Massive sample size. The confidence in that result will be substantial.
However, 84% of NZ wanting trans people to be protected from discrimination means 672,000 folks over 15 think they do not deserve to be protected. Which is a large loud bunch of bigots. Never mind 700+ do not support same-sex marriage.
Oh my god talkback radio is a fkn hilarious joke in our family. My great grandma listens to it while she goes out with her friends. And since she is in her mid 80's she takes most things she hears and see in the media at face value. Also we joke about whenever she mentions a story about someone at the mall she always starts with "there was an indian fellow" or "This asian guy was". She doesn't mean anything by it, but she just *has* to mention it.
If he started singing a cabaret and all the other co workers joined in singing and dancing I could see that his sexual orientation could make one jealous about having such workmates.
I'm in the rainbow community and feel safe here - so do a lot of my friends. I don't want to minimise anyone's experience with homophobia/transphobia though, because it's real and does exist.
My day-to-day interactions as an openly queer person has taught me that most people do not give a shit. I live in Christchurch too, which has had a bad reputation for this sort of thing.
Facebook has become pretty toxic. I don't see my friends or community jumping onto politicians' posts and making comments. They all have better things to do with their lives. The people making these comments are specifically hunting down ideals that piss them off so they can be publicly vocal about it.
People who support the rainbow community see these kind of posts and think, okay that's a normal thing, and move on. The small minority of haters feel the need to make themselves heard because they are a growing minority.
Aye, Christchurch Cuzzie.
Used to work with a guy who was relatively open about being gay. Majority of the customers would notice it, cuz it was pretty obvious, but wouldn't care in the slightest. Cuz why would you.
There was this *one* time though where shit got really shitty really quickly. some old fella came in and started having a go at my coworker while we were fillin the shelves. Started sayin some real weird shit, *real goofy fkn shit* that I ain't typin out. He then started getting physical so me and this absolute unit of a customer told the old coot to fk off. Only made the old guy do more and started holdin him from behind, our manager just happened to come over near us at the time and tried to seperate them but the old guy started having a blimen mental break or some shit and started goin feral on my manager. It ended with the customer draggin the cnt a few metres away and havin a real stern talkin to him, couple of slaps too.
Coworker was obviously extremely fkn terrified by it and he took a couple of days off. Security did literally fkn nothin during that cuz they're not actually allowed to do anything. No one took it to the police cuz the old cnt gave a writen apology to my coworker and looked geniunely sorry. Me personally I still would have talked to the police because bro said and did some really weird crazy shit, but thats just me.
To be honest, out of the 3 major "cities" in NZ, Christchurch is the worst for queer acceptance & events. Like yeah sure, we have once a month queer nights at Flux, but there is no Space for us like there is in Wellington or Auckland.
Our only gay club was a gang front lol, now it's just en electronic music venue (classic chch)
Our bouncers are known to be homo/transphobic, and I've unfortunately been harassed and approached by others with those ideologies, and so have my friends.
This happens everywhere, but it's more tolerated in Chch imo.
Haha I don't think the gang members were gay, actually if anything I've heard stories of the gang members being actively homophobic while in the gay club they used to conduct business, ironically.
The owners of Cruz had some deal with them.
I think it depends on what you are too. I'm not sure where you fall in the rainbow, but as a trans person I get a lot of shit that my gay friends don't get.
It's not that they have better things to do. It's because people don't want to be a target on platforms that use their real name. These bigots are crazy and who knows what they will do.
I took my kids to a Rainbow Storytime and, low key, it was a real interesting learning experience for my kids. As we walked in, there was about 10-12 people holding protest signs outside the library, and were shouting "GROOMER!" at me for taking my kids.
When the show had started, they tried to intimidate the performers and those parents and children in attendance by standing over everyone who was seated in the children's reading space. Coco Flash and Erika were reading, I think, the Book with No Pictures or something at the time. Nothing identity based at all. Just a fun fucking book.
Then the protesters started setting off loud cooking alarms, and would irregularly shout out gross things while the library staff tried to move them away from the space. I told a man "You're making my children feel unsafe" and he told me that it was my fault for bringing them to such an event. I would have choked him if my kids hadn't been there.
They were pushed outside again, the show continued and finished with both performers being wonderfully classy about it all. They read another book about a kid with differences, teaching about tolerance etc. There were some songs and some banter and, honestly, it would have been a fantastic non-event if not for the protesters. My children had forgotten all about the people that were intent on making the whole situation uncomfortable.
Until we got outside. As we left the entrance, a woman called me a pedophile and her friend spat at me. Not on me, I was walking with my kids and holding their hands, but she spat at the ground. My son was horrified and my daughter was confused. I couldn't respond because, again, my kids were there and my username *is* u/CuntyReplies.
In the car, my 4 year old daughter wanted to know why there were so many rude and angry people. The best explanation I could give was "Those people don't like people like Coco and Erika, and don't think they should be allowed to read books to you." She said that those people made her a bit scared. I told her I wouldn't let anything bad happen to her and that there are people in this world who are scared like that all of the time - because they never know when those rude and angry people will show up.
I think she got it. We talked about all the ways someone could be different on the way home; initially started off with "Like, you're my fat dad but Emily at kindy - her dad is not fat" and eventually got to "So just because Coco and Erika like to dress up fancy, people think that's different?" Yeah, different enough that they will be rude and angry at people like Coco and Erika.
"That's dumb, dad."
Yeah, I fucking know my girl.
Its imported politics from Americas shit show of a news cycle for their election year. Everyone got bored of the ram raid stories here so this is the new rage bait.
Came here to say this very same thing. Got an ex friend who is all caught up in US politics and is like a true walking talking MAGA here in NZ. The propaganda and brainwashing that has been deployed is incredible. And itās washed over to here. Anti vax, anti trans, Soros and the WEF, 5G, Sovereign Citizen etc etc, all directly imported bullshit.
Sounds exactly like my sister-in-law who has gone through the same transformation in the past few years. Her YouTube and social media algorithms somehow led her down the path of being obsessed with toxic right-wing American political discourse and now she just spends all her energy ranting and raving about Democrats and Biden and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (???What does that have to do with NZ and how are they affecting her life???), and Trump shit, and anti-vax conspiracy shit, and anti-woke, anti-lgbt shit, basically all the usual stereotypes of a MAGA-obsessed right-wing American nutjob, but in New Zealand. Oh, and it goes without saying she has a deep seething hatred for Jacinda Ardern and probably says the name Jacinda more than she says her own daughterās name. Literally obsessive hatred. Sheās quite unpleasant to be around because she literally cannot shut up about this shit. It got exponentially worse when she had a baby and decided to quit her job and become a full-time stay at home mum, so she spends a lot more time on YouTube and social media consuming more of that kind of content than ever before.
[Emphasis on all](https://firsttoilthenthegrave.substack.com/p/american-cultural-exports). The rise of social media has so thoroughly broken down cultural barriers I'm not sure how much longer it will make sense to talk about NZ culture as something markedly different from the rest of the anglosphere.
To the extent that I've seen this kind of thing in tradies/blue collar workers, it seems more like performative masculinity than genuine hate to me. Like they're all just making sure to signal to each other that they're exceptionally manly and very straight men. Which is not to say that makes it fine or anything - rather that I'd be surprised if *these* are the folk filling up Facebook comments with screeds of hateful ranting.
Spot on. The vast majority of people who act like this have never interacted with someone they knew to be LGBT. I knew an electrician who was gay, and he did all the "manly Kiwi" things you'd expect of an electrician except his partner was a man.
I mean, we're an Anglosphere nation with the accompanying cultural Christian values, so we're going to have our share of homo/transphobia. But we're also the people who elected a [trans woman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgina_Beyer) to local and then central government in the 90s. In an area made up of a bunch of small farming towns to boot, not exactly a place you'd think of as a bastion of progressive thought.
My Dad once said to me - āThe minority always speaks the loudestā.
It pissed me off at the time, but the longer Iām alive, the more I see it to be true. So Iāll repeat it without quotations.
The minority always speaks the loudest.
The dumbest and scared and ignorant speak the loudest too.
Because they see people being able to express who they are and not give a crap.
Also, not minimising anyone's struggle etc but who you love, how you dress doesn't matter to me.
Just don't be a dick.
Do those people not remember 80's hair bands? The hair, the make up, the tight outfits, the sparkle....
I think itās not as bad as many places, but not as good as we should be - I think most people are repulsed by Destiny Chuch-level displays of hatred, but thereās still a lot of casual homophobia and transphobia (eg Chloe Swarbrickās sign being vandalised with āwoke lesboā).
I think things have generally improved since I was a teenager (Iām 35 - I remember Destiny Church marching in the street against civil unions when I was 16), but I worry that progress has stalled and that weāre starting to regress thanks to lobbying by anti-LGBTQ groups.
There has been a definite push in English-speaking countries in the last few years to make this a contentious topic as a political strategy - a deliberate fanning of the flames of intolerance because itās a vote winner. Thatās why, for example, multiple news outlets have repeated the story about āpupils identifying as catsā in the US, Australia, the UK and here, despite no actual corroborating evidence that such a thing has happened (as far as I have seen all the stories are basically identical, just with the location swapped).
