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Hello. How are you today? I am good. How are you? I am good. What is your name? My name is Sean. That is good. Good to have a good name. Sean is a good name. Yes. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Um, I'm 29. A typical Taranaki boy into cars into the surf and to just having a bit of fun. What is a typical Taranaki boy? Um, apart from what I just said, um pretty laid back Cruz [00:00:30] kind of guy that goes with the flow. Have you lived in Taranaki all your life? Majority of my life. I did spend about up to seven years in Wellington. So what's the big difference? Um, what is the big difference between Taranaki and Wellington? I wouldn't say there's a great bit of difference other than the sheer size of of both cities. But I found after living in Auckland for about three months, that Wellington was just the largest size new place. [00:01:00] A bank of New Plymouth. Just a big new Plymouth where a lot of people know each other. I still think that Wellington is more like Devonport. Have you been to Devonport? I've been over to Devonport, but only really just to visit. I haven't seen the social side of deport. I don't know about social side, but the look of it, It looks like a big, massive Devonport with all the little hills and just the crazy, Not houses. And yeah, and the streets look the same. [00:01:30] Churches all narrow and twisted and wined. But it still looks pretty. Yeah. So, um, what is your gender identity? I would classify myself as a gay, my gender male. And that's your sex as well? Yes. And what do you express yourself as? As feminine? Me. [00:02:00] Say that again. What do you express yourself as feminine or masculine or anything else, I would say. Quite masculine, I guess. Definitely not feminine. Maybe after a bottle of wine or two, you just walk around and go. Hey, No, you don't do that. No living in Taranaki. What's it like being gay? Are you Are you out of the closet? Yes, I am out. Um, Been out [00:02:30] now for 13 years. 13 years, 13 years. So being out in Taranaki, What is it like? Right at the start. Um, I found it quite difficult. Um not so much with my friends. Like my closest friends. They stayed quite true to me, but it was more the other people, like I had a bit of stick from a couple of teachers, Um, which in turn I left school just because I couldn't handle it because there was no one to talk to. It felt like it was No, it was sort of my word against the teacher's word. [00:03:00] Um And I mean, I was heavily into skating then as well, when I was sort of pushed out of that kind of group and just felt a little bit isolated at the start. Whereas today, I mean how every time I drop my fiance off no problems with giving him a kiss goodbye and wish him a good day's work or dropping them off at the airport. And a little bit of PD to show my love to him won't stop me. So he doesn't have [00:03:30] a problem with PDA. No, he not so much me at the start, it was quite difficult, but we are getting used to it. So, um, you're a nineties kid, aren't you? Eighties, eighties eighties, growing in high school here nineties high school nineties left in 95. When did you realise that about your sexuality? I realised about my sexuality. Probably about [00:04:00] third form, or what's that? Year nine. Now, did you went to, like, an all boys school or unisex school? I went to sponsor college, which is coed school. Um, so I mean, it was a mixture of all, but, um, I just found that even though I was dating girls because that was just what you did, I secretly had a friend on the side that would fall around. Did you feel like you had to, like, keep a secret? I did feel I had to keep it a secret. And I kept [00:04:30] a secret for three years. From the day I knew, I kind of liked guys a bit more than girls and then to actually going Well, I made my choice that this is what I going to be. So So who did you come out of the closet to first? Um, I came out of the closet first to my one of my mates, Um, which then, by about lunch time, half the school knew so [00:05:00] typical high school wasn't quite the Maybe the best move I made, but it did make it a lot easier to kind of just snowballed and yeah, yeah. So how did he how? What? What was his reaction to it? Apart from telling everybody in the school, um, I mean, a lot of them, not just him, but a lot of my friends were like, Are you serious? You don't fit the stereotypical game, boy. Um, so they they took it quite well, [00:05:30] and they were a little shocked and did take him a little while. I was like, Well, what do I have to do to prove that I am, But, um, after the years go by, I mean, they just they didn't care at all, which is good. How about your parents? Parents? Wow. I had a quite a 50 50 of that. Um, the first was, of course, to tell my mum because my parents split up when I was about two. Mum gave him the ultimatum to choose either us, the family or the alcohol. And [00:06:00] unfortunately, he chose the alcohol. So he wasn't a great deal of our life. But, um, even though Mum always said, you know, whoever you are, you're still, my son, Um, whatever you do, I'll still love you no matter what. Um, which actually made it harder to tell her because it felt like I was going to slightly let her down, but, um, I couldn't tell her face to face. I wrote her a letter, and, um, she just turned around and she goes, um, she always knew which. It sounds like the typical thing that mothers [00:06:30] always say, But, I mean, she backed it up with saying, Well, every time you brought home your girlfriends, it was dead silent. But every time you had your friend over, there was always a lot of giggling and banging and crashing. Um, and then I thought it was about a couple of months after coming out to