Weaving Tapestries: The Intersection of Culture, Queerness, and Neordiversity
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I’m unsure if it’s my autism or my pale skin that makes identifying as Māori so difficult. But I know that the intersection of those two things, along with a healthy dose of queerness and gender fluidity, makes everything feel hellishly complicated.
When I was 19 and in my first year of uni, I was terrified of my indigeneity. I wanted to own it so desperately, but what if someone asked me a question I couldn’t answer?
Practising my mihi in my dorm room for hours was empowering, yet the next day, in my nervousness, I stumbled over ‘kia ora’. That first week, I introduced myself as tangata whenua, and when people gave me ‘the look,’ I would rush to explain percentages and bloodlines. Who my koro had been, and what my last name meant to my whānau. It was exhausting.
I sat in the Māori and Pasifika tauira introductory seminar two months into that first year. My place in that room felt unnervingly compulsory and undeserved. Yet I remember it clear as day, as I sat there and listened as our Pouāwhina firmly said, “No one will ask you for proof of your Māoritanga. Whether you have a drop of Māori blood or you’re a part of the kōhanga reo generation. You belong here”.
It might sound cheesy now, but it was like the floodgates had been opened back then. I’d been given validation to be Māori. Not just that, I’d been given validation to own it. And I devoured information about my heritage and whānau like a huhu grub to damp wood. It was going well for a while; for once, a space existed that wasn’t defined by te ao Pākeha.
No one asked what percentage I was. The intergenerational trauma that so many of our parents faced meant that there was a litany of tauira just like me, who knew nothing and wanted to learn everything. Learning your whakapapa stories and lines means baring your soul, a terrifying vulnerability when you face it alone. But for the first time in this new space, I was learning side by side with people just like me.
Three years later, we were preparing for the Kaupapa Māori nation-wide negotiations competition. Kapa haka practice is mandatory for anyone representing Te Rākau Ture at a national competition, and that was when my identity shifted again.
“Wāhine on the left, tāne on the right.”
Well, shit.
This wasn’t something I could learn in a book, and while most autistic women learn from kindergarten how to mask and interpret social cues, the situation was so disconcertingly foreign that I froze. Gender fluidity was a new concept, and I clung to its affirmation. Three years had passed since that life-altering speech from my Pouāwhina, I was much more settled in my Māoritanga. My takatāpuitanga was a whole different story.
I watched the room divide up, and I couldn’t move. The roots holding me frozen on the side of the room had been established long before I was born, and by tīpuna I was still learning to claim. I wanted to fit in so badly. Yet if I made a scene now, I knew I’d have no more social goodwill saved up when I inevitably said the wrong kupu or moved the wrong way. It was too much; there were too many emotions and reactions to navigate and interpret. At that moment, I didn’t feel confident enough in my identity to step up.
So, I moved to the left. Afterwards, I asked one of the older girls where I should go next time. Where my place was as a non-binary tangata whaikaha. “I mean, I guess we’d have to find somewhere for you to go, I’m not sure where though”. Ironically, I didn’t know either. Not just because I’d only had a few years to become more comfortable with who I was within Te ao Māori. But also because the concept of the modern takatāpui was relatively new.
The first academic exploration of the queer Māori identity was published in 2015 by Whaea Kerekere. Only four years before, it felt comfortable for me to be both Māori and Pakehā. Only a year before, I changed my pronouns in my email signature. It was difficult to tell people how I wanted to exist in the space when I didn't know what to ask for. Once again, I felt alone and isolated in my learning.
As an autistic person, discomfort is not a foreign feeling. Spending hours before an event mentally cataloguing the people attending into different categories is automatic. There is an unspoken social rulebook that is crucial to existing safely in te ao Pakehā spaces. I’ve since learned that those rules are often reflected in te ao Māori spaces. The hierarchy is defined differently but still exists. The expectation to laugh when someone says something unkind still exists. Yet when you add in layers of queerness, things become more complex, the tikanga which prescribed me my place during that kapa haka practice inverted.
I don’t know where my place in te ao Maori is, but that is perhaps the only aspect of this journey that makes any sense. From what I’ve seen, the rangatahi takatāpui of my generation are carving out their space with a veneration that is both terrifying and delighting. We weren’t gifted the rich tapestry of pūrākau that our hetero, neurotypical peers received. So, instead, we’re writing the stories. We are the stories. We are shredding the labels Pakehā assigned us and revelling in the fluidity and freedom that the takataapui identity offers.
Hurihia tō aroaro ki te rā tukuna tō ātārangi kia taka ki muri ki a koe, turn your face to the sun, and the shadows will fall behind you. In loneliness and vulnerability, I have learned that the only way to define your identity is first to misunderstand it. And then try again. To hold space for others as they rage in their learning. And then try again. Ask for kindness when you misstep, and give it willingly when asked in return. To be at peace with the fact that your missteps and pain will pave the way for others.
And then try again.
I have not finished learning, and I have a lifetime of mistakes to stumble through and beg forgiveness for. But I hope that no matter how often I falter, I never hesitate to turn my face to the sun.