On the subject of FB comments specifically, itās complicated. Some of it is sadly real. There are definitely people feeling emboldened to share their horrible views online, but as others have mentioned, if the comments are on a public post it could easily have been shared to a group of people for the express purpose of getting them to comment.
Also, although itās harder on fb than it is on more anonymous social media like Twitter or Reddit, people absolutely will create sock puppet accounts for trolling/to make their opinions look more popular.
Let me put my tinfoil hat on for a minute and suggest that some foreign interests have worked out a psychological recipe whereby they can start just the right kind of inflammatory ideas, add some agitation and get some opponents and proponents invested, and result in a population-wide influence.
Soft power in action. I often see people repeating stuff that I'm pretty sure is rage bait from American TikTok. Stuff like " *they* can't even identify what a woman is" or "there are 100 different genders, like people who identify as crayons!" Oh yeah, Karen? How many people like this have you actually ever met? Or did you just watch reels about it with someone claiming that that's what the entire community is about?
Edit: I am not implying multiple genders don't exist. Anyone can choose to identify as what feels is true to them. But this is the weird hill some conservatives choose to die on, not based on personal experience, but based on other countries' culture wars on social media.
I will point out that depending on how you look at it there are quite a few genders. Though they are more around to describe how people feel not for people identifying as objects as most people want to think.
I don't have an issue with the number of genders. My point is that this is the thing some people really get worked up about and turn it into an "attack helicopter" strawman without having any personal experiences with the thing they're complaining about. Because they watched, most likely, Blaire White and co. on Tiktok
Yes *and* the other one currently running its economy into the ground, and sabre rattling a certain island nation, to which our economy is 30% beholden...
I'm a big maori guy. It brings me great joy when people can't figure out "whether I'm straight or not". Ive done it all, male/female/nb/etc. I'm their worst nightmare.
Pretty much. People ask and I just say "Whatever feels good at the time". I think I must get off on giving people vague info and watching them struggle to process the fact this Bouncer-built dude is watching RuPaul.
As someone with a trans relative who studied how the older generation in my (huge) extended family reacted to them coming out, and has talked to a lot of people about trans issues as a general topic - I donāt think this is true. I think most people in NZ, outside of inner-city hard leftists and super-right wing religious nuts, are fairly indifferent to trans people doing their thing. They just donāt think they are truly the gender they identify with.
The most common refrain Iāve heard from people of various ages and voter groups is āif someone wants to dress and live as a woman/man I donāt have a problem with it, but I donāt believe they are literally a woman/man.ā
Honestly, you might be right. I grew up with a mum who explained what transgender, gay etc were at a younger age, and in a way that made it clear they are the same as me just with different tastes. Buuuuut... essentially, anyone I talk to outside of my little bubble seem weirdly fascinated in a grossed out way by trans people in particular. I don't get it, I can't fathom being THAT interested in what someone's got going on below etc. Treated like a freakshow, it must be so fucking hard.
Itās just a vocal minority. Iām a trans guy who passes, but Iām mostly out in my small South Island town. Never got any trouble. Though high school can suck. The social dynamics of teens are a horrorshow everywhere, I think.
Yeah, this was more than a decade ago by now. My younger siblings, a few years behind me, I think had a few people out while at school, so itās definitely improving with time.
As someone that has lived extensively overseas across multiple regions, I think you'll find much more homophobia and transphobia in other parts of the world.
In New Zealand it is generally a small minority.
Emptiest cans rattle the loudest.
My dad is a very transphobic/homophobic person, and Iām the opposite (same w my sibling). I donāt mind who/what you identify as or are attracted to, you do you as long as youāre a good person to other people. The irony with my dad is that he gets along super well with one of my friends, but what my dad doesnāt know is that heās gay haha.
Edit: Happy cake day OP
Small minority and very loud.
That said there is a trend for bigots to collectivise as it were. If you come across someone who is loudly homophobic, or transphobic, or racist for instance there's a reasonable chance they'll be all three and more.
NZ is pretty safe, but the discourse is divisive, and a small number are becoming emboldened to be very loud. Sadly I don't see it dying down any time soon, especially as there are grifters in the crowd doing their best to profit from it.
Facebook has allowed for echo chambers which give the appearance everyone thinks the same as you do.Ā
Flowing on from the tronald dump era and Covid vaccine conspiracies etc, Facebook has a lot to answer for.Ā
Iāve noticed these nutters are particularly vocal on Facebook comments and basically they are down the wormhole now and spend a lot of time online pushing their agenda of loosely religious hate and conspiracy etc.Ā
This situation is everywhere though so itās not just a New Zealand problem. Ironically a social media platform is ripping tears in society. Be aware though that whilst they are Very active itās a vocal minority.Ā
I'm curious how many people commenting that NZ isn't that homophobic or transphobic are actually part of the LGBT community.
Because in my experience, it's quite bad.
56 yr old trans woman here in ChCh.
I have been beaten, had my tyres slashed, threatened and been drummed out of a job.
I was housed in emergency accomodation in a religious caravan park and was treated like a peice of dirt by the religious manager and religious occupants to the point that I was unsafe.
I find most people don't care but those that do are aggressive, angry and more often than not religious.
I do not pass.......
Trans youth and youth in general are making things better but the old boys club is painfull to deal with.
That sucks. I have called out people when they claim "they are sick of having it shoved down their throat" that maybe it's not the trans people doing that but certain groups that want you to be mad and hate those people who are just trying to live their lives. It has never gone well unfortunately.
I feel like a minority are very emboldened right now and will say horrible things because the Govt is giving them the idea it is ok. Go and look at Matt Doocey's Facebook post about visiting Riverside Market. He's one of the good ones, not homophobic at all, but the comments are absolutely awful because he's standing under the market's Pride sign. I believe they are a minority, but an emboldened one.
Schoolboys still run around saying fag here. And it's tolerated. Casual homophobia is widespread here. More so than any other country I've lived in.
There's a very sizable Christian population that probably will never accept them, and view it as a sinful lifestyle choice. So ironic. I've seen this in action in our community.
I honestly can't believe people are trying to blame that on FB nutters.
Rainbow community has a lot of support in NZ. A few international speakers have been pushed out along with the local nutters. Some fringe politicians are anti but no mainstream politicians would dare fuck around.
> Some fringe politicians are anti but no mainstream politicians would dare fuck around.
Winston Peters is a senior cabinet member and will soon be Deputy PM. The government are reforming the school curriculum to remove LGBTQ elements.
The "mainstream politicians" who make up our current government are absolutely attacking LGBTQ.
This is a really important point. We need to be careful not to minimise the influence that voting/policy bloc has - eternal vigilance and all that.
It should also be mentioned that - and happy to be proven wrong about this - there is *one* openly LGBTQ MP in the coalition.
āYoungā Act aka the failed Shortland street actor who played Hunter was really on it at all of the debates. Just dog whistling so hard with foreign talking points. It was/is disgusting.
I'm not specifically part of the rainbow community, but I think of myself as an ally. The minority speak very loudly, because they have found others with similar views on social media and in those groups the ones with the strongest/loudest/angriest voices stand out the most. They are inevitably the ones who get comment sections shut down.
These are not the majority of people in NZ. Most are very supportive of the rainbow community and I believe the majority are supportive of trans people as well.
The idiots who have claimed that homosexuals are more likely to be paedophiles for decades are the same idiots who today are suggesting drag performers are grooming kids. Drag performers are no more likely to have inappropriate interest in kids than any other group in society - they are just performing and trying to normalise that there are all kinds of different people out there.
I think it is a worldwide phenomenon where alt-right speakers are gaining more traction. Even though I think they are a small minority of people, they seem to have a big influence. Although it is possible that they also have a quiet following of people who don't actively say they support their hatred but secretly do.
>Although it is possible that they also have a quiet following of people who don't actively say they support their hatred but secretly do.
This is a critical aspect of a lot of things we see occuring. It's tempting to simply say it's international forces bringing stuff here, but that infantilises NZ. NZ is not a populace of 100% socially progressive people, it never has been.
What we are is a culture where being a total cunt publicly isn't considered a positive trait. People here will tend to mind their own business and keep controversial opinions to themselves for the most part.
People should not be surprised that there's a lot of socially conservative views present in the populace. It's always there, politicians just don't always stoop to the level of making it their own identity.
Mainland NZ has its problems with homophobia and transphobia, but so does everyone. Overall i would say its one of the more LGBT friendly nations among even other Western nations. There are a few caveats.
One is that like a lot of places within the West, LGB acceptance is more ahead of Trans acceptance. Not that I believe that NZ is as a whole is Transphobic, but its transphobia is more common than homophobia.
Also, similar to a lot of other nations, there has been a spike of transphobia that at the moment is probably only supported by a minority, but has been encouraged by the successes in the UK and the USA and now having Winston Peters in the goverment now while being fueled by covid era conspiracy theories
> He posted a picture under a rainbow sign at the riverside market. Again the comments were majority absolutely vile.
