It is 30 years since the Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986 was passed, legalising sex between consenting males in New Zealand. Three decades on, North Otago reporter Shannon Gillies finds out what life is like these days for some members of Otago's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer and intersex community who live outside Dunedin.
Twenty-one year old Harley-Dean Weir runs a social media page encouraging support for Oamaru's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer, intersex and takatapui community.
The son of a Brethren mother and Pentecostal father, he came out at age 14, finding support from his mother.
He spent the next two years trying to repress who he was, to please some family members, but found it a pathway to depression.
"I tried to change from being homosexual to being straight. It was like hell on Earth.''
Mr Weir said life for LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning and intersex) people in North Otago, where there was not a large gay community, was by no means great.
"You walk down the road and get called faggot.''
It may be 30 years since it was a crime to be a homosexual, but although the wider community's tolerance had grown, there was still a lot of hate towards LGBTQI people, he said.
When he came out, he was blessed to have such good friends, he said, but he knew of people who did not have such strong support networks.
"I know people who can't 'come out' because of their friends and what they think of gay people, but it's up to that person at the end of the day and what they want from their life.''
• It seems life might be a little simpler for members of the LGBTQI community in Queenstown and Arrowtown.
Sally Whitewoods is married and is raising a child with her wife in Queenstown.
She has not experienced homophobia in the tourist mecca, though she had heard of gay men being physically and verbally assaulted in the area.
"For us, absolutely no problem at all. I think that's particularly because Queenstown brings people from every ethnic and sexual orientation and people are on holiday.''
Mrs Whitewoods is one of the organisers of Gay Ski Week QT.
It was important to hold such events for a minority group to provide people with a safe place and a sense of community.
"Bigotry is something that will never disappear.''
Homosexuality always existed, she said, and just because for a moment a certain rung of society was able to demean homosexuals did not always mean they would hold that power.
• Arrowtown teen Bom Thepsorn (19), identifies as asexual.
Bom came out at 16, while in high school, and experienced bullying, but found acceptance in his group of friends.
He now works at a supermarket in Queenstown and enjoys figure-skating in his spare time.
He did not initially come out as asexual, but it was the label he now most closely identified with.
His advice to anyone who was in the closet about their homosexuality was to come out at their own pace and to ignore pressure to speed up their journey.
"This process could take many years. They should take as long as they like. Everyone's story is different.''
When he first grappled with his sexuality, he would try to push it to the forefront of who he was until he placed more emphasis on who he was as a person.
"There's more to me than just that label.
"There's more to people than just their sexuality, but some people can't move past it.''
• Andrew (25), of Oamaru, asked for his last name to not be used, so his parents would not be identified.
He would choose not to be gay if it was possible, but his orientation was not a choice, he said.
"I love being who I am, but there's also a cost and I don't think there should be.
"You sometimes lose friends and you lose opportunities just because of it.''
He is one of two gay brothers, and his mother and father were supportive, but his father was relentlessly harassed at his workplace for having gay sons, he said.
People at Andrew's own work, too, asked uncomfortable questions.
He was asked by work colleagues and peers, for example, if he had ever had sex with a woman.
He said he still felt unsafe to hold another man's hand in town.
"There's still that view that you can't show it, or show it publicly.
"In my last relationship, he went to hold my hand and I just couldn't do it. I know it's not that bad, but I just thought it would be.''
• Youth worker Jacqui Moir has been involved since the start with the Spectrum Club, a queer and straight alliance group established in Queenstown in October 2015 after lobbying from young people who asked for a support group.
She is shocked at the bullying aimed at queer people from the wider community.
The group covers the area from Glenorchy to Arrowtown.
"As a heterosexual you don't have to worry if your family are going to find out you're straight.
"Whereas for these people this is part of their daily life - worrying people will treat them differently if they find out they're not straight.''
She said the group was created to spark action and create educational opportunities.
At 48, and heterosexual, she said she could remember how homosexuals were treated before the law changed allowed them to come out and be open.
"I don't think it was an accepted thing at all. You can change the law, but you can't change peoples' attitudes.''
She said what worked well for the LGBTQI community in recent years was high profile people in the media coming out and expressing who they were openly, but she still hoped that in the future acceptance would happen for Otago's regional LGBTQI population and they did not owe anyone a coming-out moment.
• One of the MPs who voted for the law change 30 years ago was the MP for Ohariu Peter Dunne.
He believes life in general for LGBTQI people became easier after the law change, even in rural areas.
People no longer had to live their lives in secret, he said.
This week he attended Youth Parliament, where people spoke about the needs and requirements of LGBTQI people.
"That could not have happened 30 years ago.''
The debate and arguments against the Bill were just so bigoted and aggressive compared to what the recent Marriage Equality Bill came up against.
"It's hard to explain to people how bad and raw it was,'' he said.
"We've come a long way, but obviously there are some people whose attitudes haven't shifted.''
Homosexuality and the law
• Homosexual sex acts became illegal in New Zealand when the country became part of the British Empire on February 6, 1840.
• Homosexual acts were punishable by death until the 1867 Offences Against The Person Act changed the penalty from execution to life imprisonment.
• The Homosexual Law Reform Act, decriminalising sexual relations between males aged 16 and over, came into effect on August 8, 1986.
• Sex between women was not illegal, but lesbians and bisexual women faced social stigma.
• On July 29, 1993 changes to the Human Rights Act made it legal for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals to serve in the New Zealand military and officially ended most forms of employment discrimination.
Agitation for change
• Social and political groups for homosexuals in New Zealand began with the Dorian Society in the 1960s.
• In early 1972 Gay Liberation groups sprang up in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch after the academic Ngahuia Te Awekotuku was denied a visitors permit to the USA on the grounds that she was homosexual.
• The campaign for homosexual law reform began in the mid-1970s when MP Venn Young introduced a crimes amendment Bill to legalise private homosexual acts' between consenting adults.
• Marches were held and petitions signed around the country around the time Parliament was deciding on the Homosexual Law Reform Act.
