The title of this recording is "Intergenerational talk - Charlotte Museum". It is described as: Audio from an intergenerational queer women-focused talk held at the Charlotte Museum in July 2010. It was recorded in Charlotte Museum, 8A Bentinck Street, New Lynn, Auckland in 20100724. This is a recording of an event and features the voices of Aorewa Mcleod, Jules Radford-Poupard and Phoebe Balle. Their names are spelt correctly, but may appear incorrectly spelt later in the document. The duration of the recording is 30 minutes, but this may not reflect the actual length of the event. 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: Audio from an intergenerational queer women-focused talk held at the Charlotte Museum in July 2010. The content in the recording covers the 2010s decade. A brief summary of the recording is: This summary focuses on an audio recording from an intergenerational queer women-focused talk, specifically a dialogue between individuals from different age groups within the queer community, aimed at fostering understanding and respect among these groups. The event took place at the Charlotte Museum in Auckland, and featured speakers Aorewa Mcleod, Jules Radford-Poupard, and Phoebe Balle, who shared their perspectives on ageism, stereotypes, and their experiences with gender and sexual orientation. Aorewa Mcleod shared experiences from the vantage point of someone above 50, recounting struggles with closeted life and the transformative impact of the feminist movement on lesbian identity. Mcleod spoke about coming out in the '70s, the struggle to define lesbian identity beyond sexuality, and the community's journey through self-analysis and therapy. Books played a significant role in shaping discussions and thoughts on lesbian relationships, ethics, and culture. The speaker also reflected on changes in perceptions over the decades, within society and among the queer community, including views on bisexuality and evolving labels. The talk then moved to the perspective from someone in the 30 to 50 age bracket, represented by Jules Radford-Poupard. Concerns were raised about younger generations' knowledge of past struggles, as well as the rigidity some older individuals may have in their thinking. Radford-Poupard also touched on topics like biphobia, transphobia, and political activism, emphasizing the continued advocacy by older generations for rights and representation. The speaker grappled with personal identity and the fluidity of sexuality, illustrating the complexity of fitting into predefined labels, and expressed appreciation for the term 'queer' for its inclusivity. Phoebe Balle provided a perspective from someone below 30, having grown up in a lesbian community. Balle's insights into the stereotypes held by different age groups revealed a mix of admiration for older activists' experiences and a concern that younger people are seen as disinterested or superficial. Balle highlighted the importance of shared community experiences, shifting perceptions of labels, and the need to confront societal expectations and limitations, particularly regarding gender identity. The full transcription of the recording begins:  So the purpose that we kind of had for today was we wanted to learn and gain greater respect for different age groups. Um, often, we've found a bit of ageism between different, uh, ages in the queer community. And so we've asked the speakers to talk about, um, what stereotypes they have of different age groups, what stereotypes they think other age groups have of their age group and what their gender and sexual orientation means to them. So that's kind of the idea of what we're going into this for. And our goal is to kind of just honour the differences in those different age groups. So kind of as a group, I guess we're all kind of working towards that today. And that's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We gotta say why? Why? Let me tell you how I feel. You have given me all your riches and I love you, So, yeah, I mean it. I hate it. Let me tell you how I feel. Have given me all your riches. I I agree. Um, yeah. So just so you know, um, we, um each chose a speaker or each asked somebody to speak. So we're going to start with, um, the, um, speaker for, um 50 plus, which is OK. 50 plus. Well, I'm 69 on the radio this morning. I don't know if you heard it. Um, Lauren Lisa, who used to call herself Liron lethal, uh, was talking about coming out in the eighties, and she said she came out as a angry lesbian feminist. Uh, I thought was I an angry lesbian feminist in the eighties. Um, and something I read just before that was a British comedian in the late nineties who was talking about her mother and has her mother saying, This is the mother's voice. Why do you have to go on that show and say you're queer or a dike? Why couldn't you say you're a nice lesbian? And I thought, I'm probably something between the