Silencing Queerness – Community and Family Relationships with Young Ethnic Queers in Aotearoa New Zealand

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The contribution that family and community make to the lives of ethnic young people is well documented. However, the support that queer ethnic young people receive from family and community is compromised by homophobic attitudes and behaviors influenced by misinformation, religious beliefs, and cultural practices. In Aotearoa New Zealand, the absence of research on young ethnic queers suggests that little is known about how this group fares in a close and culturally bound ethnic community within a predominantly white society. This in-depth qualitative study of 43 queer ethnic young people examined how community attitudes and behaviors toward queerness impacted their family and community relationships. Gossip, rumors, silence, stigma, and respectability politics resulted in gender silencing and monitoring, rejection, and self-exclusion. These behaviors exacerbated feelings of cultural alienation in a society where ethnic peoples are already racialized and minoritized, and where the lack of support systems compound an unsafe environment for queer ethnic young people. Homonegative attitudes within ethnic communities require education and interventions at the interpersonal as well as communal level. Families need professional support to address their shame toward children’s queerness and to consider the impact of prioritizing the politics of respectability over the wellbeing of their child.