Te Whanganui-​a-​Tara, Autumn 2021

I was in Te Whanganui-​a-​Tara in the executive wing, also known as ‘the Beehive’ of the New Zealand Parliament Building. The parliament complex played host to the second national Cross Agency Rainbow Network (CARN) conference. CARN is a coalition of Queer employee-​led networks across the public service. I was there as a member of my agency’s Diversity and Inclusion Working Group.

I was surprised I was still invited after I kicked up a fuss about the inequity of the conference. I raised the issue that the event disadvantaged public servants who were not based in Te Whanganui-​a-​Tara. The inhibitory cost of the conference registration meant those who arguably needed this networking opportunity the most would not be able to access it.

On the second day of the conference, all attendees of the conference were invited to see the ‘Rainbow Room’ as a special treat. This was one of the six themed select committee meeting rooms which was dedicated to the Queer communities of Aotearoa. We were asked to arrive early to watch a special screening of Rainbow Voices of Aotearoa New Zealand: A Documentary Short Film (2019) before we were escorted to the “Rainbow Room”.

I waited patiently in line as one of the many attendees. When it was finally my turn to enter the room, I was struck by the tukutuku panel which took centre stage of the room. It was woven with colours from the rainbow and aptly named Mana takatapui (2012). It was created by activist, artist, academic, and now Member of Parliament (MP), Dr Elizabeth Kerekere. On the left of the artwork was the Flag of New Zealand and to the right was the Tino Rangatiratanga flag. Further to this, Pride flags representing different communities lined the select committee room.

I stood there admiring the tukutuku panel, and for a brief moment, I felt proud –​ an arrogant sense of pride that few government institutions in the world acknowledged the existence of our Queer communities. Meanwhile, I was brought back to earth when I remembered that I lied to my parents as to why I was in Te Whanganui-​a-​Tara.

Six framed documents hung from the walls hidden behind a stack of chairs: the Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986 introduced by Labour MP Dame Fran Wilde, the Human Rights Act 1993, the Civil Union Act 2004 introduced by Labour MP David Benson-​Pope, the Relationship (Statutory References) Act 2005, the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Act 2013 introduced by Labour MP Louisa Wall, and the Criminal Records (Expungement of Convictions for Historical Homosexual Offences) Act 2018.

In a similar way to how Chinese communities were heavily controlled by the state, Queer communities were still heavily regulated by the government of Aotearoa through discriminatory legislation until the late-​twentieth century. These documents represented the constitutional milestones towards Queer liberation in Aotearoa. This was evidence of Aotearoa’s continued struggle with Queer liberation. The most recent addition is the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Act 2022 introduced by Labour MP Kris Faafoi.

I chuckled to myself when I realised that these documents, which represented significant milestones towards Queer liberation, were hidden behind surplus furniture. Māori have long accepted fluidity in gender and sexuality (Kerekere, 2017). These individuals were sometimes known as takatapui which is inclusive of Māori with diverse genders, sexualities, and sex characteristics. The arrival of European missionaries and puritans in the 1800s saw the suppression of takatapui identity. Buggery (or sodomy) became illegal, thereby criminalising homosexuality when Aotearoa inherited the British legal system.

This intolerance by Pākehā society towards diverse sexualities was extended to the Chinese settlers at the time. In one newspaper, the ‘yellow peril’ was stylised as an octopus-​like creature sporting a queue with monstrous features wrapping its tentacles around New Zealand personified by a wahine Māori (Māori woman) in distress (New Zealand Truth, 16 February 1907 as cited in Ip and Murphy (2005)). Each tentacle represented the purported evils that these “aliens” brought with them to the colony: greed, licentiousness, brutality, opium, evil habits, and traffic. Unsurprisingly, licentiousness referred to the “heathen practice” of sex between men (Ng, 2003).

A number of homophobic laws were legislated by the colonial government in response to the Yellow Peril, such as the introduction of the Criminal Code Act of 1893 which included the resort to cat-​o’-​nine-​tails for “unnatural acts” (Ferguson, 2003). Similar laws were enacted in other settler-​colonies such as Australia and the United States of America to curb the migration of Chinese settlers (Chung and Wegars, 2005). Convictions of Chinese settlers for buggery and bestiality more than doubled in the preceding two decades (Eldred-​Grigg, 1984).

