- Kia ora. It's me, Eli Matthewson. Yup, I'm hosting a show about the queer history of Aotearoa, and they obviously wanted to get New Zealand's favourite gay comedian to host it. And when she wasn't available, they called me. Look, when you pop on the TV these days, you'll likely see a queer person, whether that's a trans doctor on Shortland Street, lesbian polar bear mums on Peppa Pig, or two men doing the Viennese Waltz until the public votes them off. (BOOING) Yeah, I'm over it, actually. I swear I'm over it. However, look, it hasn't always been that way. Seeing openly queer people on screen and in our media can only be thanks to brave people coming out publicly and then holding the door open for others to follow. Let's see how we got here. (UPBEAT MUSIC) - It's an old argument ` are you born that way, or can you be recruited? - Many parents would not be happy to have their young people told that to be lesbian or homosexual is a viable alternative to heterosexuality. - The first gay man in New Zealand was born here. - Gore ` the G's for 'gay'. - It can't still be gay Gore if the only gay in the village moved out. - God created homosexuals just as He created people like you who live in Christchurch. - They phoned in with lines like, 'I'm sick of demands by one-eyed homos.' - This attitude belongs in the days of homophobia and oppression and Hitler. - There is no room in my life for bigotry of any kind. - I'm a gay person speaking about how I figure it, and because I do, I get my hand slapped. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2025 - Why is a Christmas cracker and Rob Muldoon alike? - When I was a kid, you didn't really see queer characters on television. - Why is a Christmas cracker and Rob Muldoon alike, Wayne? - Cos they're both ludicrously expensive, make a lot of noise, and when you look inside them, they're full of rubbish. - If you did, maybe they were murdered in a film or it was John Inman on Are You Being Served? who was very, very camp. He was an object of fun. - Oh! It's the masked stranger. Take my body, but leave my jewels alone. - And there's nothing wrong with camp; there's nothing wrong with effeminacy. But that was all that was presented to us. And so if you didn't fall into that camp, (CHUCKLES) pardon the pun, then where did you belong? Who were you? Even Hudson & Halls, who everyone seemed to love, but it was never stated that they're gay. - Now here you are. - Oh! Oh! - What's the matter? - (HUFFS) - # I don't want to set the world on fire. # - Well, they were just a couple of old screaming queens who could cook good, weren't they? - We were young and watched them on the TV. - Yeah. - We remember them, and we just` we thought they were amazing. We thought they were funny. - Where did people get the idea that gay people can just cook naturally or do interior decorations or whatever? - (CHUCKLES) - There's this whole thing that gay people have got this flair about them, you know? - BOTH: And they certainly had it. - The most important role model` role models to me growing up were the Topp twins. I used to watch them on TV. Oh, I loved them; didn't know they were queer. - BOTH: # She's leaving after dawn, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. # Now everywhere I go, I listen for that dreaming dog's bark. # - So they were the only people that I ever saw growing up in the media. - It's all about hip movement. - There was only one pair of earrings, and I got them. - These two, you know, unashamedly, like, butch, queer, lesbian, yodelling sisters became household names. It makes me feel proud of both them and us as New Zealanders ` that there was never a question of them being loved. - And they said, 'What characters are you gonna play tonight?' And I said, 'It's gonna be really easy. We're just gonna be 50-year-old lesbians.' (LAUGHTER) - It was a mishmash of this amazing stuff, you know ` the yodelling lesbians from New Zealand. It just doesn't look like it'd work on paper. But somehow we managed to make it work. - Funding for family planning... - ...there for a long time. - In the '90s, as I was growing up, we were fortunate enough to see many more queer people on our screens, yet coming out was still challenging for many. This was clear when some celebrities who publicly embraced their identity faced significant backlash. For young, aspiring Kiwi personalities, this was a daunting reality. - This was the early '90s. I mean, Ellen DeGeneres was probably the only gay personality I can remember that was out on the TV. And things haven't gone that well for her, in all honesty. - I remember when I first fell in love with a woman. I felt so much shame and guilt because I'd always just been primed to like men. And I tried to convince myself that I wasn't gay. It took me a long time to finally accept who I was. It's because I didn't want to be different. - I was like, jeez, I'm part Maori; I'm from Southland, and I'm gay. - The first gay man in New Zealand was born here in Gore in 1872. - And there's still a huge, thriving underground community of gay people who just don't tell anyone. - And I just was like, oh, I don't want to be the gay guy from Gore. This is going to ruin my life. I moved to Auckland. I got a job on a show called Flipside. - Hello and welcome to Flipside. - I remember sitting in the car bawling my eyes out because I was like, oh, this amazing job. But then I was worried, because by then I had, you know` I'd had a relationship with a guy. I was keeping it secret, and I was really worried that my whole world was going to crumble. You know, people don't choose to be that way. They don't just sort of all of a sudden think, 'Oh yeah, cool, I'm going to be gay. 