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Hi, I'm Doctor Alison Laurie. I was the General Women's Studies Programme director at Victoria University of Wellington. Uh, here in New Zealand for many years, I'm a writer, oral historian and lesbian and gay activist. Today I'm going to be looking at Gay liberation in New Zealand and what changes that made here In respect to legislative changes and social changes, the homosexual organisations [00:00:30] which emerged in the Postwar period were still largely on the model of organisations that had been developed earlier. They were interested in legal change. They were interested in providing some kinds of social opportunities for people and they did want greater acceptance. But they didn't really have an analysis of the society or and they never spoke about actually radically changing society. That was something which came [00:01:00] with the new baby boom generation. And when we speak about the baby boom generation, I think we should include people who were born from about 1940 people who were born during the war who don't have any experience of an earlier decade. Uh and so they grow up in that period after World War Two and after 1945 there's a great many of them as the soldiers return, uh, through until [00:01:30] about 1955 might be said to be the end of the period during which the baby boom generation are being born. New Zealand is very involved in World War Two, as it has been in World War One. A large number of men and some women are sent overseas to fight on various fronts, particularly in Europe and also in the South Pacific. So the experience for New Zealanders during World War Two is that the men are away [00:02:00] and they are being severely damaged. Um, not just physically in terms of being killed or being maimed, but they are being damaged psychologically because of the sorts of experiences they're having in very dreadful battles, uh, in many places. Meanwhile, back in New Zealand, the women are managing their own affairs, doing the kinds of jobs that men did do, uh, before they went away. [00:02:30] And, uh, just getting on with that when the generation returned in 1945 there are many difficulties for people getting together, even married people. A stranger comes into the house. Perhaps there's Children that were born before he went away. Or perhaps there's Children that have been born while he's been away, which is more complicated, whatever. It's a difficult domestic situation. New Zealand had been through that once [00:03:00] before in the aftermath of World War One. So this time they made several attempts to try to get things on to a more even keel. So there was assistance for soldiers returning. There were state houses available for people. Uh, there were many kinds of social reforms which were intended to get domestic life back on an even keel and help people settle down in the aftermath of that terrible war. What this [00:03:30] meant was that the Children being born, uh, after the war or who were growing up after the war, were a generation who were especially privileged. Uh, I'm of that generation myself. We got free dental care in the through dental nurses and the dental clinics. We got free medical care. We got free milk in schools and apples. We got free education right through from kindergarten, right through primary school, secondary school and tertiary [00:04:00] education, too. So we learned to think of ourselves as important people for whom the war had been fought. It had been fought to give us a future. That's why they'd all been out there doing it. So that makes some difference, too. Uh, that this generation sees itself as having a special sense of entitlement. What also changes is that there are better communications. We've got a great, um, interest now in radio. [00:04:30] There's because, uh, American soldiers had been stationed here during World War two and they brought with them an appreciation, a particular appreciation of American pop music. Uh, and more records are being produced. All of these kinds of things are coming in, so there's a lot of new impulses. Also, travel has become cheaper. So more people are travelling. Many more ideas are starting to come into the country by the time we get into the 19 sixties. Many people the younger [00:05:00] generation, are becoming familiar with, uh, trends and overseas music, which have very different kinds of quite rebellious messages. Uh, in particular rock and roll, which has a great following. It's popular throughout the world, makes a big impact here within a short space of time. We've got our own rock and roll bands, and the messages are coming out of that. Then there are messages from groups like the Beatles. Uh, and then you get all kinds of messages coming from the United States [00:05:30] with people like Bob Dylan. The songs like The Times they are changing the kinds of folk music which brings really radical and interesting kinds of messages among films you get films like A Rebel Without a Cause, James Dean coming earlier and that in that decade promoting other kinds of ideas and certainly a feeling that things can be changed. There's also in the aftermath of World War Two, set up by Eleanor Roosevelt, Um, and and others a commitment [00:06:00] to human rights. Uh, the A commitment to the fact that people there are such a thing as human rights and people are not going to be treated in that terrible way again, as we have seen in World War Two with the genocide, the killing of Jews, the mass murder, uh, that those kinds of things are not going to happen. So this generation grows up with that kind of knowledge, and within a short space of time, you start to get movements like flower power, the new left make love, not war, and then you get very strong, [00:06:30] uh, movement anti-war movement, particularly against the increasing war in Vietnam and the organisation of young people. And there's a big population of young people. It's a big generation, and this bulge generation has actually made a big difference as it's moved through the decades. Uh, it starts to make itself felt in the 19 sixties, so ideas about women's liberation and gay liberation can't be seen in isolation. [00:07:00] They are very different. Part of this whole movement, which starts really with black civil rights in the United States, moves on to ideas about women's liberation because women who are involved in the civil rights struggle see themselves as being treated actually really badly, so begin to prioritise their own circumstance. This is also true of gay people in the United States being involved in those movements, suddenly starting to think. But, hey, what about us? And what happens then? In 1969 [00:07:30] is homosexual men and women at the Stonewall Inn in New York riot, uh, against the police raiding the bar, and this is said to be the beginnings of gay liberation. Of course, as Harry Hay has said, uh, that wonderful, uh, originator of much gay activism in the United States, he said. Through the 19 fifties and the 19 sixties, we laid a powder trail which could be lit at the Stonewall Inn in 