Pressing need for Pacific rainbow+ specific support organisations in Aotearoa - report

There is a pressing need for Pacific rainbow+ specific support organisations in Aotearoa, a new report has found.

Manalagi: Pacific Rainbow+ Health and Wellbeing Project principal investigator Seuta'afili Dr Patrick Thomsen says there is limited support for rainbow+ Pacific people in Aotearoa which has a cultural, religious and spiritual lens.

The first and largest research of its kind, the Manalagi Project surveyed 750 Pacific rainbow people and their allies across Aotearoa New Zealand, with 482 people identifying as part of the Pacific rainbow community or questioning their gender or sexual orientation/identity.

The responses of those who identified as rainbow+ were collated for the community report.

Just over half of those who took the survey described their gender identity as outside the gender binary or used a Pacific indigenous term.

Of those surveyed, nearly one in five reported feeling dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with life as a whole these days.

Forty-forty percent had never used a mental health support service and 40 percent said there was a time they were referred to or recommended to access mental health support but were hesitant to do so or did not attend an appointment.

More than half of people (64 percent) were not aware of rainbow+ specific mental health services.

Friend circles were currently the main support system for Pacific rainbow+ people experiencing mental health distress in Aotearoa, followed by a trusted family member and partner, but one in five people said they would not seek support from anyone when in distress.

Among the recommendations were that Pacific rainbow+ specific support services must exist across Aotearoa-New Zealand and that we must develop more rainbow+ specific mental health services, connect them better and make them accessible to Pacific rainbow+ individuals.

Thomsen said for the longest time Pacific peoples in New Zealand had been forced to sit under the label 'Pacific'.

"But the label of Pacific is imprecise. Underneath the Pacific, you have so many different ethnic groups with different languages, different cultural norms, and all sorts of different norms around gender and sexuality. It's not true to say that every Pacific community thinks about gender and sexuality in the same way," they said.

Working with families was about trying to acknowledge the diversity sitting beneath the label, he said.

"Although we know that family is really important for all of us as Pacific people, especially Pacific rainbow people, it's important that we as a community reflect upon some of the things that have happened to rainbow people's within our cultures, and we can no longer just say that fa'afafine or MVPFAFFs have always been part of who we are.

"If that's the case, then we need to also be uplifting them. And we have to do that together as a community, we can't treat rainbow Pasifika people as outside of us, because what we know is that nobody's genealogy and our cultures can be denied."

While just over three in five of those who took part in the survey lived in Tāmaki Makaurau, the rest were scattered around the country. Among them 14.95 percent were in Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington), 6.8 percent in Waitaha (Canterbury) and 5.1 percent were in Waikato. Others were in Ōtākou (Otago), Te Tai Tokerau (Northland) Tūranganui-aKiwa (Gisborne), Manawatū Whanganui, Te Matau-a-Māui (Hawke's Bay) and Taranaki.

Services dedicated to supporting Pacific rainbow+ communities are scarce, with a range of community or arts collectives and newly formed small-scale organisations having to fill the gaps.

Thomsen said the challenges raised by people during Manalagi project community consultation were often specific to their location.

"Some of the things that we heard from people Christchurch were the issues around representation ... Christchurch having a reputation for being not the most inclusive place for people who are non-Pākehā, in particular, was something that stood out very clearly.

"I think one of the dangers that we have here in New Zealand, being so small - Pacific people make about 8 percent of our population - is that there's the danger of our entire community being represented by a singular narrative and experience. When in actual fact, there are multiple different experiences which are impacted by cultural identities and also the different cities and towns that people live in."

Following 18 months of talanoa, Moana Vā launched in 2022 to address the gap in Ōtautahi (Christchurch).

When the Manalagi Project began in 2021 Whānau Ora funded F'INE Pasifika Aotearoa Trust - uplifting communities in Auckland - was the only specific Pacific rainbow+ organisation in operation and doing the heavy lifting. Since then Ngā Uri o Whiti Te Rā Mai Le Moana Trust in Porirua, Moana Vā in Ōtautahi and non-profit mental health organisation Nevertheless, operating between Hawke's Bay and Auckland, have launched.

Without core funding though, the new organisations heavily rely on project-to-project funding, Thomsen said.

Moana Vā has had a mix of both government and non-government contracts.

Co-chair Vui Suli Tuitaupe said strongly aligning with other organisations around the motu had been important.

"That was one of the big things, everyone was working in silos. We just have to collaborate and respect the vā but also stand strong in our identity, we are the people from the moana, our gender identities are reflective of us, from the islands."

Tuitaupe said Moana Vā were navigators of Pacific pride.

But the further away from Tāmaki Makaurau, the more isolating it was, he said.

In Canterbury, Pacific people make up 5 percent of the population.

"Christchurch is the most English city out of England so it means it's a very class-based system and the realities are so different for our people so having to navigate our own gender identity and sexuality and expression but on top of that our ethnicity, our own cultural heritage ... I think it's important to be visible," he said.

Tuitaupe grew up in the city and heard stories of people in his communities leaving the region as a way to deal with coming out, or those who did not feel they were safe to be themselves.