In the same way Queer communities have learnt to navigate the closet in Pākehā dominated society, Asians and other racialised communities have also embarked on a similar journey –​ albeit with much less success. It is by no incident that ethnic enclaves like Chinatowns do not exist in Aotearoa (Yee, 2003). Invisibility is a survival mechanism developed to ensure maximal safety. As I spent more time learning about the history of our Queer and Asian communities, I realised that the closet was a shared experience between our two communities.

The stories of my Queer and Asian forebears were erased from our national histories as they were viewed by Pākehā society as immoral. Members of our Queer communities in Aotearoa are still susceptible to experiencing discrimination and intolerance, especially those who occupy intersecting marginalisation (Lee and Ostergard, 2017). When Queer Asians like me are outspoken about our experience of racism and homophobia, we are a stark reminder of our historical oppression for our “unnatural acts”.

Cologne, Summer 2012

I was in Germany for the International Geography Olympiad. It was my first trip abroad without my family. I was walking with a group of students on the streets of Cologne when I saw shirts on display in a store window. One shirt said, GAY OKAY. The other shirt said, BOYS BOYS BOYS. They were in a bold white font against the fabric of a black T-​shirt.

I noticed rainbow flags waving from the shops and restaurants. “What do those flags represent?” I asked Jochim naively. Jochim was a university student. He was a volunteer.

“It’s the Gay Pride flag,” Jochim explained to me as we walked down the cobbled streets of the old town. “Some people call Cologne the alternative gay capital of Europe.”

It was rather brave of him to chauffeur a few dozen international high school aged students around Rudolfpltaz-​Schaafenstrasse and Heumarkt-​Mathiasstrasse. I took a picture of a sign with a phallus-​shaped cactus.

“What does ‘Puddelrüh durch die Prärie’ mean in German?” I asked Jochim again.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jochim dismissed my question and continued walking.

Queerness was relatively absent from my upbringing. However, this might be a surprise for some people, but I am in fact not the first person to come out of the closet in my immediate family. This would be my 舅父 (kau⁵fu⁶; maternal uncle). Like me, my uncle was born in Te Awakairangi in a time when both Asian and Queer visibility in Aotearoa were slowly emerging from within the depths of the closet.

One of my most memorable encounters with my uncle was a family visit back in the late 1990s. I was incredibly young at the time, and I remember seeing his nails which were painted black. I was confused, but I was also curious as to why a boy would wear nail polish.

「我可唔可以油我指甲呀.」(Can I paint my nails?) I asked Mum after he left.

「我畀你油.」(I’ll let you.) Mum laughed at my silly question. 「但係只可以油透明指甲油.」(But you can only use the clear nail polish.)

Despite my uncle being out in most facets of his life, his sexuality was treated as an open secret by my family. My parents actively avoided talking about his relationships. This is because Queerness was seen as an undesirable trait. Queer behaviour was seen as an affront to Confucian values which emphasised the duty of children to continue the family line. Although homosexual behaviour was tolerated to an extent in traditional Cantonese society, there was still an expectation for children to be married with the sole purpose of providing heirs.

Added to this, Christian values condemning expressions of Queerness were embedded in the psyche of Hongkongers as a result of British colonisation. Christian missionaries from Europe came to civilise heathen cultures across Asia (Siker, 2006). This stemmed from conservative interpretations of the Bible which argued that Queer relationships were seen as unnatural and a chosen behaviour which could be changed. These latent discriminatory beliefs would end up infiltrating communities of the diaspora. We were warned as children to watch out for Queer people, described as 變態 (bin³taai³; mentally disturbed), who would prey on innocent children like me and my brother. The graphic 雞姦 (gai¹gaan¹; to bugger) was used to instil fear in children.

