Papamoa College's Gay Straight Alliance held a Day of Silence to support their LGBTQ peers. Left to right: Sam McLachlan, Zach McLachlan, KatSpeidell, Josh Marshman, Izzy Whyte. Photo/Andrew Warner
Local gay, lesbian and transgender students have new options for connection - at schools, community groups and through mental health services. Dawn Picken shows how young people are supporting each other while navigating the turbulence of their teens.
"My dad doesn't know I'm gay."
"For the purpose of this article, I'm straight."
"If I tell you about my sexuality, I might miss an opportunity I really want."
"I didn't know what I was until I started Googling it."
Ask a young person in the Bay what it's like to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, and you get a hint of their struggles, like the comments above that I received this week.
Ask adults about young people in the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) community and you'll hear things such as: What if the teen changes his/her mind? What if this is a phase? What if telling his/her story to local media hurts their reputation? In 2017, these fears still exist.
Mount Maunganui Year 12 College student Theo Spargo gets it. He says coming out to his family as gay at age 13 was the toughest thing he ever did.
"I told my sister first . . . my sister was scared for me, she was crying. She ended up getting my mum in the room, and that's when I told my mum," he says.
"It was the first time I'd ever told anyone. It was a very big weight off my shoulders." Theo says he waited two years to tell his father. "I knew he'd be fine with it, but the mind games overwhelm."
Today, at age 17, Theo says he's confident in his sexuality, his identity and secure in his parents' support.
"They're 100 per cent behind me."
Theo says he moved to Mount Maunganui College from Tauranga Boys' in Year 10 because he had friends at Mount and felt a co-ed school would be a better fit.
"Boys can be quite judgmental. I knew the support that would come by being with girls." He has found friends with whom he can be himself.
"I told them I was gay and they were totally fine, and it was the best feeling in the world."
Theo believes other peers who identify as lesbian, gay, transgender or queer don't feel comfortable revealing who they are. He knows of just two other gay males at school.
"Just that emotion of not being accepted. It's tricky for a student to overcome that."
Mum Melissa Spargo says she talks to her children about "everything". She says Theo, starting about age three, displayed flashes of femininity and flamboyance, dressing up and "prancing around".
So the announcement he was gay was not entirely shocking.
"He has been who he is forever. It's not a choice. It's a huge part of who he is."
Melissa is proud of her son, who spent the first six weeks of his employment at a Papamoa café washing dishes. She says he works holidays and weekends, loves art and fashion and played hockey on a representative team for the Bay of Plenty.
"He's intelligent and a people person. A lot of people really care about him and love him. He's got a good network. He's friends with adults and all sorts of people."
While Melissa says being gay is a harder road to walk, she's grateful New Zealanders in general have become more accepting of differences.
Support in schools
It's lunchtime Wednesday when we visit Papamoa College.
Beyond the buzz of students shouting, playing handball and chatting in the courtyard is a room where members of the school's Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) sit quietly. It's part of an event called Day of Silence, where participants call attention to the silencing effect of homophobic, transphobic and biphobic bullying.
Group founder Katherine (friends call her Kat) Speidell steps into the foyer, an open area where the glass wall of one office is papered with funny memes like, "That awkward moment during a test and you don't know any of the answers, so you just start laughing because you know you're screwed".
Kat is wearing a black skirt, short-sleeved white-collared shirt and knotted orange necktie. Her dark, auburn-tinged hair is shaved in back, grown out in front, swooping over one eyebrow.
She wears a dozen or so colourful rubber bracelets and a rainbow sticker below her right shoulder saying, "I'm participating in the Day of Silence".
Her American accent reveals her heritage, careful diction and choice of words communicate intelligence, hinting at her achievements as a top student and as a leader. Kat is speaking today because she's running the event, fielding questions and directing activities.
The 16-year-old spent a year in America where her high school's GSA held a similar event. She says while she doesn't see bullying or discrimination against LGBTQ students at Papamoa College, she wanted to use Pride Month as a catalyst for extra education and support.
She started the school's GSA last year not just for LGBTQ youth, but their friends, too. Each student I interviewed at Papamoa College, like Kat, either declined to reveal his/her sexual identity, or told me they were straight.
"Those who are allies make the contributing difference," Kat says. "Some [teenagers] aren't coming out. And there are those who want to learn more, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity."
Language matters. For one thing, Kat would like her peers to stop using 'gay' as a slur.
"Even if they don't associate their use of the word with speaking poorly of another group, it automatically supports that bias . . . actually, I feel like there's a better word you can use."
Group member Zach McLachlan says he joined GSA with his sister to support LGBTQ peers. The Year 12 student says young people are leading the way in teaching acceptance of differences. He's encouraged by the fact his group gave out nearly 1000 rainbow stickers, but he says many adults don't understand the cause.