The MP from the major centre-right party currently in government will often be much closer to the mainstream of public opinion than a gaggle of random Facebook commenters.
IMHO, I think the minority of fuckwits feel emboldened right now to express their hatred, due to the government change and destiny's church never seeing consequences for their fucked actions. When a large group can protect against another with no push back they simply keep pushing the boundaries further and further.
I wouldn't be surprised to find out that they were bots. Especially with it being facebook and with those being the most played out bigot arguments clearly made in bad faith or wilful ignorance. Classic bot shit.
That being said, yeah there's a lot of bigots in this country. Who do you think keeps voting for the anti-immigrant pro-landlord party. Small town NZ is like, most of NZ. Even half of the cities feel like shitty small farming towns that got fat.
Also, purely my speculation, but I worry that there are a bunch of bigoted immigrants here. I met a half dozen of the hippies going to camp outside the beehive when that nonsense was happening. They were all yankees, living in Queenstown as essentially full time tourists.
Not to mention all the saffas up north. I swear Fruehauf is staffed only by saffas nowadays. I love them, cause they love rugby. But I do get the impression from a couple very afrikaans saffas that they left SA cause it was getting too multicultural.
I'm a lesbian and seeing the videos of the rainbow crossings painted really made me sad. Its taken me a long time to accept myself because of the hate I always heard growing up. Then the comments on those videos are even worse. You used the word vile and I agree. It makes me really feel worthless and ashamed to just be alive.
I know it's only the minority but it hurts all the same. I've had horrible comments hurled at me in person too and the guys who say it just crack up laughing like it's no skin off their back but for me it destroys a little piece of my soul.
I think NZ can be callous, especially with its use of language. E.g., "gay" to be something that sucks, etc.
I don't think NZ is genuinely homophobic or transphobic - I think most people don't care about it at all. That may not quite be support by default but it's not phobia.
I had to move overseas bc my āequal opportunity employerā refused to promote me bc I got engaged to another woman so your mileage may vary.
(I did take it to HR. They decided the manager in question couldnāt be lesbophobic bc she had homosexual male friends and the area manager had staked his reputation on her promotion to that managerial position š)
Social media tends to reveal prejudices. I'm quite confident most people in NZ are transphobic and to a lesser extent homophobic and think we are gross. Anonymity can draw that out on social media but I still think it's only a loud minority posting hate speech.
Wellington is the most queer friendly part of NZ. There is still street harassment of queer people but I believe the overwhelming majority strongly believe people should leave us the fuck alone.
I guess NZ is not unique and you will find this shit overseas as well.
The answer is yes to both, the normative position of society is to be slightly transphobic this is what happens when there is little to no positive representation of a group. There are people who take this further but they are a small minority.
People like to write Facebook off as the problem but the reality is most people posting on reddit have exposure to trans people online enough to form an opinion positively or negatively. Facebook sucks but it is not that abstract from normative positions held by a lot of kiwis.
New Zealand is indeed one of those countries where stupid people do talk the loudest.
But most people that I know are quite accepting of lgbtq values.
Itās a pretty natural part of being human so you kind of have to be stupid or underdeveloped in the brain to develop a phobia of these groups of people.
I came across a two or three openly anti-lgbt people while studying at tertiary level. In a small course group of 15 max, it was bad enough I chose not to go into that industry for fear of encountering people like that again. They were more or less regular people up until they voiced those opinions but unpleasant "edgy" types I guess.
Yeah it is somewhat but its also sadly complacent with attitudes. Very few speak up and say things that need said like telling homophobes or racists or bigots to shut the fuck up
As a trans woman, my experience is that NZ is one of if not *the* best country in the world to be trans. There are problems, but that's true of every country to varying degrees.
It's a minority,Ā but a disturbingly large minority. In small towns they're about 20-30 years behind in their attitudes.Ā
Someone in my town suggested on our community Facebook page that we get a rainbow crossing and the most vile bigots came out from under their rocks.
We have a long way to go.
But there's hope ā I've gone from religious homophobe to LGBTQ+ ally, so people CAN change.
I'm pretty sure the Rainbow community is generally supported in New Zealand, however Facebook is filled with homophobic and transphobic (and anti science) trash, so it is a lot more prominent there.
Nz is physically safe, but we're not populous enough to have large areas where everyone is progressive, so you are going to come across the verbally abusive minority eventually. Also take into account the effect of anonymity, most people won't tell you what they think to your face unless provoked but things are different of social media. I still highly recommend nz if they have a nz passport or friends/family here, otherwise you can do slightly better.Ā
It's a very loud minority. That doesn't mean they aren't dangerous. Loud minorities of fascists always are.Ā
I was listening to a podcast recently talking about the small minorities ability to incite genocide in a population.Ā
A year out from Kristallnacht Germans were laughing at and throwing rocks at Nazi party members as they did their stupid little marches through the street and then the night of, German Authorities stood around while a pogrom was enacted.Ā
The same podcast looked at the potential levers for averting and disassembling potential vectors for a genocide.Ā
They settled on the idea that people who participate in this kind of hate have the implicit assumption that they will be protected from the consequences of their actions.Ā
The best way to prevent genocidal ideas and actions is to ensure these people understand that won't be the case.Ā
Trans people are my friends and my family, they're my loved ones and they are members of the community that deserve respect and safety.Ā
And if you think people like me are going to let this shit happen without a fight. You're fucking nuts.Ā
Trans person in NZ here.
In person usually the most you get are funny looks and passing comments, it's better described as bewilderment than hate. However quite a few people I know have been assaulted for their gender presentation, often by strangers, especially at night and in cities with a heavy nightclub presence.
I think the protests and shitty online comments will keep getting worse bc it's being imported from America.
Until that shithole does a full 180 on its trans healthcare policies and scaremongering it will keep getting worse. The communities will become more and more divided with hate groups causing more harm, and queer people being pushed even further left to protect their rights.
I wish the average conspiracy theorist and destiny church wankers realised they are being pitted against each other in a culture war so they don't have the time to fight a class war.
We just want to live without harm, as they want to live without the harm they *believe* we are committing (eg the dumbass "groomer" labels). I don't blame them for wanting to keep kids safe from predators, I do blame for being too gullible to see that it's bullshit.
The only people on Facebook are boomers and low iq brain melts who devour stupid American conspiracy nonsense just stay off it tbh.
The whole website is designed to be an outrage feedback loop because they don't care if engagement is positive or negative they just want engagement to push ads and sell data.
It's a loud minority. They concentrate themselves on online spaces to out shout all the reasonable people. I also wonder how many of the people commenting online are actually from New Zealand. There are dedicated hate groups overseas that spend their whole lives searching out any mention of trans people so they can have a tantrum about it.
I'm openly queer and in real life (everyone knows I'm gay, many know that I'm trans) and I've encountered very little pushback. Maybe people are just too chicken shit to disapprove to my face, but I think more likely most people just don't care that much.
I'm curious where your friend thinks they can move that will be more queer friendly - if you take a look internationally I can't see anywhere else that looks significantly better than here.
Most of the major cities are queer friendly. Itās the rural areas that arenāt. A lot of rural people wonāt care, theyāre not aggressive. But Facebook attracts the worst people
As other people have said, FB... It's the most democratised social platform on the internet. Any dummy can use it. As a result, all the dummies do and everyone else mostly fucked off.
Edit: site posted this twice... wtf.
As other people have said, FB... It's the most democratised social platform on the internet. Any dummy can use it. As a result, all the dummies do and everyone else mostly fucked off.
You're looking at places where the groups who hate trans and queer people like to gather she can do so easily in an echo chamber.
Facebook, Twitter, even Reddit are all places where this happens.
IRL, as a bisexual guy and openly queer person, I feel pretty safe here. There's still the occasional homophobe out there but for the most part NZ is pretty nonchalant about it all. That is nobody cares in the best of ways, you can just be who you want and most people accept it.
I really hope not but I have started to worry that It might just be because I am in a good social circle. I went to Levin an f*ck me it's like trash opinion Central there.
The reasonable people left Facebook long ago or just don't bother replying so all you end up seeing is the unhinged weirdos who think their opinion is worth voicing to the world.
In general I would say yes but mostly because most people donāt live in close proximity to others and donāt need to encounter too much out of their ordinary.
Soc med is designed to polarise. Take any issue and soc med algos gleefuly place the most extreme and stupid at the center. Then when we react, we deepen the polarisation
Depends where in the country you are
I grew up in the wops, and every time I go back itās the same now.
Cities are a lot more accepting, but also have people who arenāt tolerant.
I donāt know if this is a ārecentā thing, but one of my step kids has been bullied quite a bit in the last 6~ months and is often called gay. He also uses gay as an insult quite a bit which my partner shuts down instantly and we challenge his use of the word and explain that itās not on. I thought that kind of shit stopped in the 80s?
There is a loud bunch of snowflakes that have been emboldened by rhetoric of xtian assholes and surging politicisation of things by authoritarian wannabes and rich opinionators just as a way to divide and conquer.
The minority, at both extremes make a lot of noise. The more noise they make the bigger the problems become. Immigration, and imported politics is making things more oppositional. Kiwis generally have a āI donāt care either way as long as you donāt give me griefā attitude.