Mum. I thought, Well, it's best I tell my dad and I saw him in passing in the street and I said, Hey, Dad, I've got you know, someone tell you that I'm gay and he just looked me dead in the eyes and says, You're not My son walked off and and I hadn't seen him for 10 years [00:07:00] until a couple of years back when me and my fiance we turned up, we thought we better see what what his reaction is to see if he wants to be a part of us again. Um, he did make amends. He did say sorry, but 10 years during that difficult time of being like an early teenager to sort of coming into an adult life, it was the biggest part. I kind of needed my father and he wasn't there. So it it's hard to make an amends to something that he turned his back [00:07:30] on me to start with. Oh, I guess it's quite funny when your mum says, Oh, I've always known because you always think How did you know? Did the rainbow just came out of your uterus when I was when you were giving birth to me? Or I don't know what it is with parents or with your mom, but, um, I found, like with a lot of partners that I've had over the years, they are the closest to their mom. So they have that quite strong bond and, [00:08:00] um, in our family, where we've got a lot of mixed blood and a particular part of our mixed blood was, um, Sweden gipsies, which not the ones that you see on TV like they punch the shit out of people. We were the original travelling gipsies, and they've always had a saying that, um when you are carried, your mum has a feeling of who you're gonna [00:08:30] be and what you're gonna be and that while you're in the room, your life has already been placed in front of you and that's where the whole deja vu comes from. And so she knew from day dot and without even dressing up when you're a kid in your sister's clothes and total yeah, for me, my sister just forced it on to me, It's like, Oh, yeah, um, I guess growing up in the nineties when law reform was still [00:09:00] fresh and there was that thing in 1993 where, uh, we could actually not be discriminated because of our sexuality, everything is still fresh back then. Yeah, it was still fresh. I mean, it it it took a lot of time for it to actually come to here in. I mean, if it really wasn't for the media, I think we'd still be quite backwards as in regards to who we want to be, Um, if you don't sort of fit the life of being [00:09:30] a a an oil and gas or a farmer or an office person, you know, you're really not made for this place. But come all the media attention, even like Sean Street doing all the gay actors that they've done over the past has helped a hell of a lot in the way of how he sees the, um, GB LT life. So being in civil union [00:10:00] civil union was passed in 2004 and was this possibility that gay marriage will be passed? Maybe next year. What is it like being around that time? Where everything has there been, like, big arguments happening around this area or any big protests? Um, I don't think there's been any protests. Um, but in saying that also, I haven't really heard of too many civil unions [00:10:30] happened in this town. Um I mean, I don't know the stats of it, but, I mean, I've never been I've never attended a civil union, Um, me and my partner, we've still yet to have ours, but, um, I'm actually kind of waiting to have the full marriage rights. Um, I think it's a great movement and we should be treated equally. Not because of our our gender or our Orient sexual orientation. [00:11:00] Um, but I mean insane. I would like to see it more publicised here in Taranaki. I mean, I think we only have one civil union or or one openly gay civil union person here in Taranaki. And that's Terry Parks. Um, who when he's doing the best he can, trying to help [00:11:30] the sexual orientated people to get out there and get married and enjoy their marriage life, I guess the married life getting excited. Do you know, um, where gay people or the LGBT community like to hang out in Taranaki? Um, for a while there in my earlier part, um, we had a youth group called Bent, and it [00:12:00] was quite an interesting name. It was bent Taranaki. Um, And during I think the early two thousands we used to host the, uh, national camp and so over. Queen's birthday. Yeah. Over. No, no, not not the, um We had a a gay youth. Camp Howard here in Taranaki. Um, which we had a lot of people all over the nation come in and it was Howard over birthday because apparently [00:12:30] that's our weekend, our birthday. And, um, it was really good. And then, of course, I moved away from New Plymouth. Um, after the group slowly just disappeared, there was a lot more people just not attending, Um, due to the fact that we had quite a specific, um, cut off age and a lot of us hit that age. And then there was just nothing. Um and then it's only over sort of the last year or so that I found out that, um, there's [00:13:00] another youth group here in waves, which is open to all ages. However, the timing of meetings is quite hard for the people who are maybe slightly older, not quite 30 but are working full time. It's hard to sort of come to a group at four o'clock on a Friday. Have you ever thought about opening your own group for that age barrier type thing? It's funny you say that because, yes, I was looking at opening a sort [00:13:30] of like a bend the reunion or almost be the reunion. But a more of a, um, casual sort of meeting that you could just go in and just stay in contact. And, um, I mean, a lot of us now are probably pushing 30 which apparently is gay death. And, um, I would probably like to see a group come together to us are turning 30 maybe do, like, [00:14:00] good old home dinner parties or cliche. It's like like old high school reunions in the reunion. Maybe a gay camp somewhere along the lines. Have you