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Why Kassie supports marriage equality… and beyond!

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Kassie, a queer youth worker, shares why she supports marriage equality, and where there is more work that needs doing:

Rough transcript (apologies for errors):

Kia ora koutou, my name’s Kassie and I’m a queer youth worker and I support marriage equality because I think it’s a very important step in paving the way to making things better for queer youth. From the very get go, youth are told they’re not normal because they don’t have the same equal rights when they come to relationships as their heterosexual counterparts.

I think it’s very important that right from the get go youth are told that their relationships are normal, that who they love is totally ok. From there they should have a much safer time at school, hopefully free of bullying. It’s one really important step.

I think that this will affect the wider queer community in general. My passion is youth obviously, but this affects a large range of people, predominantly people who do want to get married and want to be recognised under that institution at this point in time, and later. in the future. It’s definitely an issue that affects a wide range of people in the queer community.

I think civil unions did make a difference. I see them as one important step, and marriage as completing that, I think. Too a lot of people it doesn’t feel like it’s enough. It’s not the same.

I think awareness is the main issue. A lot of it is about acceptance. Schools still aren’t safe places for our youth – that is the main issue. The government has a duty of care and duty of responsibility to ensure that these spaces are quality, safe, positive learning environments for our youth. Many at the moment are still not, unfortunately – there needs to be some more change. I think that seeing the government to do a little bit more to improve the lives of queer youth would be really really good. Queer youth are five times more likely to contemplate suicide than their straight counterparts, which is really very very sad. I don’t know many people who when they were young didn’t contemplate suicide at some point, being a queer or trans youth.

So it’s a very very important issue, and I think bullying, homophobia, transphobia are all very alive and well, and while some people grow up and make ‘It gets better’ videos and everything does get a little bit better, there’s still some very difficult times that young people go through when working out their sexual and gender identity.

I think it’s more important than anything, whilst this is a fight that’s being fought in parliament, I think that we need to be bringing together our communities and working together collectively to be working a way together to not just get marriage but continually to make thing better for queer youth, queer people, and the wider community.

I want to be able to tell queer youth that I work with, or anyone, that their love isn’t abnormal, it’s not unnatural, it’s not – my favourite – an abomination. It’s perfectly natural, it’s okay. And if we’re saying that from the very get go, by recognising their love and commitment through a marriage institution, then that’s one step in the right direction.



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