"When the Manalagi Project was going around the different centres, they struggled to navigate people from this city, because it just wasn't that kind of place that people that identified as rainbow+ or MVPFAFF+ or LGBTQIA+ could align to let along having role models that looked like them in mainstream ... even in mainstream rainbow organisations."

When it came to accessing any kind of support from rainbow-specific organisations more than half of survey respondents had never engaged because they felt there was no need, others were unaware they existed, had enough support from family and friends, said the organisation was not rainbow-specific or felt it would out them. A small number (2.86 percent) said the services were unavailable.

Supporting not only the rainbow+ person but also helping their family navigate this from a cultural and spiritual standpoint has been part of Moana Vā's success, Tuitaupe said.

"The difference for moana Vā, probably compared to other organisations around the motu, was that we hold the individuals and the families...and we do it as a collective."

Family was very important to people who filled out the Manalagi survey and over half indicated that their families were supportive or very supportive of them. A significant number however, 22.09 percent said their family did not know about their rainbow+ identity.

Three in five people felt it was important, or very important, that their family were fully aware of their rainbow identity and involved in their life.

Thomsen was not surprised by these findings and said Pacific wellbeing models have family as one of the key pillars.

"While Pacific peoples are very family centric, that's often as far as that narrative goes. People say, well, this is an important part of who we are but what's missing for our respondents in particular, is the safety within the family - we don't have that conversation.

"The idea of separating an individual member individual and just focusing on the rainbow individual on their own isn't going to be able to deliver the best wellbeing outcome for them, we need to figure out a way in which you can also bring your family along the journey. But I don't think we do that enough in the rainbow space."

Thomsen said of the strongest responses, and one that was expected, from survey takers was around the importance of their cultural identity.

"Over 90 percent of our participants indicated that their culture was really, really important to them.

"When we looked at some of the other data around experiences with existing services, what the respondents were saying was that they felt much more comfortable around someone who was Pacific and rainbow. And that's not to say that rainbow support services are not doing a good job supporting Pacific people. That's not what we're saying at all. What we are saying is that there is an aspect of wellbeing which is related to cultural identity, that sometimes is not at the forefront of some of the services that we've developed in the rainbow space.

"It will be important, I think, moving forward, for our community members to be able to see themselves reflected in the people who are who are working with them to try and ensure that their wellbeing is optimized as much as possible."

Thomsen wants to see government funding for Pacific rainbow services, specifically a free service in the mental health space.

"It's not just about thinking about it clinically, it's also thinking about it in terms of overall wellbeing holistically.

"And that's where I think these new organisations are particularly important because they really focus on community building and bringing people together and that can be really important for people but I think for Pacific and rainbow people in particular, it's really important because that relational connection is what helps to build a stronger sense of community and allows people to build the resilience to some of the challenges that we face in this heteronormative society that we live in," they said.

None of the three parties currently in coalition talks - National, ACT and NZ First - have Pacific MPs. Thomsen said this was very concerning.

"If you're not at the table, there's no way that any of the issues that your community are experiencing can actually be articulated to the decision makers and the government of the day.

"The sorts of statements that have been made by potential Cabinet ministers, by potential MPs who are going to have leadership roles within those particular parties, have not been very inclusive. So, we've got multiple challenges. It's not even just not having anyone in the government, it's also having a type of government that may take a different view on the importance of inclusion and diversity.

"And that's on top of the fact that we have to try and articulate who we are to our own Pacific communities," he said.

The Manalagi Project was developed in consultation with Pacific rainbow and MVPFAFF+ (mahu, vakasalewa, palopa, fa'afafine, akava'ine, fakaleiti/leiti, fakafifine) communities through 11 community talanoa sessions across the country, a Pacific holistic wellbeing framework was used to design the survey instrument. The project was funded by Health Research Council of New Zealand.

*Rainbow+ was a term used in the report to refer to any person who self-reported as carrying Pacific heritage who also has a non-normative gender or sexuality identity/experience/ expression. Participants were able to describe their gender and sexuality on their own terms when filling out the survey.

Recommendations

• Pacific Rainbow+ specific support services must exist across Aotearoa-New Zealand
• We must address the inherent discrimination that exists in practice for both healthcare professionals and Pacific service providers
• We must develop more Rainbow+ specific mental health services, connect them better and make them accessible to Pacific Rainbow+ individuals.
• Greater emphasis needs to be placed on working with families and cultural context when seeking to support Pacific Rainbow+ individuals.
• More support and research needs to be focused on the role that religion, spirituality and creative expressions has on the wellbeing of Pacific Rainbow+ individuals and communities.
• We must support Pacific families and churches to address how to support a Pacific Rainbow+ individual through their disclosure journey and to stamp out conversion practices.
• More awareness around Rainbow+-specific healthcare needs to be implemented especially around gender-affirming care.
• We need more Pacific Rainbow+ research, researchers and healthcare workers.
• More focus and research needs to be conducted on employment opportunities for Pacific Rainbow+