The boy from Kawerau
He’s a teenager, he’s transgender and he lives in small-town New Zealand. Oliver TapikiThorpe shares his story with Andre Chumko.
Growing up trans is tough. Being trans and living in a town of fewer than 7000 people could be a hellish experience.
But for Oliver Tapiki-Thorpe that hasn’t been the case.
The people of Kawerau have been welcoming but the main problem the 18-year-old has faced is the lack of regional medical services for young people transitioning to another gender.
Tapiki-Thorpe realised he was trans while his family was living in Brunei when he was about 10.
In 2016, he moved with his mother to the Bay of Plenty town and that’s where he began his transition.
‘‘When I was moving there, a lot of people would say ‘be careful, don’t put yourself in any situation that makes you feel unsafe’. I never really felt that. I always felt really welcomed.’’
But the one issue which did need to be addressed was regional medical services.
‘‘I don’t think there’s a proper pathway for trans youth who are living in rural areas. It’s a lot harder for us. It’s not as simple as it would be in an urban area.’’
Every time Tapiki-Thorpe gets a prescription for testosterone, he must make the hour-long trip to Tauranga.
‘‘Just because there’s more people in one area, doesn’t mean that the few people in another area don’t also deserve the same attention, and the same kind of care.’’
For Oliver Tapiki-Thorpe, life in a town of fewer than 7000 people hasn’t been as hellish as you might think. Born in New Zealand, TapikiThorpe, 18, was four years old when his family moved to Japan.
He spent the next six years of his life there, moving with his mother and father at the age of 10 to Brunei, on the north coast of the island of Borneo in south-east Asia.
‘‘That’s when I realised I was trans,’’ he said.
At 13, his parents separated. Three years later Tapiki-Thorpe moved back to New Zealand with his mother, Kiri. His father remains in Brunei.
‘‘In Brunei, you’re not allowed to be out as an LGBT person. It got too much for me having to hide who I was all the time. I sort of begged my parents to come back here.’’
Coming back in 2016, TapikiThorpe and his mother settled in Kawerau, Bay of Plenty, with his grandmother. They have since found a home of their own.
In Kawerau, a town about 100km south-east of Tauranga, TapikiThorpe finished his last two years of high school.
‘‘Once I came back over, a huge goal of mine was to begin medically transitioning.’’
He started the process of trying to get on hormone replacement therapy in September 2016.
But this took a lot of time – 16 months to be exact.
‘‘I started going through that process with a therapist, then I got sent to a psychiatrist so they could make sure I was serious about it, which they have to do.
‘‘After that, it kind of fell flat, and I didn’t hear anything about it, and I kept asking ‘hey, what’s going on with it?’
‘‘My therapist just didn’t know. She hadn’t really heard anything from the psychiatrist. There were referrals that we’d sent that we never heard back from.’’
It took his guidance counsellor at Tarawera High School, Chloe Rigg, to get a referral which seemed to get through.
‘‘I don’t think there’s a proper pathway for trans youth who are living in rural areas. It’s a lot harder for us. It’s not as simple of a path as it would be in an urban area.’’
Tapiki-Thorpe had friends who lived in Auckland, whose process was much shorter and smoother.
‘‘Seeing them achieve what I’d been trying to achieve, in what to me was a really short amount of time, it was really frustrating and disheartening.’’
He had a particularly bad experience visiting a paediatrician.
‘‘I came out of it crying. The language that he used – he was very misinformed about what was happening.’’
While at that appointment, Tapiki-Thorpe noticed the paediatrician had been reading an e-document about hormone replacement therapy on his computer.
‘‘It made me feel like I wasn’t seen and that I was an afterthought. Clearly he hadn’t been taught anything about trans people when he was going through what it took to become a doctor. That’s a little bit ridiculous.’’
Every time Tapiki-Thorpe gets a prescription written for testosterone, he must make the hour-long trip to Tauranga.
But despite issues with the medical system, his experience with the wider Kawerau community has been positive.
‘‘Mostly people are very accepting. Either that or they don’t really care – they’re not bothered either way, which is a lot nicer than people being mean about it.’’
In fact, the only time TapikiThorpe felt his safety had been compromised was in urban areas.
‘‘It’s mainly public bathrooms, which nobody really cares about here. In bigger cities people seem to make a bigger issue out of that.’’
His school community was supportive as well.
‘‘Teachers were pretty great, the principal made sure the staff were all informed so they knew how to refer to me. The kids and my peers – the people that knew knew, and the people who didn’t, didn’t know,’’ he said.
‘‘That was always an awkward conversation to have.’’
Tapiki-Thorpe helped set up a queer-straight alliance group (QSA) there, where students can get together. He has already graduated, but still visits the QSA group every Friday.
‘‘That helped me feel a lot less alone and a lot more visible.
‘‘When I was moving there, a lot of people were like ‘be careful, don’t put yourself in any situation that makes you feel unsafe’. I never really felt that. I always felt really welcomed. Knowing now that there are so many other LGBT people here, it’s a lot different to what you’d expect it to be.’’
Alex Ker is a trustee on the board of InsideOUT, a national organisation which works with communities to make the country a safer place for youth of minority genders and sexualities.
Trans youth living in regional areas often contact the organisation, raising issues about mental health and isolation, or wanting information about their rights or how to go about transitioning, he said.
‘‘It’s hard enough in big centres like in cities like Wellington. The demand is pretty out there. But ... it’s even harder in rural areas to know where to get information from. ‘‘It’s all tied into each other. Because the more helpless you feel, the worse your existing mental health issues get. We definitely see a lot of intersections between the lack of support and access and higher rates of mental illness.’’
One way InsideOUT works to combat isolation was the organisation’s Shift Hui, a national gathering held in Porirua for young people to come together, connect, and take part in workshops.
This year, a number of youth attended from parts of the South Island who hadn’t been in touch with the organisation before.
‘‘Social media and online connection is amazing, and it’s done so much to break that access barrier ... but I think it makes a huge difference when it’s in person,’’ Ker said.
‘‘Those are quite rare opportunities, but ones that we really want to create more of.’’
Regional co-ordinator for RainbowYOUTH, Nathan Bramwell, said physical access was a huge issue for trans youth living in the regions.
‘‘They might be out on a farm and not be able to access and travel to the support groups, as well as medical appointments, so there’s that feeling of being alone.’’
As part of his job, Bramwell worked with communities to establish support networks for queer and gender-diverse youth.
‘‘The theory is to create, pocket the support so the youth aren’t having to leave their regions or leave their communities to gain the help that they need.’’
Bramwell had noticed, in line with Tapiki-Thorpe’s experience, that rural communities were open to helping out once they knew how.
‘‘You kind of have the mind that communities that are small rural towns have very narrow experiences [and] opinions, but then you find they’re just full of bighearted people who just want to do their best for the youth in the area.’’ Communities around Mount Tarawera, south-west of Kawerau, were a good example of that, he said. ‘‘That was quite a small rural, staunch community that had little or no support for the ... sexuallydiverse youth that are in the area.
‘‘Now there’s a support group that was set up and there’s between 30 and 35 youth that go to it, and they come from Whakata¯ ne,
O¯ po¯ tiki.’’ For Tapiki-Thorpe, the issue which needed to be addressed was regional medical services.
‘‘Trans people aren’t a new thing, we’ve been around for a long time,’’ he said.
‘‘When people are trained to deal with trans issues they focus it more in bigger cities rather than all over, which it should be.
‘‘I don’t know the ins and outs of the medical profession, but I feel like that information isn’t given as freely as it should be – and equally to everyone.’’