Both my brother and I were taught from a young age to identify Queer people based on their uncharacteristically gender non-​conforming behaviour. Queer people were viewed as groomers and were to be avoided. Of course, these dangers posed by Queer people were likely as overstated and over-​represented in the British colony as they have been globally. Queer-​coded villains were mediated to us through the media in film and television, most notably in Disney productions such as Ursula in The Little Mermaid (1989), Jafar in Aladdin (1992), and Scar in The Lion King (1994) to name a few.

Outside of mainstream white media, I was greatly influenced by Hong Kong media. It is through this media that I developed a number of unconscious biases about Queer people. We took monthly trips to the post office to collect boxes upon boxes of video tape recordings of unwanted television programmes and movies from our relatives in Hong Kong. This was in a time before satellite television and reliable internet connection.

In one crime show, the suspected murderer of a homicide case was a transgender woman, played by a cis female actor, who killed her wife in order to use the insurance pay out to medically transition. The main story arc focused on the authenticity and trustworthiness of the suspect and the motivations behind her transition. This made a deep impression on me, and it took me a long time to consciously unlearn harmful biases about our transgender communities.

If not the villain, then Queer people were often the butt of a joke as in the case of The Iron Ladies (2000). The film was based on the true events of the Iron Ladies who were a Thai volleyball team of mainly gay and transgender players. Slurs were used liberally throughout the film as a direct translation of the Thai word kathoey.

Despite the shortcomings of positive Queer representation in Hong Kong, films like Rouge 「胭脂扣」 (1988) provided me with the scaffold to develop my understanding of gender and sexuality within a Cantonese context. Both leads, Leslie Cheung 張國榮 and Anita Mui 梅艷芳, who were already known for their non-​conforming expressions of gender in their music, challenged prevailing notions of gender and sexuality in pre-​postcolonial Hong Kong. In the climax of the supernatural romantic drama film, Leslie’s character makes love to Anita’s character while she was presenting as a man. The significance of this scene became more apparent when he came out publicly as bisexual in 1992 where he said: “My mind is bisexual. It’s easy for me to love a woman. It’s also easy for me to love a man, too” (Chan, 2010).

My parents had no issues with me or my brother watching Rouge despite the Queer undertones. However, we were forbidden to watch Leslie’s later films, such as Farewell My Concubine 「霸王別姬」 (1993) and Happy Together 「春光乍洩」 (1997), where Queerness was made more explicit.

As the adage goes, 「遠水不能救近火」 (water from afar cannot put out a nearby fire), the only role model I had in Aotearoa was my uncle. Beyond brief encounters at family gatherings, I never had the opportunity to connect with my uncle because of our generational divide. My uncle is a famous poet in Aotearoa. It will not take much to uncover his identity. I had not experienced his poetry until 2017. He was in Ōtautahi for a poetry reading and I went along with a doctoral student who knew my uncle. We were late for the event, so we snuck in quietly and found some seats at the back of the room. There I was, listening to him recite his poetry. He spoke so candidly about his sexuality and his Queerness. It was the first time I saw myself –​ a closeted Queer Asian in Aotearoa –​ represented in art.

My uncle does not know this, but he was my only family member to meet my long-​distance come out boyfriend. We met when he was once again in Ōtautahi to present his poetry. I wanted to him there, but fear held me back. I never got the opportunity to come out to my uncle. It was not until recently when I published an online article that he reached out to me with words of support. He told me he was proud of me for sharing this part of my life with others and he hoped that my parents would eventually learn to accept me and my partner.

My uncle told me it took a long time, some tears, plenty of negotiation, and now plenty of talking to be at the stage he is at now with his parents. I often wonder how different my coming out experience would be if I had had my uncle by my side to guide me through my journey.

Te Awakairangi, Summer 2012

I was unloading groceries from the car, when I heard an unusual amount of commotion from our normally quiet suburban street. I saw a group of teenage girls walking past the house.

“Go home to where you came from you fucking chink!” One girl shouted across the road. I looked around and I realised that they were talking about me.

“Why don’t you just fuck off!” I retaliated with my best come back at the time.

The girls continued shouting insults and the chorus of abuse echoed through the street as they walked away.

“Homo!”

“Ching Chong!”

“Gaybo!”

