Community leaders and a few of our very own Queens share their Christmas messages. Stay safe out there and have a great Christmas - from the team at GayNZ.com. To all GayNZ.com whanau and friends - Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. What a year 2014 has been. I am sure many of us will be looking forward to a welcome break with some time away from work and spending quality time with whanau and friends. However, I also appreciate that others will be working right through the Christmas period ensuring vital social and community services are delivered. Kia ora koutou to all these workers, thank you for supporting and providing care to members of our communities. Christmas offers us the opportunity not only for celebration but also for reflecting on the past and looking ahead to the year to come. May we all enjoy the process of looking ahead and the planning that comes from knowing where we are heading. The New Year offers us all new hope and new opportunities. Celebrating and respecting all festivals together helps us to realise harmony across different faiths, beliefs and communities irrespective of our diverse backgrounds. I hope that we enjoy the festivities of Christmas, of whanau and friends and I wish all of us a very happy and prosperous 2015. - Louisa Wall, MP. OUTLineNZ would like to wish everyone a Rainbow spectrum of hope and blessing for the festive season and may 2015 bring joy and wellbeing to everyone. - Trevor Easton, OUTLine. What a year this year has been. While we haven’t had a major win in Parliament like last year we are still seeing some major changes and improvements around the world for our communities. There are also new injustices coming forward in which we will continue to keep an eye on them and try to help where we can. A year can be a busy one so please make time to reconnect with loved ones, friends and take some time out for yourself, I know I will be even if my schedule seems to be a bit frantic. I hope to see many of you in the New Year and thank you all so much for your ongoing support. The rest of the Rainbow Wellington board also wishes its members, supporters, and the LGBTI community a festive and safe holiday season – and a fantastic New Year! Have a great summer, keep safe, and have a happy holiday New Zealand. - Rawa Karetai, Rainbow Wellington Chairperson. Cartier Trust, trustees Karen Ritchie, Jonathan Thompson and Jason Myers would like to thank everyone for their support for 2014 with Wigarama and The 2015 Cartier Trust Drag Calendar. If you are going away for Xmas travel safe, for those who are out partying please be safe and LYC. Merry Xmas and Happy New Year. - The Cartier Trust. Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone is taking this opportunity to relax a little and recharge the batteries. Or, earn that bit of extra cash four stat days can provide. If you're lucky enough to be looking forward to spending time with whānau over the break, take a minute to check in with those who are without family, or those who might appreciate some extra support at this time of year. - Duncan Matthews, General Manager, RainbowYOUTH. The trans community came so very close to clarifying the Human Rights Act in terms of gender identity this year, but the Government stopped this from proceeding. It would have been an opportunity for the current Government to include the trans community. If the Prime Minister was sincere in his election night speech then the Government should have no problem in clarifying the Human Rights Act in terms of Gender Identity before the next general election in 2017. - Allyson Hamblett, TransAdvocates. Christmas is a time we celebrate the finish of our work year, we celebrate the prospects and hope for the new year, we celebrate our lives and all the wonderful diversity that makes up our lives and even with more meaning because every year we seem to have advances in terms of our human rights and our normalisation within New Zealand society. I wish everyone a wonderful Christmas and holiday season and it's important to remember that you have a right to have it. It's amazing that it's in the American constitution, the right to pursue happiness but too often we seem to have that Christian guilt complex and feel guilty if we are happy. I think everybody should enjoy themselves fully. But please be safe, remember as a community we aren't free from HIV and other STDs. - Bruce Kilmister, formerly Body Positive Wishing all our HOO supporters and friends a very Merry Christmas - may they be safe, healthy and always blessed. 2014 has been a year of ups and downs with many moments, the freshest being the Logan Robertson debacle. It reminds us that there are people who need love and support and I hope that in the new year we will find a way to hold our own peeps in love and acceptance. We need to use these situations to grow tighter and stronger as a community and make sure our allies grow in numbers too. Growing, educating and increasing understanding that links us to the straight world, will ultimately reduce the venom and hate that sometimes scars our hearts, by finding advocates who spread love. I wish you all love, family and friends during the festive season, be safe, happy and healthy - Amanda of Holding Our Own HOO It’s very sweet of GayNZ.com to ask an ancient old fossil for a holiday message for its readers. It’s difficult to keep perspective. There may have been no better time in history for sexually variant people, but there are still homeless gay youth, and bullying in schools, sexual exploitation, and social pressure on gender presentation, and many, many other forms of sexual oppression which leave our people depressed and worse. We’ve come a long way. Many of us now have fantastic lives which would not have been possible to us ten or twenty or thirty years ago. The professional world, even when it is thoroughly infiltrated by us, still fails to understand our world. There is a lot still to be done. So make the best of the holiday season. If you’re tired: rest. If you have energy: make adventure! Prepare yourself for the unpredictable. And remember. We have battles ahead. - Bill Logan, of campaigns past and future And our special ‘queen’s messages’ this year come from Tess Tickle and Buffy and Bimbo: Big Xmas Queer Cheer to everyone who has taken the time to venture out and support one of their local bars over the last year! Means a lot to every performer, DJ, bar man, security person and club owner. Oh and thanks to those who got a calendar! Merry jingle balls. - Tess Christmas is a strange time of year for us girls. We are normally tired from working all year on gigs and then we have to deal with the mad rush of events leading up to Christmas. We just want to rest over the holiday period but guess what happens on Christmas eve? Our alto egos, although they think we are their alto egos, strip us down, remove the wigs and throw them in the sink full of conditioner, rip off the eye lashes and soak them in meths, throw half of our makeup away, send our costumes to the dry cleaners and the shoes to the cobblers, leaving us with nothing but two naked shaved bodies unable to venture out. And those two, Jonathan and Kevin, take our hard earned cash and sneak off to Waiheke for a wonderful Christmas with family and friends relaxing in the sun, drinking and eating to their pleasure. We are told to rest up, water the plants, clean the house and take it easy before we are sent off early 2015 to work at Out in the Square, Wellington followed by Auckland's Big Gay Out. We survive! Merry Christmas and a fun filled New Year to you all from The Fabulous Makeover Girls - Buffy and Bimbo. GayNZ.com staff - 24th December 2014