NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Lifestyle

Lee Suckling: Why LGBTQ labels are more important than ever

Lee Suckling
By Lee Suckling
Lee Suckling is a Lifestyle columnist for the NZ Herald.·NZ Herald·
9 Aug, 2020 07:00 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌

Subscriber benefit

The ability to gift paywall-free articles is a subscriber only benefit. See more offers by clicking the button below.

Already a subscriber?  Sign in here
Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

There's pride in labels that allow us to identify with one another, writes Lee Suckling. Photo / Getty Images
There's pride in labels that allow us to identify with one another, writes Lee Suckling. Photo / Getty Images

There's pride in labels that allow us to identify with one another, writes Lee Suckling. Photo / Getty Images

COMMENT:

We grow up in a straight world. That is news to precisely no one. LGBTQ people like me spend a good part of their lives grappling with society's heteronormative effects on our inherent queerness and sense of self.

When an international campaign for marriage equality kicked off circa 2012, there was a clear message that gay people – myself included – were trying to tell straight people. "We're just like you" was salient throughout the op-ed pieces, the speeches, and the press interviews.

I want to bring you back to something Barack Obama told ABC News in May 2012. "I think same-sex couples should be able to get married," he said of his then-evolving position on marriage equality – he previously only supported civil unions for gay couples, not full marriage rights.

Obama said his personal journey towards his acceptance on the matter came about after thinking of "members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together."

Keep up with the latest in lifestyle and entertainment

Get the latest lifestyle & entertainment headlines straight to your inbox.
Please email me competitions, offers and other updates. You can stop these at any time.
By signing up for this newsletter, you agree to NZME’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Read More

  • Lee Suckling: The negative trait that's key to a thriving relationship - NZ Herald
  • Lee Suckling: Six signs it's time to leave your marriage - NZ Herald
  • Lee Suckling: 10 signs it's time to take a break from sex - NZ Herald
  • Lee Suckling: The wage subsidy has changed how I think about welfare - NZ Herald

The New York Times called this "President Obama's Moment". I, then a 20-something gay man in a same-sex relationship, was proud of Obama, as were most of my peers – the chino-wearing, rosé-drinking, brunch-eating, middle-class gay men we all were. "Somebody understands us," we all communally cheered. "The most powerful man in the world has accepted us and thinks we're all equal!"

Looking back now, I'm ashamed of having this line of thought. Queer people weren't being acknowledged as being unique and thus still deserving of basic human rights. We were being accepted as "straight presenting" enough to warrant those rights.

As far as Obama's audience – not just the American public but the world – was concerned, the fact that some of us were in committed, monogamous relationships with houses and children and respectable careers made us worthy to the heterosexual world. All of our inherent queerness had been taken away.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The things that make LGBTQs some of the most interesting and intelligent people around – our non-conformity, our general Live Your Best Life attitude – had been straightwashed. And we, queer people, having been denied so much since the dawn of time, still lapped it up.

As a writer, I was so excited by the prospect of full legal marriage rights that I wrote article after article disseminating this same message to straight people: I'm just like you, so I deserve everything you do.

Discover more

Lifestyle

Lee Suckling: Why New Zealand feels like the 90s again

12 Jul 07:00 PM
Lifestyle

Lee Suckling: Stop denying our country is a racist place

19 Jul 07:00 PM
Lifestyle

Mental health of those in quarantine under threat

26 Jul 07:00 PM

Marriage equality laws were passed in New Zealand a year later in 2013. After three years in a committed, monogamous, hetero-presenting relationship with a man, I married my husband in November 2014. We were the exact representation of the accepted same-sex couple Obama spoke of. We had assimilated. Our homosexuality, and love for each other, was okay because straight people could understand us; we weren't a threat to them.

Years later, my shame in this way of thinking bothers me. I wish I'd been braver and written columns which sent another message: we LGBTQs ARE different, we have our OWN world and experiences, and we are STILL deserving of equal marriage. I never had the guts to write that because I felt so thankful being fed crumbs by straight society even though I really should be getting a whole meal.