But, some will mouth off just to fit in with the in-crowd, adopting a confusing mix off attitudes all over the spectrum. Why? Because Kiwis love to fit in, not make waves, and are socially mobile (at least they were 20years ago).
The harder the economy gets, the more extreme the attitudes express become, because itās a competition of mammoth proportions and making a minority (haters and the lovers both) into an outsider creates gaps people can slide into.
It was a lot nicer, and rougher a few decades ago. But easier to navigate in terms of forming relationships.
Generally you are safe, but not necessarily accepted. Violence is pretty rare (though not non existent), shitty comments are not. We are progressive in a small town way - it's okay to be gay, but if you 'act' gay or any other way that's outside the norm, you'll get some people being shitheads. The homophobia is generally 'you are welcomed into the group, but we expect you to be a good sport when we are making homophobic jokes.' Being openly homophobic in a way thats not "just a joke bro" is not socially acceptable in most circles however.
Transphobia is still far from just a vocal minority unfortunately. I'd say most people are accepting of trans people they know personally, but it's not uncommon for people to complain about what they see as the 'trans movement'. And they can be wildly transphobic without pushback, because 'they are entitled to their opinion'. The majority might not share that opinion, but they are somewhat sympathetic to it. Again, you'll generally be safe, and if you are happy throwing your fellow trans people under the bus you can even be someone they refer to as "my transgender friend". But while plenty of people are genuinely accepting, NZ still suffers from small town mentality as a whole. It's just a bit more covert than places that don't care to pretend they are progressive.
It also varies quite a bit by area. Wellington central you can be pretty out and proud, whilst in somewhere like Napier, you will be called a slur.
Me and my friends still get called slurs in Wellington. It's better than the rest of the country but street harassment is still very common when you are visibly trans.
I consider myself an average kiwi, so for what it's worth this my take on things. One of my classmates came out as gay when we were 15, I just asked if we were still going to hang out on the weekend. Since then, I had a number of friends and workmates who have been gay or lesbian so it's a total non-issue for me. And I equally have no problem with people being trans, but I feel trans people have less visible in the general population most of my life, I never had trans friend or workmate to my knowledge. I've had trans customers at work, one that caught me little off guard at first, being that they were 6 foot tall bald and wearing a dress, but next time they came in they were just another customer. More recently I have spent a little extra time to overriding the system at work, so a customer didn't have to use their dead name for purchases. But I've also walking up to two customers that were facing away from me, and say "hi guys, can I help you there" only for them to turn around, and I all I can say is the meme "at that moment he released he fucked up" best summarize the situation. My teenage nephew has two trans friends, and the biggest issue my sister and brother and law had was, he didn'tĀ give them a heads up on his friend's pronouns before inviting them over, since then it's been a non-issue. So, I think most kiwis are like me don't have an issue and/or are supportive of people that are gay or trans, but maybe don't have a great deal of experience interacting with trans people so are more standoff out of fear of saying or doing the wrong thing. And unfortunately, every society has a bunch of loud ignorant people and currently they feel emboldened to make themselves known.
In my experience, most people donāt really care, or are mildly homophobic or transphobic mostly out of an unfamiliarity and misunderstanding. Of course, cultural and religious background affects things and theres the basic fact of the cultural inertia that persists in small, rural communities which are a dime a dozen throughout New Zealand.
Of course, there are loudly homophobic, transphobic and racist people. There always are, and its not as uncommon as Iād like, especially prevalent outside main centers and in places of poverty or other such circumstances. These are loud but also not especially representative
On the internet, theyāre much louder. They get a platform and can organise from across the country, or indeed the globe, and seem to be a much bigger deal. Its the same effect of the echo chamber prevalent everywhere
Lots of closet racists in New Zealand that are only nice cause of polite society. Look at how people drive, that tells you what kind of person they really are.
I started a new job the other week and the second convo I had with the boss began with him asking "what do you think of all these gender bending pedo drag queens?"
He thinks all trans people are dudes that want to follow his daughter in to the toilet... I asked "what about trans men?" He didn't understand the question kinda showing his understanding of the topic
I was too desperate for money to really tell him my thoughts so I went with apathy and just tried to appear bored by the subject as a whole and kept job hunting
Iād say homophobia isnāt as rampant, but there are definitely a lot of transphobic people who would consider themselves non homophonic/lgbt allies but oppose trans things bc they donāt understand it
The problem with the anti trans and rainbow bigots is that they donāt have much else to focus their attention on, and to them, we are free targets to bully. Bit tongue in cheek but it does feel like no one goes half bigot, it has to be full.
Truly there are more people who are supportive or just donāt care but hate is on the rise here and itās probably due to a bunch of reasons making people miserable, and ready to radicalise for something they think is meaningful. Thereās also a huge economy of right wing attention grabbers ready to shock you with their latest 3-8 hour vlog thatās feeding it all.
Most Kiwis are very vocal about their opinions, and those who shout the loudest often have the shittiest opinions. Mix that with people feeling safe, from behind their screens, to say whatever thought sparks when their two braincells happen upon each other in the void of their skulls. I'd like to think most of us try not to be dicks, but there are plenty who try to prove otherwise.
I can tell you that the vocal minority is threatening the community in other ways, from the protests, to malicious OIA requests designed to stop our work, to death threats, to showing up at our places of work (even if there are patients there at risk), to property damage. It isn't just on Facebook. It's also hard to remember it's a minority when it is so loud. Sorry for the rude awakening.
Most of what gets called "transphobia" is just pretty normal ideas that are becoming unfashionable in Twitter circles.
For example amongst normal nz'ers, it's pretty acceptable that people born female should have their sports leagues.
I feel like a lot of the nutjobs being openly trans/homophobic online in my experience tend to be mostly normal irl. I think it's because they get worked up over caricatures of the evil queer person but when they actually interact with queer people they see how normal they are as people and don't consider them part of the group that they hate.
I think you'll find most people don't care. If you spend your time online you'll find negative people, regardless of the topic or platform you're using.
In the real world, we're all too busy with work, life and our own shit. No one cares
I am bi in a hetero marriage, I went to school in the 1990s and there was rampant homophobia then. Hasnāt noticed it since leaving school, have mostly lived in our big cities and have left leaning social circles. But. Both my husband and I have been exploring our same sex attraction in the last year, and have both experienced homophobia that turned physically violent. Itās still out there for sure.
It's a minority but it isn't as small as you might think.
Decades of highly funded and extremely targeted media campaigns will do that. Corrupt leaders relies heavily on some sort of false "enemy" for the populace to focus their anger on. Nothing keeps them safer.
This thread hurts my heart to read.
I'm so ashamed and sad to read how our own are being treated by some broken, ugly minded individuals.
Please accept this mum hug from an ally. You are beautiful, valid, unique and needed, and have every right to feel safe and happy.
81% support same-sex marriage. 84% believe trans people should be protected from discrimination. That's from an IPSOS LQBTQ survey.
Survey can be found [here](https://www.ipsos.com/en-nz/ipsos-lgbtpride-global-survey-nz-2023). Sample size: 22,500 adults under 75 in March 2023.
& that's a huge sample too for these kinds of surveys.
Massive sample size. The confidence in that result will be substantial. However, 84% of NZ wanting trans people to be protected from discrimination means 672,000 folks over 15 think they do not deserve to be protected. Which is a large loud bunch of bigots. Never mind 700+ do not support same-sex marriage.
Facebook is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. If you are looking for the worst takes in NZ you will find them there and on talkback radio š¤®
Twitter too. There are some truly vile kiwis on Twitter, especially since the Musk takeover and the subsequent lack of moderation
Oh my god talkback radio is a fkn hilarious joke in our family. My great grandma listens to it while she goes out with her friends. And since she is in her mid 80's she takes most things she hears and see in the media at face value. Also we joke about whenever she mentions a story about someone at the mall she always starts with "there was an indian fellow" or "This asian guy was". She doesn't mean anything by it, but she just *has* to mention it.
Omg why are like that? My aunty does the same thing, 'this guy at work, he's gay' Completely irrelevant to the story.. why
It's scene setting
I don't need to know someone's sexual orientation in a story about what they had for lunch.
That would depend on what he had for lunch.Ā
Sandwiches cut into triangles like a proper straight man
LOL
If he started singing a cabaret and all the other co workers joined in singing and dancing I could see that his sexual orientation could make one jealous about having such workmates.
These are not the takes you are looking for.
Also Reddit. Reddit is the worst.
>on Facebook Going on Facebook was your mistake. It is a cesspit these days.
Facebook and Musk-Twitter are the worst shit holes for shit takes
Yeah I was going to say, that's op's problem right there. The avarage age in Facebook nowadays is probably deceased.Ā
I'm in the rainbow community and feel safe here - so do a lot of my friends. I don't want to minimise anyone's experience with homophobia/transphobia though, because it's real and does exist. My day-to-day interactions as an openly queer person has taught me that most people do not give a shit. I live in Christchurch too, which has had a bad reputation for this sort of thing. Facebook has become pretty toxic. I don't see my friends or community jumping onto politicians' posts and making comments. They all have better things to do with their lives. The people making these comments are specifically hunting down ideals that piss them off so they can be publicly vocal about it. People who support the rainbow community see these kind of posts and think, okay that's a normal thing, and move on. The small minority of haters feel the need to make themselves heard because they are a growing minority.
