What went wrong with Pride?
Schoolgirl’s coming out tale
Glendowie College student Sophie Newton finds it hard to say exactly when she realised she was bisexual.
The 16-year-old has won the first New Zealand essay competition for school students about supporting others who identify as LGBT+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or other diverse sexual identities). It was sponsored by the Rule Foundation, which funds for projects and activities that support LGBTI people.
As she writes in her winning essay on What allyship means to me, at first she thought she only liked boys. But some of her friends identified as queer, and she began to read up on what that meant.
“I really just found resources online, and I read more about it, and as I kept reading more I thought, ‘Well maybe these things could apply to me’,” she says.
“It took a while. I just realised that straight is not the default,” she says. “I think it was just a gradual process of me realising that maybe I do like people who are not just guys, and there is nothing wrong with that.”
Sophie told the Weekend Herald it was easy to talk about with her queer friends. It took longer to tell her family, but her parents were supportive.
“Overwhelmingly, being LGBT is very easy in New Zealand if you live in the place I do — and not everyone does, and it’s much harder for trans people, but even then some people will often just be a bit immature and you do hope they will grow out of it,” she says.
“In the meantime [it’s] being aware that there are people you just wouldn’t really want to talk, or wouldn’t want to engage with lots, because it’s not going to be fun.”
Sophie wrote her essay last year before the controversy over this year’s Pride Parade, which was changed to an unsponsored march after corporate sponsors pulled out in protest at a ban on police officers marching in uniform. She had been excited about attending but said this week the issue has been confusing.
“I’m not sure if I’ll be attending the Pride march primarily because I don’t know many people who are going,” Sophie says.
“It’s also difficult to navigate the controversy as a young queer person, as there are many conflicting ideas and opinions that hold merit.
“I will be going to the Big Gay Out. It’s an event that I know lots of queer youth are involved in. Ending HIV is a cause I 100 per cent support and I’m glad it hasn’t attracted controversy as it’s important we focus on big issues.”