Be There for intersex young people: a webinar for parents and whānau

Moira: Kia ora koutou.
Me karakia tatou.
 

Kia hora te marino
Kia whakapapa pounamu te moana
 

Hei huarahi mā tātou i te rangi nei
 

Aroha atu
Aroha mai
 

Tātou i ā tātou katoa
Hui ē!
 

Tāiki ē!
Kia ora koutou, um, mihi atu kia  

koutou katoa.
 

Um, welcome, thank you so much for being here for 
this webinar session which is around supporting  

parents and whānau of intersex young people.
Weʻll talk a bit more about intersex young  

people and our organisation and the Be There 
campaign that this is part of in a minute.
 

But just to start off with Iʻll stop sharing 
my slide and we can all introduce ourselves,  

let you know whoʻs all here.
Um, Iʻm Moira Clunie, Iʻm Project Lead  

for Te Ngākau Kahukura, um, and coming to you from 
Tāmaki Makaurau, um, from Mt Eden in Auckland.
 

Iʻll pass over to Joey to introduce themselves.
Joey: Kia ora.
 

Thanks Moira, thank you for 
opening this space for us.
 

Um, and kia ora koutou, itʻs nice to 
have some people here with us live  

and wonderful also if you are watching this as 
a recording which how we anticipate quite alot  

of people will probably be getting into it.
So, um, kia ora on the non-live part of this.
 

Um, Iʻm Joey, Iʻm the Education 
Lead at Te Ngākau Kahukura.
 

My pronouns are they/them and Iʻm also Zooming you 
from Tāmaki Makaurau, specifically out west, ah,  

nearTe Henga, Bethells Beach 
which is also where I grew up,  

ah, on the whenua of Te Kauwarau Ā Maki.
 

We can probably hand to Jelly next, right?
We have a fabulous guest here to do a  

presentation and, um, bring, bring this 
conversation to life with us today.
 

Jelly.
Jelly: Kia ora.
 

Joey: So nice that youʻre here.
Jelly: Oh, thanks so much for having me.
 

Iʻm really excited for this conversation.
Um, yep, so Iʻm Jelly.
 

Iʻm from Intersex Aotearoa.
Iʻm in Te Whanganui-A-Tara.
 

Um, and, yeah, weʻre gonna, I think weʻre 
gonna have a great conversation today.
 

Thanks to everyone here and Te Ngākau Kahukura 
and Jono in the background doing tech.
 

Shout out.
Joey: Shout out.
 

I was gonna say that but you got to it first.
Jelly: Oh sorry [laughter]
 

Joey: No, itʻs great.
Um, yeah, we have our, our lovely  

colleague Jono in the chat is, ah, collecting of 
questions and various comments so if you have any  

questions that occur to you as we go along, feel 
free to pop them into the chat and Jono will be  

monitoring that so that we donʻt miss it if 
we are mid blah, blah, blah at the time.
 

Cool.
Ok Iʻm gonna say a little bit about,  

um, the Be There project which is 
kind of the mechanism that we are  

bringing you this webinar through.
Um, itʻs a great collaboration between a  

whole lot of rainbow led, intersex led, trans 
led support organisations across Aotearoa.
 

So, itʻs a project from the rainbow support 
collective and our members include Dunedin Pride,  

Burnett Foundation Aotearoa, Qtopia, Rainbow 
Youth, Te Ngākau Kahukura, Rainbow Health Waikato,  

InsideOUT, Q-Youth, Intersex Aotearoa, Outline 
Aotearoa, and Gender Minorities Aotearoa.
 

You can tell where we are [laughter].
Um, one of the things that came through the  

process of doing Be There as a project which had 
a kind of public campaign with some posters and a  

whole lot of information on a website and now 
weʻre doing some workshops and some webinars,  

one of the things that really came through was 
that intersex young people and families with young  

people with variations of sex characteristics, we 
know terminology is, is varied, um, were really  

being missed in some parts of our 
messaging, you know, some of our  

content really needs some adapting 
and some shifting and some  

making sure itʻs more relevant for a 
range of different perspectives.
 

And weʻre working on that with the Be There 
project, so weʻre deeply grateful to have  

Jelly and other people guiding us on that work.
I think that one of the key messages from Be There  

has been ʻshow unconditional loveʻ.
Itʻs like the first top level message  

that hits home pretty well for, um, I, I would 
say any young person so including, you know,  

intersex young people, um, rainbow young people, 
trans young people, broadly, broadly anyone.
 

I also thought that one of our key 
messages of ʻyou are not aloneʻ  

is a really relevant one because we donʻt 
want parents and whānau and caregivers to  

feel like they are alone either.
Um, this is, this is a webinar that  

is particularly aimed at parents and 
whānau of intersex young people.
 

Weʻre welcoming also our other allies and 
supporters and, um, potentially people working  

in health and social services who are attending 
to learn more about the topic but our, you know,  

our real goal is to aim this at, um, 
parents and whānau of young people.
 

We want you to feel more confident to support 
the intersex young person in your whānau,  

to know where you can go to get 
more information or advice.
 

