Issue 09 ✦ Flux

The News ✦

Kawe Pūrongo

14. I Don't Owe You Androgyny Bella Maresca

18. Being A GirlFlux: the mulletification of fran Francesca Pietkiewicz

22. Masculinity Is In Revolution Kiran Patel

26. Notes On Femininity Phoebe Robertson

28. A Masc Mask And A Feminine Facade: The Spectrum Of Androgynous Fashion Georgia Wearing

8

31. Aunty Vic

32. Ngāi Tauira

33. Fruit Salad

32. Teaspoonie

Puzzles ✦ Panga

10 Creative Space ✦ Auhua

About Us

Salient is published by, but remains editorially independent from, the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA).

Salient is funded in part by VUWSA through the Student Services Levy. Salient is a member of the Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA).

The views expressed in Salient do not necessarily reflect those of the Editors, VUWSA, or the University.

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Complaints regarding the material published in Salient should first be brought to the Editors in writing (editor@salient.org.nz).

If not satisfied with the response, complaints should be directed to the Media Council (info@mediacouncil.org.nz).

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Editorial

Deconstructing Social Construction

This century is the first time we’ve been able to admire everything at our fingertips. We can collect and consume a kaleidoscope of content displaying a variety of styles, decades, cultures, possible futures, and patterns between the past and present. Our brains have become Pinterest boards filled with content, combining ideas in a new visual context like never before.

It’s overwhelming and exciting. We can now see beyond our individuality and relate to others. Subcultures adjacent to the mainstream have always been present in society, but now they’re on display, normalised like never before.

Fashion has become one of the most gendered aspects of the modern world. Some people cannot wrap their head around feminine non-binary people, or even cishet men, in dresses. Our outward expression does not have to directly relate to our sex or gender identity. Women don’t owe you pretty, men don’t owe you macho, and non-binary people don’t owe you androgyny. Normalise they/them pronouns for everybody until you know for sure!

If you’re still lost, look at your wardrobe. Tell us about your accessories, what decades and styles are they inspired by—you’ll start to see the clash. A 70s penny lane coat, a 90s velvet slip, 80s chunky leg warmers, Y2K chunky jewellery, a 20s flapper bob, and 60s inspired makeup. By traditional conventions they shouldn’t go together, but in the 2020s, it’s an absolute fashion statement. A masc lesbian in a basketball hat and a ball dress might not make sense to you, but who the fuck cares. Let people explore and express gender how they want to!

This fashion fluidity, breaking the boundaries of presentation, is the first step toward embracing that we are all complex beings. We are not, and should not, be bound to societal constructs and conventions. This issue is about deconstructing the oldest social construction: gender. Every human, despite their genitalia, has masculine and feminine aspects to their expression and identity.

Connection to gender is not binary. Every being grows and transitions through themselves to find their authenticity. Whatever your identity might be— cis or not—this issue is a chance for you to interrogate gender and allow space for fluidity.

Imagine all the possible versions of yourself. Consider all of the inspirations, admirations, and dreams you have. What parts of yourself do you lock away, feeling as if you are trapped in one life path? What if you explored elements of every possible version of yourself and brought them together in a fantastically flux self expression? What does your life look like when you don’t limit yourself?

In this issue, Bella takes a break from designing to write about their enby journey, and the pressure faced by non-binary people to conform to a cis-normative perception of gender-nonconforminity. Fran dives into the discovery of Girlflux as her gender identity through mulletification. Kiran unpacks toxic masculinity, and looks at how queer people are revolutionising masculinity. Phoebe writes about her connection to femininity, despite presenting androgynous, and Georgia asks non-binary people how their fashion choices affirm their identity.

In the news section, Niamh exposes the changes underway at the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies. Ethan investigates why timetables have been fucked up by daylight savings, and Zoë unpacks how the National Party’s new policies affect renters. Elliot traces the return of disposable cups to VUW campuses, and Zoë talks to the newest club on campus: VUW Virgins.

Let’s break the gendered mould we use to perceive each body before we even interact. It’s time to let ourselves be fluid and free.

Good luck, and crash the CIS-TEM!

Salient is fuelled by:

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Welcome Back Breakfast

The university and VUWSA are putting on a free breakfast to welcome students back after the mid-Trimester break on Wednesday, 10 May, 8:30-10 a.m.

All students are invited to head to the Kelburn campus for breakfast in the Hub, outside the library entrance (where the microwave station is, near Louis’ café). A simple spread of toast, spreads, porridge, tea, and coffee will be provided until we run out.

Want to respond to something we’ve published in the magazine? Send the editors a letter at editor@salient.org.nz

Future Unstable for “Integral” Institute of Governance and Policy Studies

Words by Niamh Vaughan (she/her)

With potential redundancies on the horizon, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington is currently working through a consultation process around the future of the Institute of Governance and Policies Studies (IGPS).

After the IGPS was initially created in 1983, VUW was gifted $3 million by the Gama Foundation to support the institute, with an additional $7 million around 2015. After funding was suddenly removed in mid 2021, the School of Business have covered the costs of the institute until June 2023, while the IGPS searched for new funding outside the university. Currently, no funding has been acquired and the institute has been operating without a director for several months.

A consultation document leaked to Salient stated the “likelihood of securing the type of funding required to run IGPS in its current form is very low at this time.” Due to current financial restraints, the university has indicated they are unable to support the institute alone.

There are three proposed options for the future of the IGPS. First, in the unlikely event funding is secured, the institute carries on as is. Second, the IGPS is disestablished, with some of its activities relocated to other areas. Third, all IGPS and other related activities cease completely.

The loss of the institute would cause reputational damage to the university, creating a gap in the critical discourse on public policy in Aotearoa, an end to the publication of Policy Quarterly Journal, the dismantling of 32 Senior Research Associates, and job redundancies of two senior research fellows.

“There is an obvious responsibility [for the university] to engage with the policy community, and that includes the government of the day, Parliament, the public service, and all the other entities that contribute to policy making,” says Jonathan Boston, current emeritus professor at the School of Government, editor of the Policy Quarterly Journal, and former director of the IGPS (at the time known as the IPS) until his departure in 2014.

“If [VUW], as the main capital city university, cannot sustain an institute of high relevance, it speaks volumes. [...] It tells you that this university is failing to fulfil one of its critical roles and responsibilities,” Boston continued.

At the time of the institute's initial funding debacle in 2021, the postgraduate Governing for the Future programme, was initiated by the university. The IGPS consultation document cites the programme as one of the reasons for “change” to the institution. According to Boston, “The Governing for the Future project seems to be seeking to do almost exactly what the [...] IGPS [was] established to undertake."

It is Salient’s understanding that VUW decided to provide $300k funding annually, for two years, towards the Governing for the Future programme, this decision is reportedly under review due to the financial state of the university.

Eddie*, a current Policy student, told Salient, “The IGPS brings in great academics who then foster a really modern and world leading school at Pipitea campus. [...] I know many people, myself included, choose to study Policy, Politics, or Government at Vic because of the links it has to Parliament, government, and the public sector. IGPS is an integral part of that.”

Consultations on the IGPS will end on 10 May, and a decision document is to be released to the institution by 29 May. Implementation for

the decision will happen mid-2023, and if either the second or third proposed change model is accepted, the institute will close.

A statement from the university said that “while it is possible the IGPS as it exists now may change”, they are “open to ideas through the feedback process”.

“The university regularly reassesses whether its research centres are continuing to provide strategic value for the university and allocates internal funding accordingly,” the statement said.

“We’ve had the institute for 40 years,” said Boston. “It's done some very important work. It's the kind of institute that a university like VUW should have. And now, it's probably on its last legs.”

*names have been changed

Cup Confusion: The Flailing Auraki Returnable Mug Scheme

Words by Elliot Davis (he/him)

In February, the Te Herenga Waka Instagram account (@wellington_uni) proclaimed the uni to be single-use cup free. However, some students have noticed the reintroduction of single-use cups at Louis’, and those who choose iced beverages will also know that The Lab has always served these in single-use, plastic, takeaway cups.

The Auraki returnable cup scheme, which has been operating in its current form since 2020, aims to provide reusable cups on campus for those of us who forget our own keep cups. Since 2020, an estimated 2500 returnable cups have been provided to cafes. A small percentage, however, have not been returned, either breaking or ending up in flats. The Auraki mugs were both donated by staff and students and sourced from op-shops. This was intended to promote sustainability and use existing resources rather than creating new ones. The university estimates an incredible 200,000 single-use cups have been avoided through the use of the Auraki scheme. The day-to-day operation of the scheme is handled by the cafés themselves.

Salient spoke to a representative from Louis’ café, who explained that they have elected to reintroduce single-use cups. A decrease in the overall number of cups has meant less have been available for the cafés, which has rendered the Louis’ Auraki stand empty. The spokesperson for Louis’ said that it is their responsibility to collect the cups from the buckets and drop them off to their dishie at Milk and Honey, who washes and distributes them between the two shops. Their dishie has the responsibility of Milk and Honey dishes on top of this role.

Confusingly, it’s a different story when it comes to The Lab. When ordering an iced coffee, it is served in a plastic cup, with a rice flour straw. After Salient asked for a have-here iced coffee, they explained that the plastic cups are the only option, as the glasses are for hot drinks only. The Lab has other locations around Wellington, which do offer iced coffees in glasses. While the Auraki scheme could expand to include vessels for iced drinks, The Lab does have their own dishes and could relocate some of their glasses from their three other locations in town.

What seems to be the university’s flagship climate policy is failing cafés, students, and the environment. While students may miss having the option to get a reusable mug or glass on campus, what it seems to come down to is a lack of communication between cafés and the sustainability team on campus.

National’s New “Pro-Renter” Policy Slammed by Critics as “Cooked” and “Regressive”

Words by Zoë Mills (they/she)

The National Party has proposed to reinstate no-cause evictions for renters as part of a suite of rental reforms they are proposing as we head into a general election, citing the Labour Government’s "lack of support" to landlords as a cause.

