As both negotiate the complexities of being part memorial, part protest and part celebration, an empathetic allegiance between Waitangi Day and the Auckland Pride Festival has the potential of collective empowerment, writes Richard Orjis. Waitangi Day falls in the middle of this year’s Auckland Pride Festival. Rather than being strange bedfellows in the summer cultural … Read more
Kassie Hartendorp (Ngāti Raukawa) has been looking to Māori stories and storytellers to learn more about our gender identities before colonisation. There’s a lot to be read between the lines, she writes. Te ao Māori can be a very gendered place to be. In some settings, your gender can tell you where you stand, what … Read more
As part of RNZ’s sexuality podcast, Bang!, Melody Thomas looks at Māori sexuality and gender expression prior to colonisation. Despite spending more than a year learning about sex, sexuality and relationships in Aotearoa – until recently, I knew very little about pre-colonial Māori perspectives on these things. I’d have more easily defined the indigenous North … Read more
On Friday the Māori Party issued a press release that criticised Labour for legalising same sex marriage. An aghast Laura O’Connell Rapira responds. It’s never easy being takatāpui. Within the queer community, we can be subjected to exclusion and discrimination based on our culture and heritage. In the Māori community (and indeed in society as … Read more