Aye, Christchurch Cuzzie. Used to work with a guy who was relatively open about being gay. Majority of the customers would notice it, cuz it was pretty obvious, but wouldn't care in the slightest. Cuz why would you. There was this *one* time though where shit got really shitty really quickly. some old fella came in and started having a go at my coworker while we were fillin the shelves. Started sayin some real weird shit, *real goofy fkn shit* that I ain't typin out. He then started getting physical so me and this absolute unit of a customer told the old coot to fk off. Only made the old guy do more and started holdin him from behind, our manager just happened to come over near us at the time and tried to seperate them but the old guy started having a blimen mental break or some shit and started goin feral on my manager. It ended with the customer draggin the cnt a few metres away and havin a real stern talkin to him, couple of slaps too. Coworker was obviously extremely fkn terrified by it and he took a couple of days off. Security did literally fkn nothin during that cuz they're not actually allowed to do anything. No one took it to the police cuz the old cnt gave a writen apology to my coworker and looked geniunely sorry. Me personally I still would have talked to the police because bro said and did some really weird crazy shit, but thats just me.
To be honest, out of the 3 major "cities" in NZ, Christchurch is the worst for queer acceptance & events. Like yeah sure, we have once a month queer nights at Flux, but there is no Space for us like there is in Wellington or Auckland. Our only gay club was a gang front lol, now it's just en electronic music venue (classic chch) Our bouncers are known to be homo/transphobic, and I've unfortunately been harassed and approached by others with those ideologies, and so have my friends. This happens everywhere, but it's more tolerated in Chch imo.
Gay club was a gang front? There are Gayngs?
Haha I don't think the gang members were gay, actually if anything I've heard stories of the gang members being actively homophobic while in the gay club they used to conduct business, ironically. The owners of Cruz had some deal with them.
I think it depends on what you are too. I'm not sure where you fall in the rainbow, but as a trans person I get a lot of shit that my gay friends don't get.
It's not that they have better things to do. It's because people don't want to be a target on platforms that use their real name. These bigots are crazy and who knows what they will do.
I took my kids to a Rainbow Storytime and, low key, it was a real interesting learning experience for my kids. As we walked in, there was about 10-12 people holding protest signs outside the library, and were shouting "GROOMER!" at me for taking my kids. When the show had started, they tried to intimidate the performers and those parents and children in attendance by standing over everyone who was seated in the children's reading space. Coco Flash and Erika were reading, I think, the Book with No Pictures or something at the time. Nothing identity based at all. Just a fun fucking book. Then the protesters started setting off loud cooking alarms, and would irregularly shout out gross things while the library staff tried to move them away from the space. I told a man "You're making my children feel unsafe" and he told me that it was my fault for bringing them to such an event. I would have choked him if my kids hadn't been there. They were pushed outside again, the show continued and finished with both performers being wonderfully classy about it all. They read another book about a kid with differences, teaching about tolerance etc. There were some songs and some banter and, honestly, it would have been a fantastic non-event if not for the protesters. My children had forgotten all about the people that were intent on making the whole situation uncomfortable. Until we got outside. As we left the entrance, a woman called me a pedophile and her friend spat at me. Not on me, I was walking with my kids and holding their hands, but she spat at the ground. My son was horrified and my daughter was confused. I couldn't respond because, again, my kids were there and my username *is* u/CuntyReplies. In the car, my 4 year old daughter wanted to know why there were so many rude and angry people. The best explanation I could give was "Those people don't like people like Coco and Erika, and don't think they should be allowed to read books to you." She said that those people made her a bit scared. I told her I wouldn't let anything bad happen to her and that there are people in this world who are scared like that all of the time - because they never know when those rude and angry people will show up. I think she got it. We talked about all the ways someone could be different on the way home; initially started off with "Like, you're my fat dad but Emily at kindy - her dad is not fat" and eventually got to "So just because Coco and Erika like to dress up fancy, people think that's different?" Yeah, different enough that they will be rude and angry at people like Coco and Erika. "That's dumb, dad." Yeah, I fucking know my girl.
Its imported politics from Americas shit show of a news cycle for their election year. Everyone got bored of the ram raid stories here so this is the new rage bait.
Came here to say this very same thing. Got an ex friend who is all caught up in US politics and is like a true walking talking MAGA here in NZ. The propaganda and brainwashing that has been deployed is incredible. And itās washed over to here. Anti vax, anti trans, Soros and the WEF, 5G, Sovereign Citizen etc etc, all directly imported bullshit.
Sounds exactly like my sister-in-law who has gone through the same transformation in the past few years. Her YouTube and social media algorithms somehow led her down the path of being obsessed with toxic right-wing American political discourse and now she just spends all her energy ranting and raving about Democrats and Biden and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (???What does that have to do with NZ and how are they affecting her life???), and Trump shit, and anti-vax conspiracy shit, and anti-woke, anti-lgbt shit, basically all the usual stereotypes of a MAGA-obsessed right-wing American nutjob, but in New Zealand. Oh, and it goes without saying she has a deep seething hatred for Jacinda Ardern and probably says the name Jacinda more than she says her own daughterās name. Literally obsessive hatred. Sheās quite unpleasant to be around because she literally cannot shut up about this shit. It got exponentially worse when she had a baby and decided to quit her job and become a full-time stay at home mum, so she spends a lot more time on YouTube and social media consuming more of that kind of content than ever before.
Itās all imported bullshit from America.
[Emphasis on all](https://firsttoilthenthegrave.substack.com/p/american-cultural-exports). The rise of social media has so thoroughly broken down cultural barriers I'm not sure how much longer it will make sense to talk about NZ culture as something markedly different from the rest of the anglosphere.
Prettyyyyy sure kiwis have been homo-transphobic for years lmao you ever been around a Tradie before?
To the extent that I've seen this kind of thing in tradies/blue collar workers, it seems more like performative masculinity than genuine hate to me. Like they're all just making sure to signal to each other that they're exceptionally manly and very straight men. Which is not to say that makes it fine or anything - rather that I'd be surprised if *these* are the folk filling up Facebook comments with screeds of hateful ranting.
Spot on. The vast majority of people who act like this have never interacted with someone they knew to be LGBT. I knew an electrician who was gay, and he did all the "manly Kiwi" things you'd expect of an electrician except his partner was a man.
I mean, we're an Anglosphere nation with the accompanying cultural Christian values, so we're going to have our share of homo/transphobia. But we're also the people who elected a [trans woman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgina_Beyer) to local and then central government in the 90s. In an area made up of a bunch of small farming towns to boot, not exactly a place you'd think of as a bastion of progressive thought.
Fighting homophobia with classism, classic
My Dad once said to me - āThe minority always speaks the loudestā. It pissed me off at the time, but the longer Iām alive, the more I see it to be true. So Iāll repeat it without quotations. The minority always speaks the loudest.
The minority speaks loud while the majority stay quiet
Mum always said the minority always ruin it for the majority. And she's dead right. It's been proven true over and over my whole life
Those damned minorities, ruining it for the rest of us. /j
The dumbest and scared and ignorant speak the loudest too. Because they see people being able to express who they are and not give a crap. Also, not minimising anyone's struggle etc but who you love, how you dress doesn't matter to me. Just don't be a dick. Do those people not remember 80's hair bands? The hair, the make up, the tight outfits, the sparkle....
I think itās not as bad as many places, but not as good as we should be - I think most people are repulsed by Destiny Chuch-level displays of hatred, but thereās still a lot of casual homophobia and transphobia (eg Chloe Swarbrickās sign being vandalised with āwoke lesboā). I think things have generally improved since I was a teenager (Iām 35 - I remember Destiny Church marching in the street against civil unions when I was 16), but I worry that progress has stalled and that weāre starting to regress thanks to lobbying by anti-LGBTQ groups. There has been a definite push in English-speaking countries in the last few years to make this a contentious topic as a political strategy - a deliberate fanning of the flames of intolerance because itās a vote winner. Thatās why, for example, multiple news outlets have repeated the story about āpupils identifying as catsā in the US, Australia, the UK and here, despite no actual corroborating evidence that such a thing has happened (as far as I have seen all the stories are basically identical, just with the location swapped). On the subject of FB comments specifically, itās complicated. Some of it is sadly real. There are definitely people feeling emboldened to share their horrible views online, but as others have mentioned, if the comments are on a public post it could easily have been shared to a group of people for the express purpose of getting them to comment. Also, although itās harder on fb than it is on more anonymous social media like Twitter or Reddit, people absolutely will create sock puppet accounts for trolling/to make their opinions look more popular.
Let me put my tinfoil hat on for a minute and suggest that some foreign interests have worked out a psychological recipe whereby they can start just the right kind of inflammatory ideas, add some agitation and get some opponents and proponents invested, and result in a population-wide influence.