The policy would allow landlords to evict tenants from their rentals without a formal reason. National has also proposed that fixedterm tenancy contracts would roll over into periodic tenancies instead. These changes were implemented by the current Labour Government in 2020 under the Residential Tenancies Amendment Act, as well as loosening the tax rules for landlords by reinstating interest deductibility.

National MP Chris Bishop has called his new policy a “progressive, pro-renters move”.

“The most fundamental problem in our rental market is that we don't have enough landlords, and we need more supply in the market,” Bishop told Salient. “That's why you've seen big rent increases in Wellington, alongside other parts of the country. […] This is about increasing the supply of rental properties to make it easier to get into a flat.”

Renters United have vocally opposed the proposed policy over the past week. Eimhin O’Shea, a spokesperson for the group, described the policy as “pretty cooked, to be honest”, and compared it to “pulling out from the bottom of a Jenga tower”.

“Rental prices are high because we don't have enough houses,” O’Shea told Salient “This [policy] destroys the rest of renters' rights, especially for the people that National claims [they are] helping […] like ex-prisoners or homeless people. […] It means that those people are actually much, much more vulnerable.”

As of March 2023, the Ministry of Social Development has reported that over 20,000

applicants were currently on the waitlist for social housing—a figure which has been steadily growing since 2018.

“Every single renters right is underpinned by security of tenure. You can't access or enforce your rights at all if there's a chance you can just get kicked out,” O’Shea says. “By bringing back nocause evictions, it destroys the rest of renters' rights.”

Concern also has been raised about how this will affect discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and sexual orientation for tenants. While Bishop maintained that discrimination is illegal under the Human Rights Act—“We're not proposing to change that at all”—it is unclear how this will be regulated if landlords are not required to give reason for an eviction.

Rental uncertainties are not new for Wellington students, along with the poor quality of housing failing the Healthy Homes Standards (Bishop confirmed the standards will remain under a National-led government). When asked if the policy would create more uncertainty for students, Bishop said he wants students to know that “we've got their back, that we want more rental properties in Wellington. […] We want more houses built in Wellington so that, ultimately, the power imbalance shifts away from landlords, and the power balance actually shifts in favour of students.”

However, Renters United remain unconvinced. “The notion that no-cause evictions could possibly be a good thing for renting is remarkable mental gymnastics,” O’Shea says.

“The reason it sounds like it doesn't make sense is because it doesn't.”

Daylight-Saving Whoopsie Causes Timetable Disaster

Words by Ethan Manera (he/him)

Classes have been incorrectly displayed on some students’ timetables for the last month due to a technical balls-up involving daylight savings.

Many students have reportedly missed lectures and tutorials, causing them to fall behind in their work, after the time shown on their myTimetable was an hour later than the actual time of their class.

Jacquelyn, a third-year student, missed a lecture due to her timetable displaying the wrong time. She said the university needs to “sort their shit out”.

“I thought my class changed and started at 4:10 but it actually started at 3:10.”

Jacquelyn said the lecture she missed included important material about an upcoming essay. “It was just annoying because it made me behind in the class [...] I just fucked my day around for no reason.”

“[The university] could've at least made it known to students that they were having issues with timetabling,” she said.

When questioned by Salient, a university spokesperson said the “Centre for Student Success was made aware of a timetabling issue on 3 April. [...] The issue was identified as resulting from the daylight savings change.”

“The vendor advised that an upgrade was required to resolve the issue and this work is underway (timing is still to be confirmed).”

“The university acknowledges the frustration this issue has caused for some students, but notes that the other tools used by the majority of students to view their timetables (Pūaha and myAllocator) are displaying the correct times.”

A spokesperson for VUWSA said they reached out to the university on 3 April after students had brought the issue to their attention. “The university said they'd be right on it,” they said.

VUWSA is urging students to contact their advocacy services if timetable issues have negatively affected study or submitting assignments, saying “our advocates are available for help on students' behalf. Email advocate@vuwsa.org.nz”

VUW Virgins Erect a New Club on Campus

Words

by Zoë Mills (they/she)

Anew club has been erected at the university: Victoria University Virginity Club (@VUWVirgin on Instagram).

Not yet a registered club, @VUWVirgin launched itself on Instagram with its first post on 18 April, which shared information about becoming a born-again virgin.

“We’re a mix of virgins, born again virgins, and virginity allies,” a spokesvirgin of the group told Salient. “We made sure to be as inclusive as possible so that all demographics would be able to contribute and feel welcome.”

“At Vic, we are exposed to a lot of positive sex discussion, and we realised a space was needed to uplift the students who don’t want to participate in sexual activities, or who just can’t get any.”

The Instagram account, which has now amassed a whopping 136 followers, posts a variety of pro-virgin content, as well as tips and tricks to upholding virginity.

In ‘5 Tips and Tricks to Protect Your Virginity’, the group shares helpful advice, including, “Wear cargo shorts or Hallensteins”. Another post, which advises ways that virgins can signal to others that they are a virgin, recommends hanging your university lanyard out of your pocket, as it “sends a clear message”. Other preventative measures include adding a “Saturdays are for the Boys” flag to your bedroom.

“Many people don’t know, or straight up ignore, the risks that come with sex,” the spokesvirgin told Salient. “With so many different sexual diseases, money-consuming babies, and a loss of purity, it should be more acceptable to want to abstain for sexual acts. Not only this, but it can also give you a sense of pride knowing you’re more in control of your urges than your sex-having peers.”

For students wishing to know more, the club recommended checking out their Instagram. “We post daily content promoting virginity positivity, tips and tricks, and soon we will be taking virgin of the week submissions.”

HEADLINE

MODELS AGAINST KARL LAGERFELD’S LEGACY

CW: Rape Culture

Monday, 1 May, was Met Gala day, this year exhibiting a controversial theme. Guests had to attend in fashion looks inspired by the late controversial Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld. On Sunday, 30 April, Model Alliance held a protest on the steps of the Met to show their disappointment. “The choice to honour Lagerfeld embodies the dissonance of an industry that claims to be progressive, that celebrates body positivity and survivors on the one hand, and then reveres figures like [Lagerfeld] without even acknowledging their regressive views,” Sara Ziff, the founder of Model Alliance, told media. Lagerfeld’s success is shadowed by “a long list of statements that could be viewed as racist, sexist, antisemitic, [pro-anorexia], and fat-phobic,”

Caroline Burke of Katie Couric Media writes. Largerfeld was reportedly “fed up” with the #MeToo movement, saying, “If you don’t want your pants pulled about, don’t become a model!”

CHIPPY AND LUXON TAKE TO CORONATION STATION

Prime Minster Chris Hipkins took National Party leader Christopher Luxon along with him on a trip to London. This vacay was focused around a special event for the Chrisses: attending the new King of England, Charles III’s, coronation last Saturday, 6 May. 2000 guests were invited, including rugby superstar Richie McCaw. The guest list has hit a significant decrease in numbers from Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953. As 2023 is an election year, Hipkins believed it was “important” to invite the opposition. Hipkins making an appearance at coronation directly contrasts his self identified “republican” views and hopes for New Zealand to become “a fully independent country”. Prior to the Coronation, Hipkins stated he would not be discussing this with Charles and would still swear a pledge of allegiance to the King. “[Becoming a republic is] not a priority for me. It's not something I intend to push,” he said.

HOT TAKES

The University is currently facing a $15M financial deficit. Instead of redundancies, how else could the university cut costs?

Lola

There’s probably a lot of things they could do in terms of electricity consumption. Like, I feel like the library uses a lot of power, they don’t need to have all of the screens on.

There’s a screen just across the way that only has a QR code on it. If they have timers set for the lights and stuff, it would be nice if they didn’t have to have that running all day.

Instead of cutting costs, I think they could reevaluate where they do a lot of their spending. For example, our fees are so expensive. You can definitely do something with those.

CHARGE THE STUDENTS MORE.

Re:

OPINION : Running Universities as Businesses is Killing Tertiary Education

Words by Jess Ye (she/her)

President of VUWSA, your Students' Association.

Last week, Otago University announced several hundred job cuts and a budget reduction of $60 million. This was due to a 0.9% drop in student enrolments compared to last year. Elsewhere, Massey is down 8%, Auckland is down 5%, and AUT is down 4%. Victoria University is facing a 12.1% drop in enrolments. The university hasn’t made any decisions regarding redundancies yet, but you can do the maths.

Whilst we can consider how universities could attract more students, it would be narrow-minded to ignore the larger picture. Since the 1980s, successive governments have upheld a broken financial model for tertiary education that fails universities and students. The hypocrisy of this is that many of our current MPs experienced the free, or very low, tuition of the pre-1980s tertiary education system.

The enrollment drop is an inevitable consequence of the neoliberal tertiary education reforms of the 1980s, when the government set up universities to operate as businesses and students as consumers. Since then, governments have consistently decreased funding to universities whilst the cost of education has been imposed upon students in a ‘user pays for the individual investment’ ethos. To get funding, universities must compete with other tertiary institutions for student enrollments.

In a cost of living crisis, less and less people are choosing university study. Having to work over 20 hours a week to pay for your shitty flat isn’t an enticing option for your future or wellbeing. Universities are competing for a diminishing pool of people who can afford to study. And when student numbers drop, even by 0.9%, universities are forced to make significant funding cuts that are incredibly detrimental to the quality of our education and the support services that assist us.

This is a volatile system where the stability of our education is left up to the free market rather than a safeguarded public good.

The cost of living crisis is especially awful now, but decades of normalised student poverty was always going to lead to diminishing student numbers. Universities will increasingly become institutions for the rich. This is problematic because universities nurture our next generation of critical thinkers. Without more diversity of lived experiences in universities, our nation loses out on having different knowledge reflected in the research, policies, and culture that shape us.

Our generation has grown up with normalised, if not glorified, student poverty and debt. Many of us feel like this student poverty and the failings of our tertiary education system is insurmountable. We feel that it always has been, and always will be, a mountain that we can’t move.

We can believe that an alternative world is possible. Our tertiary education system consists of a series of political choices made not that long ago (only in the 1980s). The worst part of this system is that it’s taken away our belief that we could have a right to better financial support from the government. We can have a universal student allowance and we can have free tuition.

Universal student allowance isn’t just about better financial support for you. It’s about the intertwined fate of tertiary institutions, our whānau, communities, and our future.