two between a nice, a nice lesbian and an angry and angry lesbian feminist. Um, I had my first lesbian relationship when I was 20. Let's make 1960. And for about the 1st 15 years, I was closet. We were all closet. Um, I went out with men. I slept with men, uh, usually a little wimpy men, but men Um, And it was really only when the women's movement came along, when feminism came along and kind of in New Zealand. That was the sort of mid seventies when it started really infiltrating here that became possible to come out and coming out. I sort of thought, What what does it mean? Being a lesbian? And I think a lot of us thought that we'd been hidden the whole time. We've been secretive. The whole time we knew that being a lesbian meant being sexually attracted to women having women as the primary focus of your sexuality. Um and then we thought, well, being women identified, which is what the feminist movement suggests we were. What does it actually mean? And we thought about and talked a lot about, um, lesbian identity. Did it mean more than sex, sex, what we did in bed or on the way to bed? Or it seems a bit silly to say what you do when you when you're sleeping with someone. It's not really with someone, Um, and certainly the group of lesbians I kind of identified with spent. We spent a lot of time, uh, in workshops in, um counselling groups co counselling, uh, lesbian therapy, self help therapy groups. It was brilliant. Actually, it was all free. Um, it was part of the whole feminist, um, self self analysis. Um, and we thought, What are we as lesbians? Who are we as lesbians? Why are we lesbians? Um, and this is only some of us. Um, because a lot of my friends who've been the secret of lesbians before with me, identified as, um, gay ladies and gay ladies did not go to therapy groups. And gay ladies were not feminists and gay ladies ladies still went to the, um, bars and played pool. And, um, and live live their own lives in the suburbs in, um, in happy couples. Uh, so a lot of the women I knew didn't identify as feminist, um, as well as the all the therapy groups. Oh, and of course, the most important one. I think for me was, um I hope she'd be here today, but she's She's not with Ruth Jackson, who some of you might know as a counsellor now who ran lesbian counselling groups and that the kind of point of that was that we were hoping we had a community. And if we were a community, how are we going to operate in that community? So it's very much a sense of, um, how how would you help the people who are having difficulty coming out? How would you help the people having difficulties in that community? And Rick Jackson ran two lesbian counselling sessions which I thought were brilliant and as well as that. Of course, we read books. And of course I've got this big pile of books here because I spent 37 years of my working life teaching literature at the university and books give me a great sense of security. So I usually always bring a pile of them along with me. But books like this one, Joanne loans lolan lesbian sex, which came out in 1984 I think, and was followed by her lesbian passion, which came out in 1987. Sort of say some of the younger ones might say they really need to learn how to do it passion but lesbian ethics towards new values. And I think that was kind of the centre of it. Um, what did it mean, being a lesbian? Did we operate in different ways. Feminism had said that, um, traditional conservative, um, heterosexual relationships based on, you know, power dynamics based on sexual stereotypes were to be questioned. Um, and so you're saying what you do lesbians operate in a different way. Um, lesbian ethics. Um, I actually I took all these off my bookshelf, and when I took them off, it's 20 years of dust. We sitting on them. Um, So this is what we read then, um, lesbian couples creating healthy relationships for the nineties. And I guess this is the thing that, um if we weren't being heterosexual couples, what were we being? And I think we thought it was going to be a dill. The two women, women's passion, women understanding one another. And of course, as probably most of us know, it didn't work out like that at all. So lesbian couples creating healthy relationships? Um, a lot of the lesbian counsellors at the time were actually couple counsellors as well. Not, um, lesbian psychologies explorations and challenges the lesbian reader, which started off as I saw them coming out and how to make love to a woman. If you're a woman. Um, what does she like lesbian identities from the fifties to the nineties. Oh, yeah. Um, the significance of being lesbian and lesbian culture and anthology because lesbian culture, what was lesbian culture? That was very dusty, actually. Actually, I was just thinking when I said Joanne Leanne's Lesbian six. And she was one of the, um you say the the role models for us in the eighties. Uh, and then in the mid nineties, she