Counting Ourselves

This week, Cameron Leakey and Lachlan Mitchell give Bailley a run for her money by completing the editorial a few hours before the deadline (just kidding, we wrote the tagline before we wrote the article and we’re now writing this after deadline). For Pride Week this week we discuss how the queer community is doing. 

Lachlan: Counting Ourselves released a report two days ago that details just how precarious things are for our transgender and non-binary siblings here in Aotearoa. This shouldn’t be news to any self-described queer, gay or what have you.  New Zealand activists and people that live these stories every day have been talking about this shit for years. The healthcare inequalities, the systemic ignoring of basic needs, the casual mockery from the public at large. This is not news – especially with how this disproportionately affects our Māori friends and family. But it is the first time that NZ has officially carried out a survey that directly talks to our transgender and non-binary population, and it is extremely important that you read it. It’s easy to joke about effeminate pop culture references all day long, and god knows I do, but it’s beyond time to get serious about things that aren’t solely what middle-class white gays are interested in. 

Cameron:This report is so important. Statistics New Zealand refused to ask about sexual orientation in the census. Reports and statistics about the feelings within the queer community are so vital to signalling to policymakers and legislators what needs to be done to further improve outcomes for the LGBTQ+ community. Gains have been made but there is always a continued need to advance the rights for the queer community to make equitable outcomes. 

In preparing this edition, Craccum recognises how hard it can be to make a queer edition for the sheer nature of the diversity of our community. Experiences by some are not experienced by all. 

With the Super Serious stuff spoken for, we hope you enjoy our Pride issue. Oh, we’ve got jokes. We’ve got very serious arguments. We’ve got a crossword. We should have saved Suzy Cato for this week, the icon that she is, but nothing we can do about that. C’est la vie.