'I'm gonna be discriminated against all my life. That's the way I wanna live.' It doesn't work like that, you know, honestly, it just doesn't. I got really paranoid and worried about it. - Someone that is gay said if they could take a pill that would make them straight, they would, because being outside of society is` you know? - Yeah. - It's not` Yeah. - Would the radio audience like me if I was gay? And would the TV audience watch the programme if they knew I was gay? It forced me to sort of` It forced me further into the closet, I think. - Guess what. Jamie F asked me to marry him. - I do. Oh. What? I never felt like I needed to suppress my queerness. I felt like it was just innate in who I was. But then there's also the elements of, like, your privacy ` keeping your private life private. - That could be pretty major. - You reckon? People called us tomboys, you know. And we said, yeah, 'That's right. That's what we are. We're tomboys.' We never associated it with being lesbian; we'd never even heard the word. We went into the army for a little while. We were in the territorials. - That was sort of like lesbian finishing school. (LAUGHS) - It was the last WRAC Barracks in New Zealand. So it was 28 women all together, you know, learning to be soldiers and what have you. - It's like a pyjama party with guns. - Yeah. And, um` And so what happened was that, you know, we did our basic training, and then Jools and I finished our basic training, and then we were gonna go back home and take over the family farm. That's what we thought we'd always do. And Mum and Dad said, 'No, you're not.' We didn't know what the hell we were gonna do. - You right? - Yeah. (INTRIGUING MUSIC) - Oh, good one! (BOTH LAUGH) - We found the music scene in Christchurch at that time. - The Topp Twins' original music is often about their own lives. They sing about homosexuality, and people don't seem to mind. - BOTH: # And we get all our love and energy # from the lesbian community. # (DOG BARKS) (CLOCK TICKS) - No one's seen it yet, but hasn't everyone been talking about it? Express TV ` the new homosexual news and lifestyle programme that'll hit your screen tomorrow night. He's Andrew Whiteside. - And I want to make a difference for gay people. It was a late-night television show 10 years after law reform, and it was one of the first in the world. And it was certainly, I think, the first in the world that had ever been supported by government funding. Hi. Welcome back to Express Report. David's joined us. He's just been to Los Angeles for a trip. How was it? - Fantastic. And interestingly enough, I picked up the Gay & Lesbian Times. What else? And we've got a story in here. - Oh, look at that! - Yep. New Zealand` - READS: New Zealand government funds gay TV. - They don't have anything like it in the United States, believe it or not. - It's incredible. I noticed there that Saks are having a sale as well. - Andrew, please. - Control yourself, please. - In our peek from '99 to the end of 2004, we were pumping out 40 episodes a year. It garnered a huge reaction from people. - There are opponents who say a show like yours runs the risk of converting, perhaps young people, into a homosexual lifestyle. - This is the` I love this whole thing, because, all our lives, every media, every school, church, family is all trying to convert us into heterosexuality. And it simply failed and hasn't worked. I don't think you can convert people as far as sexuality goes. You can't sell a person their sexuality. Sexuality is something that's inside you. - I guess I was naive because I thought, 'It's been 10 years. 'We have these rights. Of course we should have television.' - But is New Zealand ready for it? You'll have your chance to have a say in a telephone poll we'll run immediately after this story. - I wonder why we need gay television. Do we need television for other people with different sexual preferences? - There are many who resent the idea. They phoned in with lines like, 'I'm sick of demands by one-eyed homos,' and, 'They have an unacceptable AIDS lifestyle.' - I don't think I was really prepared for the controversy that was generated by the show. It took me by surprise. The reactions, the questions, the vitriol. - Express TV, later renamed Queer Nation, wasn't primetime 7.30 telly. It was on late at night. Yet it still drew significant criticism from conservatives. If a queer show wasn't acceptable, even at 11pm, it sent a clear message ` being your true, authentic self could seriously jeopardise your career ambitions. - So when I came out as a singer, I was also coming out as gay. My record company were like, 'Come on, you're not` 'You can't tell anyone you're gay. 'You just don't. You're not gonna sell any albums if you tell people you're gay. 