The title of this recording is "Hugh Young - homosexual law reform". It is described as: Hugh Young talks about working with HUG (Heterosexuals Unafraid of Gays) during homosexual law reform. It was recorded in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand on the 12th September 2015. Hugh Young is being interviewed by Gareth Watkins.  Their names are spelt correctly but may appear incorrectly spelt later in the document. The duration of the recording is 6 minutes. A list of correctly spelt content keywords and tags can be found at the end of this document. A brief description of the recording is: In this podcast Hugh talks about working with HUG (Heterosexuals Unafraid of Gays) during homosexual law reform. This interview was recorded during the community event Queer History in the Making. The content in the recording covers the 2010s decade. A brief summary of the recording is: This summary captures the essence of an audio recording featuring Hugh Young discussing their involvement in the homosexual law reform movement in Aotearoa New Zealand. The recording was made during the Queer History in the Making community event in Wellington on September 12th, 2015, where Hugh Young speaks about working with Heterosexuals Unafraid of Gays (HUG) during the 1980s. Young describes their own personal journey, revealing a time when they were closeted and identified as bisexual, which led them to get involved with HUG. Despite some in the gay community seeing them as hypocritical, Young felt that their efforts as part of the organization did not harm the community and they were contributing positively to the cause. Working alongside Kim Saffron, Young took on a significant role in media relations, writing and distributing press releases in support of the homosexual law reform. The interview delves into the challenges faced by reform advocates, particularly with the media. Young criticizes the media's attempt at providing balanced coverage, stating that when one side of a debate is right and the other wrong, such an approach does not work in favor of the just cause. Young discusses their direct engagement with the media, acknowledging that while they wrote many letters to newspapers, they felt that the anti-law reform campaigners received more attention than deserved. Within the context of the reform movement, Young also touches on a more lighthearted but impactful event known as the 'Shiny Buttons amendment', where a whimsical response from HUG highlighting the absurdity of exempting certain professions from the law was picked up by a newspaper. Aside from their activism, Young describes an incident relating to advertising ethics within the gay community. After coming out, Young, working in radio at the time, criticized a possum fur advertisement in the Pink Triangle publication for misleadingly promoting the product as chinchilla fur. This led to the advertiser withdrawing support from Pink Triangle, creating tension within the collective, though some members acknowledged Young's intent to prevent the community from being misled. The recording concludes with Young describing a provocative image associated with the controversial advertisement, wherein a scantily clad figure seductively wrapped in fur poses for the camera. The image stands as a symbol of the era's marketing and cultural sensibilities. The conversation is anchored in the broader context of the 2010s, looking back on the events of the 1980s and the Homosexual Law Reform Act of 1986. The recording represents a valuable reflection on the struggles and behind-the-scenes activities that contributed to significant social change in New Zealand. The interview was part of a larger archival effort to preserve and share the history of the homosexual law reform, and Young's firsthand account offers insights into the dynamics between media, activism, and community identity during that transformative period. The full transcription of the recording begins:  Uh, my name is Hugh Young. I was, uh, in 1985 when Fran introduced the bill. I became very interested. And I was at that time closeted, uh, to not only to the world, but to myself, for reasons which I don't need to go into. Um, so when des Smith formed a a Wellington branch of hug, I went to the first meetings, and there I met Kim Saffron, and we be and because, uh, I was involved in media, she and I wrote a lot of press releases for hug sometimes to, um, sort of as prescribed and sometimes of our own bats. Hugh, what was hug Hug heterosexuals unafraid of gays. At that time, I still considered myself bisexual. And since there was no bisexual unafraid of gays I I and so I wore the hug badge. And I know some of the community considered me a hypocrite, but it I felt I was wasn't doing the community any harm. And, um, I, you know, and working for I was doing some good and still it made a lot of friction right throughout the campaign because I never didn't yet consider myself part of the gay community. So, um, Kim and I made these press releases and distributed them, and, um, we we'd write them at her place, and then I or maybe at my place, But in a way, we would sort of race around the city, hand in hand, put dropping them in the news papers and radios, and, uh, press gallery and, uh, very few ever got picked up, but occasionally