Bhen Goodsir: Auckland Pride chair addresses backlash to Benjamin Doyle's social posts

Auckland Pride has been quick to accuse Winston Peters of 'conspiratorial fear-mongering' following his criticisms of Green MP Benjamin Doyle.

The Deputy Prime Minister has criticised historic Instagram posts by Doyle that included sexually suggestive captions.

Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick says Peters' constant attacks fan the flames of hate - with Doyle receiving death threats.

Auckland Pride chair Bhen Goodsir says the language Doyle used was designed to connect with vulnerable communities.  

"As I understand, this was just one photo and a whole reel of photos that Benjamin posted - and their role was to connect with communities. So what we're seeing here is the intersection of their work, their identity as a queer person, and their role as someone who's part of a family."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brian Bridge Auckland Pride is accused Winston Peters of conspiratorial
fear mongering in relation to his comments about Benjamin Doyle.
The Deputy PM criticized Duel for their Instagram account with
the handle Bible belt bussy here is close habrook.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Members of many minority communities, the Rainbow community included, oftentimes
end up co opting or using language which is considered
it absurd or whatever else by external groups and flippant
or reverend ways in order to help navigate the world.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Been good, sir is the chair of allkam Pride with
me now?

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Hi Ben, Hi Ran, how's it going good?

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Thank you? Good to have you on the show. Can
you see why? Okay, just pretend you're not the chair
of Allkam Pride for a second. You're a semi conservative
kind of father of two. Can you see why from
some people's perspective seeing a child, a photo of a
child with a man be it their father, and the

(00:56):
post the caption bussy galore, which is a sexualized reference
to a man's bottom, can you see why that might
set pitch some people off?

Speaker 3 (01:08):
Look, rant I can see like lots of people have
feel shocked by the queer community and that there are
lots of misunderstandings that still exist, and so I can
understand why someone who doesn't have the understanding and doesn't
have the context might feel shocked. But hopefully I can

(01:31):
provide a bit of that context today.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Do it? Yeah? Tell us what is what is the
context that why would you put that type of term
next to a child?

Speaker 3 (01:41):
Look, I think I think the starting point for this
is that Benjamin Doyle is a really well respected member
of our community and when this post was done, was
working at the Burnett Foundation, which is a local grassroots
charity looking to end the transmission of HIV and Altor
lived just off Cada Road. Every day I'm walking past

(02:03):
posters from the Burnett Foundation with a sort of language
on it trying to connect with the areas of the
Rainbow community that need to hear these messages about sexual health.
And this is language of means of RuPaul that is
becoming more common, but is language that is targeted towards

(02:25):
certain communities and intended to engage with those communities. And
as I understand it, this was just one photo and
a whole reel of photos that Benjamin posted and their
role was to connect with communities, and so what we're
seeing here is the intersection of their work, of their

(02:48):
identity as a queer person, and of their role as
someone who's a part of a family.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
So the caption the bussy thing was actually applied to
a whole bunch of different photos, not just this one
particular photo of the child.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
Is that what you're saying, Yeah, my understanding is, you know,
they had this joke nickname of Bible about bussy on Instagram,
and so they've put up a realer photos of what
they've been up to and captioned it bussy galore. Sure
you know it's not what everyone might expect, but that
that kind of was a reflection of them and their

(03:27):
engagements with the community. And one of those photos had
their family member in it. But that's not okay, that's
not something that I think is worth us spending a
lot of time reading into.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
All right, fair enough, do you know what I find
interesting about all of this? Because I mean, obviously I
am a part of this community, but I don't I mean,
I didn't really know what bussy meant, if I'm being
honest with you. But something with stimped said to me,
Barry Soper has said the same thing when he came
in this afternoon. They've heard from friends of theirs who
are gay, and I've heard from friends of mine who say,

(04:03):
why do these guys have to go around provoking stuff
like with a pride parade in Auckland, for example. And
I'm not saying anything but anybody did anything wrong because
I love a drag show. But if you know that
there's people who don't, you know, why take it to
a library with these children? You know what I mean?

(04:23):
Can we are we trying to be inclusive or are
we trying to provoke?

Speaker 3 (04:29):
Look, I mean the queer community has been seen as
inherently provocatives for centuries and so it's only in the
last twenty years that our mere existence has been anything
less than provocative. So coming along afterwards and sort of
training to police the language of communities and the way

(04:52):
that they engage. And there are people who are disconnected
and this is the sort of language that gets that
get it used to reach out and enter those communities
that need to hear these messages. And these are the
important messages that are going to help us end HIV
in New Zealand. And so it's it's not for everyone,

(05:13):
but it's it's also it's part of a much wider
picture in a really deep history where people's very existence
has been seen as controversial for so long.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
Okay, interesting, Ben, Thank you very much. I appreciate you
coming on the program, being good to all. Compride to here.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
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Speaker 1 (05:36):
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