LGBT New Zealand

New Zealand society is generally fairly relaxed in acceptance of gays and lesbians. The gay-friendly environment is epitomised by the fact that there are several Members of Parliament who belong to the LGBT community, gay rights are protected by the New Zealand Human Rights Act, and same-sex couples are able to marry as of 2013. Sex between men was decriminalised in 1986.

Statistics New Zealand currently does not readily record the sexual orientation of people in New Zealand, meaning there are very limited statistics on New Zealand's LGBT population. However, at the 2013 Census, there were a recorded 16,660 people living in a same-sex couple in New Zealand - 7,340 male and 9,310 female.

Academic research by Lara Greaves as part of the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study found that 94.2 per cent of New Zealanders identified as straight or heterosexual, 2.6 per cent as gay or lesbian, 1.8 per cent bisexual, 0.6 per cent bicurious, 0.5 per cent pansexual and 0.3 per cent asexual.

Same-sex relationships and activities appear to have been acceptable amongst pre-European Māori. Some stories, for example that of Tutanekai and Tiki, seem to be about same-sex couples. A British missionary, Richard Davis, found homosexual relationships between men to be a familiar part of Maori life, and although homosexual relationships between women have not been well documented, they were certainly not condemned. In modern New Zealand, a common label adopted by LGBT Māori is takatāpui, a term that has been revived from pre-European times and popularised since the Homosexual Law Reform Act in 1986. The term roughly translates into English as "intimate partner of the same sex".

Some of the earliest European settlers in New Zealand were Christian missionaries who arrived in the early nineteenth century and eventually converted most of the Māori population to Christianity. They brought with them the Christian doctrine that homosexuality was sinful. Despite this, one missionary, William Yate, was sent back to England in disgrace after being caught engaging in sex with young Māori men.

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Wikipedia