– Transgender (including non-binary), intersex, takataapui gender diverse, and – Aged between 10 and 25 (including 10 and 25), and – In need of help with costs during Covid-19
Gender Minorities Aotearoa has been granted some funding for emergency packages of care for people who fit the above description.
Please apply by filling the form below. [note: this form has been removed]
Please note that funds are limited, so not all applications will be approved. If your application is approved, we will be in contact with you within a few days of receiving your application.
Kia ora e te whānau, we hope you are all safe and sound during lockdown (level 4 alert for Covid-19). We have compiled some information to help you get through this difficult time.
Though all our upcoming events, monthly socials, drop in days, and office hours are currently on hold, we are still available by email (cleared daily) and by mobile phone (10am – 6pm weekdays), and you are welcome to join our peer to peer infoshare group on social media Transgender and Intersex NZ – it’s the largest trans forum in Aotearoa with over 1,400 members. Your partner, parents, whanau, and supporters are welcome to join it as well. Please remember to answer all three of the joining questions and read through the kaupapa.
Services are operating slightly differently in different regions, but you can access your medical records, manage clinical appointments, get support, and more by registering for Manage My Health, here.
The government has a website specifically to give you factual information on Covid-19, this is available here.
The Ministry of Health has a website here, with info about the total number of confirmed cases, recovered cases, and more. There is also information and advice specifically for elderly people, disabled people, caregivers, and other specific populations available here.
You can contact OutLine counseling services if you need to talk with a counselor. You can also contact Healthline here if you have any concerns about your health, or if you symptoms of Covid-19, which include coughing, difficulty breathing, and a temperature over 38 degrees.
You can also see MoH’s Melon website here, with self care and mental health resources and tips for during lockdown.
Just a Thought has info and courses for supporting your mental health.
You can also contact us at GMA for transgender peer support with a professional transgender advocate – we can support you with finding information and connecting you with referrals.
You can apply for a wage subsidy if you are a contractor (including a sex worker), a sole trader, self employed, and under a number of other circumstances. This is a one page form, and asks for contact details, your IRD number, and very little else. You do not have to repay this as long as you meet the requirements. More information about this can be found here.
WINZ payments
WINZ payments will not be stopped during lockdown, regardless of whether you miss an appointment, your medical certificate expires, or any other circumstance.
There is usually a 2 week stand down period for all benefit applications.
Additionally, if you stop working in a job you could technically have kept doing, and apply for a job seekers benefit (rather than a wage subsidy), there is an additional stand down of 12 weeks, unless the job you are stopping is sex work. For sex workers, there is no additional stand down.
You can register for MyMSD here, where you can view your information, see your applications, and update your details.
Trans sex workers and tax
Many sex workers do pay tax and keep records, in which case applying for a job seekers benefit is simple. If you haven’t been paying tax, this guide will provide simple information.
The end of the tax year is March 31st, so the tax you owe for the financial year is due then. However, IRD is very flexible with repayments and is happy to work with you so your repayments are affordable and not stressful.
How it works: If you declare your sex work as, for example, 5 jobs per week at $150 ($750 for the week) for 10 months of the year, that’s $30,000 in a year. But if you spent $250 a week on a work room or hotel, then you minus that expense ($10,000) from your taxable income, and if you also brought sheets, towels, massage oil, lingerie, a heater, a fan, advertising, and travel costs (ideally you should have receipts), you should also minus those costs – let’s say another $5,000. That means you only made $15,000 taxable income. So if the tax and ACC levies you owe come to 20%, that’s $3,000 you would owe.
If you’re applying for a benefit of, for example, $300 a week, it would take you 10 weeks to recover the cost of declaring your income and paying your tax and ACC (bearing in mind that you can pay off tax debts at just a few dollars a week). If you’re likely to need the benefit for longer than 10 weeks, it makes financial sense to pay your taxes. Of course it’s also legally what you’re supposed to do, which can take the stress off as well.
We recommend that everyone stays home and no one continues to do in-person work of any kind, but if you do plan to continue to do sex work at all, you can declare a job per week at $150 with minimal impact on your benefit, as around $80 of additional income doesn’t affect your benefit, and the other $70 only reduces your benefit by about 20 cents per dollar (about $14 in our example). The more you earn the higher the number of cents per dollar your benefit is reduced by.
Decent housing is a human right, and the UN Special Rapporteur on Housing recently said that as such, NZ has not just a housing crisis but a human rights crisis.
