There are fears that a global rise in anti-transgender and anti-queer rhetoric is fuelling a new wave of hatred toward New Zealand’s rainbow community.
Several community safe spaces have been vandalised in the last year, including a Greymouth church vandalised with homophobic and antisemitic slurs and a Tauranga Rainbow Youth office burned down in a suspicious fire.
Auckland Police had to intervene at a child-friendly story time session at the Avondale Library recently.
A video showed police confronting a small group of protesters who claimed they were asking the performer «not to groom children», newstalkzb.co.nz reports.