VUWSA’s campaign for a universal student allowance pushes for this change.

If you want to stay up to date with the campaign or get involved, go to: tinyurl.com/universalstudentallowance

ENBY-Us: Drag Too Hot for Any Binary

Words by Phoebe Robertson (she/her)

CW: Homophobia, Transphobia.

After TERF activist Posy Parker's visit to New Zealand, the current political climate has been volatile for queer people. Drag storytimes in Tāmaki Makaurau have been cancelled due to protestors. Both drag performaners and non-binary people are being outlawed in America. I was interested to see how, in Wellington, an exclusively non-binary-casted drag show responded to this. The answer? Sex, and a lot of it.

Produced by Neon Lux (@the_neonlux on Instagram), the ENBY-Us show at Ivy Bar on Saturday, 29 April featured performers Neon Lux, Fetishini (@fetishini_drag), Selina Simone (@the_selina_simone), Amoeba Geeza (@amoebageezer), Hysteria (@hysteriahhhhh), Slay West (@slay_west), Blink Bogan (@blinkbogan), and Allikins Jerome (@allikins_arts). While I will forever describe the venue as a sweaty, gay basement, the performers put their best foot forward to deliver the newest edition of Wellington’s longrunning non-binary drag showcase.

Performer Fetishini rose to the sexual prompt by appearing to the crowd in a gimp suit. In a high energy, sex packed performance, their persona was fully realised, with the act of appearing in a gimp suit nodding toward kink communities.

Amoeba Geeza’s best moment was when they revealed that the colours of the non-binary flag were taping their chest flat. This was met with a wide cheer from the audience in a moment of non-binary pride.

Blink Bogan was notable, as they came to the stage in a look that I can only describe as a ‘fuckable alien’. They performed to a high energy pop song that as Wellington Drag Performer of the Year, they are known for.

But if I had to say who won the show, it’d be the ever charming (if not slightly too caffeinated) Neon Lux.

They opened the show with a number involving balloons (my biggest fear), situating the audience at a gender reveal party. They also closed out the show with a lip sync to Mariah Carey’s ‘Obsessed’. The number was campy, classy, and a leading encapsulation of what the show was all about.

In response to the current political climate, performer Slay West’s number directly called out anti-trans figures. It featured them ripping up printed pictures of people such as Posie Parker and JK Rowling.

After Allikin Jerome’s performance, they addressed the audience and gave a short speech about the #19FiredUpStilettos movement. Their number is worth mentioning too—they were truly the definition of subverting gender stereotypes. They had painted themself a masculine face, and were wearing a silicone male gym rat-esque chest plate, a latex skirt, hat, and pleasers with red lipstick. The combination of masculine and feminine features left the audience looking at something truly gender non-conforming, and the sexual tone of the performance worked well to complement this.

The night was truly a showcase of non-binary excellence. It was a welcome contrast to what Western media often portrays drag to be. We often see cis men dressing up as hyper-feminine or sexualised women, such as in RuPaul's Drag Race, which features drag queens that exclusive perform glamour and femininity with a majority cis, white, male cast. A discussion I once had with a friend was about how you can tell when a performer respects the gender or subject that they’re portraying. In this respect, love and joy was clear to me at ENBY-Us.

It seemed the crowd was responding to this difference too. ENBY-Us had an affirming crowd that truly wanted the performers to do their best. And the performers certainly did just that. If you’re interested in keeping up to date on this show, and others like it, follow the show’s producer, Neon Lux, on social media.

Mandate is Hardcore Man

Words by Sibel Atalay (they/she)

Mandate’s Instagram handle tells us all we need to know: @mandate_otepoti_hardcore.

I can confirm that the self proclaimed “fastcore punk” band from Ōtepoti plays fast, and are punks! I lost both my Newtown Sports Bar and Mandate virginity the night of Friday, 21 April.

Walking into Newtown Sports Bar felt like going back in time. Old punks with mohawks played pool against blokes wearing Huffer t-shirts. There were the eclectic dressed women, and the artsy queers in the back. A scene of unity.

After a solid game of darts and a guy offering me a sip of his beer, I put my earplugs in, readying myself to swim in pure noise.

I was drowned by a wave of energy, even from the back where I sat on a barstool. The crowd swarmed to the front of the stage as the noise began. From the height I was at, the mosh pit looked like a whirlpool, with bodies being sucked into the eye of the storm and spat out the other side. I must say, t was a well-oiled professional mosh pit.

Lead singer/screamer/mouth noise maker and manager of AS Colour Dunedin, Simon Oswald, has been in the Ōtepoti scene a wee while. His old band, Parents, were a mainstay of the New Zealand hardcore scene, and were always a crowd favourite. Though they haven’t released any music since 2014, their influence on Mandate is obvious. It is no surprise that Mandate’s somewhat tighter approach to hardcore feels true to its roots.

Oswald has been an inspiration to many Ōtepoti noise bands such as Night Lunch, Crime Hospital, Dale Kerrigan, and new on the scene, Fairuza. It is important to acknowledge his history, as this scene is so rooted in community. But back to the gig.

I’d heard the gig would be finished at 10 p.m. But it was 9:45 p.m. when the noise began. True to the hardcore genre, every song was short and punched you in the face. The drummer was a force to be reckoned with. There were songs ranging from 300-400 BPM pretty much non-stop, with some half times thrown in there to bring the crowd back to earth again. I couldn’t overlook the bassist driving the songs through my chest. The guitarist played hard and fast whilst remaining synchronised with the other musicians. And of course, Mr Frontman was there to balance everything out. I was taken to another dimension, one fueled by energy, community, and eternal rage (in the best way possible).

What I was most surprised about was the diversity of the crowd. Yes, it was predominantly male dominated. But it’s interesting that a scene so rooted in macho culture has bloomed into a pretty inclusive community. Punk is not dead, but sparking a new conversation. One performed by those who do not conform. Isn’t that what punk is about anyway?

CW: Fatphobia, Disordered Eating, Suicide, and Gender Dysphoria.

Bella means ‘beautiful’ in Italian. I used to resent my parents for giving me such a feminine name, as though they were dooming me to a life of hyper-femininity.

In revolt, I developed a ‘not like the other girlies’ mentality, desperately wanting to be unique. Extremely isolated and confused, I just felt so different from the other girls, even when I had so much in common with them.

Growing up, I loved fairy dress-up in all of its glittering frills. I perfected a winged eyeliner at age 11. I spent my days obsessively reading One Direction fan fiction, and my nights wondering how I could transform myself into a mystical wizard akin to Howl from Ghibli’s Howl’s Moving Castle

So what made me so different?

In 2021, I ‘officially’ came out as non-binary, but conscious questioning of my identity started in my early teens. For me, 2013 was a year of analysing the absurdity of the gender binary. It began with my introduction to high school, at an all-girls school. I didn’t have many friends. A group of girls bullied me, coining me the ‘creepy lesbian’ because they noticed how I would anxiously look away when we shared an awkward, semi-naked glance.

But I wasn’t looking at them. I was deeply ashamed of the hyper-sexualisation of my suddenly pubecent female body. I constantly compared myself to the girls around me. I was jealous of their small chests. Already a C cup at age 12, I struggled through PE class, my chest causing me immense pain. Puberty hadn’t hit them the way it hit me. Our school’s uniform accentuated all the parts of my body that I hated.

I was the ‘curvy girl’; I was the DUFF (Designated Ugly Fat Friend). A boy in intermediate once called me this and it’s stuck with me forever. Body image issues had become a recurring character in my life, and I was using disordered eating to gain a sense of control. What I didn’t realise back then was that the issues I had with my body were so much more than how much I weighed. It was gender dysphoria.

After six months of harassment and discomfort, I chose to move to a co-ed school. In Year 10, I had a friend come out to me as a trans girl. At the time, I didn’t have the greatest understanding of what that meant, but I connected so much with the feelings of deep discomfort she described.

Then came 2014 Tumblr. I was in the peak of my ‘normal people scare me’, The 1975, black and white photography, softcore porn, American Apparel tennis skirts, and romanticised eating disorders era. I ran an ~aesthetic~ music blog and used the hashtags on my reblogged posts like they were my journal:

#matty healy is so hot and so sad #god i wish i looked like this #think i might just end it all

Though Tumblr was toxic, it provided me with more of an education on gender identity and sexuality than any school I ever attended. I watched as GoFundMe posts for gender-affirming healthcare circulated my dashboard, and followed a 19-year-old trans-masc cosplayer like they were The Chosen One. This was when I started to connect with the idea of being genderqueer.

Words by Bella Maresca (they/them)

I still didn’t have the right words to describe my identity. All I knew was that I wasn’t a girl, and something needed to change.

Fawn became my new name and I changed my pronouns to they/she/he on my blog’s bio. After school, I would come home and bind my chest with a sports bra that was way too small, put all my hair up into a beanie, and open Photo Booth to take pics of myself ‘looking like a boy’. Then, I’d post them on my blog and send them to my internet friends saying “wouldn’t i be a hot boy? :o”. My Tumblr felt like my safe space—so many people shared the same experiences as me! But that safe space quickly went away when I started to receive death threats and anonymous messages targeting my identity. In the words of anon, I was a ‘mentally ill freak’, and should ‘do everyone a favour’ and kill myself. So I changed my name and pronouns back to she/her.

It wasn’t until 2021 that I felt comfortable exploring my identity again. In the last year of my design degree, I had just moved in with both my first long-term boyfriend and Rune*, the only non-binary friend I had ever made outside the internet. One day, Rune and I were out getting coffee, and I told them that something just felt off in my life. I felt like I was never truly myself with anyone, especially my boyfriend. I thought the discomfort in my relationship was less about him, and more about how much I hated being the girlfriend. “I don’t want to be his girlfriend, but I still want to be with him. I just want to be loved how boys love boys. But I don’t want to be his boyfriend either. I just want to be his person. What do you think that means?” I asked. “Well… how are you feeling in your identity?” No one had ever asked me that before. “Maybe it’s not about being his girlfriend, maybe it’s about being a girl.”

Not long after that I came out as non-binary to my boyfriend and close friends.