came out as sleeping with a man or having a man as a partner. Well, we were really upset about that. Um, we said, This is this. She's a traitor. I, I said, You know how? How could she be sleeping with a man if she's the the lesbian role model? And the thing that she said as well was, um, it's not that I'm biassed, she said. I'm not bisexual. I'm not. I haven't gone straight. I'm a lesbian who sleeps with a man. Um, I guess this is the mid nineties, and it's a time when we were actually then being asked to query those, um, kind of not not quite absolutes we'd set up, but the the attitudes that we'd seen as being essentially lesbian that is, um, you don't wear makeup. You don't wear high heels. Um, these are things that stereotype females do. You can probably think of other things too. Um, SM was sub highly suspect. Um, sleeping around was highly suspect, and certainly being being by was was I think pretty, um, in the in the rather lesbian security, I guess that we'd set up in the eighties. It was I think if you came from a, uh, attitude or came from a place which had been, uh, what denied were you being denied? Were you being hidden? Were you being, um, what would be I think? I. I noted Some of the terms, um, are marginalised, denied, Prohibited. If you came from that place, it seemed very important to set up some sense of security. You know, this is what a lesbian is. This is how we can all belong to the same. The same community. Um, but of course, by the nineties, we began realising that, um although say, in the therapy groups, you saw similarities. You also, um I saw the differences. I've done a lot of differences, and I think now we'd happily accept probably what Joanne Leanne said that she is a lesbian who sleeps. He slept with a man. Um, but then that was, uh, that I could say that was abhorrent. Was anything else I was going to say about that? Um oh, yes. The other thing I wanted to talk briefly about was the fact that, um, being a teacher at the university and I taught, um, classes in women's writing. Um, and in the eighties, when I introduced the class, I would say to the students, and usually there are students about at that stage about 80 to 100 odd students, I'd say, uh, we all read from different subject positions. I don't expect you to read like me. I say I read like a then probably be a 55 year old a, um, a woman and fairly well educated. And somewhere in there, I'd throw in, um, and a lesbian. Uh, in the eighties, the students who were lesbian really like this. You know, they often they kept journals as their, um coursework, and they'd write in the journals. You know, it was really great that she comes out. It's really great to hear the word lesbian being spoken out on a platform. And I think a lot of called baby dikes came out, um, in in that class or because of partly because of that class. But I noticed the change that by the time we got to the nineties, um, they'd be writing things in their journal like, um, why did she feel it necessary to label herself so it was kind of stopped. Wondered whether I actually I didn't stop. I kept saying lesbian, um, and the students themselves often weren't calling themselves lesbian any longer, since by the late nineties, they were calling themselves queer. Um, you know, queer as a as a more inclusive term, which could include gay men, bis any any sort of sexuality, which was, I guess you'd say transgressive in the conventional sense. Um, and then it went one step further. This is the early early this century, earlier this century when, uh, by became very fashionable, and a lot of a lot of students said they buy, and this wasn't necessarily actually lesbian students or straight students. It was both I remember, in fact, um, Fran, my partner's daughter, who is as straight as they come, I think who who called herself by and and another, um, lesbian friend who called herself by. And neither of those were actually having any sort of anything like sex with either, in the case of Brown's daughter, either a woman or, in the case of a lesbian friend with a with a man, but by just meant you weren't going to be labelled by meant. You had the possibility of sleeping with someone of the opposite sex. So by became very, I think, very fashionable. Um, and then 19 Sorry. 