oubliette?? demimonde?? either way, we're stuck

I speak Aboriginal english first, I know certain Aboriginal words for certain things.

I know how to say crocodile in Larrakia, I know how to say brother in Yolngu

I can say goodbye in three different languages.

I live in QLD so the language and gestures are all Murri, and the north is different from the south. Sometimes the spelling for a word differs via location.

sometimes I sing songs in pitjantjatjara, maybe I don't know what they mean exactly but I understand the vibe.

sometimes I look up a word and its got a completely different meaning to one I knew growing up.

sometimes I look up a word and I can't find it anywhere. Sometimes there's no one left alive who could tell me the original meaning or how it changed over time.

in aotearoa, june isn’t our pride, it’s theirs. marsha p johnson and sylvia rivera are their historical figures, not ours. the phrase that “you owe your rights to Black trans women” is true there, but here we owe our rights to (mostly) Māori historical figures. i have the freedoms i do because of the legacy of an entirely different set of people operating in an entirely different context at entirely different times.

But because of american cultural imperialism, most queer people in Aotearoa don’t even know our own queer history. Carmen Rupe, Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, the Dorian Society, Gillian Laundon, Georgina Beyer, and the Wolfenden Association are some of our queer history. We should know their names! we should know what they did for us! but because of the power of the american imperial machine, we don’t.

our national pride month should be july, the month that the Homosexual Law Reform Act passed in 1989. our two largest cities hold their pride festivals in february and march, respectively. american queer history has very little (or nothing, depending on who you ask) to do with our queer history. anecdotally, from my own queries, queer youth in aotearoa know more about american queer history than our own.

the most frequent reactions are from people from Not America agreeing that the cultural force of american pride has detracted in some tangible way from their knowledge or recognition of their own history. there’s so many links and references in the notes now, for so many different places. i had a scroll through some of them, that i could find versions of in english. the world has such a rich queer history, and i am inspired by all of the people saying they’re going to go and research more of their own histories. there have been resources shared from all six permanently inhabited continents (none from antartica, yet…), including a lot (relative to the usual zero) from the regions most frequently glossed over in our global queer histories; africa, the middle east, southeast asia, the pacific, and south america. every single person who’s shared a queer historical figure’s name, or a book or other source, or a historical event from their country or culture is doing an important thing by helping to dismantle the US pride hegemony.

the next most frequent reactions are from americans pissing on the poor, and claiming that either it’s not their fault individually because [nebulous reason missing the point] and/or that i’m racist (someone even said fascist lmao?) because the two people i mentioned were Black and latin american… it’s not the fault of those two women nor myself that americans have chosen their faces and names to put at the front of their imperialist pride. cultural imperialism doesn’t have to LOOK racist! you can be unintentionally culturally imperialist and look woke! a lot of the people who do this are queer and liberal or even leftist. the problem is forcing american queer history on the rest of us. shoutout to the Black and latine people in the notes who’ve rightfully pointed out that that’s a bullshit rebuttal. I’ve also noted the autocorrect typo on Marsha’s name, and fixed it, thanks for the heads up.

sort of the point of cultural imperialism is that the people doing it don’t notice it on an individual level. of course you don’t feel like you’re responsible! of course you struggle to see it when the rest of us point it out! that’s by design! if the rest of the world is saying something is a real experience that they’ve had, and you say “well i don’t see it / i’m not responsible for it,” that is blatant denial of a very real issue.

finally, for the love of god, stop using they/them for me, a trans woman who exclusively uses she/her. my pronouns are front and centre on my blog! funny how the people calling me racist and transmisogynistic for Using Examples are also frequently degendering me in the process, huh?

*not really a term considered appropriate to apply in our context to tangata whenua or tangata moana but I'm putting it in words easier for y'all to understand

--

Important context:

Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986

Prior to 1986 consensual homosexual sex was illegal in Aotearoa.

--

Carmen Rupe:

Ngāti Hāua, Ngāti-Heke-a-Wai, Ngāti Maniapoto

Activist and businesswoman, fought for sex worker's rights, support for HIV/AIDS, anti-discrimination. Arrested while waiting for a taxi in 1966 for wearing women's clothing, the ruling on her case was a legal landmark, with Judge McCarthy ruling that there was nothing unlawful with her attire. She had an impact both in Aotearoa and Australia, becoming a matriarchal figure to local trans communities.

Ngāhuia Te Awekōtuku:

Te Arawa, Tūhoe, Waikato

Academic and lesbian activist. Denied a visa to the United States in 1972 on the basis of her sexuality, which catalysed the formation of gay liberation groups in Aotearoa.

Gillian Laundon/ Gillian Cox:

Scientist and trans activist. Came out as trans publicly in 1977 while working as a public servant- with the help of the Public Services Association union successfully lobbied the State Services Commission for access to women's bathrooms.

Georgina Beyer

Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Mutanga. Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Porou

Aotearoa's first openly transgender mayor, becoming the mayor of the Carterton district (small, rural area) in 1995. Re-elected with 90% of the vote in 1998. Became the world's first openly transgender member of parliament by winning the typically right-leaning Wairarapa electorate in 1999, which she won again after re-contesting in 2002, before becoming a list MP between 2005-2007.

In her time in parliament she supported:

2001: The addition of sexual orientation as a ground of prohibited discrimination to the Human Rights Act.

Māori Language Act 2003

Civil Union Act 2004

2004: put forth a members bill to make gender identity a prohibited ground for discrimination under the Human Rights Act. This bill led to the Solicitor-General providing a legal opinion that gender identity was already covered by existing law.