It was fucking scary. I was living in Dunedin. All of my friends, other than Rune, were cis and straight. When I came out to my boyfriend, he was confused about what it meant for me, but also about what it meant for his sexuality and identity. Apparently, he just “didn’t really see it”, whatever that means. It felt like no one believed me or took my identity seriously. It felt like nobody supported me. I have never experienced imposter syndrome quite like I did during that time.

I quickly went into problem solving mode. How could I make people believe me? How could I change the way everyone perceived me? The first thing I did was give myself a haircut with the kitchen scissors. It was very short and very bad. I hated it. It didn’t feel like me, but I did it anyway because I thought people would view me as more androgynous. I had reverted back to my 13-year-old self, putting on a costume. But this time, I wasn’t exploring. Instead, I was placating those around me, making my identity more palatable to those who refused to see me.

Despite my efforts, people still weren’t able to get my pronouns right. Growing tired of the lack of respect, I decided it was time to change my name. I was convinced that this was some sort of ‘non-binary rite of passage’ and it had to be done. I had to let go of all the baggage that comes along with a birth name. After a couple months of Google searching ‘non-binary names’ and sifting through my music library, I landed on the name Nico. I was inspired by my love for The Velvet Underground and comforted by the fact it sounded about as Italian as Bella. Unsurprisingly, people started getting better with my pronouns. They were taking me more seriously, introducing me as Nico. My boyfriend started consistently calling me his partner.

I felt a post-name change high for about six months before it hit me. I didn’t even like the name Nico. I was trying to live up to a cisnormative idea of what being non-binary means. I realised I’d stopped myself from exploring femininity, when ultimately I loved how feminine expression made me feel. So despite fearing an ‘I told you so’ moment with my family, I changed my name back to Bella.

In 2022, my relationship ended and I moved back to Pōneke. Finally, I started to focus on myself wholeheartedly. I came out to my parents, my grandma, and my big sister, and stopped trying to carefully curate myself. I did the things I had been too scared to do. I grew my hair out and dyed it Hayley Williams-orange, got a septum piercing, and started wearing whatever I wanted to, without thinking about what little box a stranger on the street would put me into. My style felt like a big ‘fuck you’ to the world for making me feel like I had to look a certain way to be respected as gender non-conforming.

I freed myself from the expectations of others, opening up to building relationships with people who genuinely respected and supported me. There was no longer space in my life for those who refused to adjust their perception. I discovered I would never feel authentically myself if I was constantly seeking out validation from others. Being misgendered or perceived as a woman by strangers was something I had to stop caring so deeply about in order to know myself, because that’s all that really matters. The people who love and respect you will see you as your true self, without making you compromise or sacrifice parts of your identity for their convenience.

I’m not telling you to stop correcting people when they misgender you. Please, never stop doing that. But if I could go back and give the 2021 version of myself any words of wisdom, I would tell them to just care a little bit less about what everyone else thinks. I know it’s not easy, but try. Don’t overthink it. Wear whatever you want to wear. Someone’s inability to adjust and grow is not your problem. Their misunderstanding of you is not a reflection of who you truly are. Let yourself just exist and be free from those who likely aren't even worthy of knowing your most authentic self.

It’s taken years, but I’ve finally gotten to a place of knowing that I can dress like a whimsical fairy, experiment with graphic eyeliners, obsess over the idea of a One Direction reunion, and still be non-binary. I am Bella, I am beautiful, and I am still not a woman. I can be whoever the fuck I want to be, and so can you.

So, younger self, you were right about one thing. You, most definitely, were not like the other girls. You have simply never been a girl.

*names have been changed

the mulletification of fran

“I think AFAB [assigned female at birth people] are not given the right to exist as identities, period. There is still so much patriarchy and misogyny… masking is bowing to conformity. And sticking to the gender binary is a kind of conformity, too. I honestly didn’t know I had a choice not to mask—not to fit.” - Brandy

Schillace

At Christmas, my boyfriend’s cousin says that having to cut her hair into a mullet would be the worst thing ever. Everyone laughs. I sit awkwardly and think about my own outgrown, shaggy layers, filled-in bleached eyebrows, and flipped-up septum. This is the mask I’m wearing to feel somewhat blended in here.

Business in the front, party in the back. The mullet is a metaphor for fluidity. It appears completely different from every angle.

When I was 3, I impulsively kitchen-scissor-cut a chunk out of my hair. I took a jab at one of my dolls’ hair too, giving her a pixie, mullet-esque bob. I had never seen my mum more upset. I guess we were meant to have perfect, long, un-scruffy, unrugged hair. Since that point, I always had a weird relationship with my hair. At 10, I went to the hairdresser, and got it done super short to match my Pokèmon cards and baby-masc outfits. I loved it, but I felt more obviously out of place. I let it grow out until I was 12. Long hair is less obtrusive.

Growing up, my brother was more feminine. This made me way more aware of my masculinity. With five years between us, I admired him and his teenage exploration. He explored drag and I admired his artistic take on makeup—vibrant compared to the 2010s foundation smack and charcoal tight-lined eyes.

Despite being AFAB, I’ve known from a very young age that I was inherently more masculine in personality than feminine. ‘Girly’ things were too much, and as a child, I had become a lil mini pick-me who wanted to hang out with the boys. I gender-bent myself snapping webcam pics, astonished. It was so easy to look ‘cool’ as a boy. But I didn’t want to be a boy, I just didn’t like how conventionalised and restrictive femininity was. Young Fran was aware of the sexualisation of femininity and it gave her big-boy ickkkkk.

At 14, I got terf bangs—an unconventional, tiny bread loaf of a fringe. Dressed in mustard yellow and stripes, hopeless for a Kanken bag, and obsessed with Copic markers was the most queer-coded teenage Fran got. I found the word nonbinary when admiring a post of ‘androgynous’ people. Model and activist Rain Dove immensely wowed and immediately confused me. I changed my pronouns to she/they on Tumblr. I was just following in the footsteps of my other ‘art hoe’ and ‘plantbabi’ online friends, continually changing back from she/they to she/her and back again.

The first thing I ever came out as was ‘fluid’. ‘Fluid’ seemed less scary. I would have come out as the equally ambiguous ‘queer’, but I enjoyed the idea of fluidity and the embrace of change—something I was beginning to accept in my early teens as I experimented.

At 15, I forgot about fluidity and followed my friend Mia into a boy-obsessed, K-pop phase. I cut my fringe like a K-drama actress. I liked it more—it was softer, maybe even a bit sultry. Everyone at school seemed deep into teenage experimentation, and I needed to pick up the pace. I started to nudge myself into cutesy-style cis femininity. My face had thinned off a bit of baby fat and I got myself a $5 eyeshadow palette from The Warehouse. I applied the pink shade with my finger and dosed my eyelashes with my (previously forgotten and expired) mascara. This was the way forward, toward the next correct teenage step: acquiring a boyfriend.

Words by Francesca Pietkiewicz (she/they)

By the end of 2017, I had started and ended a relationship with my first boyfriend, wasn’t a virgin, had been drunk, experimented with my sexuality, and then immediately after decided I was straight. I’m not straight.

In late 2020, after a year of being subdued alt and normal-coded, colourful clean girl-esque, I had been forced by a friend onto the platform I deemed most cringe: TikTok. Every gal and AFAB enby on the platform seemed to be cutting their hair into a shag. I took to the scissors once again. It felt like a type of safety-skin shedding I didn’t quite understand. It was exciting. My 2021 was the year of the shag. Each day warranted another snip more and more toward mulletification. I realised my unconventional, Phoebe Buffay style was akin to the chaotic fashion gals on TikTok, and gave up trying to clean up the texture clash and colour mess of my expression.

Over the 2021-22 summer, I cut my choppy layers into the shortest bob I’ve ever had. It was very French and very chic paired with picnic-style frills, but also very masc vibes with a tank top Dickies and Dunks look.

I found the word ‘Girlflux’ in 2022. It was a hashtag on a TikTok of a femme-presenting person in coquette style, with a pixie mullet akin to my dolls. I researched and it clicked.

“Girlflux refers to a gender that falls under the broader category of genderflux…someone who feels mostly, or fully, feminine most of the time but may also experience fluctuating femininity and intensity of their female identity.”- PsychReel.com

This was me!

“The box for ‘woman’ doesn’t quite fit. Once I saw that me— as me—was perfectly fine, gender-wise, then I was able to embrace other things that didn’t ‘fit the boxes’,” says Brandy Schillace, a non-binary and autistic writer and historian, and editor of the BMJ Medical Humanities journal.

Brandy hadn’t heard of “the term ‘Girlflux’” but related intensely to my experience. Brandy identifies as non-binary, but still is connected to her femininity and prefers she/her pronouns. “Physically, I have the female/androgyne model, I just never connected that up to gender.” Brandy speaks to me about her experience discovering the word ‘non-binary’. “I thought ‘hey, is that what I am?’ The minute I asked that question, loads of people came to support me. It took me a while to realise I hadn’t changed at all—the world had.”

When I realised non-binary was a spectrum I was on, I did all the things I had been way too scared to do. I bleached my hair in unconventional chunks and panels, and got it chopped into not just a shag, but a mullet. Being non-binary gave me permission to warp femininity and accept my individual fluidity. I can express my masculinity and still be a ‘she’ 70% of the time. I can allow my expression to move between the spectrum of masc and femme, as I switch, mix, and match between 70s, 90s, Y2K, and 2010s fashion elements.

In my own way I’ve always been feminine and loved it. It was the fluctuation of the ways I wanted to share it with the world that felt alien. This otherworldly, unconventional, messy masc gal femme-ness is what I love most about myself. My expression is flux and fragmented of all the aspects of gender forming the business in the front, party in the back, beautiful blob of sparkly slime, Sims 2 ailen lady that is me—a non-binary (Gungy) gurl.

MASCULINITY IS IN Revolution

CW: Transphobia, Sexual Assault, and Gender Dysphoria.

The idea that masculinity is in crisis seems like a paradox. How exactly can something that is historically degenerative be in crisis?