2005. I retired, so I I'm not I'm not quite sure what happened after, but one thing I was certainly very aware of, um was the younger students thinking of, um or I remember one of them saying to me in a tutorial, um, I was very uncertain. She said about coming to this class because I'd heard that you were a seventies feminist. This was in the nineties, and so it's actually quite useful because we talked about a beautiful glass of water. It was Dr we we talked about what was a seventies feminist and what was a nineties feminist? Um, she didn't actually say I heard you were a seventies lesbian feminist, but I heard you were seventies. So there was very much that idea that seventies feminist and so lesbian feminists were kind of, um, rigid in their beliefs. I guess this is, I suppose I felt that, uh, they they would expect of me, that I'd be rigid in my ideas, that I'd only have one way of seeing things um, thinking about now I came across this in the business news, not stop. Um, yesterday. Was it yesterday or Friday? The business herald of all places? Um, you might. Some of you might have seen this or heard about the event that caused it, and it was titled He doesn't speak lizzo One news anchor, Simon Dello, apparently stepped over a line with his TB bosses after his media comment about his wife. Alison Does it Mel, Mel, Mel and her same sex partner, Carlene Edmonds. DAO was photographed and joined convivial company at a commercial promotional launch and was asked by The Herald on Sunday gossip columnist about he replied, I don't speak, which is rather an odd thing for the main news anchor for public television to say TV NZ spokeswoman Andy Brotherton said TV New Zealand has dealt with Simon about this. It was handled earlier in the week, but she would not discuss TV N z's view about duo's transgression. Once closely protected by network bosses who saw news anchors as representing the brand, TV NZ has taken an increasingly laissez faire approach to and his social life on the celebrity circuit and in Social pages since his break up with I Don't Speak, Lizzo will be offensive to some, but it's hardly shocking. Maybe it fits with TV N Z's apparently wishing to promote its news to swinging singles. I find the end of that quite quite confusing. Um, I think the suggestion is that the media, um, sees being a lesbian or speaking Leo, I suppose, as somehow involved with being a swinging single. And I think this is probably part of the recent sort of media, um, of promotion, I guess, of lesbianism. Bisexuality, Um, as long as you're attractive, beautiful, um, a celebrity talented, um, Anika Moa rich or famous or ele deer. I guess, um, that it's that it's OK. It's cool, but it's cool to be, um, a lesbian. It's cool to be um, yeah. I mean, I, I think the I don't know how many of you caught her programme, but, um, it comes on just before the news, so I always catch Seem to catch the end of it when I go to soon to the news. And, um and she is set up as a classic Butch di, if there ever was one. I mean, you know, she wears jeans and trainers and a beautifully cut jacket, And but and and all the attractive women in the audience are all clear. So? So on one level, I guess, um, there's a There's a speaking there, though. Is it as a as I said, a cool thing to be now, excuse me. A Can I just get there? Did you see your mom When your mum came on? Her mum was 87. This thing? Yeah. Oh, OK. Supporting her daughter. Ok, you go. Course. So I've chosen to be, um, the best speaker for the 30 to 50 age group. Um, sometimes I'm concerned about the lack of knowledge of our struggle and little things, like the recent metro article where it interviewed, um, a few younger women and they um, really illuminated that for me And the sentiments, um, anti sentiments around Butch and film, you know? And I wanted every young person in New Zealand to have, you know, read Stone Butch Blues in these schools, it's kind of heartbreaking. So moving on to assumptions about over 50. Well, as someone said over there, it pioneers phenomenal, um, people who were subjected to horrific discriminations and abuse, you know, electric shock treatment. Um, terrible family abandonment, um, couldn't access housing, health and and employment, you know, was a They're amazing woman. I do sometimes find them more rigid in their thinking. Of course, we're perfect at 30 to 50 and I think labours are often so important. And I understand that because it makes sense of our world, and maybe it helps us make sense of others. I've come across quite a bit of phobia, particularly biphobia and transphobia. And what I also find is that these women are still politically active. They're stunningly organising for her stories like today, um, our health and our rights. And so, in terms of the labels I use, it's not a, um a straightforward question for me. Um, I adore some neighbour names and labels. I adore dyke. I love it, but in the strictest sense, but in the strictest sense, it may not describe my sexuality. Um, and I have been together for six years with Civil Civil Union, I down the back on the, um, we civil unionised over two years ago, and we're life committed partners and doesn't really like me saying this. But if she was to die, which is understandable, I may again have relationships with men. Um, so is my sexuality by lesbian. You know, I don't really care to be honest, and that's interesting. It's not very important to me, but once a kind of time, it really was. I wanted a place to belong. And maybe my commitment to Annaly supersedes those questions for me. But it