Within New Zealand’s bicultural framework, which centres relations between tangata whenua (Indigenous peoples) and tangata Tiriti (non-Indigenous peoples), racialised ethnic minorities are frequently rendered invisible. This erasure is particularly evident in so-called “mainstream” Queer spaces, which are often dominated by the voices and perspectives of Pākehā (New Zealand European). This form of whiteness is situated within the settler-colonial context of New Zealand. As a result, racialised ethnic minorities are systematically pushed deeper into a metaphysical “closet within a closet”, as we remain subject to both racism and anti-Queer prejudice. We are thus simultaneously marginalised within broader society and within Queer communities themselves.
The question remains: how do racialised ethnic minorities authentically express themselves within these systems when they have been deliberately excluded? This paper bridges community advocacy and academic research through my lived experience as someone who is both Queer and racialised, embedded within this system, and my attempts to unsettle this binary view of Queerness inside and outside Queer-centred organisations in New Zealand. As a community advocate and researcher, I examine how dominant narratives of Queer liberation in New Zealand have been systemically erased. I reflect on my experiences and discuss how the non-profitisation of Queer politics further exacerbates these issues. Both factors continue to reinforce the ongoing erasure of racialised ethnic minorities in New Zealand. These learnings can be extended to other settler-colonial contexts through this socio-historical lens.
I conclude by reflecting on the tensions, challenges, and transformative possibilities involved in working towards a more inclusive and genuinely liberatory Queer future.
- 9926854160401891
- Seen but Not Heard: Representation Without Participation in Queer Community Organisations
- Sidney Wong
- Centre for Sustainability
- Australian Alternative Sino-Queer Collective (AASC) Bridging Community and Research Queer Forum (Sydney, Australia and Online, 23/02/2026–24/05/2026)
- Copyright © The Author(s) 2026. This is an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided that the original work is properly attributed to the creator(s) and the source, a link to the Creative Commons license is provided, and any changes made are indicated.
- English
- Conference presentation