This statement alone may entice you to flip over the page, disconcerted with yet another attack on men, the people you look up to, and the online spaces you access. I get it. A lot of the time, critique of the microcosms that help a lot of predominantly cis, straight men feel seen in their masculinity can be exhausting. It might even seem like these detractors direct the same anger and vitriol towards men that we see directed towards women and queer folk.

But that’s not what this piece is about. Toxicness and masculinity have become so symbiotic that it’s hard to know where one starts and the other begins. While it may seem regressive, I do have a lot of sympathy for young, cis boys who believe that they need to be toxic in order to be masculine. In my own journey, and discovering how I fit into society as both queer and Indian, I recognise that I’ve also become enveloped into safe echo chambers that validate my non-normative identity and worldview. I forget how, at one point, deeply misogynistic and queerphobic rhetoric was fitted into my lens of the world. As a teenager at an all-boys school, I preferred to give in to the onslaught of ‘FEMINIST OWNED!!!’ compilations I saw online, dismissing criticisms of systems that I didn’t understand in order to prop up my own fragile masculinity.

Learning and exploring the ways our systems have historically protected male privilege can be fucking confronting. It can feel like a personal attack, as though there’s a pitchfork-wielding mob waiting right outside your door to tear you down for historical problems beyond your jurisdiction. But it’s not. In fact, as writer Pankaj Mishra puts it, it’s a gateway to recognising that the prestige of traditional masculinity we’ve been incited to safeguard is, in fact, a “history of a fantasy”. Beyond that, it provides an opportunity for us to reconfigure masculinity as we’ve known it into a healthy component of the future.

So where exactly do these ideas of masculinity begin to permeate? You might think it’s from young adulthood. But, actually, it begins in the womb. Egregious gender reveal parties over-using blue or pink confetti set the tone for the gender expectations you’ll be expected to perform for the rest of your life. You’re given monster trucks to play with instead of Barbie dolls. You’re encouraged to let your boyish angst out on the football field rather than expressing yourself in a ballet class. Your rough-andtumble, aggressive nature is validated by a ‘boys will be boys’ mentality that assures your parents of a strong, fixed manhood to come. To be complicit in masculinity is to be devoid of femininity. Playing with dolls or dressing up is inherently linked with weakness—a detraction of the ‘innate’ strength derived from your masculinity.

For many, gender dysphoria often arises within the conflict between the external world that your gender is expected to conform to, and your individual, internal world telling you something’s not clicking. For Seren, a trans man, it was a “big looming thing in my brain not being fulfilled. I realised I’d rather be perceived as an ugly man than a pretty girl.” Similarly for Fran, a girlflux, non-binary person, “being overly feminine presenting felt wrong on me... in character and self expression. I always felt more comfortable acting typically masculine.”

Rather than absorbing expectations of new gender roles, this introspection allowed both Seren and Fran to see the rigidity of gender expression in our society more generally. As philosopher Judith Butler found, gender is what you do, not who you are. It’s real only to the extent that it’s performed and is tied to others' perception of you, rather than your innate being.

That’s not to say that labels, like gender, can’t be helpful tools for people to understand themselves. However, the social conditioning of ‘what it means to be a man’ and ‘what it means to be a woman’ creates confusing checkboxes of things you have to be to fulfil a narrow gender performance. For Willem, a transmasc, non-binary person, his confusion towards his gender identity came from still “enjoying femininity, like dressing up and wearing makeup, but having intense dysphoria [in being perceived as a girl].”

Words by Kiran Patel (he/they)

Gender can be a barrier in allowing both your masculine and feminine energies to be present and act in fluidity. Society has deemed masculinity and femininity as mutually exclusive through gender— turning what is simply a biological difference between the male and female sex into a bogus cultural warfare between two ‘opposing’ genders. Fran observed the exaggerated polarities that often go hand-in-hand with these gender expressions. “Traditional masculinity is being strong and staunch, emotionless. Traditional femininity is a performative, porcelain-polished presentation. Both of these traditions are toxic and don’t allow for the human individual to be fluid, which I think is part of our nature.”

The metaphorical belief that men are from Mars and women are from Venus isn’t new. The discourse itself is influenced by religious dogma about the ‘natural’ differences between sexes, but neither are actually based on any scientific evidence. Society, in turn, has continued to weaponise this phoney belief and entrench us in icky binaries that are more harmful than helpful. They make it feel like our planet will spontaneously combust if an assigned male at birth (AMAB) person decides to wear a skirt, or an assigned female at birth (AFAB) person cuts their hair short. This make-believe dichotomy even stretches to medical practices, where Willem and Seren found that exaggerating their adherence to stereotypical masculinity was the only way for doctors to reconcile with their transmasc identity: “You really only get one shot to convince them, so we all learn what to say. You’re just appealing to the parts [of masculinity] that they’ll understand.”

Given that gender is a social construct, and masculinity and femininity act in fluidity, where exactly does the toxicity primarily associated with masculinity stem from? The answer? Patriarchy.

The patriarchy is defined as a social system in which positions of dominance and power are primarily held by men. While for many the solution is to simply elect a woman as president, or chuck more Girlbosses™ onto the board of directors, this quick-fix lacks the nuance to highlight how patriarchal ideals, and the inherent pedestaling of traditional masculinity, seeps into every nook and cranny of our lives.

It can be difficult for cis men to know what the patriarchy looks like in reality, but I reckon that actually speaks to the invasive invisibility that the patriarchy has held in our colonial consciousness. There’s an immediate assumption that everyone has the same Western, neo-liberal agenda as white men, and that using patriarchal tools of power, control, and ownership is the only pragmatic way in which a society could possibly function.

Because power, control, and ownership are fundamental for the patriarchy in maintaining control of our social hierarchy, they’ve been codified as elemental male qualities that must be preserved and upheld. Gym bros and Men-with-Podcasts perpetuate myths of primitive manhood using biological pseudo-science (for example, that men are naturally strong, instinctually hypersexual, born leaders) that protects their privilege to be violent, abusive, and free from criticism.

Interestingly, masculinity is only recognised for its toxicity when cis men are not the benefactors of it. The fear through which vitriolic hatred is directed towards the anatomy of trans women is seemingly a transphobic Freudian slip for the public’s fear of masculinity more generally.

In turn, the patriarchy ties traditionally feminine qualities— such as softness, sensitivity, and emotionality to weakness, which is incompatible with the functionality of our systems. This belief in femininity as weakness has worked itself so deeply into our collective psyche, that Jaz, a non-binary person, feels “performing femininity [in a patriarchy] always feels like you’re making a radical, political statement.”

Through the patriarchy’s handywork, masculinity has been historically deemed as the highest form of social currency. And yet, with a greater social consciousness of its toxic repercussions, traditional masculinity is no longer the prized jewel of our society. In light of our current zeitgeist that has been witness to the #MeToo movement, Trump’s presidency, and our deeply-rooted rape culture, the ramifications that masculinity has had on real people is evidence of its fallability. We’ve seen that it can be controlling. We’ve seen that it can be abusive. We’ve seen that it can be violent. We’ve realised that masculinity doesn’t actually warrant the esteem we’ve been piously taught to heap onto it. Masculinity, as we’ve experienced it, has been a devastation.

For many cis men, this realisation can be debilitating. As Alex, a cis man, compares, “Masculinity has always been like a parachute that you can fall back on. You have this identity that’s built in and the world caters to it. There is safety in that. But now the parachute is gone. And they have to do this work [on themselves] that they’ve never had to do before, which can seem too scary.”

Masculinity was gifted to cis men. It's the privilege of normativity. Generations of men before them have been grounded in their sense of rightness and certainty, in a belief that the patriarchy has worked tirelessly in making the rest of us cosign to it. Suddenly, however, we’re being shown alternative expressions of masculinity (through mostly AFAB and queer people) that don’t need to be soaked in ego in order to be valid. Cis men are simply being asked to do better.

Fran believes that the protectiveness cis men hold over traditional masculinity is embedded by their own insecurity. “When non-conforming people challenge [traditional] gender expression, they can’t understand why people would want to change it. I think it's confronting because they’ve always felt insecure in their identity, and deep down [they] hate that they don’t get that same opportunity to explore or accept themselves fully and authentically.”

On one hand, it’s easy enough to sympathise with young boys who get caught up in online think tanks that validate their insecure identity while spreading hatred towards those that oppose its toxicity. On the other hand, it’s frustrating to continually give grown men a pass in reconfiguring their toxic beliefs. This privilege they are rewarded with is work that queer identities have had to do for decades—out of survival rather than choice.

But this conundrum presents a more complex question. If the only masculinity we’ve known is one that is destructive, what’s left standing once we’ve unglued it from its toxicity? What does a healthy masculinity look like when it's not entrenched in the patriarchy?

For Willem, it begins with seeing masculinity in its neutrality. “Society’s perception of masculinity is so tied up in binaries. It’s either demonised or celebrated, which I think can also be quite toxic. It should just be.” For Jaz, expression of their masculinity and femininity is treated “like the weather”. “If I’m feeling a feminine energy that day, I’ll dress femininely. If I feel like dressing more masculine, I’ll do that too. I’m not doing it based on anyone's perception of me. I think [positive gender expression] comes down to trusting your identity and doing what feels right for you.”

Expanding on this, Maddi, a cis woman, believes that expressing masculinity should come from a place of authenticity rather than insecurity. “When AFAB people express masculinity, they’re not wielding it to oppress others. They’re not trying to gain respect from other men or dominate women. You can still be strong and protective, and that’s great, but you’re not doing it to gain power over other people.” Willem also stresses the need for cis men to detach their preciousness around masculinity from criticisms of its toxicness. “When people are trying to take down the patriarchy, rape culture, and abuse against women—you need to see that that’s not an attack on your masculinity. That’s an attack on violence.”

Given the ‘special brand’ of masculinity that exists in Aotearoa, it can be difficult to reconcile the wide variety of non-conforming masculinity we see with the rugbyloving, DIY, jeans-and-t-shirt style we’re expected to froth over. Beyond self-expression, our fundamental hatred for tall poppies leaves us with a culture deprived of any self love. Within the patriarchal illusion, Kiwi men are trained to remain stoic in the face of emotionality, pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and fiercely protect their masculine autonomy to the detriment of themselves.

