'People are proud throughout the year': When is New Zealand's real Pride month?

Wednesday, 23 March 2022

Left to right, 5 of 7 Dunedin Pride committee members: Trak Gray, Evelyn Robertson, Max Wolfgram, Shayla Kara and Casey Lochead.

As one island packs away the rainbow flags, the other starts putting them up.

The days, weeks and months different cities choose to celebrate Pride in New Zealand don’t line up, and organisers say it's because they serve their separate LGBTQ+ communities based on need.

By March, Auckland's Pride Month had come and gone but Dunedin's was only just beginning.

Christchurch and Wellington were supposed to celebrate Pride in March, but postponed due to Covid-19.

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The Auckland Pride March in 2021.

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When looking at our LGBTQ+ history, the first public Pride event was a protest in June nearly 50 years ago.

Dunedin Pride secretary and organiser Trak Gray said March was chosen as their Pride Month to line up the return of tertiary students with the tail-end of summer.

Gray said their community-led events were what made Pride in Dunedin unique, but being entirely volunteer-run made it difficult for celebrations to be consistent every year, or grow.

“When you read the history of Pride and queer support groups, the people always burn out. I don't want that… we’ve put hundreds and hundreds of hours into this, and I have a full time job,” Gray said.

“The hope is that the volume of events and volunteers we have will inspire some backers to come on board, so we can afford to have someone employed in a permanent role, like in Auckland.”

Police march in the 2018 Wellington International Pride Parade. Police, military and businesses’ involvement in Pride over the years have sparked controversy and some groups have splintered because of it.

Max Tweedie, executive director of Auckland Pride, became a permanent employee in 2019.

He said although flagship Pride events in Auckland, including their parade, were cancelled or made “more low-key” because of Covid-19, having a permanent employee year-round meant the knowledge and relationship with sponsors were maintained, and the organisation could grow.

“In 2013, we had a two-week Pride festival, but by 2021 it expanded to being a month long. We had 203 events that year… we used to have around 80.”

The 2021 Dog Walk as part of Christchurch Pride celebrations.

The organisation could now also prioritise advocacy work and lobby Government without concern that government funding might be in jeopardy, he said.

He said they chose February as their month to celebrate as a throwback to the Hero Parade from the 90s: “We also don't have the same kind of demographic considerations, since people come this way for festivals anyway… Our primary consideration is weather, and not competing with other events.”

Christchurch initially planned to celebrate Pride Month in March, but Christchurch Pride chairperson Jill Stevens said they pushed the date to June because of Covid-19 concerns.

While the weather would be more unpredictable, she said it was nice to be able to align it with the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

A group of Dunedin Pride volunteers for 2022 at the rainbow aurora installation on George St.

“We usually do March because of the weather and so it doesn't compete with Wellington and Auckland’s dates. We're mindful that people like to travel,” she said.

Christchurch deputy mayor Andrew Turner was one of those people. He said pre-Covid-19 he would do the national circuit of Pride events.

“It comes with the size of New Zealand, everyone wants to maximise how many people will turn up,” he said.

“Notably, Pride celebrations are run differently around the country. Wellington and Auckland have Pride marches or parades which are public facing, but Christchurch Pride deliberately don't do those and focus on events for their community.”

His favourite Christchurch Pride events included closing events where up to 400 people got together, and the Pride boat party in Lyttelton Harbour.

Gareth Watkins, historian and curator of website pridenz.com, said historically communities always took the lead on what events took place and when.

“Pride events are organic, they come and go.”

It was why Pride celebrations ranged from protests and parades to whānau-oriented affairs, he said.

He said they began in Aotearoa as a Gay Liberation protest in 1972, which took off when academic Ngahuia te Awekotuku was banned from the United States because she was homosexual. Gay Liberation groups popped up across the motu in support.

“Everyone basically stood up and said, this is not acceptable,” Watkins said. “There was a sense that we needed to be more visible, and show people how we are everywhere.”

In the early years, he said, queer-centred events were hosted around June and July at the same time as American events, lining up with commemorations of the June 1969 Stonewall riots.

During the 80s and the climax of homosexual law reform, there were so many marches and rallies that 1986 was like a never-ending protest, he said.

An LGBTQ+ fare set up in March in Wellington later became the basis of an annual event. That, and events like Auckland’s hero parade in the 90s began to be organised around better weather, and at times which avoided a clash with each other and, importantly, Sydney Mardi Gras.

“These days people are proud throughout the year, living their lives more openly,” Watkins said. “Why would we want to coordinate something nationwide?

“The joy for me is it is local communities standing up for themselves, protesting, celebrating and commemorating for themselves.”