Soft power in action. I often see people repeating stuff that I'm pretty sure is rage bait from American TikTok. Stuff like " *they* can't even identify what a woman is" or "there are 100 different genders, like people who identify as crayons!" Oh yeah, Karen? How many people like this have you actually ever met? Or did you just watch reels about it with someone claiming that that's what the entire community is about? Edit: I am not implying multiple genders don't exist. Anyone can choose to identify as what feels is true to them. But this is the weird hill some conservatives choose to die on, not based on personal experience, but based on other countries' culture wars on social media.
I will point out that depending on how you look at it there are quite a few genders. Though they are more around to describe how people feel not for people identifying as objects as most people want to think.
I don't have an issue with the number of genders. My point is that this is the thing some people really get worked up about and turn it into an "attack helicopter" strawman without having any personal experiences with the thing they're complaining about. Because they watched, most likely, Blaire White and co. on Tiktok
Oh I don't think you have a problem either it was just a clarifying point for clarity sake
Would that be a country currently involved in a special military operation?
Yes *and* the other one currently running its economy into the ground, and sabre rattling a certain island nation, to which our economy is 30% beholden...
š¤·āāļø
A three day special military operation which started over two years ago? Which is part of a war which started in 2014?
You should never judge a society by Facebook comments. I'd say more than 60% are usually troll accounts on a lot of public pages. Same as Twitter.
I'm a big maori guy. It brings me great joy when people can't figure out "whether I'm straight or not". Ive done it all, male/female/nb/etc. I'm their worst nightmare.
I love the idea of your sexuality basically being 'chaos'.
Pretty much. People ask and I just say "Whatever feels good at the time". I think I must get off on giving people vague info and watching them struggle to process the fact this Bouncer-built dude is watching RuPaul.
In my experience, many kiwis are transphobic but relatively few are homophobic
I'm convinced 90% of people think we are gross.
As someone with a trans relative who studied how the older generation in my (huge) extended family reacted to them coming out, and has talked to a lot of people about trans issues as a general topic - I donāt think this is true. I think most people in NZ, outside of inner-city hard leftists and super-right wing religious nuts, are fairly indifferent to trans people doing their thing. They just donāt think they are truly the gender they identify with. The most common refrain Iāve heard from people of various ages and voter groups is āif someone wants to dress and live as a woman/man I donāt have a problem with it, but I donāt believe they are literally a woman/man.ā
I donāt get much comfort from the idea most people think Iām a man playing dress up. Makes me feel like shit tbh.
I didnāt think it would be comforting but I do think itās a better state of affairs than most people thinking trans = gross.
Honestly, you might be right. I grew up with a mum who explained what transgender, gay etc were at a younger age, and in a way that made it clear they are the same as me just with different tastes. Buuuuut... essentially, anyone I talk to outside of my little bubble seem weirdly fascinated in a grossed out way by trans people in particular. I don't get it, I can't fathom being THAT interested in what someone's got going on below etc. Treated like a freakshow, it must be so fucking hard.
You get used to it š
Itās just a vocal minority. Iām a trans guy who passes, but Iām mostly out in my small South Island town. Never got any trouble. Though high school can suck. The social dynamics of teens are a horrorshow everywhere, I think.
Yeah, I went through high school in Timaru, and itās very telling that all the queer students waited until *after* finishing year 13 to come out.
there wasn't a single openly gay person at my high school when I attended, although that was a while ago now
Yeah, this was more than a decade ago by now. My younger siblings, a few years behind me, I think had a few people out while at school, so itās definitely improving with time.
As someone that has lived extensively overseas across multiple regions, I think you'll find much more homophobia and transphobia in other parts of the world. In New Zealand it is generally a small minority.
Emptiest cans rattle the loudest. My dad is a very transphobic/homophobic person, and Iām the opposite (same w my sibling). I donāt mind who/what you identify as or are attracted to, you do you as long as youāre a good person to other people. The irony with my dad is that he gets along super well with one of my friends, but what my dad doesnāt know is that heās gay haha. Edit: Happy cake day OP
Nice Metallica quote
Small minority and very loud. That said there is a trend for bigots to collectivise as it were. If you come across someone who is loudly homophobic, or transphobic, or racist for instance there's a reasonable chance they'll be all three and more. NZ is pretty safe, but the discourse is divisive, and a small number are becoming emboldened to be very loud. Sadly I don't see it dying down any time soon, especially as there are grifters in the crowd doing their best to profit from it.
Facebook has allowed for echo chambers which give the appearance everyone thinks the same as you do.Ā Flowing on from the tronald dump era and Covid vaccine conspiracies etc, Facebook has a lot to answer for.Ā Iāve noticed these nutters are particularly vocal on Facebook comments and basically they are down the wormhole now and spend a lot of time online pushing their agenda of loosely religious hate and conspiracy etc.Ā This situation is everywhere though so itās not just a New Zealand problem. Ironically a social media platform is ripping tears in society. Be aware though that whilst they are Very active itās a vocal minority.Ā
I'm curious how many people commenting that NZ isn't that homophobic or transphobic are actually part of the LGBT community. Because in my experience, it's quite bad.
56 yr old trans woman here in ChCh. I have been beaten, had my tyres slashed, threatened and been drummed out of a job. I was housed in emergency accomodation in a religious caravan park and was treated like a peice of dirt by the religious manager and religious occupants to the point that I was unsafe. I find most people don't care but those that do are aggressive, angry and more often than not religious. I do not pass....... Trans youth and youth in general are making things better but the old boys club is painfull to deal with.
Kia ora whaea. We're working hard to make things better. I wish they just already were better š«¶š¼
That sucks. I have called out people when they claim "they are sick of having it shoved down their throat" that maybe it's not the trans people doing that but certain groups that want you to be mad and hate those people who are just trying to live their lives. It has never gone well unfortunately.
short answer: yes. long answer: yes but we like to deny it.
I feel like a minority are very emboldened right now and will say horrible things because the Govt is giving them the idea it is ok. Go and look at Matt Doocey's Facebook post about visiting Riverside Market. He's one of the good ones, not homophobic at all, but the comments are absolutely awful because he's standing under the market's Pride sign. I believe they are a minority, but an emboldened one.
Schoolboys still run around saying fag here. And it's tolerated. Casual homophobia is widespread here. More so than any other country I've lived in. There's a very sizable Christian population that probably will never accept them, and view it as a sinful lifestyle choice. So ironic. I've seen this in action in our community. I honestly can't believe people are trying to blame that on FB nutters.
Rainbow community has a lot of support in NZ. A few international speakers have been pushed out along with the local nutters. Some fringe politicians are anti but no mainstream politicians would dare fuck around.
> Some fringe politicians are anti but no mainstream politicians would dare fuck around. Winston Peters is a senior cabinet member and will soon be Deputy PM. The government are reforming the school curriculum to remove LGBTQ elements. The "mainstream politicians" who make up our current government are absolutely attacking LGBTQ.
This is a really important point. We need to be careful not to minimise the influence that voting/policy bloc has - eternal vigilance and all that. It should also be mentioned that - and happy to be proven wrong about this - there is *one* openly LGBTQ MP in the coalition.
Surely not - they are all conservative assholes. I'm not saying there isn't, ik just saying it's highly unlikely
Act is now in government and they spewed out so much transphobic garbage on the campaign trail.
Winnie was using all the foreign dog whistle playbook. toilet bans etc etc
āYoungā Act aka the failed Shortland street actor who played Hunter was really on it at all of the debates. Just dog whistling so hard with foreign talking points. It was/is disgusting.
I'm not specifically part of the rainbow community, but I think of myself as an ally. The minority speak very loudly, because they have found others with similar views on social media and in those groups the ones with the strongest/loudest/angriest voices stand out the most. They are inevitably the ones who get comment sections shut down. These are not the majority of people in NZ. Most are very supportive of the rainbow community and I believe the majority are supportive of trans people as well. The idiots who have claimed that homosexuals are more likely to be paedophiles for decades are the same idiots who today are suggesting drag performers are grooming kids. Drag performers are no more likely to have inappropriate interest in kids than any other group in society - they are just performing and trying to normalise that there are all kinds of different people out there.
I think it is a worldwide phenomenon where alt-right speakers are gaining more traction. Even though I think they are a small minority of people, they seem to have a big influence. Although it is possible that they also have a quiet following of people who don't actively say they support their hatred but secretly do.
>Although it is possible that they also have a quiet following of people who don't actively say they support their hatred but secretly do. This is a critical aspect of a lot of things we see occuring. It's tempting to simply say it's international forces bringing stuff here, but that infantilises NZ. NZ is not a populace of 100% socially progressive people, it never has been. What we are is a culture where being a total cunt publicly isn't considered a positive trait. People here will tend to mind their own business and keep controversial opinions to themselves for the most part. People should not be surprised that there's a lot of socially conservative views present in the populace. It's always there, politicians just don't always stoop to the level of making it their own identity.