For Alex, rectifying this impassiveness created an individual masculinity that's rooted in empathy and vulnerability. “It’s empathy towards other people and their lived experiences, but also for yourself, your younger self, things you might’ve gone through, things you don’t quite understand. I think if you work to understand other people a bit better, you also understand yourself a bit better.” Alex also emphasises the sensitivity of masculinity that often sits beneath the toxicity. “I think traditional masculinity often characterises men as being the sort of ‘distant breadwinner’ in their family, which obviously isn’t healthy. But there’s a protecting and providing aspect of that that must come from a place of love; a deeply caring, and self-sacrificing aspect that shows sensitivity to others. I think there’s a way to be more vulnerable with that sensitivity in the same way it's seen in femininity.”

From the outside, the journey of finding your masculinity beyond its toxicity may seem like it consists of a quick trip to therapy and profound realisations absorbed through osmosis. But self-discovery isn’t a competition, it’s just about your willingness to do the work. It’s a continuously messy, magnificent, non-linear clusterfuck of unlearning, relearning, and unlearning over and over again.

Opening yourself up to new perspectives beyond your socialisation means questioning absolutely everything you’ve ever been taught—even whether the sky is blue and the grass is green. Figuring out who you are can be incredibly exhausting. But it's also gratifyingly beautiful. You slowly learn that the earth doesn’t swallow you whole when you decide to wear nail polish one day, or talk about your feelings with the bros. You learn to open yourself up to the fluidity of your self-expression and let it guide you. You learn to remove the anxiety and fear of not being man enough, and trust your own instincts on what feels right.

Masculinity isn’t in crisis, it’s in recovery.

To quote Fran, “masculinity is in revolution”.

“ When people are trying to take down the patriarchy , rape culture , and abuse against women —you need to see that that’s not an attack on your masculinity . That’s an attack on violence . ”

Words by Phoebe Robertson (she/her)

for Ken

Ihosted a party the other night, and prior to it, a flatmate asked me if I was binded. The general consensus from my friends at the party was to use they/them pronouns for me even though I had never once asked them to.

It feels inherently invalidating, when, hooking up with someone, they tell me they use exclusively they/them pronouns for me. Sometimes, I want to yell that just because I present masculine does not mean I lose all of my femininity or connection to being a woman. Let me be clear from the start—I enjoy she/her pronouns and I connect to them.

But if I had a dollar for every time I’d been mistaken for a man, I’d be able to fund an ever-growing number of top surgeries for transmasc people. While my androgyny may be a goal for non-cis people, it is simply a part of my life. And, to be completely honest, a very uncomfortable one.

To me, my femininity is everywhere. I wear it in the way my hair curls, in the way I kiss my friends goodbye and hold their hands in public, in mirror selfies and polaroid cameras on date nights. I see my femininity in the way my hands shake when I touch the person I love. I see it in tenderly tucking my hair behind my ear and my boss telling me for the millionth time to remember a hair tie. It’s in the softness of my skin, and the hills and gullies that my curves and bones make when looking in the mirror. I don’t see my femininity in one dimension or appearance. It’s something so tightly connected to my identity that one cannot exist without the other.

In saying all that, I can’t help but think that this essay won’t be what a lot of people expect it to be. Because when a friend told me to download Grindr for hookups, I told them that if I did, the Wellington queer community would just assume I came out as trans, not just that I’m looking for hookups.

Yet, acknowledging my femininity feels like a double edged sword.

I find myself relating to my genderfluid friend's Instagram post complaining about the behaviour of cis women in bathrooms and the hostile experience of being told you're in the wrong restroom. Every time I’ve felt comfortable enough to bring this experience up with cis women, it is very quickly shrugged off as ‘something that wouldn’t happen to me’, and I don’t know how to explain the pit in my stomach that response creates.

Because it has, and does, happen to me.

I don’t know what to do with the fact that I connect with noncis people’s experiences of bathrooms, but simultaneously connect with a cis identity. I can’t ask a trans person to take on the emotional labour of my experience, but I also can’t find any solidarity with cis women. This leaves me in a limbo of otherness that I don’t know how to comprehend.

Often, I get people coming up to me and talking about ‘how cool it is’ that I present so ‘against the grain’ of femininity and what is expected of women. But what they’re missing is that I don’t present this way because I choose to I present this way because it is the only way that I survive.

This is the most vulnerable I’ve ever been about my relationship to gender, and that is intentional. But it means sharing this essay is something I don’t feel particularly comfortable with. One of the reasons I stopped doing drag was because I stopped being comfortable presenting as a man in any capacity. When being unintentionally perceived as a man made me so uncomfortable, why the hell would I ever want to put myself in the position of presenting that way intentionally?

As Susan Sontag writes above (whose essay, Notes on "Camp", inspired the title of this piece), “what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.” While I struggle to find a lot of myself represented in literature, this is a passage I felt so deeply connected to and seen that by it stopped me in my tracks the first time I read it.

There is a beauty in masculinity and incorporating it into a feminine identity—one that goes much more beyond just buying clothes exclusively from Hallenstiens. It’s embracing the self and your own identity, and to be so certain in who you are that no outsider expectations or assumptions of what it means to be a woman can touch it.

But, Sontag doesn't tell me what to do when I’m exclusively called ‘sir’ in my local Night ‘n Day. Or how to look my father in the eyes after someone mistakes me for his son. I can see the beauty in my identity, but I can also feel the endless uphill of having to justify my identity every single day. I have to justify it, and also deal with the repercussions of it. I don’t say ‘accept’, because I don’t think I’ll ever find comfortability with other people's perceptions.

I’ve questioned my gender before, as I believe most queer people have. And honestly, I think everyone should. Even if it’s just to acknowledge allegiance to your cis identity. In that process, I realised that I never inherently felt anything other than a woman. I just felt othered enough to expect myself to be something else.

I’m in the position now where I’m comfortable with who I am—an androgynous cis woman. It’s just disheartening when other queer individuals, especially my friends or lovers, do not see me this way. Because, really, it suggests that to be androgynous is to be ‘other’, and that is a particularly lonely place to be.

"What is the most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine."

- Susan Sontag

A Masc Mask and a Feminine Facade

The Spectrum of Androgynous Fashion

Words by Georgia Wearing (they/he/she)

From the up-down looks caught across the smoky Ivy dancefloor, to the way people use she/her pronouns without hesitation, I know I look cis. I’m okay with it. When I first realised I was non-binary and that not everyone felt separated from everything below their jawline, I spiralled, studying Pinterest boards on androgynous fashion and ‘passing’ as nothing. I cut my hair short, squeezed into an AliExpress binder, and walked around with my jaw pushed slightly forward to ‘defeminise my face’. I thrifted boxy tees and sweltered in sweatpants while gazing at the monochrome, wide-brimmed-black-hat wearing androgynous fashion inspo pics I saw online. I gazed at my face for hours, trying to masculinise my features and wipe away any hint of a girl underneath all the layers.

There’s nothing wrong with this style. But as I grew up, I came to the realisation that I felt just as non-binary in a literal piece of string, sheer skirt, and lacey black bra as I did in flannel and a beanie, and one was way more fun for me to wear. The truth is, our sense of style and the way we like to dress doesn’t have to represent our gender. We don’t have to affirm our right to pronouns by dressing the part. For me, the only fashion that connects to my gender identity is my undying hatred of skinny jeans and my love for a low crotch.

To find out how their fashion and gender overlaps or differentiates, I interviewed a couple of gender diverse and queer campus-goers. Here are the fits that they love.

Esther (they/them)

QUEER NON-BINARY

My relationship to fashion [and] comfort is weird. I like to present as both masc and femme. But with a curvy body-type, a lot of masc styles don’t look good on me, leaving me forced to dress femme more often. I love wearing outfits that look sexy, but they’re a double-edged sword since I get misgendered more [often when] wearing them.

Amelia (she/they)

FEMME LESBIAN

As a fat, queer woman, it’s taken me a long time to get truly comfortable with my body and to express myself the way I want to. Through the ages 6-11, I basically lived in black skinny jeans, and I only started exploring wearing skirts again at the end of high school. I’m finally in a position where I feel confident to dress how I want and wear things that show my body in ways I’ve been told ‘aren’t flattering’. My lesbianism allows me to explore my passion for the exaggeratedly girly through my clothes. I love how this outfit balances out the softness with a slightly edgier touch. The fishnets, belt, and choker kinda give 2019 e-girl. I love the little details [like] the moon tarot card earrings—classic lesbian flagging.

Zia (they/he) TRANS MAN

I’ve thrifted my entire life, and am super into fashion history and design. I used to be insecure about fitting in, but coming out gave me a lot of confidence. I realised [that] if I’m going to be stared at because I’m visibly queer, I might as well give the haters a slay fit to look at. Green is my favourite colour. My outfits are always inspired by 70s Castro gay fashion, which often features pointy collars, flared pants, a heeled boot, and a patterned blazer. I feel super connected to queer history in this outfit, honouring all my gay ancestors with the fake pearls and snakeskin.

Wren (they/them) NON-BINARY

I relate to fashion the way I relate to stray cats: with less caution than you would expect, and more adoration than perhaps is appropriate. It also feels one-sided at times, given that I haven’t always been and won’t always be thin, and I’m not willing to spend money I don’t have. This outfit affirms my gender identity because it is a more adult replica of the first outfit that made me feel myself so much [that] I never wanted to take it off. It also showcases the modifications I’ve made to my body (belly button and ear piercings). The juxtaposition of the makeup and sneakers exemplifies the way I indulge in femininity, without sacrificing my comfort.

Goose (she/they)

TRANSFEMME, BUT GOOSE’S PERSONAL FAVE DESCRIPTOR IS 'GIRL TWINK'.

I’ve always loved dressing up. Costumes, formal events, any excuse to put on a special outfit. As a trans person, it can be very genderaffirming to have that control over my appearance and I love to get funky with it. I’ve never really followed current fashion trends because most of my good clothes are op-shopped, always a few years out of the fashion cycle. I’ve spent a lot of time figuring out how to style them well and stand out, and it always feels good to get a compliment on the look. The colour pink is super affirming to me. Bringing together the make-up, collar, and crop top to show off some skin in a shamelessly sexy outfit felt good. I’d wear this outfit every day if I could.