The Minister of Finance announced on 23 March 2020 a freeze of rent increases and protections against tenancy terminations. This means that property investors (such as landlords) cannot raise the price of rent during level 4 alert. It also means that you cannot be evicted ‘without cause’, including being up to 59 days in rent arrears. It does not mean that you can stop paying rent – any rent you can’t pay now will likely have to be repaid at a later time. Advice to landlords is to work with tenants so they can be secure during lockdown and into the future. You can find out more information for tenants and landlords on the tenancy services website here.
If you need to relocate to another house because of danger, you cannot be arrested. If this is your situation it may be possible to join an existing bubble.
Leaving the house
During level 4 alert (lockdown) you are required to stay at home with the people you live with and not leave the property except for essential services, or to deliver essential goods to someone who can’t get these for themself, or to go to work if you are an essential service worker. Essential services include supermarkets, doctors, dairies, vets, pet stores, emergency services and Police, rubbish collection, petrol stations, internet services, and pharmacies. You are allowed to go out for a walk in your local area, as long as you keep a 2 meter distance from anyone who is not in your household, and do not visit playgrounds. You are also allowed to leave if you are in danger, including danger of sexual or family violence. You can find more information here.
Every time someone leaves your property, or ‘quarantine bubble’, there is a risk that if they have Covid-19, they will transmit it to others, or that Covid-19 will be transmitted to them. Even if they maintain a 2 meter distance from others, and everyone wears a face mask and gloves, they might still touch a surface which is contaminated or come into contact with airborne droplets of Corvid-19 and bring that contamination back to their quarantine bubble.
Decontamination protocol
The virus is live for up to 24 hours on paper, cardboard, and soft furnishings, and up to 72 hours on hard surfaces like plastic and metal.
Hand washing: Scrub , rinse, and dry your hands well and often, especially after touching anything outside our quarantine bubble – including your mailbox! Use hot water and soap, wash for 20 seconds, then rinse and dry.
Sanitizing your hands: when you are away from hand washing facilities, use a sanitizer with 70% or higher level of alcohol. You can also carry wet wipes if sanitiser is not available.
Touching your face: do not touch surfaces and then touch your face. Tie long hair back to minimise the risk of touching your face while outside your quarantine bubble. Mucous membranes such as eyes, nose, and mouth are particularly susceptible sites of transmission. Masks: a home made cloth mask should be 2 or 3 layers thick, and can be over 50% as effective as a good commercial mask.
Touching surfaces: what surfaces are you touching? Mailbox, car keys, steering wheel, door handles, ATM, products in the grocery store, shopping trolley, etc. Clean or sanitize your hands frequently.
Decontaminating your clothing and body: Decontaminating when you arrive back to your home or quarantine bubble is important. This includes leaving your shoes outside, changing your clothes, and showering, before touching people or surfaces in your household, to remove any droplets of Covid-19 which you may have come into contact with.
Bringing in items from outside your bubble: If you are bringing home bags or boxes of groceries, either put these in a quarantine area (eg in your laundry) to decontaminate for 72 hours, or alternatively unpack these and wash any washable items – including hard fruit and peelable fruit – in soapy water for 20 seconds. Bags should be put in the trash or paper bags and boxes burned. Frozen items should be washed if possible, or removed from packaging and the packaging discarded, as the virus can survive a much longer time in the freezer.
Wellington Rainbow Affiliation Towards Hope (WRATH, “the affiliation”) is an alliance of LGBTQI+ organisations, groups, and small business owners in Wellington. It has this week penned a letter calling rainbow people in Wellington to stand together to ensure Wellington International PRIDE Parade (WIPP) engages in meaningful community consultation.
Though not leading this affiliation, GMA has agreed to host the letter here, so that a diverse range of individuals and groups can add their support or provide feedback to the affiliation. Its letter is posted below.
Letter to WIPP from WRATH (the affiliation)
You may have noticed the absence of various Rainbow Community groups from last year’s Wellington International Pride Parade (WIPP), as did the organisers. The reason for that absence was a growing feeling from many rainbow people that WIPP does not represent us, and is not about us, nor for us.
There are three core issues, as identified by rainbow organisations which have heard feedback from many sectors of the rainbow population in Wellington
WIPP is not connected with rainbow people broadly, nor with the community organisations who engage with rainbow people on a daily basis.
WIPP organisers are not representative of rainbow populations, nor are they elected by a demographically representative diverse group.
WIPP refuses to engage meaningfully with community feedback, including requests by rainbow community support organisations to meet for discussion.
WIPP states in its 2019 annual report that among its values is a need for them to be “Supportive of and by LGBTQI-Plus communities”. It goes on to promise that WIPP “will always work, collectively, to bring LGBTQI-Plus communities together with each other and with the communities within which we live”.
WIPP’s Board Charter says – ‘’All board members will actively consult with members of the community’’. However, in practice, WIPP refuses to consult with the community broadly despite repeated requests, and thus has no right to claim to represent us and our interests.
