For the past few months, I have been covering the acrimonious split in the Auckland Rainbow Communities that resulted from the Auckland Pride Board’s decision to ban police uniforms from the Pride parade.
My intention is to canvas a number of opinions about this, and so today, I am talking with Stacey Kerapa – Stacey is Maori, transgender and a former board member of the Hero Parade and Festival organisation that ran in the 1990s. Because she has strong links to Auckland’s queer community and history, I wanted to get her perspective on the current Pride troubles.
*Editor’s note 11th March 2019: The new organisation Rainbow Pride Auckland announced two days after this interview was recorded that Stacey Kerapa has been added to their Advisory Board. Ms Kerapa did not disclose this to andrewwhiteside.com during the interview, but did mention afterwards that she had been asked but had not yet decided whether to accept or not.