P ODCASTS

CONTEXTUALISING IDENTITY: THE STRANGER AT HOME JOURNEY

Words

When I started at Salient Podcasts in 2020, I had just moved to Aotearoa from Singapore. Singapore was my home for 11 years. It’s a beautiful country at the end of the Malaysian Peninsula—a city-wide island. It’s got an amazing array of people from different cultural backgrounds, and a vast diversity of experiences and perspectives.

Singapore, however, isn't widely accepting of LGBTQIA+ people. This meant I grew up without great physical examples of the spectrum of identities that are possible beyond the established heteronormativity and the cis gender binary.

Moving to Aotearoa was a chance to actually see gender and sexual fluidity in practice. I remember the shock as I walked down Cuba Street and saw two men holding hands. In Singapore, until last year, sex between men was criminalised, and no men would dare walk down the main streets showing any sort of affection to one another.

I feel a great shame about how shocked I was, but I think I was experiencing a deep sense of hurt. I wished at that moment to have been able to grow up amongst people unafraid of experimenting and expressing themselves.

When I pitched my podcast Stranger at Home to Salient Podcasts, I wanted to investigate that feeling of otherness. As a New Zealander who hadn’t ever lived here before, the culture shock was pretty devastating. It would be a show that explores the intersections between personal and national identity. Initially, I ran this podcast alone with more of a focus on the third-culture-kid aspect, centring around my experience as someone unfamiliar with the culture of Aotearoa. But eventually, I realised the show would benefit from more than one voice to explore this world.

Enter Gil, my co-host with the most. He’s from Aus, having moved to NZ in the same year as me, and is keenly interested in conversations about national identity. His major in History focused largely on the history of colonisation and Pacific histories, equipping him with the tools to delve into the questions posed in a post-colonial nation like Aotearoa.

When I invited Gil on, the show experienced a necessary shift, focusing more on broad concepts of identity. We started talking about issues of expression, fluidity, and queerness, as well as more conversation about te ao Māori, and experiences beyond my own. We brought on guests who whakapapa Māori to discuss their journeys navigating a colonised Aotearoa.

When we talked about gender and sexuality in Aotearoa, it was impossible to ignore the presence of national conceptualisations of masculinity and femininity. We recognise specific norms in Aotearoa when it comes to how men and women present themselves, so expanding that conversation became a necessary part of what we did on the show.

The show refocused more broadly on those often-conflicting questions of identity and expression. Gender identity itself became a key part of the show, as we explored masculinity in depth. It continues to play a part in the next chapter of Stranger at Home. We have four new episodes to release over the course of the next month or so that will continue to expand these conversations, and look both outward and inward.

by Alex Marinkovich-Josey (he/him)

Dear Aunty Vic

My boyfriend and I broke up over six months ago. I recently found out that during the beginning of our relationship, he was wining-and-dining another girl. He told me they hooked up once and didn't have sex, but now I can't seem to shake the resentment and trust issues that it has raised. I'm in a new, healthy relationship, and I don't want to lose it. What can I do to move forward?

A.QA big part of making this new relationship work will be taking a leap of faith and trusting again. Trust is a foundational value of any relationship.

Just because you are finding out over six months later, doesn’t diminish the hurt of their actions. Your resentment and trust issues are valid. Once upon a time, you were in a committed relationship with this person—it makes sense. I’m sorry your previous relationship is coming back to haunt you.

The feeling of resentment can be overpowering, and it makes the urge to write a ten-page monologue telling your ex all the reasons they’re a total piece of shit extremely hard to resist. I’ll be real though, doing that will not change anything.

If this person is low enough to cheat on you for a prolonged period and lie about it, they clearly have skewed morals and a severe lack of empathetic brain development. I doubt they’ll understand how they have hurt you. If they do, they’ve probably moved on from the relationship. They don’t deserve your time or energy. Let the consequences of their own actions reach them—it’ll come back to haunt them.

Like Taylor says, “Karma is the breeze in my hair on the weekend / Karma’s a relaxing thought”.

Your present relationship is not your last. You are dating a whole new person entirely, and they have new values. You have to start fresh and leave this behind. I can understand that may be difficult, as I presume you trusted your ex and well… that happened. But let your new partner be different.

.To make this as easy as possible, I encourage you to communicate with your new partner. This will help them understand this experience, how it’s impacted you, and why you may not fully trust them as quickly. It can be a delicate process, as a new partner never wants to hear about the significance of the previous partner. I would preface what you hope to come from the conversation, like, “It would mean a lot to me if we can talk about this, so our relationship can start with a strong foundation of trust.” If your partner cares about you, they’ll understand the importance of navigating this with you.

Make sure to communicate your needs and ask them what theirs are, so you can have a system that works for both of you. This could look like agreeing on regular check-ins. Maybe it means your partner is extra transparent about who they’re hanging out with. Maybe you create a safe word you can use when there is something they are doing which triggers old feelings of distrust?

This may seem extreme, but it may be just what you need to develop that feeling of trust again. If your partner is dedicated to making a relationship work with you, they’ll be compliant with your needs. If your partner is not prepared to listen and compromise, they probably aren’t the right person for you.

Trusting the process is hard, especially when you’ve got valid reasons not to. However, it’s the only way forward. I promise this process with your new partner, regardless of the outcome, will be what supports you to move on from your last relationship. Reflect, communicate, and remember Taylor’s words, “Karma is my boyfriend / Karma is a god”.

MANAHUA

What would you choose: following what people consider to be God’s word, or the words written up from deep inside your inner self? It was the second one that I chose, and while it’s not perfect, I’m sure that I'm happier than ever.

Thirteen years of my life, and I wasn’t old enough to figure out if I wanted to be in a V or a B, lol. I was scared that God wouldn’t love me anymore because of my "wrong thoughts'' —so I left. Eighteen years of my life, old enough to know that I happily fancy all, but I still somewhat felt the guilt for turning my back on God.

Twenty years of my life, and I can truly understand that God teaches compassion and non-judgement toward all beings. Respecting all purest forms of love for anyone is the core, but I clearly didn’t get taught that when I was still religious.

My God doesn’t judge or hate. Those concepts have been developed over time by his followers. In my religion, it’s rooted in our head that being queer is a punishment for the sins from our past life. Like bro, what the fuck? I’m sure God himself didn’t just write it up one day and think, ‘Yea boi, this is how it should be.’ People tell me it’s against ‘nature's will’. Ayeeee? So you’re telling me that all the sexual activities between two animals of the same sex that I’ve seen on National Geographic were fake?

It’s even worse when I hear Māori talking smack about queer people. G, our ancestors were accepting of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. Before colonisation, Māori society had a different understanding of gender and sexuality to Western

society today. There were multiple gender identities and sexual orientations that were recognised and celebrated. And do not ever bring up God as an excuse for your hatred. Your God and my God both teach different things, but love for all is one of the basics.

The feeling I had a couple weeks before apostatising was terrifying. Thirteen years old, filled with confusion and fears. I cried myself to sleep every night, thinking, "Why am I like this?" Was my decision to run away right? So, instead of seeking out God, I listened to what my mind told me. Run, run away from that toxic community.

It's important to remember every religious book was written in different times and cultural contexts, over thousands of years. Different interpretations of these texts exist, and it's up to each individual to interpret them in their own way. Some religious communities have embraced and celebrated the LGBTQIA+ community, while others may still hold negative views. Ultimately, it's important to treat everyone with kindness and respect, regardless of their sexual orientation or religious beliefs.

Be open minded. Just a lil kupu āwhina for our rangatahi who might be going through the same situation that I had. Open up to yourself and God, ‘cause trust me g, your Deity loves you no matter what. Don’t let others get between you and your beliefs. At the end of the day, people are social beings, and so is God. Relationships are an essential part of human life. Sexuality is a fundamental aspect of our relational nature, and condemning the sexuality of queer individuals can harm their ability to form relationships with others—including God.

Chur, Huy

Words by Te Huihui o Matariki Chí Huy Tran (he/him; Taranaki, Te iwi o Maruwharanui)

CW: Transphobia.

A WALK THROUGH THE GENDER GARDEN

Words by Goose (she/they)

Something I see all too often is the idea that transition is a simple journey from Gender A to Gender B. ‘Male-to-female’ and ‘femaleto-male’ have been commonly accepted terms to describe transitioning women and men respectively for years now.

In the last 40 years, we’ve seen the rise of new gender descriptors that go beyond the binary of man or woman. The term ‘genderqueer’ was first coined in the 1980s, but we’ve been around a lot longer than this language has existed. ‘Non-binary’, ‘agender’, ‘gender-flux’, ‘pangender’, and many more have arisen out of the desire for a label beyond the binary.

Every new label is an attempt to name a very specific experience of gender. Lots of people find enjoyment and affirmation in having a term for their individual gender expression. But is this really the best option? All of a sudden, we’ve gone from a binary, to a trinary, quaternary, quintenary, etc. We’ve just invented more categories that enforce this idea of a straight line from A to B.

I’ve got a friend who’s detransitioning. She stopped taking testosterone recently, but she definitely isn’t cis. They’re not going from Gender B back to Gender A—that perspective is so two-dimensional. It’s so binary. Put on your 3-D glasses and you’ll realise that the straight line isn’t a 'straight line’ at all, but instead, a much more open path. My friend described it to me as “wandering, unbothered, through my gender garden. Look, that rose is purple—that’s cool.” You don’t go to a garden to get from one end to the other, you’re there to stop and look at the flowers.

Detransitioning gets a lot of bad attention these days. It’s one of those points transphobic talkers use to say:

‘Look at these freaks! They transitioned and regretted it. You’ll regret it too if you try, so don’t even bother.’ But if you’re paying attention, all the ‘detransitioners’ they bring on to their platforms aren’t actually stopping their transition, they’re just complaining about it. It’s always the same four people being interviewed a hundred times to make it seem more widespread.

Knee replacement surgery has a 20% regret rate, transition has less than 1%.