2018: The rainbow youth organisations InsideOUT and OuterSpaces tried extensively to engage WIPP and were met with silence. After the 2018 parade, an open letter from dozens of rainbow individuals in Wellington was published, calling for a community consultation.
2019: Tīwhanawhana Trust held a community hui on what is important to our communities with regard to Pride events and the Pride Parade. Only one WIPP organiser attended, and did not engage at all.
2020: Gender Minorities Aotearoa, InsideOUT, Naming New Zealand, UniQ Victoria, and Ivy Bar and Cabaret collectively wrote to WIPP’s board asking them to hold consultations and start a process of engagement with Wellington’s rainbow communities. This request was flatly refused in writing.
In WIPP’s 2019 annual report it is evident that WIPP is about celebrating Wellington as a whole, and is aimed toward international tourism, and corporate sponsors, rather than rainbow people. If WIPP wants to hold a parade to celebrate Wellington, primarily funded by WCC tourism funding, they need to call it a Wellington Parade, not a Pride Parade. WIPP is NOT a Pride parade; WIPP is NOT about supporting rainbow people nor building rainbow communities.
“Too much corporate / state representation which overshadowed the few community groups.”
We note that almost 20% of WIPPs membership work for Wellington City Council, including Councillor Nicola Young. WIPP membership is made up of people representing Orchestra Wellington, Armstrong Prestige, PrimeProperty, Air New Zealand, Countdown, and Westpac.
Based on the 2019 WIPP annual report, of the 37 listed participants, only 10 were rainbow community entries, including state and political parties.
WIPP uses the word “Inclusivity” to justify the inclusion of, for example, an armored vehicle in the 2019 parade, even though doing so was traumatic for, and in fact excluded, migrant and refugee rainbow people- at least two families who had fled war in their home countries. An inclusive event is one which uses a Human Rights approach to take into account the needs of minority groups within the rainbow – such as disabled rainbow people and rainbow refugees. “Inclusivity” needs to mean the inclusion of rainbow people and rainbow community groups is the priority.
In contrast, Wellington Pride Festival Inc. (Out Wellington) has historically organised the Pride Hikoi, and are representative of, elected by, and accountable to the rainbow people of Wellington. They coordinate and oversee the entire two-week long Pride Festival including a full-day fair – Out in the Park, a community hīkoi, a youth ball, and facilitate over 100 events run by members of our rainbow communities. Out Wellington in the past has run a large scale Pride Parade that was as visible as any of WIPP’s. They managed to run this, promote our community, and include all areas of Wellington, with a fraction of the funding WIPP receives for a single 30 minute parade.
We believe that the problems with WIPP could be resolved by:
Having a diverse ‘rainbow community’ elected board, with requirements for representation of different populations of rainbow people (eg lesbian, gay, transgender, etc).
Having more community floats than corporate floats – eg, every corporate entry to sponsor two community entries.
Asking the community what we want – open and meaningful community consultation.
We invite all of Wellington’s rainbow community organisations, rainbow owned and rainbow staffed businesses, and rainbow individuals to join us as we work to hold WIPP accountable to being representative of and responsive to our community.
We invite you to participate in the PRIDE Hīkoi, which is a Pride March along a mobility accessible route starting at 9am on Feb 22nd in Civic Square, ending at Waitangi Park for the Out in the Park fair – an annual event in it’s 32nd year that sees thousands of people visit every year.
The Pride Hīkoi and Out in the Park are a genuine and authentic opportunity to come together to celebrate pride and our rainbow communities.
Signed, Wellington Rainbow Affiliation Towards Hope.
Signatories
Te Aito Rangatira, Auckland Pride Festival Incorporated, Aunty Dana’s Op Shop, Gender Minorities Aotearoa, InsideOUT, Ivy Bar and Cabaret, Naming New Zealand, Opportunity for Animals Opshop, Promised Land Tales, QUILTED BANANAS Radio Collective, Stillwaters Community, The Black Sheep Animal Sanctuary Otaki, The Gender Centre Wellington, Tranzform, UniQ Victoria, Wellington Timebank.