does come to why I love the label queer, because it does embrace my sexuality and my gender. Um, identify as female and identify as a woman I have not and still often don't fit into societal expectations of those. My gender war started pretty early. My father was conservative and a farmer of several generations, Um, and I'd go and stay there in the summer and my parents were divorced, and they would expect me to work in the kitchen for the men. And, of course, it's beautiful. Summer days. I wanted to work outside. Um, we never did reconcile at all on the roots. Um, I love being a woman, and I consider myself strong and determined and passionate. But these are not the domain alone of femininity or masculinity. And I'm also child free by choice, which I think is still a significant choice. Motherhood is pretty pervasive. It's still a must do in our society. And increasingly, I find it's been almost, um, elevated to having Children is next to godliness. So just to finish off what assumptions and beliefs do, I believe other groups have a 30 to 50 year olds. Well, for to a certain extent, being under 30 thirties may not differentiate significantly between forties and fifties because, let's face it, we are all old. Yeah, I hope they are seeing more diversity. Um, I think they're a little bit mystified by I need to label ourselves. I'd like to think they see community, and even if they, some of them have no desire to belong to us, and the over fifties, I think. I imagine they look at us and go How lucky you are, comparatively. How so many more rights and protections and legislation in a society where really is here. Um, but as you know, I believe we still have so far to go. So thanks to the Charlotte and, um and thanks, Ali for inviting me along to allow me to contribute. Thank you. That's great. Um, I've asked Phoebe to come and talk today, and she's a member of, um I've both I've grew up, um, in lesbian community. My mums are both gay. They were together, um, and had me out by a sperm donor. So I've always, um, been surrounded by I wouldn't say, um, radical famous lesbians. Exactly. But, um, people from that era, um and so I think my prejudices are, um, stereotypes against those people are very different from maybe other people my age, so I can only speak for myself. Um, but so something I picked up just coming here today. Um, just two things that I noticed was, um, one that me and Georgia seem to be the only, um, young, young, uh, lesbians in that in that under 30 bracket. Um, and I think that sort of illuminates. One of the stereotypes I feel that older people might have towards us is that we're not interested. Um, I know I am. You know, I'm I'm quite politically active. I was at the youth parliament stuff. Um, but I think you're right in saying that, um, there's no longer we don't feel the need for a united lesbian movement. We don't need to be politically active like as a community. And I think it's actually really sad that we don't have that so much. That tight knit community that from all the stories I've heard throughout my life, um, were around in sixties, seventies eighties. Um, and the other thing was, um a comment I I do knitting. Um, I Yeah, and, um and interesting, um, comment that you made. I'm not sure. Sorry. Um, yeah. And you And you said Oh, you know that that's the trend. Now I hear. And I sort of I almost I was I was I thought, uh, you know Oh, because I don't wanna I don't know because it's It's a trend. Um, I think that might be another um, thing you older people might have is that they, um is that you You see us as quite superficial, Um, and maybe fit, you know, uh, is is this fair? I mean, because I I'm probably more an old lesbian than a young lesbian myself in terms of how how I you know, my belief system and how I act and things and III I agree, I, I think, um, a lot of people I see a lot of youth today as really superficial. Um, and I Sorry, I'm I'm glad there. No one. You know, not too many people here, but, um, we'll get around, but, um, yeah, and I I don't know why that is. I mean, I guess it's the the impression I get Is that people? The youth in general? Not just, you know, queer youth. Um, don't They don't feel I don't Yeah, I don't know about that. Um, moving on. Um, it's a Yeah, it's so hard. I was trying to think through this last night, doing my knitting and, you know, didn't Yeah, yeah, it's hard on. Um, but in terms of stereotypes, uh, I think we trying to be representative of my age group have older people. Um, I see them as like, I would be more inclined to talk to an older person than a younger person about personal things about my personal life because I think that they have so much more understanding. And I think a lot of that comes from, um, the experiences they've had in the political arena. And, you know, all the fighting that in the story the stories of these, you know, actions that I heard one about, Um, one