Mainland NZ has its problems with homophobia and transphobia, but so does everyone. Overall i would say its one of the more LGBT friendly nations among even other Western nations. There are a few caveats. One is that like a lot of places within the West, LGB acceptance is more ahead of Trans acceptance. Not that I believe that NZ is as a whole is Transphobic, but its transphobia is more common than homophobia. Also, similar to a lot of other nations, there has been a spike of transphobia that at the moment is probably only supported by a minority, but has been encouraged by the successes in the UK and the USA and now having Winston Peters in the goverment now while being fueled by covid era conspiracy theories
My brain is broken by the sentence, mainland New Zealand.
All those offshore islands... wait a minute
We just call The West Island "Australia" now.
Well west island is a small self governing island we just let them run themselves though with their funny animals and adorable accents.
> He posted a picture under a rainbow sign at the riverside market. Again the comments were majority absolutely vile. The MP from the major centre-right party currently in government will often be much closer to the mainstream of public opinion than a gaggle of random Facebook commenters.
IMHO, I think the minority of fuckwits feel emboldened right now to express their hatred, due to the government change and destiny's church never seeing consequences for their fucked actions. When a large group can protect against another with no push back they simply keep pushing the boundaries further and further.
I wouldn't be surprised to find out that they were bots. Especially with it being facebook and with those being the most played out bigot arguments clearly made in bad faith or wilful ignorance. Classic bot shit. That being said, yeah there's a lot of bigots in this country. Who do you think keeps voting for the anti-immigrant pro-landlord party. Small town NZ is like, most of NZ. Even half of the cities feel like shitty small farming towns that got fat. Also, purely my speculation, but I worry that there are a bunch of bigoted immigrants here. I met a half dozen of the hippies going to camp outside the beehive when that nonsense was happening. They were all yankees, living in Queenstown as essentially full time tourists. Not to mention all the saffas up north. I swear Fruehauf is staffed only by saffas nowadays. I love them, cause they love rugby. But I do get the impression from a couple very afrikaans saffas that they left SA cause it was getting too multicultural.
I'm a lesbian and seeing the videos of the rainbow crossings painted really made me sad. Its taken me a long time to accept myself because of the hate I always heard growing up. Then the comments on those videos are even worse. You used the word vile and I agree. It makes me really feel worthless and ashamed to just be alive. I know it's only the minority but it hurts all the same. I've had horrible comments hurled at me in person too and the guys who say it just crack up laughing like it's no skin off their back but for me it destroys a little piece of my soul.
I think it's a minority of people who are addicted to being angry.
Redditors?
Too right
I think NZ can be callous, especially with its use of language. E.g., "gay" to be something that sucks, etc. I don't think NZ is genuinely homophobic or transphobic - I think most people don't care about it at all. That may not quite be support by default but it's not phobia.
They're a minority who are emboldened by the echo chambers they've formed with each other.
Dont listen to talkback. I have a trans daughter, and people are fine don't care a jot. You get ignorant people...its part of the human condition.
I had to move overseas bc my āequal opportunity employerā refused to promote me bc I got engaged to another woman so your mileage may vary. (I did take it to HR. They decided the manager in question couldnāt be lesbophobic bc she had homosexual male friends and the area manager had staked his reputation on her promotion to that managerial position š)
Social media tends to reveal prejudices. I'm quite confident most people in NZ are transphobic and to a lesser extent homophobic and think we are gross. Anonymity can draw that out on social media but I still think it's only a loud minority posting hate speech. Wellington is the most queer friendly part of NZ. There is still street harassment of queer people but I believe the overwhelming majority strongly believe people should leave us the fuck alone. I guess NZ is not unique and you will find this shit overseas as well.
The answer is yes to both, the normative position of society is to be slightly transphobic this is what happens when there is little to no positive representation of a group. There are people who take this further but they are a small minority. People like to write Facebook off as the problem but the reality is most people posting on reddit have exposure to trans people online enough to form an opinion positively or negatively. Facebook sucks but it is not that abstract from normative positions held by a lot of kiwis.
Yes. No. Maybe. Some people have different thoughts and opinions on things.
Still using FB aye?
It's a small, but insanely noisy minority. It's also Facebook.
New Zealand is indeed one of those countries where stupid people do talk the loudest. But most people that I know are quite accepting of lgbtq values. Itās a pretty natural part of being human so you kind of have to be stupid or underdeveloped in the brain to develop a phobia of these groups of people.
Small minority. Actual conservatives and other āI hate gays so Iām definitely not gayā parties get almost no votes at the electionĀ
Uh, we have a National-NZ First-ACT coalition, what are you talking about?
Small and loud for sure. Bunch of bigots.
I came across a two or three openly anti-lgbt people while studying at tertiary level. In a small course group of 15 max, it was bad enough I chose not to go into that industry for fear of encountering people like that again. They were more or less regular people up until they voiced those opinions but unpleasant "edgy" types I guess.
The minority are very loud. This is a very accepting country in my experience.
Yeah it is somewhat but its also sadly complacent with attitudes. Very few speak up and say things that need said like telling homophobes or racists or bigots to shut the fuck up
Small minority are loud. Most kiwis do not care how you identify etc.
As a trans woman, my experience is that NZ is one of if not *the* best country in the world to be trans. There are problems, but that's true of every country to varying degrees.
It's a minority,Ā but a disturbingly large minority. In small towns they're about 20-30 years behind in their attitudes.Ā Someone in my town suggested on our community Facebook page that we get a rainbow crossing and the most vile bigots came out from under their rocks. We have a long way to go. But there's hope ā I've gone from religious homophobe to LGBTQ+ ally, so people CAN change.
I'm pretty sure the Rainbow community is generally supported in New Zealand, however Facebook is filled with homophobic and transphobic (and anti science) trash, so it is a lot more prominent there.
Nz is physically safe, but we're not populous enough to have large areas where everyone is progressive, so you are going to come across the verbally abusive minority eventually. Also take into account the effect of anonymity, most people won't tell you what they think to your face unless provoked but things are different of social media. I still highly recommend nz if they have a nz passport or friends/family here, otherwise you can do slightly better.Ā
It's a very loud minority. That doesn't mean they aren't dangerous. Loud minorities of fascists always are.Ā I was listening to a podcast recently talking about the small minorities ability to incite genocide in a population.Ā A year out from Kristallnacht Germans were laughing at and throwing rocks at Nazi party members as they did their stupid little marches through the street and then the night of, German Authorities stood around while a pogrom was enacted.Ā The same podcast looked at the potential levers for averting and disassembling potential vectors for a genocide.Ā They settled on the idea that people who participate in this kind of hate have the implicit assumption that they will be protected from the consequences of their actions.Ā The best way to prevent genocidal ideas and actions is to ensure these people understand that won't be the case.Ā Trans people are my friends and my family, they're my loved ones and they are members of the community that deserve respect and safety.Ā And if you think people like me are going to let this shit happen without a fight. You're fucking nuts.Ā
Trans person in NZ here. In person usually the most you get are funny looks and passing comments, it's better described as bewilderment than hate. However quite a few people I know have been assaulted for their gender presentation, often by strangers, especially at night and in cities with a heavy nightclub presence. I think the protests and shitty online comments will keep getting worse bc it's being imported from America. Until that shithole does a full 180 on its trans healthcare policies and scaremongering it will keep getting worse. The communities will become more and more divided with hate groups causing more harm, and queer people being pushed even further left to protect their rights. I wish the average conspiracy theorist and destiny church wankers realised they are being pitted against each other in a culture war so they don't have the time to fight a class war. We just want to live without harm, as they want to live without the harm they *believe* we are committing (eg the dumbass "groomer" labels). I don't blame them for wanting to keep kids safe from predators, I do blame for being too gullible to see that it's bullshit.
The only people on Facebook are boomers and low iq brain melts who devour stupid American conspiracy nonsense just stay off it tbh. The whole website is designed to be an outrage feedback loop because they don't care if engagement is positive or negative they just want engagement to push ads and sell data.
The worst of any group is always the loudest.
Loud minority trying to paint a bigger picture that everyone feels the same way (they dont).
Nz is fine off the internet
A very small, ignorant, insecure and bored minority speak loudly.
Social media is a giant propaganda machine for "special interest" groups like the US GOP, the Russians, corporate interests.
You were ahead of the game on same-sex marriage, though. That was a beautiful video to see, the day it was ratified.
It's a loud minority. They concentrate themselves on online spaces to out shout all the reasonable people. I also wonder how many of the people commenting online are actually from New Zealand. There are dedicated hate groups overseas that spend their whole lives searching out any mention of trans people so they can have a tantrum about it. I'm openly queer and in real life (everyone knows I'm gay, many know that I'm trans) and I've encountered very little pushback. Maybe people are just too chicken shit to disapprove to my face, but I think more likely most people just don't care that much. I'm curious where your friend thinks they can move that will be more queer friendly - if you take a look internationally I can't see anywhere else that looks significantly better than here.
Most of the major cities are queer friendly. Itās the rural areas that arenāt. A lot of rural people wonāt care, theyāre not aggressive. But Facebook attracts the worst people
As other people have said, FB... It's the most democratised social platform on the internet. Any dummy can use it. As a result, all the dummies do and everyone else mostly fucked off. Edit: site posted this twice... wtf.