A 20th century ideal of sexuality has become one without labels. There should be no need to "come out" or define yourself as one thing or another. In theory, it's a wonderful thought.

If being gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, asexual, fluid, questioning, or anything else under the queer spectrum weren't something for which we could be discriminated against (whether socially, politically, legally, or religiously), labelling ourselves would not seem necessary. We could all just "be", right? I break from many progressive LGBTQ pundits on this. I think labels are important.

Labels of queerness are part of who we, LGBTQ people, are. They're not EVERYTHING we are. But they do tell a story. There's pride in identifying with one or another. Absorption into the mainstream has its benefits for minority groups like queer people, but to suggest sexuality doesn't matter in one's identity is another way of straightwashing.

STAY IN THE KNOW. SIGN UP TO OUR DAILY NEWSLETTERS HERE.

If you're the straight observer, when a person takes on the label of gay or bi or trans is has no impact on you. But for the person who holds that identification, to remove the need or desire to label themselves is to ingest them into wider society as "just another person". It removes the importance of the value they bring, the heritage and diversity they contribute, and only helps them be forgotten by the majority.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Or, rather, it helps their perspectives become invisible, so they don't challenge white heteronormative conventions.

We shouldn't want to be invisible. The perspectives of every LGBTQ person are valid, and straight people need to hear them because there's much to learn from them.

Personally, the labels of "gay" and "queer", with which both I align, are vital parts of my personality. Being gay is not ALL of me. But it's a big part of me.

Subscriber benefit

The ability to gift paywall-free articles is a subscriber only benefit. See more offers by clicking the button below.

Already a subscriber?  Sign in here
Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Latest from Lifestyle

Premium
Lifestyle

They’re gentle. They’re seasonal. They’re soft boy cooks

22 Jun 06:00 AM
Premium
Lifestyle

Dealing with the Sunday scaries? Here’s how to address your anxiety

22 Jun 03:00 AM
Lifestyle

Suzy Cato on overcoming redundancy, helping children, and why she's never met her biological father

21 Jun 07:00 PM

Help for those helping hardest-hit

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Recommended for you
Man, 23, turns himself in after Auckland market stabbing
Crime

Man, 23, turns himself in after Auckland market stabbing

22 Jun 08:53 AM
UFC legend Jon Jones retires, ending dominant yet controversial career
UFC

UFC legend Jon Jones retires, ending dominant yet controversial career

22 Jun 08:36 AM
Iranian missile strikes on Israeli regions leave 23 injured
World

Iranian missile strikes on Israeli regions leave 23 injured

22 Jun 08:13 AM
'Naughty' parolee holding woman at gunpoint left after telling off from toddler
Crime

'Naughty' parolee holding woman at gunpoint left after telling off from toddler

22 Jun 08:00 AM
Former Australian sevens star returns to rugby after transitioning
Rugby Sevens

Former Australian sevens star returns to rugby after transitioning

22 Jun 07:00 AM

Latest from Lifestyle

Premium
They’re gentle. They’re seasonal. They’re soft boy cooks

They’re gentle. They’re seasonal. They’re soft boy cooks

22 Jun 06:00 AM

New York Times: These charismatic cooks are a counter to harder-edge chefs.

Premium
Dealing with the Sunday scaries? Here’s how to address your anxiety

Dealing with the Sunday scaries? Here’s how to address your anxiety

22 Jun 03:00 AM
Suzy Cato on overcoming redundancy, helping children, and why she's never met her biological father

Suzy Cato on overcoming redundancy, helping children, and why she's never met her biological father

21 Jun 07:00 PM
Premium
Instagram wants Gen Z. What does Gen Z want from Instagram?

Instagram wants Gen Z. What does Gen Z want from Instagram?

21 Jun 06:00 PM
Inside Leigh Hart’s bonkers quest to hand-deliver a SnackaChangi chip to every Kiwi
sponsored

Inside Leigh Hart’s bonkers quest to hand-deliver a SnackaChangi chip to every Kiwi

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP
search by queryly Advanced Search