Settling in.
It’s a phrase that I have to admit that I’ve not quite understood up until now. After all, I lived in the same city for over 40 years, and in the same house for nearly half that time, and in that time you become very accustomed to the way things are.
Until you shake things up a bit, or in my case, quite a lot.
As the Auckland Pride Festival drew to a close last week, I came across this press release from counsellor Paul Letham.
While I broadly agree with what he has to say, there was one part that makes me go “hmmm…”
“The visibility of the GLBT community is sometimes a contentious issue” says Mind Your Head counsellor Paul Letham.
Fair enough. There are still people in our communities that think that being gay is something terrible or immoral.
Auckland War Memorial Museum in gay pride colours for the Auckland Pride Festival.
Last Saturday saw a procession of homosexuals make their way along the axis of Auckland’s gay universe, or if you’re looking for it on the map, Ponsonby Rd.
To be honest, procession probably isn’t quite the right word.
As part of the Auckland Pride Festival, this year’s Pride Parade is the successor to the legendary Hero parades of the 1990′s, events that would attract crowds of up to 200,000 people to witness the sometimes X-rated celebration of Auckland’s gay culture, before the Hero Festival folded in 2001 due to ongoing financial difficulties.
So Saturday afternoon saw me toddling off to Ponsonby to watch a long-awaited public celebration of what it means to be gay in Auckland.
Sometimes when you hear that a public figure has passed away, you are left with a realisation that the deceased is someone who has had a significant impact on society in a way that is unlikely to ever be repeated.
That’s the feeling I got last week on hearing of the death of broadcaster Sir Paul Holmes.
Actually, I’m still having trouble with the Sir bit. He was only knighted a couple of weeks before he died, and I still have the image in my mind of a short-ish gentleman on his nightly current affairs show looking for an interview subject behind trees and bushes, before finding him and asking “are you a nutter or a loony?”
Over the Christmas break I was browsing the Internet and came across GayNZ.com’s Heroes and Villians of 2012 feature. And it all seemed reasonable, if somewhat emotive, until I came across this:
[Name withheld], [party withheld]
For hypocritically dumping on those who have the courage and honesty to be openly gay.
I’ve recently been persuaded that I should get myself onto various internet sites and mobile apps for meeting Bears, since I’m not really into the bar thing (and I don’t drink anyway).
And after a recent experience of being chatted up by a very intoxicated Mexican, I thought that this probably wasn’t a bad idea. Though “chatted up” maybe isn’t quite the right word. It involved several minutes of slurred speech, incomprehensible hand signals and a friend acting as an interpreter before I managed to extract myself.
Today is the International Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR).
This might seem to be a slightly odd name for a day, after all “remembrance” had connotations of people who have died, and aren’t there transgendered people who are actually alive? The simple answer is yes, and yes.
TDOR is about remembering those who have died due to transphobic hatred or prejudice. The event began from a candlelight vigil held in San Francisco to remember the murder of Rita Hester. Continue reading
Apparently there are no gay people in South Auckland.
At least that was the view that got Brendan, a gay man from deepest, darkest Hunua fired up and led to the inaugural meeting of OutSouth at the Nathan Homestead in Manurewa last Wednesday night.
And what ended up happening might just be the start of something big.
“No, I’m not okay.”
If you’ve just asked someone whether they’re okay, they might be the words you feel least prepared to hear, but might be the most important words for that person to say.
Last week I wrote about the R U OK Day campaign in Australia and the importance of being able to be honest with yourself if you’re asked that very question. But not as much attention is paid to how to handle the situation if you’re asking the question and someone tells you that they’re really not okay.
So what do you do?
Last Thursday in Australia was R U OK Day.
I must admit, when I first heard about this, I thought “What the hell is a Ruok?” There are some unusual creatures in Oz, so maybe it’s some sort of endangered marsupial, and the day is about promoting the idea of saving endangered wildlife and maybe to raise funds to support a Ruok breeding programme.
Then I read a bit further and realised that it was really Are You Okay Day, not Ruok Day.
