Category: Opinion

With Auckland Pride over, we decided to take a look at exactly what this Festival means to our Rainbow community and how important it is for the tradition to continue. There’s a reason it’s called Pride. There’s a reason the emblem of this annual festival is girdled in the colours of the rainbow, the defiant, […]

Last night, an amazing Valentine’s treat was installed for the audience attending the opening of Hot Brown Honey – a sizzling celebration of loud, proud women of colour. The show promises an “audacious platter of dance, poetry, comedy, circus, striptease and song,” and it certainly was. The one-hour show was an absorption of brilliant escapades of music and dance […]

It’s that time of year where we get to watch a bunch of films, which only made it to New Zealand about a week ago, fight it out to be recognised by a committee that’s more diverse than ever, but still mostly old white men. It’s the Oscars! In case if you didn’t know, it’s named […]

Rainbow Counsellor Elijah Luke Michel is here to help with your problems: I’m very frustrated with my family. I’m a 21-year-old Iranian M2F trans woman born in NZ, and when I came out two years ago my family surprisingly accepted it. Now I have a girlfriend and my parents are upset because it’s okay to […]

Article:Katherine Wolfgramme for Star Observer With the world’s media courting trans issues – whether it online, current affairs programmes, in the papers, or reality television – trans visibility is at an historic high. But as a trans gender woman I can’t help but wonder, in amazement, how has this come to be? In what was […]

Some colleges in the US ask students to state their PGPs. Their what? PGP is an acronym for preferred gender pronouns. Students are encouraged to disclose whether they want to be referred to as ‘she’ and ‘her, ’or ‘he’ and ‘him,’ or the alternative options are ‘it’ or ‘they,’ or ‘none of the above,’ and […]

Rainbow Counsellor Elijah Luke Michel is here to help with your problems: I’ve recently separated from my partner of seven years and I’m at a loss as to how to start the new year without him. He was not only my partner, but my best friend and confidant, and I feel like half of me […]

Article and photo: Star Observer “I forgot to ask whether you’ve been with a trans guy before?” He hadn’t. “Well, you’ve been with a guy before? And you’ve been with a woman before? All right then,” I told him, “you’ll be fine.” Steve* from Grindr is an extremely decent lay and hasn’t once been weird […]