It's PRIDE month in the northern hemisphere

(but you wouldn't know it from the spree of hate crimes here in the land of the long, white cloud)

On Friday, June 2nd 2022, homophobic and antisemetic slurs were grafittied on both sides of Glora of Greymouth, with a burned rainbow flagged staked to the ground out front while the owner/operator slept inside. The deconsecrated church is a performing arts venue/arts project which hosts events for the rainbow community.

Two men in their 20s were charged with intentional damage, and were due to appear in court on June 8th.

On June 6th, the Ballantyne's PRIDE display was vandalised with a giant ‘X' spray-painted on the glass. There have been no news reports (that I've come across) about this, or indication that the Christchurch Police or City Council are investigating this specific incident. However, Qtopia's Jennifer Shield was quoted on David Farrier's Webworm stating that the Communications team at the council have their work cut out for them; deleting a deluge of homophobic and transphobic comments about Pride from their facebook page.

On June 13th, RNZ reported on the online backlash against Rainbow Storytime events held at two New Plymouth libraries, with many of the comments parroting the malicious claims that LGBTQIA+Takatāpui adults use these events to recruit and groom children. The library eventually turned off comments on the facebook post, and removed/reported the offensive ones. The performers were also the target of a protest in Whangārei, Northland, on June 10th. During the event, noise-emitting devices went off, briefly disrupting the event before the show successfully carried on.

Police also responded and are treating as suspicious a fire set in the early hours of Thursday, June 16th which gutted the Tauranga office of Rainbow Youth and Gender Dynamix. The building served clinical and social functions for the mental health and service needs of the local transgender and gender diverse communities. The fire comes as a surprise, as staff reported that they have not been the target of threats or hate crime. However, a local Pride advocate was the target of a cyberattack/slander campaign that is currently under investigation by Police and Netsafe.

Rainbow Youth does have insurance, but how far that will go has not been shared publicly yet. A givealittle page (open until June 23rd, 2022) has been established for anyone who wishes to donate to Rainbow Youth, and while the funds are not specifically earmarked for the Tauranga region, any funds donated will go to a good cause.

And, as always, putting the shit icing on a very shit cake, David Farrier keeps doing the home team proud while getting vulnerable with his investigation on his alma mater, Bethlehem College - which you can follow in these parts: 1, 2, 3 and 4.

As other pundits and think pieces have noted, the groomer rhetoric is similar to some of QAnon's more unsavoury conspiracies. It would be easy to see these actions as an uptick in homophobia and transphobia, immigrating to Aotearoa with the invasive species that is QAnon and Trumpmania. Sadly, the reality is a prejudice that has long been close to the surface of New Zealand culture, and the slew of anti-mandate action may have only reignited such long-held prejudices as they offered an opportunity for its supporters to gain critical mass again. New Zealand's best example being the Peter Ellis case, when the dying gasps of satanic panic, recovered memories, and ritualistic child abuse ensnared the New Zealand imagination. The groomer rhetoric, as a contemporary Republican political tactic, can be traced back to singer Anita Bryant's claims that children were being recruited into homosexuality in the 1970s, and it had become a new favourite of US politicians Marjorie Taylor Greene and Robert Foster; the latter whom tweeted that “... people who want to groom out school-aged children and pretend men are women should be lined up against a wall before a firing squad and sent to an early judgement”.

We don't even have the benefit of saying everything old is new again, when it never really went away in the first place.

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