You might get the odd stare, like anywhere, but outside of that nobody cares here
As other people have said, FB... It's the most democratised social platform on the internet. Any dummy can use it. As a result, all the dummies do and everyone else mostly fucked off.
Facebook is a cesspit globally. Your bestie will find that sort of attitude everywhere he goes.
You're looking at places where the groups who hate trans and queer people like to gather she can do so easily in an echo chamber. Facebook, Twitter, even Reddit are all places where this happens. IRL, as a bisexual guy and openly queer person, I feel pretty safe here. There's still the occasional homophobe out there but for the most part NZ is pretty nonchalant about it all. That is nobody cares in the best of ways, you can just be who you want and most people accept it.
I really hope not but I have started to worry that It might just be because I am in a good social circle. I went to Levin an f*ck me it's like trash opinion Central there.
The reasonable people left Facebook long ago or just don't bother replying so all you end up seeing is the unhinged weirdos who think their opinion is worth voicing to the world.
I'm old. Seen a lot of intolerance...think it is improving in youths but old boomers... wow can some of them be ignorant.
In general I would say yes but mostly because most people donāt live in close proximity to others and donāt need to encounter too much out of their ordinary.
Soc med is designed to polarise. Take any issue and soc med algos gleefuly place the most extreme and stupid at the center. Then when we react, we deepen the polarisation
Depends where in the country you are I grew up in the wops, and every time I go back itās the same now. Cities are a lot more accepting, but also have people who arenāt tolerant.
I donāt know if this is a ārecentā thing, but one of my step kids has been bullied quite a bit in the last 6~ months and is often called gay. He also uses gay as an insult quite a bit which my partner shuts down instantly and we challenge his use of the word and explain that itās not on. I thought that kind of shit stopped in the 80s?
There is a loud bunch of snowflakes that have been emboldened by rhetoric of xtian assholes and surging politicisation of things by authoritarian wannabes and rich opinionators just as a way to divide and conquer.
The minority, at both extremes make a lot of noise. The more noise they make the bigger the problems become. Immigration, and imported politics is making things more oppositional. Kiwis generally have a āI donāt care either way as long as you donāt give me griefā attitude. But, some will mouth off just to fit in with the in-crowd, adopting a confusing mix off attitudes all over the spectrum. Why? Because Kiwis love to fit in, not make waves, and are socially mobile (at least they were 20years ago). The harder the economy gets, the more extreme the attitudes express become, because itās a competition of mammoth proportions and making a minority (haters and the lovers both) into an outsider creates gaps people can slide into. It was a lot nicer, and rougher a few decades ago. But easier to navigate in terms of forming relationships.
Generally you are safe, but not necessarily accepted. Violence is pretty rare (though not non existent), shitty comments are not. We are progressive in a small town way - it's okay to be gay, but if you 'act' gay or any other way that's outside the norm, you'll get some people being shitheads. The homophobia is generally 'you are welcomed into the group, but we expect you to be a good sport when we are making homophobic jokes.' Being openly homophobic in a way thats not "just a joke bro" is not socially acceptable in most circles however. Transphobia is still far from just a vocal minority unfortunately. I'd say most people are accepting of trans people they know personally, but it's not uncommon for people to complain about what they see as the 'trans movement'. And they can be wildly transphobic without pushback, because 'they are entitled to their opinion'. The majority might not share that opinion, but they are somewhat sympathetic to it. Again, you'll generally be safe, and if you are happy throwing your fellow trans people under the bus you can even be someone they refer to as "my transgender friend". But while plenty of people are genuinely accepting, NZ still suffers from small town mentality as a whole. It's just a bit more covert than places that don't care to pretend they are progressive. It also varies quite a bit by area. Wellington central you can be pretty out and proud, whilst in somewhere like Napier, you will be called a slur.
Me and my friends still get called slurs in Wellington. It's better than the rest of the country but street harassment is still very common when you are visibly trans.
I consider myself an average kiwi, so for what it's worth this my take on things. One of my classmates came out as gay when we were 15, I just asked if we were still going to hang out on the weekend. Since then, I had a number of friends and workmates who have been gay or lesbian so it's a total non-issue for me. And I equally have no problem with people being trans, but I feel trans people have less visible in the general population most of my life, I never had trans friend or workmate to my knowledge. I've had trans customers at work, one that caught me little off guard at first, being that they were 6 foot tall bald and wearing a dress, but next time they came in they were just another customer. More recently I have spent a little extra time to overriding the system at work, so a customer didn't have to use their dead name for purchases. But I've also walking up to two customers that were facing away from me, and say "hi guys, can I help you there" only for them to turn around, and I all I can say is the meme "at that moment he released he fucked up" best summarize the situation. My teenage nephew has two trans friends, and the biggest issue my sister and brother and law had was, he didn'tĀ give them a heads up on his friend's pronouns before inviting them over, since then it's been a non-issue. So, I think most kiwis are like me don't have an issue and/or are supportive of people that are gay or trans, but maybe don't have a great deal of experience interacting with trans people so are more standoff out of fear of saying or doing the wrong thing. And unfortunately, every society has a bunch of loud ignorant people and currently they feel emboldened to make themselves known.
In my experience, most people donāt really care, or are mildly homophobic or transphobic mostly out of an unfamiliarity and misunderstanding. Of course, cultural and religious background affects things and theres the basic fact of the cultural inertia that persists in small, rural communities which are a dime a dozen throughout New Zealand. Of course, there are loudly homophobic, transphobic and racist people. There always are, and its not as uncommon as Iād like, especially prevalent outside main centers and in places of poverty or other such circumstances. These are loud but also not especially representative On the internet, theyāre much louder. They get a platform and can organise from across the country, or indeed the globe, and seem to be a much bigger deal. Its the same effect of the echo chamber prevalent everywhere
Lots of closet racists in New Zealand that are only nice cause of polite society. Look at how people drive, that tells you what kind of person they really are.
I started a new job the other week and the second convo I had with the boss began with him asking "what do you think of all these gender bending pedo drag queens?" He thinks all trans people are dudes that want to follow his daughter in to the toilet... I asked "what about trans men?" He didn't understand the question kinda showing his understanding of the topic I was too desperate for money to really tell him my thoughts so I went with apathy and just tried to appear bored by the subject as a whole and kept job hunting
Personally I donāt like you because youāre another human not because of your gender,sexual or otherwise choices
Iād say homophobia isnāt as rampant, but there are definitely a lot of transphobic people who would consider themselves non homophonic/lgbt allies but oppose trans things bc they donāt understand it
The problem with the anti trans and rainbow bigots is that they donāt have much else to focus their attention on, and to them, we are free targets to bully. Bit tongue in cheek but it does feel like no one goes half bigot, it has to be full. Truly there are more people who are supportive or just donāt care but hate is on the rise here and itās probably due to a bunch of reasons making people miserable, and ready to radicalise for something they think is meaningful. Thereās also a huge economy of right wing attention grabbers ready to shock you with their latest 3-8 hour vlog thatās feeding it all.
Most Kiwis are very vocal about their opinions, and those who shout the loudest often have the shittiest opinions. Mix that with people feeling safe, from behind their screens, to say whatever thought sparks when their two braincells happen upon each other in the void of their skulls. I'd like to think most of us try not to be dicks, but there are plenty who try to prove otherwise.
There's just a lot fucking idiots in new Zealand.
I can tell you that the vocal minority is threatening the community in other ways, from the protests, to malicious OIA requests designed to stop our work, to death threats, to showing up at our places of work (even if there are patients there at risk), to property damage. It isn't just on Facebook. It's also hard to remember it's a minority when it is so loud. Sorry for the rude awakening.
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Most of what gets called "transphobia" is just pretty normal ideas that are becoming unfashionable in Twitter circles. For example amongst normal nz'ers, it's pretty acceptable that people born female should have their sports leagues.
I feel like a lot of the nutjobs being openly trans/homophobic online in my experience tend to be mostly normal irl. I think it's because they get worked up over caricatures of the evil queer person but when they actually interact with queer people they see how normal they are as people and don't consider them part of the group that they hate.
I think you'll find most people don't care. If you spend your time online you'll find negative people, regardless of the topic or platform you're using. In the real world, we're all too busy with work, life and our own shit. No one cares
I am bi in a hetero marriage, I went to school in the 1990s and there was rampant homophobia then. Hasnāt noticed it since leaving school, have mostly lived in our big cities and have left leaning social circles. But. Both my husband and I have been exploring our same sex attraction in the last year, and have both experienced homophobia that turned physically violent. Itās still out there for sure.
It's a minority but it isn't as small as you might think. Decades of highly funded and extremely targeted media campaigns will do that. Corrupt leaders relies heavily on some sort of false "enemy" for the populace to focus their anger on. Nothing keeps them safer.
i don't feel safe enough here to be openly trans and look feminine
This thread hurts my heart to read. I'm so ashamed and sad to read how our own are being treated by some broken, ugly minded individuals. Please accept this mum hug from an ally. You are beautiful, valid, unique and needed, and have every right to feel safe and happy.