that's a good song. Is that metal? I've always liked that song. Yeah. Um, So what is your sexuality? Um, I identify currently as pansexual, pansexual. I dabbled in being bi and I claimed to be lesbian for a while, but I think I'm sticking with pan a bit everywhere. Yeah, Yeah. [00:04:00] Spread. Spread it all out. Put my feelers out there. It's like english breakfast in a way, I can't limit myself. The sausage of eggs. Is it English? Breakfast? Oh, no. I said egg this breakfast for waffles. OK, You know, I'm cold toasting that. Is it awkward even more when I say I'm I'm hungry. Was it because [00:04:30] I said waffles? Are you hungry already? I'm hungry now. Yeah, that that made a little awkward. Waffles. English breakfast? Yes. Um, where am I? Um so when did you realise that I was identifying? Oh, let's see. I actually the first time I was ever attracted to a female because, you know, I think that's probably a pretty good place to start was I was about 12 years old and I met [00:05:00] an openly bisexual woman who was maybe five years older than me. She was my best friend's older sister, and she was she was pretty cool. And at the time, I just thought she's pretty cool. And then after a while, I was like, You're actually pretty alright. And then I kind of denied it for a little while from there and then probably again when I was 14 and I had my first girlfriend. When did you accept it? I've always been accepting of it. I was raised in a household where you love who you love, And it doesn't matter if you want to explain [00:05:30] it to anybody. My grandmother is a lesbian. My brother is transgender, and pretty much doesn't really matter. So I didn't need to accept it because it was just a part of life. I was pre accepting pre accepting. So, like a prepaid card. Similar, similar sort of scenario. Yeah, I was ready. I was prepared for it. I'm prepared to be queer. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Go into a shop to buy a prepaid like I want. I want to buy some pre paid. Accepting this, please. [00:06:00] I love this interview. Um, and was great. Yes, you are. Great. Um, So when did you came out of the closet? Ok, now you make things interesting. You mean to the community in general, to my family, to my friends, just wherever you started. Um OK, well, you know, obviously, first you've got to come out to yourself. So coming into the realisation in which I was great, I find, um then I [00:06:30] had a few girlfriends and a few boyfriends kind of in secret for a while, mostly because my parents thought I was too young to date. So it wasn't that I didn't come out that I was pretending that I didn't like anybody. Then when I was maybe 15, I was dating a young lady and, um, she wanted to stay at my house for the holidays. So we just kind of walked into my parents' house. And I said, This is my girlfriend Insert name here. And they were like, Oh, OK, that's so I came out to my dad and my stepmom, so they said, Oh, hello. [00:07:00] Insert name here. Yeah, exactly. And it was just didn't really matter carried on from there. And I came up to my mother by a similar sort of scenario Where I went. It's my girlfriend's birthday party. Can you drop me over to her house? Oh, who's your girlfriend and first name Pretty much, actually may be a different person. Come to think of it, think about it. Come with mum first. And then I started going to wacky, and I was outed at school by a then wacky member. And that wasn't all that great because she outed me as being a lesbian, [00:07:30] which I wasn't. And at an all girls school that was not overly acceptable, Especially in my very conservative group of friends. Yeah, some, some of some of the girls be like lesbian. That was pretty much the gist of it. I got shunned out of existence, and I was left with three friends from the entirety of high school because everyone else decided that the dirty lesbian must want to hit on me. But actual fact, I was like, Seriously, I'm not touch with a barge pole like don't flatter yourself. [00:08:00] How about, um did people start coming towards you saying, Oh, I'm actually a lesbian or Yes, that was mostly bisexual because, you know, girls are really proud of themselves and they're bisexual, and usually it's because I've had too many vodkas. So I had a few people that were sort of like I kind of know, being like, Oh, do your friends accept you because I'm actually buying. I'm worried I'm not going to have any friends. And I'm like, Well, no, my friends don't accept me, but good luck with that. And like, 000, yeah. But But you know, I'm here for you girl [00:08:30] whose name I'm not totally sure of. Thanks for coming out to me. Exactly. Yeah, that's probably the gist of it. Really? Yeah. So there are the girls that, um that didn't that were like and the girls are like and they were, like, after all that, actually, um, a friend and I were involved in a news article in the Wakata times about, um, you know, the queer youth community in the Waikato. [00:09:00] And I didn't It didn't occur to me then that, um I wasn't out to my extended family. And all of my grandparents are subscribers to the Waikato Times, so yeah, the next Christmas was was pretty interesting. I think my younger cousin said something to me along the lines of You didn't tell me you were gay. It's probably saying that I did as well. So mostly my coming out was forced, forced upon me, thrust upon me slightly unintentional, but accidental. [00:09:30] But, like, um, most of my family didn't actually mind. Really? Like my paternal grandfather is the pastor of a born again Christian church. And he's just sort of pretending