Love is Love.

International Transgender Day of Visibility.

There are three comedians I particularly like. One Scottish, one American, and one Australian. No walking into a bar in this joke, they’re all at various stage of alcoholism - funny how that works. They’re all liberal more than necessarily left - although the Scottish one is typically socialist. It’s always the Scots.

The Australian one, Jim Jefferies, did a bit in a recent comedy special about the marriage referendum they had over there a few years back. I would’ve included a clip, but there is quite a bit of that word, if you know what I mean.

The gist is that Jim’s 78 year old dad, to the surprise of his old mates, had voted in favour of gay marriage and was feeling quite good about being progressive. But then he went and said something to do with not being so sure about blokes in dresses.

Jim argued that before the woke people present at the time ripped him a new one they might consider that he’d only just gotten used to blokes marrying each other, which was a big step. So maybe give him a moment before you crucify him for not being ready for “chicks with dicks”. Lovely language, Australian.

He kind of has a point, and it’s much funnier than I’m making it sound, but it also demonstrates the deep irony that we can get over one prejudice while saying another, just the same, is a step too far.

That’s the thing, they’re just the same.

A segment of our society is still unsure about the whole trans thing. They wonder is it real or are people just making choices? Are they just pretending? Can’t they just behave like the rest of us?

And that’s the same argument people used a while back for gay people, and no doubt before that other groups too. Back when those other forms of prejudice didn’t seem so ridiculous.

So I kind of get what Jim was saying but also disagree. Yeah people need familiarity with things, to get used to them, but how long do we wait? Should we be expected to wait at all? Cos I’ve got to tell you this, waiting around until all the racists die off seems to be taking for bloody ever.

We’ve seen opposition this last week to storytelling and rainbow coloured pedestrian crossings - from those with very black and white views. That’s the reason they do it of course, because they don’t want familiarity, normalisation, the acceptance of the thing they don’t understand.

Perhaps for some they’re scared of being true to themselves. Of not just dreaming it, but being it…

"...bring your knees in tight..."

But trans people are not going to go away. Why should they? Their lives and the things they love are as valid and precious as those of every other human being.

March the 31st is the International Transgender Day of Visibility “an annual event occurring on March 31 dedicated to celebrating transgender people and raising awareness of discrimination faced by transgender people worldwide, as well as a celebration of their contributions to society.”

It’s worth taking a look at this clip to get an idea of the threat to trans people from the rise of Christofascism in the States, which Tamaki would like to see emulated here.

Some people in America aren’t best pleased with this day of recognition falling on Easter Sunday. As if Jesus didn’t hang around with a bunch of blokes in dresses.

This isn’t going to be a very long newsletter, I’m having a bit of a lazy Easter Sunday, but if you’d like to read some of my previous writing about similar topics you might like to try these:

I wrote this just over a year ago, in the lead up to Posie Parker’s visit to Aotearoa to share her message of nonacceptance. Although the distribution of Nick’s Kōrero was quite a bit smaller I received a lot of highly charged correspondence on it:

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Following Ms Parker’s trip I wrote a follow up piece with what I’d learned from the discussions I’d had, and the time for ideas to percolate.

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More recently my daughter was a member of the cast for the production Night of the Queer. I remember getting pretty emotional writing this one not long ago. It’s not so much about trans things, but it’s very much about love:

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I’ll finish with something wonderful.

Last night I got a message from Penny, our former deputy mayor who I’ve referred to in other newsletters as my “nearly neighbour”, because we live a few houses apart.

It said our little cul de sac “has its own rainbow crossing. Thanks to the fabulous help of my activist almost 10 year old granddaughter.” Penny told me her helper said “they can paint out crossings but they can’t paint out love!” As my good neighbour said “from the mouths of babes!”

Love is Love - that really says it all, don’t you think? ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜 Wishing you, and those you love, a safe and enjoyable Easter break. 🙂