I was speechless, but I was familiar with racist attacks. One time, I was lining up for the hydro slide at our local swimming pool. Another kid pushed past me before telling me to “go back to where you came from”. I was only in primary school at the time.

But this time it was different. As I recalled the incident, I was flooded by a sense of dread. Why would they call me homo? Was there something particularly Queer about my appearance? I knew that deep down, I was different.

My parents were always open about human sexuality. They were never shy about the subject. I believe it is because they grew up during a period of rapid development and modernisation in Hong Kong, which is why they held relatively liberal views on sexuality. This was congruent with our Taoist beliefs where sex was a natural aspect of life. Startlingly, my parents did not hold similar liberal views about self-​pleasure, as there were no benefits to this practice. Unnecessary seminal ejaculation was said to withdraw energy from the body. Furthermore, the Confucian belief system argued that non-​procreative sexual behaviour was seen as an affront to filial piety.

The internet allowed me to explore my body and my feelings away from the watchful gaze of my parents. We got our first household computer when I was at intermediate school. This was when I was going through puberty, and I stumbled across a stock image website called the Banana Club. I would spend hours in front of my computer screen and scroll through thousands of images of naked men. I examined their physique, but I convinced myself that my feelings came from admiration as opposed to attraction.

The internet was not my only source of knowledge. The education system provided the foundation of my understanding around sexuality. We were taught about our changing bodies in health and physical education in intermediate school. We were shown images, videos, and sketches of how our body would change through puberty. One thing that was missing from these exemplars was that I did not see myself represented by the types of bodies shown in class.

“Boys will grow taller and gain greater muscle mass,” the teacher told us matter-​of-​factly. “You will develop body and facial hair as you grow into men.”

I looked at the other boys around me, largely Pākehā, who were already showing the hallmarks of masculinity. On the other hand, I was short in stature and my face, chest, and limbs were smooth and hairless. I looked nothing like the other boys around me.

“Was there something wrong with me?” I thought to myself as I watched the boys around me develop into men. “Will I ever be a man?”

I felt fortunate that I attended a secular co-​educational school where sexual education was taught with little religious overtones. The teachers told us that sex between a man and a woman was a natural progression of human relationships. They taught us how to avoid unexpected pregnancies through contraception. They also described the horrors of sexually transmitted illnesses and diseases in extreme detail. The teachers rarely discussed diverse expressions of gender, sex, and sexuality in much detail, so I remained clueless on this aspect of identity. I slowly progressed to other explicit content on Tumblr, as I continued to explore my sexuality digitally. I spent hours trawling through images of naked men, but I convinced myself that my obsessive behaviour was a form of admiration. I did not want these men, but I wanted to be these men. As far as I was concerned, I was straight.

I only began thinking about what a relationship might look like for me in my senior years in high school when everyone was dating someone and everyone had to have a crush. I never understood why the boys in my class were only obsessed with girls.

“Is there something wrong with me for thinking about the boys at school as well?” I thought to myself as my eyes wandered and I fantasised about how I might get the attention of these boys.

“Sidney, you need to be careful,” a classmate texted me one afternoon. “I heard a rumour that you’re in love with Conrad.”

Conrad was an exchange student from Germany. He was in my graphics and design class, and we were really close despite the language barrier.

“If you’re not careful, Sidney,” my classmate warned me. “People might think you’re gay. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

After that warning, Conrad and I slowly drifted apart. In his final week in Aotearoa, he gifted me a pounamu (greenstone) necklace he bought in Tāhuna (Queenstown). It was a roimata (teardrop) which represents healing, comfort, and strength.

I spent the remainder of high school being cautious with my social interactions. I avoided interactions where my identity would come into question.

“I think I like you,” a girl once told me on MSN Messenger. We went to the same high school, and she was a year below me.

“I think I like you too,” I told her later on the phone. She was immensely popular, and I felt obliged to respond to her advances.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t go out. My parents want me to focus on my studies,” I told her much to her disappointment.

I would tell people this lie, repeatedly. It was much easier resorting to racial stereotypes than to confront the real reason why I did not want to be in a relationship.