For some, Gender B is the goal. They have a very fixed idea of what they want, and that’s great. But it’s not as common as it might seem. A lot of us under the rainbow are just jumping at the closest label for a hint of validation. I can say this from my own experience, as well as the experience of those close to me. It’s incredibly common when you’re in the early questioning stages, and there’s nothing wrong with it, but it shouldn’t be seen as the be-all and end-all of gender identity. It can be, and is often, much more fluid than that.

I’ve known plenty of detransitioners who don’t regret transition, they simply realised that what they thought they wanted wasn’t exactly it after all. That logic applies to plenty of things in life and it’s never too late to change your mind.

‘Genderqueer’ was never meant to be a third gender. It’s an open space to represent those who need to explore and get a little funky with it. You don’t have to go all the way through right away. Take your time and smell the roses.

It’s your garden.

NAVIGATING HEALTHCARE WHILE BEING GENDER FLUID

My parents raised my siblings and I without gender stereotypes. Neither of my parents conform to traditional gender roles and they didn’t want to place limits on our expression, so they raised us the same. Until university, I wasn’t really aware that there were identities such as non-binary and gender fluid. No one in my life up until that point used these labels. Even if I heard about a celebrity coming out, it seemed very removed from me. I paid it no mind.

I was asked about my gender and pronouns for the first time in 2020, to which I replied something along the lines of, “I’ve never really thought about it.” But that led me to think about it. It wasn’t a straight line to get here, but I am happy with identifying as gender fluid. My experience of gender can fluctuate greatly day to day. I use all pronouns and am happiest with people mismatching them.

I personally think there should be another label aside from ‘cis’ and ‘trans’, which I call ‘default gender’. It is for people who have never thought about their gender, because I’m over the automatic assumption that everyone is cis until they think otherwise. I don’t believe that if you have never thought about your gender then you are cis, because how would you really know? Everyone should have a little gender crisis as a treat.

As a disabled person, I do think the relationship I have with my body is fundamentally different. When ill, I’m left unable to do anything except think about life. It’s both a blessing and a curse.

My body doesn’t determine my gender. I have always been who I am. The difference is that I now have the language to explain it.

That being said, having a condition that is associated with a specific gender is a bit hard. Ovarian cysts and endometriosis force me to reside in spaces designed for women when I am not one. While I can change people’s perspectives of me with how I present and the labels I choose, people will look at me and call me a woman if their knowledge of gender is limited.

To get my records to show I am trans, it required a couple of phone calls. If you are under the care of the hospital, then the department can change your records for you. But as I found, this only changes your records in certain areas of the hospital. When I was in ED, I got the chronic pain department to change my records, but some gyne records would still state ‘F’ as my gender marker. The gyne department is limited because it is designed around cis women. But another phone call clarified my records. They didn’t require any paperwork to change my gender, unlike a name change.

Other places that use your health records, such as a private practice or your general practitioner, will require a phone call to change your records. There are a surprising number of calls required, because even though all the systems are connected, they won’t automatically update and will need to be done manually.

Changing your gender marker will change how your care is accessed. I’ve found that gender-affirming care will be brought up in relevant departments without prompting. While this consideration is great, sometimes it can feel like a checkbox to doctors that assume all gender minorities want certain gender-affirming healthcare. If you have a good team of doctors, family, and friends, they will be doing everything to support you and your health journey.

Words by Teddi (he/she/they)

Venus is healing you with her love powers, Aries. A romantic connection is currently supporting you to heal childhood wounds. This mental health breakthrough has been a long time coming!

You are a rebel without a cause. Mad ‘controversial for attention’ vibes. Taurus, everyone is bored of your whack-ass opinions. Playing devil’s advocate doesn’t make you sound more intelligent, it makes you sound like an ass.

Awww Gemini, I can see you’ve been having a hard time opening up about something really significant. It’s okay. You’re going to find the courage to be emotional around your support people. You don’t need to hold onto this any longer.

Something that’s held you back in the past is somehow being really beneficial. It’s a bit like getting a scholarship because you went to a low decile school, or getting recognition for work you did that was inspired by old wounds.

Oh my goodness, I’ve found another little rebel. Unlike Taurus, you have a reason to be going against the norm. You’ve caused a mutiny to break out in, most likely, a workplace environment. Authority must be questioned!

[Editor’s note: The Salient Wizard is sick of Virgos complaining over absolutely nothing. They have stated that the Virgo section will remain blank until there has been a mass attitude adjustment.]

The astrology this week is really good for some of those ongoing health problems you’ve been facing. I see an angelic coworker swooping in and taking care of some of your workload, meaning you can finally give your body some rest.

Oop. Scorpio, are you one of the many remote controlled vibrator users that seem to have infiltrated the uni? Are you getting it off in your psych lecture? Not you mixing school with pleasure…

You live in a teeny apartment that doesn’t allow pets. Why are you scrolling through adoption pages of kittens? Actually, I do get it. When your flatmates question it, just show them this horoscope as proof that the universe wants you to get a cat.

You introduced your partner to your siblings and, my God, they love each other. Maybe a little too much. Your boyfriend may start ignoring you ‘cause the bromance with your brother is just a lil too good.

Fuck yes. Just when you started freaking out over a sudden medical bill, your mum swooped in and paid for it. Sometimes you get all up in your ‘my parents don’t understand me’ groove, but they seem to understand your stress after all.

You’ve cut it off with someone you’ve been seeing and, oml, does it feel good. You have more money because you aren’t always taking them out, and you’ve let go of that clingy negative energy (they seemed like a rebound anyway).

brain boozled

WORD OF THE WEEK: TRANSGENDER

NZ Sign Language

takatāpui

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

He Whakaputanga, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Te Kotahitanga, Ngā Komiti Wāhine, Māori Council, Māori Women's welfare league, Congress, Hapū Authorities, marae, iwi chairs—the point here whānau is Māori political activism is part of being Māori. It comes from our whakapapa and we as Māori have a responsibility to it. Today I'm acknowledging that whakapapa, I'm acknowledging my responsibility to it and it's calling me home.

Meka Whaitiri, former Labour Party minister, to Waipatu Marae in Hastings last Wednesday, informing her decision to cross the floor, leaving the Labour Party and joining Te Pāti Māori.

Cobb & Co

ACROSS

1. ___ Astoria, luxury hotel brand (7)*

5. Orange, apple, cherry, watermelon, banana, for example (5)*

8. To be in debt (3)

9. Medieval predecessor of chemistry (7)

10. Centre to help with addiction (5)

11. Aural organ (3)

12. A rule-breaker (7)

13. Currency of Ireland (5)

14. Prefix that can go before ‘charge’, ‘name’, and ‘realism’ (3)

16. Former Roman dictator (6)*

19. Tuber with an Irish connotation (6)*

21. Expression of agreement that can be used sarcastically (3)

23. Workers’ rights group (5)

25. Word that can follow ‘nail polish’ ‘make-up’, and ‘varnish’ (7)

28. What the tide does when it goes out (3)

29. Most iconic accessory of angels (5)

30. Totally involve oneself in (7)

31. Green iguana from ‘Dora the Explorer’ (3)

32. Carbohydrate with an Italian connotation (5)*

33. Demonym for those from Nice, France (7)*

DOWN

1. Place for ships to dock and unload, of which Queens is a local example (5)

2. An estimated 68% of people are intolerant of this (7)

3. Plainly apparent (5)

4. Rooms commonly found on the bottom floor of hotels, mansions, and apartment buildings (6)

5. ___ Rocher, a brand of hazelnut chocolate (7)

6. Person who shows people to their seats (5)

7. Type of hot sauce (7)

15. Film about an old man, a boy scout, and a floating house (2)

16. Confess, come clean, admit; what one does with phlegm (5,2)

17. A partial or total loss of memory (7)

18. Acronym for a system of blood groups (2)

20. Parts of the lung that facilitate oxygen exchange with the blood (7)

22. Famous character played by Rowan Atkinson (2,4)

24. Man, Wight, and Skye for example (5)

26. What illusionists claim to use (5)

27. Feminine given name that is the diminutive form of Rose (5)

(To)get(her)

Words by Sibel Atalay (they/she)

Canopy daydreams

Eyes wide asleep

I tend to forget my dreams

Though avoidance makes me live it

Makes me do nothing

Makes me break something

Like glass or hearts (usually my own)

The one that doesn’t feel quite like home

And it’s pressure with no diamonds

Shapes with no structure

Child bearing hips and tits with no purpose

Flat chested freedom without changing my name

In my dreams my eyes are open

In my dreams yours are too

THE TEAM

CO-EDITOR

CO-EDITOR

DESIGNER

SUB-EDITOR

CHIEF REPORTER

STAFF WRITER

ARTS & CULTURE WRITER

STAFF WRITER

EDITORIAL SUPPORT

CONTRIBUTORS

Elliot Davis (he/him)

Jess Ye (she/her)

Sibel Atalay (they/she)

Ella Hoogerbrug (she/she)

Goose (she/they)

Te

Teddi (he/she/they)

Blake (cross/word)

CENTREFOLD ARTIST

Ti Ko (they/them) @__ti.rex

DESIGN

NEWS & PODCAST INTERN

WRITING INTERN

POETRY & PODCAST EDITING INTERN

Francesca Pietkiewicz (she/they)

Maia Ingoe (she/her)

Bella Maresca (they/them) @cupids.kiss

Willem Koller (he/they)

VIDEO CONTENT CREATOR Seren Ashmore (he/him)

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

Alex Marinkovich-Josey (he/him)

PODCAST MANAGER

Ethan Manera (he/him)

NEWS EDITOR Zoë Mills (they/she)

NEWS EDITOR Niamh Vaughan (she/her)

Bridget Scott (she/her)

SENIOR STAFF WRITER Tessa Keenan (she/her)

Pippi Jean (she/her)

Phoebe Robertson (she/her)

Jessica Arndt (she/her)

& VIDEO INTERN Lauren Pemberton (she/her)

Georgia Wearing (they/he/she)

Maia Armistead (she/her)

Kiran Patel (he/they)

Joanna Fan (she/her)

Huihui o Matariki Chí

Huy Tran (he/him)