Individual Signatories:
Charlotte Algie, Lucia Amatiello, Amy, Alex Araya, Arthel Banog, Emma Barnes, Molly Black, Emily Blincoe, Georgina Bloomfield, Suzanne Blumsky, Morgana Brewer, Benoite Broche, Kerry Brown, Rosina Buchanan, Mary Buford, Libby Caligari, Riley Campbell, Autumn Candle, Tāwhana Chadwick, Lou Clifton, Kate Collyns, Olivia Cowley, Jess D, Eliana Darroch, Rosie Dent, Katherine Dewar, Zakk d’Larté, Kelly Donaldson, Luna Doole, Alick Draper, Erin Draper, Megan Duncan, Sol Marco Duncan, Ella Edwards, Kim Eland, Miah Elmes, Brodie Fraser, Chase Fox, Ally Gibson, Tomoyo Gibson, Clare Gillard, Neihana Gordon-Stables, Ada Greig, Leo Goldie-Anderson, Kyle Habershon, Will Hansen, Chaz Harris, Beth Hartigan, Gates Henderson, Emilie Hope, Jove Horton, Helen Howell, Simon Hubbard, James Hunt, Craig Hutson, Ciaran Hyslop, Jade, Jojo, Eli Joseph, K, Alana Kane, Brie Keatley, Neo Kenny, Bronwyn Kerr, Elle Kingsbury, Kowhai, Rebecca L, Danny Lam, Tori Levy, Frank Lewis, Izzy Lewis, Eva Liardet, Josh Lowe, Vivian Lyngdoh, Helen Lyttelton, Codee MacDonald, Alex Macale, Piripi Mackie, Braydon Mahoney, Hayden Malan, Nathaniel Manning, Christoph Martens, Jaimee Matthews, Kate McIntyre, Conan McKegg, C Meyer, Toby Morahan, Kiran Morar, Madeleine Moss, Asher Norris, Roisin O’Donovan, Jelly O’Shea, Han Ostini, Andrew Pang, Iscah Pascal, Indy Pendant, Sam Phillips, Phoebe, Dani Pickering, Sammy Pitt, Tasmin Prichard, Hannah Pym, Jorge Quirarte, Ayler Raven-Pearce, Rupert Pirie-Hunter, Sasha Posadas, Hauauru Rae, Aiden Reason, Adam Reynolds, J D Roberts, Geo Robrigado, Hayley Rosvall, Jay Rudolph, Mere-Pounamu Brown-Wi Rutene, Stephanie Sabine, Llaren Sagan, Anisha Sankar, Lucy Schrader, Rebecca Scott, Sassafras Shepheard, Bella Simpson, Simie Simpson, Caitlin Sinclair, Connor Smith, Kristin Smith, Vivian Smith, Faelan Sorenson, Urs Stafford, Annalucia Stasis, Malia Stewart, Kelsi Stroud, Scott Summerfield, Sam Sutherland, Twoflower Tourist, Matt Tuker, Max Tweedie, Mirkyton Ummashtarte, Benjamin van den Eykel, Peter W, Kate Waghorn, Catherine Ward, Natalie Watkin Ward, Chris Weeks, Ahi Wi-Hongi, Aliyah Winter, Kathleen Winter, Hiromi Yagishita, Christian Young, Aatir Zaidi, Zoey.
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Please join us for the Pride Hikoi (Pride March), followed by Out in the Park rainbow community festival, Saturday 22 Feb 2020.
The Hikoi kicks off at 9am from Civic Square in the Wellington CBD. We will be there with a banner and trans flag placards, please come grab a placard or bring your own, and walk together with us! The Pride Hikoi follows an accessible route along the waterfront to Waitangi Park (just past Te Papa). It is a 10min walk at regular pace, but the hikoi will move slowly and leave no one behind, so 30 mins has been allocated.
Gender Minorities Aotearoa is hosting SHE + THEY during Fringe Festival and Pride Month in Wellington.
“Love in transition… in rural NZ.”
A New Zealand Premiere by the writer/performer of award-winning “”ZE.”
When: 17 to 21 March, 6:30pm to 7:30pm. Where: Aunty Dana’s Op Shop, 130 Riddiford Street, Newtown. Cost: $10 Concessions, $15 Standard. Accessibility: Aunty Dana’s is on the ground floor, it is up 2 steps with a hand rail, The bathroom is all-genders and has a hand rail. The lighting is non-fluro tubing, or non-fluro lamps. It is a low allergen space, with tile flooring, no air-freshers, and we ask that you please refrain from wearing perfume or cologne.
Supported by Zir Productions, Gender Minorities Aotearoa, Aunty Dana’s Op Shop, and Creative NZ- Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa. Part of Fringe Festival, Celebrating 30 Years at the Fringe. Tix and Bits at fringe.co.nz
Image of a couple’s hands clasped together, cupping an artickoke heart between them, on a black background
A visual guide to intramuscular testosterone injections, and a 101 info sheet on subcutaneous testosterone injections, which is now available in NZ.
Get safe injecting equipment
You can get needles, sharps bins, and alcohol swabs from the Needle Exchange Programme. If you return your used needles they will swap them for new ones free.