"Someone's parent had rung up and said, 'Why is my daughter doing this? Why are they wearing a sticker?'" Zach says heightened awareness normalises LGBTQ issues.
"It's not something that's new and not something that people should be afraid to talk about."
Year 12 student Izzy Whyte says everyone deserves basic human rights. "
You don't know who these people are. It's not about being part of the [LGBTQ] community, it's about offering your support for it."
Papamoa College students have access to gender-neutral uniforms and may soon have unisex toilets, too.
Senior English teacher Margot Calder says it's part of promoting a healthy atmosphere at a time when some teens have difficulty admitting who they are.
"Anybody who says there still aren't barriers to alternative sexuality are probably not being very honest. That said, I think we do have a very accepting community here in the school."
"Having been quieter the first part of 2017, there is now a renewed push from students to reactivate this group," guidance counsellor Rachel Cassaidy says.
"We look forward to continuing to support members of our diverse and vibrant school community in this way."
Tauranga Girls' College principal Pauline Cowens says a new gay-straight student support group is being formed after its leaders left last year.
"Individual students can access other external community groups if needed . . . Students here also did the Day of Silence last year to raise awareness."
Community help
Mount Maunganui College staff refer students to the Tauranga branch of Rainbow Youth, a charitable organisation dedicated to helping young queer and gender diverse people.
Regional coordinator Nathan Bramwell works 20 hours per week from an office inside the Tauranga YMCA. He identifies as transgender and attended Hamilton Girls' High School.
"I left a year early because it was uncomfortable and I had mental health issues."
Bramwell says he went through denial and self-hate, attempting suicide and landing in hospital twice. Today, at age 29, he credits his survival to support groups.
"I really think rainbow support groups, groups that support minorities in general, are amazing. They give space for you to be yourself and give you resources to deal with big foreign concepts."
Bramwell says his youth group was a place of connection and comfort.
"I wasn't the only freak in the village. It normalised it for me and helped me work through feelings."
He leads weekly sessions of the Tauranga Pryde group at the Historic Village. The group is open to people ages 13 through to 27.
Bramwell also praises the work of the Bay of Plenty District Health Board's mental health services team, (abbreviated as CAMHS for Child, Adolescent Mental Health Services).
"Especially for mental health and supporting people who are transgender, they've come a long way and provide really well-rounded mental health services for youth."
Clinical psychologist in private practice
Dr Diana Prizgintas specialises in transgender issues and knows of about 20 transgendered youth in the Bay.
She says overall, LGBTQ youth are more likely to have co-occurring mental health disorders (both a mental health and substance abuse disorder), are more likely to self-harm and more likely to commit suicide than straight peers.
"New Zealand has one of the highest suicide rates, but also one of the highest teen pregnancy rates, and sexuality and gender are inherently linked to identity. Adolescence is a time when you're exploring these issues."
Dr Prizgintas says the only client she has ever known to commit suicide did so several months after she stopped seeing them.
"They were part of the LGBT community and I think that was a significant factor in their death. We live in an inherently binary-gendered world that is not equal. And people are judged by their sexual identity."
Schools, she says, have been providing good pastoral care to LGBTQ students including counselling and birth control. She says it's an important counterbalance to sexualised messages teens receive through online pornography and social media.
"Kids are having to make sense of this at younger and younger ages. I think it's a natural question people ask as they're developing - am I gay? I think a lot of times they're not sure. There's a whole lot of variance."
Tauranga Pryde founder Kat Clarke has started a new support group at Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology.
Clarke, 25, says she came out as lesbian at 21.
"The reason I waited so long was because I didn't want to get kicked out of home . . . your family's your home, you don't have anything, no job . . . it's bloody scary."
But Clarke says that when she finally told her parents they were supportive.
In March, she founded the Rainbow Network at Toi Ohomai, which meets each Thursday.
She says she knows students in their 30s who struggle to come out. She believes New Zealand's legalisation of gay marriage in 2011 may have opened the door for people who earlier hid their sexual orientation.
"They're no different to a young person coming out, going through the same emotions . . . that's why they need a group helping them and supporting them."
A mother's love
Melissa Spargo knew instinctively her son, Theo, could benefit from a support group.
After he told her he was gay, she called Rainbow Youth in Auckland.
"I'm desperate for my son to find a group where he can be himself,'" she told them.
Melissa briefly thought Theo might be going through a phase, but cringes at that initial reaction.
"No matter how open-minded and accepting we can say we are, there's something in our human nature that questions the LGBTQ community." She fully embraces her young man and his possibilities.
"I'm really excited for him. He's gonna go a long way no matter what he chooses in life."