of my moms was telling me that she dressed up with a group of women from her sort of radical lesbian group. And, um, went and sang, uh, pretending to be prostitutes at, um, the bar where American sailors were staying, who were doing the nuclear free. And, um, they were singing that song. Um, I'm not sure what the actual song was, but the her lyrics or something like, it's raining shit in the ocean. It's raining shit in the sea, going along this this line, you know, to a song that, um, something to do with the walls of Texas. Yeah. Yeah. So? So they rewrote this song, and, um sung the new version, um, to these these brawny American sailors and then ran out. So it's and with the police sirens, you know, wailing in in their wake. And it's those stories I've been raised on and the comparison to today when you see when I see, you know, a a weekend activity for young people going out and getting drunk, which is another big beef with me, um, is just really, really depress. Depressing for me? Um, yeah. What else? What? Oh, yeah, I thought when? When? Someone if if I'm in a situation where I I'm coming out to someone, I usually use the term gay, not lesbian. And I think that comes from there being a lot of stereotypes. Um, around the word lesbian and I Although I think those stereotypes have changed a lot from you know often, tho, those visual stereotypes, um and I think that arose from the feeling the need to, um, make yourself visible. So, you know, short here. I'm like I head shot you here. Um but yeah, things like that. Short hair and, um, jeans. OK, they're not working out for me right now, but, um, so you I mean, everyone knows what those stereotypes are. Um, and yeah, I know. I've lost my train of thought. Yes. Um, and even though maybe today I think with a lot of the media around the sort of movies and things, lesbians have a different There are different stereotypes that really glossed up women who have sex everywhere with each other. I don't know, you know, but whatever. Whatever these are. OK, you know, you've seen some of the films, but whatever, I don't feel that that's me at all. I don't think I do fit into many of those stereotypes. Um, and so, yeah, I use gays are more sort of, um, inclusive term, but not not so much because I'm politically aware of, you know, that other people need to be included. But just because I don't feel that it's fair for people to associate me with those stereotypes and treat, you know, stereotype me because of my sexuality, um, and gender? Um, I think there's a There's a lot more stigma around gender than just sexuality. Um, and that's sort of the next battle with as a you know, the LGBT community has to face, um, as well as bisexuality. That's another, um, big issue. Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm comfortable in my gender, but I think like I've been filling out a lot of university scholarship applications recently. And I i something twigs in my, you know, in me when I see boxes Female, male and that really annoys me because I've got, you know, lots of trans trans friends and, um, yeah, just sort of. There's still so many problems in society that we need to look at. Yeah, that's not. 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 ; Aorewa Mcleod ; Aotearoa New Zealand ; Auckland ; Charlotte Museum ; Coming Up ; Ellen DeGeneres ; Joe ; Jules Radford-Poupard ; LGBT ; Older People ; People ; Phoebe Balle ; Rainbow Youth ; Stuff ; TVNZ (Television New Zealand) ; Texas ; Women's Movement ; Youth ; Youth Parliament ; abuse ; access ; actions ; advice ; ageism ; agenda ; assault ; assumptions ; attitude ; audience ; bars ; belief ; bisexual ; books ; boxes ; butch ; change ; children ; choice ; class ; closet ; coming out ; community ; conservative ; culture ; desire ; diversity ; dressed up ; elders ; expectations ; face ; family ; femininity ; feminism ; film ; friends ; gay ; gay ladies ; gender ; hair ; health ; healthy relationships ; heterosexual ; high heels ; hit ; hope ; housing ; identity ; intergenerational ; internet ; journal ; knowledge ; labels ; ladies ; legislation ; lesbian ; love ; makeup ; masculine ; media ; movies ; news ; nuclear free ; other ; parents ; passion ; police ; pool ; power ; queer ; radio ; relationships ; resistance ; respect ; role model ; sad ; scholarship ; security ; self help ; sex ; sexual orientation ; sexuality ; singing ; social ; stereotypes ; stigma ; straight ; struggle ; teacher ; teaching ; television ; time ; trans ; transgressive ; transphobia ; understanding ; unemployment ; university ; values ; voice ; women ; work ; writing ; yellow ; youth. The original recording can be heard at this website https://www.pridenz.com/intergenerational_talk.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.1089158. Please note that this document may contain errors or omissions - you should always refer back to the original recording to confirm content.