We donʻt feel like weʻve got all 
of the answers here but we are  

really, really pleased and grateful and quite 
humbled to be part of this conversation.
 

We know its a really ongoing evolving 
everchanging kind of space.
 

Weʻll be sharing some insights, um, 
particularly Jelly will be sharing  

some insights in a presentation about, 
um, intersex health and what some adults  

have said they wished their whānau knew.
Ah, yeah, maybe Iʻll, Iʻll stop there.
 

I could keep going but I, I wanna keep us 
moving on and I think Moira has the next  

slide about some language notes?
Moira: Yeah, thanks Joey.
 

And just briefly to kind of situate ourselves in 
terms of the topic, um, Jelly will speak more to  

this later on, but I just wanted to briefly kind 
of say that, um, intersex is an umbrella term.
 

Talks about people who are born with innate 
variations in their sex characteristics.
 

So, they have, um, may have chromosomes 
or bodies or hormones, um, gentalia,  

um, range of different kind of aspects of their 
body that might be considered as outside of the  

kind of typical definitions of male or female.
Um, not everybody who kind of fits under,  

under this umbrella might use the word 
ʻintersexʻ or might know the word ʻintersexʻ.
 

They might of just heard a particular 
diagnostic word from a doctor.
 

They might not be aware of, um, fitting 
into this kind of wider umbrella term.
 

And not every whānau uses the 
word, um, the word ʻintersexʻ to  

talk about who their loved one is.
Um, thereʻs a range of other kind of  

terminology thatʻs used around, ah, differences 
of sex development, um, sort of words around  

diagnostic labels or conditions or variations.
Um, intersex can be a really helpful umbrella term  

to talk about that whole range of diversity but 
isnʻt the word that everybody necessarily uses.
 

Um, so just to say that briefly and 
Jelly will have a presentation and  

more to say about it later, but Jelly did 
you have anything to add at this point?
 

Did I get that more or less right?
Jelly: You nailed it.
 

That was beautiful.
Moira: Nice one.
 

Thank you, um, so I’ll close the slides 
down again and pass back to Joey to...
 

Joey: Cool.
Moira: …Situate  

us a bit more.
Joey: Cool.
 

I really just had some practical notes, 
um, which is about welcoming people to  

use the chat function and the Q&A function.
So, if you want to pop questions or comments,  

thoughts that you have into that, um, into 
the chat, you have the option to send it to us  

as hosts and panellists only 
or to send it to everyone.
 

Um, you can introduce yourself and 
ask questions there if you like to.
 

You’re also welcome just 
to be a silent observer.
 

And if you’re watching this as a recording, 
I know that’s, um, what you will be doing.
 

We’re gonna make some space for answering 
questions at the end of the webinar and  

this is gonna be quite conversational.
We’re gonna chat amongst ourselves so if you have  

even just thoughts, rather than fully formed 
questions that you just wanna throw into the mix,  

that’s really helpful and great for us.
You know, we would,  

even if we don’t have the answer to something, 
we would welcome you to ask the question.
 

Um, we’ve got Jono in the chat, as 
I mentioned, collecting things.
 

The Q&A function is good if you want 
to ask an anonymous question.
 

Um, you know because you can do it in the 
chat but just sending it to us, but we’ll  

still know who it was that asked that question.
Whereas if you use the Q&A function, I believe you  

can make yourself anonymous completely and then 
we won’t know who asked the question either.
 

That just might be reassuring or helpful 
if you were not feeling that way.
 

We are recording this webinar and 
planning to make it publicly available.
 

So, be mindful of that.
We’re not going to let anybody unmute  

themselves and speak as an audience member.
We’re gonna be the only ones speaking and the  

only people who will be visible 
will be us as presenters.
 

Um, but, if we get a, if we get a question coming 
in that is in any way naming any information about  

anyone, we won’t be reading that question out.
We’ll be anonymising things, or editing things, or  

possibly reframing things if anything comes 
through that we think is a bit, um, yeah,  

sharing a bit too much information 
about any particular person.
 

Just in case you ask something, and it gets 
reframed, and you’re worried about why,  

this is partly why because it will be 
a public, um, education resource.
 

So, we’re balancing that, kind of, that 
edge of wanting it to be really relevant,  

wanting your comments and your questions, 
feel free to put them in and also wanting to  

make sure it can go out to a really wide 
audience after this as a recording.
 

And as I’ve said, we’re aiming this primarily, um, 
at parents and whānau of intersex young people.
 

We know we have a wider audience than that who 
are attending or who will be watching this,  

and we really welcome all of you and 
ask that you are respectful and generous  

to each other and to us.
Um, we will be also to you.
 

We know that these topics are often difficult.
Ah, sometimes not something we know how to talk  

about comfortably and with a lot of 
flow so we will be doing our best.
 

Please, um, be compassionate to yourselves 
and, and to us about it as well.
 

Moira, I think you had something else to add?
I love that Jelly is nodding.
 

I get so much support and good feeling when 
Jelly nods while I’m talking [laughter].
 

So that’s great, thanks.