'It's not, um, conducive to success.' - But Anika's got no time for the trappings of success. That's not you, is it? - Um, I definitely don't find myself wanting to be a big superstar. (PENSIVE MUSIC) Uh, I had to lie, and I hated that, cos I hate lying. Um, I also hated my record company. I thought they were shitty people. - They took her to New York and said, 'We're gonna make a star out of you.' But I think they'd started telling her how she should dress and what kind of shoes she would wear. - Yeah, and how she should talk. - And I think she just, uh, you know, closed the suitcase and zipped it up and got on the plane and came home. - It took me a long time to figure out who I was as a person, and I just felt that people would judge me. You know, people judge me anyway. When this airs, people are gonna judge me, and that's OK. But, you know, I just` I had to find myself before I talked about it. And it's really no big deal. Everyone's like, 'So what? We already knew.' It's like, oh, well, why did I do it then? (CHUCKLES) Record companies just want one thing from you, and that's money. And they'll do whatever it takes to get that money from you, including telling you what to wear, how thin to be, what sexuality to be. And they're boring, and they don't deserve artists at all because artists are beautiful. - There was always paranoia, which probably wasn't healthy for the relationship. It was as simple as whether or not you went out to a concert together. It was when you were at a restaurant together. You started thinking, 'Oh, people might start working out what's going on here.' So I... I tried to avoid those situations, really, and a lot of missed opportunities, I guess, to bond with my partner a bit more, and to enjoy things, because there was always that fear hanging over your head that you were going to be outed. And Sunday mornings used to be the worst for me. There was a newspaper column every Sunday that liked, you know, to talk about who's going out with who. - You can be quite mean, though, Rachel, can't you? - Honest is how I see it. - Ironically, it's the first thing (LAUGHS) I read on a Sunday morning. Why? - Where am I?! - Am I in here this week? I was paranoid that I would be outed in the newspaper. It used to really freak me out, and I watched it happen to a few other broadcasters over the years. - You know, there was that sort of point in time where it was, like, people asking people to kind of come out. Which I was just always like, 'Well, we don't ask straight people, eh, to come out.' And it's sort of triggering and traumatic. - But, you know, I just didn't want to live my life like that any more, I think. You know, I wanted to be free. So, one day, I just woke up and went, 'Today's the day.' Well, I did a lot of thinking over the weekend, and I think, uh, the time is right. The time is right to come clean about a few things with you. I must admit, this is a very hard thing for me to talk about. Yes, Regan is a dude. I am gay. I don't need to hide it any more because I'm comfortable with who I am. I have brilliant friends and family around me, and I thought today was the day that I let you all know that. So I am sorry if it upsets some of you. Um, I'm sorry if it's, um, come as a bit of a surprise as well. Like, I was scared. I'd done something that I couldn't undo. There was no going back, and that` jeez, it scared me. You know, like, I bawled. I bawled all day. I was in, like, a ball. But also, I just` I think there was a, um` a real sense of relief as well. And I think it was a lot of` it was a lot of me just letting go, I think, and probably finally feeling comfortable with who I was. And I was, you know, in my 30s when I did it. It took a long time. - Seven years after Mike Puru left Edge Breakfast, I joined that same show for a bit. And I was very fortunate to never have to hide what gender my partner was. Working in radio ` that means sharing every single aspect of your personal life every day. And I don't know how Mike did the job while keeping that secret. I think he's certainly paved the way for someone like me to join the show later on by coming out, and I'm so grateful to him. - What they tell you is a lie. Me not being myself and being open and honest actually hindered my career, you know. And when I came out, it was amazing. It was just like I felt the love. I felt the success. I went on tour; I sold out everywhere. And I had my partner next to me, you know. Like, how amazing is that to have a well-rounded, beautiful love life and work life and just be you, be who you are? - People come up to me to this day that come up, and they go, 'Hey mate, I was in the car 'and listening to you when you came out, 'and I just wanted to say thank you because my son is gay, 'and because you had gone through your journey and shared it with me 'as a listener, I felt equipped 'to be able to understand it a bit more.' I hope as a side product of me dealing with my own trauma and trying to find me, if the spinoff was other people feeling a bit more comfortable about their situations, I will be very, very pleased it was a side effect of what had happened. I hope so. I hope it did make it easier. - # Fakapo 'oka malu efiafi... # - I know my name says Lewis on the roll, but I