To start off with, I think you need to talk about the difference between queer and being gay. Because being queer is the political identity that is rooted in the whakapapa of Stonewall Riots, which was black trans women leading the way. And when you take away the political agency that we have as queer people, you then get to people like George Santos.
I think if you take away the political knots of being queer, which is the political identity versus being LGBTQ, then it gets complicated because obviously cops were on the other side of the Stonewall Riots and they continue to harm queer people especially when you have compounding intersectional identities. Pride has turned into capitalism. Like Absolute Vodka sponsoring a pride march even though alcoholism is a huge problem in the queer community, particularly gay men.
My on the record comment is “Auckland Pride should not be prioritising politician voices. It’s a community organisation and should remain in the hands of community regardless – left or right – politicians already get the airtime, and they already have the power of media behind them. So, they shouldn’t be platformed at community events because then they also create more harm.
No, everything is political capital. If you can get votes and communities, you will go and get votes. It’s the same with the Indian community – where they’re like “yes, we love going to Diwali, but we will also scape goat you for numerous racial issues, like homeownership.”
I think it’s just preying on people who are marginalised in New Zealand and without power and whether you can get proximity to power, you will hold onto that as much as possible as a minority sometimes. Especially if you’re disparate and marginalised generally.
I think some people are, like Nicky Kay who is fantastic, queer allyship as an LGBTQ+ person herself. But I think when the broader political spectrum in ideology fundamentally taking away puberty blockers from young people who otherwise may die, there’s no way you can be earnest in being in those situations when they could part ways with their party, cross benches, and still have morality.
ACAB forever. I think it rids them of the guilt if they are gay – you can’t be queer and a cop. If you want to uphold the systems that continue to kill (at the end of the day they will basically continue to commit severe harm to queer people) you’re just being ignorant like the rest of the right-winged. And if you don’t want to take accountability you don’t get a chance, if you do want to take accountability, quit your job.
I think something that the right-wing has done really well in the queer community is instil fear. I think fear is a powerful tool that the right-wing continue to use. What we need to do is to reclaim spaces, we need to not be afraid, and we need to have our own people ready to protect ourselves. As the saying goes “who keeps us safe, we keep us safe”.
The reliance of – again – the queer community on cops to turn up to queer events creates unsafe space. Brown people don’t want to turn up to events if there’s cops. Police are violent people and we use violence if necessary. We have the ability as seen through Kaiāwhina in Tāmaki to stand up together upscaled and protect non-violently – or sometimes violently. But we just need to be better at creating those place of community and more people we can rely on, then we would be less fearful.
What would Georgina Beyer do? WWGBD.