actually, um, ever been in contact, like with Rambo? You for the QS a network? Um, through I mean, we got all our funding through the Rainbow Network, um, and Rainbow Youth up in Auckland. And I did attend a couple of meetings while I was a bit younger and travelling [00:14:30] to Auckland quite a lot. Um, so I felt I could be myself in Auckland and unlike here, being sort of locked away. And I did attend a couple of groups. I don't know if it was Rainbow Youth home, but we used to meet in camo on K Road. I'm not entirely sure I think, but how long ago was it? This is in the nineties. I don't know much about the nineties. You know about. It's probably it's possible. It's possible because I know [00:15:00] that because back then it wasn't just a bar. It was a cafe type thing. Now it's a, um Well, then then it turned more into a bar type scene, but still in a cafe. Now it's a nightclub. It's called DNA now, right? So it has changed a lot. Yeah, it was a cafe. Yeah, it was bought out three years ago or five years ago. And then two years ago, they turned it into DNA, which I helped build with the lighting and stuff like that. And now it's [00:15:30] a failed nightclub, but still going on? Well, that well, that's good. Yeah, because it was Yeah, I would say late nineties, early two thousands. And it was quite informal. You just turned up at around the time and you just sit and chat and have fun and just meet other people. Um, who may not have had the chance to meet other people, depending on their lifestyles. Um, in Wellington, I didn't really attend any at all. I did want to [00:16:00] sort of go through a couple of the youth groups down there, but I felt that at the time, my age was sort of on the older side to one youth group that I only knew about, which was schools out down in Wellington. Um, so So, um, how long have you been in your current relationship? Me and my partner have been in a relationship for three years. Which is that your first relationship [00:16:30] or definitely not my first relationship. But it is my longest relationship. Strongest as well and strongest. Yeah, we met in Wellington after chatting on NZ dating, So we got the true love story. That is a true love story. You know how rare that is. And, um, it's quite funny. We actually met physically in a hospital. It just gets even better. [00:17:00] Yeah, I was up there visiting my friend's daughter who was a a teenage pregnancy. And at the time, um CJ was staying at the hospital hostels because he had quite a bad coming out. Um, his parents were heavily religious and they said, um oh, he had to get his own linen. He had to get his own towels. He had to go to the the [00:17:30] laundry mat and wash all separately. It couldn't be washed with the family's clothes and he just couldn't handle it anymore. And he just left. No turning back. Um, so yeah, and he sort of We met. And then we had a month. He went back to South Africa for a month, and we sort of had the the chance to really think is is this a relationship that we want to build, or is it just a shag here now and see you later? [00:18:00] Um And then when he came back, of course, he moved in with me after knowing each other for a month. And now we're three years together. So a proper love relationship. It was a lucky love relationship. I was a bit hesitant at the start because he is seven years my junior. Um, so he's a nineties nineties kid. Um, but after I got to know him better over time, I kind of knew that he wasn't here for a short time. And [00:18:30] hence came our engagement. And now yeah, I'm married. That's good. So, um, changing the topic, uh, how do you meet other people? How do I meet other people in the community, in the community. Um, in the past, I when I was trying to meet people. It was all through. Sort of NZ dating, um, gay NZ dot com and a few [00:19:00] other websites like that. Um, in this town, I mean, no one's really flamboyant. Um, so it was hard to sort of just meet people randomly like there's no gay club. You can't just There was a cruising spot, but that was a bit seedy. And I am not sure I haven't done a drive by for a while, but we used to go for a drive by just to see who was around. Still [00:19:30] from when, you know, you were a teenager to now, nearly 30. Um, there would be still probably some that meet up in the local areas. Um, but nowadays, I think it's through friends of friends. Um, I don't have any direct friendships here in New Plymouth other than some of my exes. Um, but then we just keep that sort of as a a chat basis. Um, if we bump each other into the street, we'll say hi, but it's [00:20:00] nothing. Sort of. Let's go for coffee. So, uh, what is your definition in virginity definition in virginity like, Yeah, I would say Yeah. 00. See, I considered myself losing my virginity the first time I slept with a guy. And then I was lucky I got to lose it again when I first tried it with a girl and realised [00:20:30] that that wasn't me. Um, so I would say any kind of sexual act of any sort of type I would class as losing your virginity. Ok, um, have you experienced abuse or abusive behaviour from people because of your sexual only verbal? Um oh, but there was this one time in Auckland. Oh, this one time I was getting excited. There. [00:21:00] I was, um, rather drunk. And there was this girl, a girl in the in the main street. And she just had these really unusual pants. And I walked up to her and I was just saying how how cool her pants were looking. And her boyfriends sort of punched me in the door and said, Piss off, you little faggot. And apart from that, a little bit of verbal abuse when it first came out. But nothing, nothing. Nothing major. OK, uh, thank you [00:21:30] for the interview. Thank you. Thanks.
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