1969. [00:08:00] So it does build upon the earlier organising, and we shouldn't think these things come out of nowhere. But certainly there's a different mood afoot, and the mood is that social change is possible. And it's also another way, as gay liberation starts to form within within a very short space of time. The slogans are we're here to bring out the lesbian and gay man and everybody's head. Uh, and gay is good. Gay is proud and a big chart of people. We are [00:08:30] innocent. We are innocent. Uh, which is very important because people have been up until then and trying to think of themselves really as bad people that they really were doing something wrong. But now people are that generation are saying we are innocent. We haven't done anything wrong. Uh, and so things begin to change that Galib is introduced into New Zealand in 1972. Um, a Maori, uh, lesbian activist, uh, has refused [00:09:00] a visa to the United States. Uh, because she is known as a homosexual, So a meeting is called at Auckland University. And that's the beginnings of gay liberation within a within, uh, just a few hours, there's, uh, a gay liberation branch started there and within within the next month. The Galib branches start right throughout the country in Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and Palmerston North and other smaller provincial centres. And it just goes like wildfire and [00:09:30] very influenced by these new ideas from the United States and things that are happening in Europe. Communications are much better. You can find out very quickly about things that are happening. It's still all pre the Internet or anything like that. So it's not that fast. But the ideas spread very quickly. The ideas of gay liberation are that homosexuals are not asking for acceptance. In fact, the criticism now is of heterosexuality. Something is really wrong with heterosexuality. [00:10:00] It's not an equal relationship. Why, I mean in women getting together when they clearly have so little in common. And of course, this generation has observed that in their own houses, these great difficulties in that generation coming back from war silent, damaged men, women who really resented this man coming back and taking over, uh, a a good deal of separation between men and women, clearly having difficulty working out those heterosexual relationships. So this generation of of of homosexuals [00:10:30] are saying, What's so good about heterosexuality? You know, we don't we get involved in that look at it, and at the same time we have women separation, where the heterosexual women and women separation are trying to work out ways that hetero heterosexual relationships could be better could be made more equal. How could men change? How how must women change? And meanwhile, in both of these organisations, something else very interesting happens. Uh, because both in [00:11:00] women's liberation, which starts, uh, in this country. Uh, the first Women's Liberation Front club forms in 1970 by students at Victoria University of Wellington and from 1971 women's liberation starts throughout the country, and by about 1973 women in the women's liberation groups, Uh, lesbians and the women's liberation groups are starting to feel that heterosexual feminists are discriminating against them. They're saying, Oh, don't tell people you're a lesbian. [00:11:30] Everyone will think we're lesbians, so lesbians are not feeling very happy about that and lesbians working in gay liberation. As more men join Galib as happened elsewhere and and more conservative men get involved in Galib, lesbians and gay liberation groups start to feel that the men are being very sexist, that they're actually being asked to do washing up and make cups of coffee. And the men are going to do interesting things like make speeches and determine policy. So they're not feeling very happy either. So [00:12:00] from these groups, lesbians organise separately. And the first separately organised lesbian group is, um, she, uh, sisters for Hoople Equality, um, known as she And that starts firstly in Christchurch in 1973 and then with the branch in Wellington. No branch starts in Auckland. They still call themselves Gay Women Separation in Auckland, but they still separate from the men. Uh, so these groups [00:12:30] form and are particularly influenced also by overseas theory. Uh, quote, uh, writers like Martha Shelley from the United States, which, uh, things like in a society where men oppress women to be lesbian as a sign of mental health, because who would want to be in a relationship with someone who's oppressing you? That's not healthy. No, one would should be in a relationship like that or quoting uh, writers like Joel Johnson, who was very influential, Um, with all women and lesbian except [00:13:00] those who don't realise it yet. Um, and ideas of that kind uh, the assistance for homophobic equality produced the first that we know of lesbian magazine in this country, which is known as circle. And that's put out the first issue of it in December 1973. Uh, and the first groups were certainly not separatist. The circle was sold in the street. We would take it out and sell it in the streets, and we'd sell it to men as well. We'd [00:13:30] say, Do you live with a woman or have you got any women friends? Buy this and give it to them And the magazine was reproducing, actually quite radical articles from elsewhere. But, um, that was, uh, we We thought at that point that a wide circulation would be very good. So these are the first kinds of groups and what these groups these groups are certainly looking beyond simple decriminalisation. They want to see a radical change in society. A change in gender relations. Um, [00:14:00] all kinds of reforms that will totally change society. And they see very strong connections between sexuality, race, class, ability, gender, all of these things. They see all of this as being interlinked. So these are the politics really of deconstructing all of the reasons that some people might be discriminated against in society. We should also remember that here in [00:14:30] New Zealand, Maori, both men and women have been very important. Uh uh, participants and leaders within many of the social networks, especially in the cities as well as in the countryside. And once again, in the beginnings of these more radical groups, we see Maori, uh, in the forefront of, uh, or thinking about how these groups should be organised. How? How can things be done differently so that everybody gets, [00:15:00] uh, gets an equal chance to fulfil themselves to and to have the kinds of rights that they should have in society. So in my next talk, I'll talk about how, uh, this this does lead on to legislative change and also to which is perhaps even more important, the kinds of social changes which make it possible for everybody to whether they're in a same sex relationship or not to lead a fulfilled life without feeling all the time that they're going [00:15:30] to be discriminated against or that they're not as good as other people.
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