it's not happening, I think, and my Nana is it's actually kind of OK. She quite likes my partner. Fun time. So you've had a bit of a support system? Yeah, it was there from the start. Um, my brother, [00:10:00] who? That That's Trans. He's not actually my brother, but he's my cousin all raised together. Um, he was always there for me from the beginning because he came out first as being bisexual, and I think he like he was a lesbian and he went back to being bisexual, and he came out as Trans. So he sort of came out almost adjacent to me because his took such a drawn out process. And it took so much longer to explain to everyone what Trans was that I don't know. It kind of think it distracted from me a little bit, which made it easier because [00:10:30] they would. They weren't scandalised by the fact that I liked girls. They were too busy being like, How does that work? How are you now? Um, they must They must have the gene. Yeah, I actually I'm a firm believer in the queer Jean. Yeah, it's It's pretty pretty obvious in my family. Yeah, positive results. We're just just, you know, getting all in there. Nice. It's nice. Yeah. You've got the Jean Good jeans, blue jeans, blue jeans. No, that would be the pink jeans. Rainbow jeans. Yeah, Rain jeans. [00:11:00] I really hope those don't exist. I. I actually can see myself I. I remember seeing this poster of a sperm. That's, um, rainbow coloured. Not not a real sperm. This is the poster saying the rainbow Jean. That sounds like a really gross way to put it like they could have used a DNA. Was it a helix thing? Was they called DNA The spiral that is a rainbow. That might have been nice. It was a cartoon. It was a proper tali shape. [00:11:30] Gross. I feel like that. So you obviously you've had a few relationships? Um, yes, I've actually been out with more boys than girls. Um, my current partner was female when we met. And, um, 52 years now, and six months ago, he came up to me as friends, so I kind of to stop pretending I was a lesbian and then identify the fact that I actually am transsexual. Because despite the fact he's now male, I'm still very much in love with him and That's really the only relationship worth mentioning, [00:12:00] I believe is the current. We live in the present in the present, and every other relationship has a certain name here. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. So, um, how do you meet other people in the queer community? Um well, when I first came out, well, you know, when I first began the journey of self realisation and I, um, started attending Wacky, I met quite little people in the queer community that I would not have met otherwise. So, um, yeah, probably wacky is a really big one. Now that [00:12:30] I'm over 18, I suppose I meet them and shine the local gay club, turning into an advertising campaign. Come to the local shine gay club. We call it shine because we know that you like to shine, even though mostly it's kind of older men who are probably too busy being like, not sure about you. You're too female for me to pay any attention to. That's that's great. That's really cool. Because if you go to a straight bar, everybody's just grinding up and your girl and he's like, [00:13:00] do you mind straight bars? Actually, Well, I don't really see them as straight bars. They're just sort of clubs that aren't gay clubs. I suppose there are bars I don't normally get hit on. I'm normally with my boyfriend. Anyway, it's usually a pretty good kind of like Don't fucking look at me signal. I think you do the whole, like holding hands like That's right. I think I've made that noise, though. I have my puzzles. [00:13:30] I'm not sure I could do that. It sounds like elbow Kind of Ma ma, ma song. Sorry. That was kind of creepy. I'm the in the class. OK, Um um OK, let's start the interview from here. OK, Where am I? Oh, yeah. So what's your definition of virginity? Virginity? [00:14:00] Um Well, OK. I saw myself as a virgin until the first time anyone did anything to me that involved being below my waist. Pretty much kissing, you know, that's whatever anything that's sort of in that upper region. I don't You know, I would still consider myself a virgin. Had nothing have happened below the waist. That's my That's my theory. So have you ever received any abusive behaviours? [00:14:30] Um, probably mainly at school, but like, it wasn't all that bad it was more the exclusion more than anything like I didn't get things yelled at me or thrown at me like my story is definitely not as graphic as some other ones I've heard. But, um, just things like walking into a classroom and hearing girls across the room going Oh, look, there's that lesbian like things like that more than anything else. Um, did you used to turn around and say, Oh, it yeah, No, because I was too afraid they were going to punch [00:15:00] me. I just sort of sat down and pretend it wasn't happening. And then at lunch time, I would go and sit with my two friends and tell them about it, and I'd be like, Don't worry about it, Don't listen to her. And then someone later told me that I should have just had on them because that would have really freaked them out. And I was like, Oh, who told me that when I was at high school, that would be like a lot more helpful, like I just hold you down like I seriously, I should have done that looking back. But, you know, I think I was a bit too timid, timid. I'm not now, obviously. OK, [00:15:30] well, thank you for the interview. That was That was speed. It was only 16 minutes. Wow. Yeah. Anyway, thank you. Oh, you're very much welcome.
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