Wall and Coffey host with Pride
MPs highlight work to be done supporting rainbow community.
Labour’s two high profile gay MPs have opened up about their quest to help New Zealand’s rainbow community — including greater support for youngsters coming out and calls for a New Zealand-based gender reassignment surgery team.
Louisa Wall and Tamati Coffey cohost the Auckland Pride Gala, a preview showcase at Q Theatre on Friday to open the Pride festival which celebrates lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex culture.
The festival runs until February 18 and features drag queen acts, health and safety talks, a dog show and the annual Pride Parade. This year the popular parade along Auckland’s Ponsonby Rd will include an All Black float for the first time.
Coffey and Wall say the festival is essential to celebrate the LGBTQI community but is also an important way of raising awareness of the work still to be done.
They want to use their time in Government to see an increase in mental health services and better support for LGBTQI youth and their families.
Coffey acknowledged a lot had changed from his teenage years where he would sit “right next to the TV to watch Queer Nation with the volume on low” so as not to wake his parents.
The former television host turned politician knew he was gay from a young age but said there was little support so it was a “tough and very lonely journey”.
There were no gay role models and no support for Coffey or his family when he came out — he said this had improved but he wants more to be done.
“We need a health professional into every school. At the moment it’s good luck if your school has one and tough luck if it doesn’t. I hope that what we are doing, by being out and being proud, that young people don’t feel like the battle is so hard that they can’t live through it.”
Coffey wants to see Aucklandbased advocacy and support group Rainbow Youth become a national resource while Wall said that to lower suicide rates among LGBTQI young people, the Government needed to address the issues those at risk face.
“With our LGBT youth we know from youth surveys that they are three times more likely to self-harm. “If you are trans you are four times.”
The pair also want to do more for the transgender and intersex communities, including having a gender reassignment surgeon operating in New Zealand.
Wall said there were about 100 people who met the criteria for surgery each year but no one in New Zealand was qualified to perform the operation.
“The surgical association have written to the Minister [of Health] and they had found someone but the ministry was unwilling to meet that need. We want to achieve that.”
Wall said trans people not able to live as their chosen gender became depressed and were more likely to have drug and alcohol issues.