prefer if you called me Lisa, if that's OK. - I'm trying to help you. - You've been a man for, what, five minutes? - I've been a man my whole life. - Aotearoa's screen landscape has been gradually becoming more progressive. I mean, who would have thought that our diverse nation might wanna see some, you know, diversity on screen (?) - Lewis. - I think for our Pacific people, they've had third gender, trans people around them their whole life. We're in the churches; we're in your families; we're everywhere. So in the Pacific community, I think they really loved that there was a different brown story, and it was a perspective of a trans girl. And I think why it popped off also to, I guess, our other audiences is because there isn't enough stories about brown trans girls. - Real progress is when, not only do we have representation, like, in lead characters, but when we have it across the board, when we have it behind the camera, when we have it in the writers' room. It's about how we tell it and who's telling it. - I think I get it. Gender ` it's complicated. - Transaware isn't doing this. I am. - Get down. The Emmy was great for Rurangi. You know, the 1.6 million views on YouTube was great for Inky Pinky Ponky. We've always been trailblazing in this country, especially when it comes to kind of accurate storytelling or authentic storytelling. - Like, Double Parked, is like a great queer, broad show about two women raising two babies that are queer. And it's not necessarily the edgiest show of all time, or it's not going to speak to every queer person's experience, but, you know, for me, it's about being able to be queer in all the different ways that we're queer, not just pigeonholed into being queer best friend that's really sassy and fun. We still are that, and we can still be that. But for a long time, that was the only way we saw ourselves. - And it's not just hospital soaps and comedy panel shows. Queer visibility is also becoming more accepted in traditional spaces, like kapa haka. (CHEERING, APPLAUSE) - We went into Matatini with the intention to disrupt the atmosphere of the haka world, but more so the atmosphere of the Maori world and how Maori view our rainbow community. Myself and Tuhoe ` one of my very best friends ` we wanted to perform as our most true, authentic selves. Here's where it got tricky. We were either going to perform as tane, or we had to put a pari on and perform as wahine, which, in our sense, didn't also feel right too, because we don't identify 100% as a wahine. We don't identify fully as trans women, so actually, putting on a pari also felt ingenuine. So what we did was, to merge the two worlds, where we were able to wear our maro, which is the lower bottom, uh, traditional piece for our tane, as well as a long piupiu for our wahine to merge the two worlds. It's a bit of a touchy subject for some, because obviously it wasn't` it's not a stance ever seen on a Matatini stage, on a competitive stage. Oh, but let me tell you ` we see this on our marae. We see this everywhere else. But why can't we perform like this on the kapa haka stage? And that's the narratives that we also have to question and challenge our own community ` within te ao Maori. (CHEERING, APPLAUSE) - And I feel excited for queer people becoming more and more seen and represented in popular culture. And like, there's a lot of queer artists that are standing up for not only their queerness, but also, like, their political views and oppressed peoples in general, which just is... what our community's all about. - I remember one young man writing to me; he was 19. At the end of the letter, he said, you know, 'Please help me, Andrew.' And I just kind of think, you know, there were a lot of people who were cynical about Queer Nation, but I think about that young 19-year-old man in a rural beach town on his own and desperate. And that was what mattered. - We helped. We helped. And all of those people who went before us helped make it possible for young people now to stand up and say, 'I'm gay,' 'I'm queer,' 'I'm trans,' 'I'm whoever I want to be, and you have to accept me how I am.' And look, I know that there are people out there who've done that and they've been rejected by their families. - But you do have to remember that there is another family out there, and there's a gay family. - Yeah. - And you will always have some support from your gay family. Don't be scared to ask support from that gay family. They'll give it to you. They've all been through it themselves. - Like so many other queer entertainers in the public eye, I owe a debt of gratitude to those who came out before us back when people were telling them it would ruin their career. The pathway that led to someone like me being able to raise money for HIV and AIDS on a primetime show or dance with another man on TV was paved by all those who went before me. Today, it's no longer unimaginable to be queer and succeed as an actor, singer, comedian, director, writer, juggler, magician, celebrity dog trainer! You know, we really can do it all. However, progress is still being made to ensure accurate representation of our communities. (INQUISITIVE MUSIC) Captions by Jessie Puru. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air.