we might see a paragraph we'd written, and we feel our one big success was when some MP. Proposed an amendment that the fire brigade, the police, the armed forces and it was something completely irrelevant to the gay issues. Should be, um um uh, exempted from homosexual law reform. We said, Well, what next? Bus conductors. And we called it the Shiny Buttons amendment and that got into the paper. So how how did the media respond to the, um, pro campaigners? Was it? I mean, were they hostile? Were they, um what, you know, did they tell the media the media tried to be balanced, as they put it, and so they would tend to try to give equal coverage. Um, but of course, when one side is right and the other is wrong that that's not good. Uh, we we felt we didn't get a fair hearing. We felt that the anti law reform campaign has got more than they deserved. But then we would say that, wouldn't we? I wasn't very objective of it. I didn't keep a big clipping file. I wrote a lot of letters. I wrote a lot of letters to the paper, and I always signed them. Young and Helen Young, who was in charge of the concert programme. I said people kept. She didn't actually complain because she supported law reform, too. But she said, People keep coming up and say, Have you been writing letters to the paper? And I said, I think I told her we should do what Bertrand, Lord Russell and Russell of Liverpool once did and wrote Write a collective a joint letter to the paper saying, Dear Sir, neither of us is the other Now. Today we're actually standing in the National Library, and we're at the, um, event, the show on television. So I've got quite a number of things on display, including, um, pink triangles. And so you you were involved in the pink triangle. No, I wasn't part of the Pink Triangle Collective I wrote. I probably wrote letters to the pink triangle. Uh, but the my particular involvement with the pink triangle is that, uh, the we can we can see the issue itself here of, um, May June 1987 which dates it. So it's after law reform. So I was out of the closet to myself, to my friends, and, um, I was gradually coming out to the wider world and in my role as a consumer radio programme producer, I, uh, took a took a to task one of advertisements in Pink Triangle for Adelaide chinchilla. The second best thing you've ever felt and what I took objection to was you'll agree. The old name Adelaide Chinchilla says so much more for its plushness than a possum. And of course, this fur is a possum. And but that was the only clue that it was. And so I took them to task for passing off a possum as some better fur. And the advertiser was so angry at this that he withdrew all his advertising from the pink triangle. So the Pink Triangle collective got very angry with me for hurting the gay community. I felt I was protecting the gay community from being ripped off, and some of the collective said, Uh oh, but nobody would Seeing that advertisement would think that it was anything but a possum. And yet a letter appeared in the pink triangle from somebody complaining about the cruelty to the poor little chinchilla, whatever they are. And Hugh, can you describe for me the the the image that goes with the, um oh, yes, well, it's It's rather a hot image I. I rather actually actually liked it at the time. It's this blonde man who's clearly not wearing anything with, uh, you can see the hair in his armpits and he's lounging and gazing at seductively at the camera while wrapped up in this, um, very actually probably quite comfortable fur. The full transcription of the recording ends. A list of keywords/tags describing the recording follow. These tags contain the correct spellings of names and places which may have been incorrectly spelt earlier in the document. The tags are seperated by a semi-colon: 2010s ; Adelaide ; Aotearoa New Zealand ; Coming Up ; Des Smith ; Fran Wilde ; Helen Young ; Heterosexuals Unafraid of Gays (HUG) ; Homosexual Law Reform ; Homosexual Law Reform Act (1986) ; Hugh Young ; Kim Saffron ; Lesbian and Gay Archives of New Zealand (LAGANZ) ; National Library of New Zealand ; People ; Pink Triangle collective ; Queer History in the Making (2015) ; The Closet ; Wellington ; advertising ; archives ; bisexual ; bus ; chinchilla ; closet ; closeted ; collective ; coming out ; community ; fire ; friends ; gallery ; gay ; hair ; history ; homosexual ; homosexual law reform ; hug ; internet ; law ; letters to the editor ; library ; media ; meetings ; news ; newspapers ; opossum ; other ; passing ; police ; press release ; radio ; success ; time. The original recording can be heard at this website https://www.pridenz.com/hugh_young_homosexual_law_reform.html. The master recording is also archived at the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, New Zealand.  For more details visit their website https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.1089674. Hugh Young also features audibly in the following recordings: "Solidarity with Orlando Candlelight Vigil - Wellington", "Our Stonewall", "A Rainbow in the Village (2019)", "Hikoi to Out in the City (2021)" and "Charles Allan Aberhart memorial - interviews". Please note that this document may contain errors or omissions - you should always refer back to the original recording to confirm content.