I think about race and racism, obviously, because I'm brown, and through the work of my charity, Adhikara Aotearoa, I do wonder if you have reflections on, obviously, the general question around who feels a sense of inclusion today, who's being left out but i guess secondly from the perspective of ableism as well because that's something that admittedly i i need to think a bit more about and i'd be really interested to hear your views on

yeah absolutely and you know we often hear from disabled people about how perhaps they don't feel included when matters of rainbow rights are talked about or perhaps in events and stuff You know, it could be that accessibility is not thought of so much, although I think over the last few years anyway, we've seen a lot of the organisations who produce Pride events paying more attention or wanting to make progress in that area.

I think that's really interesting, that intersection, and also what you were talking about, you know, sort of binaries and everything.

I think that when there are binaries, sometimes perhaps society as a whole or many people in society feel like they can place something or someone easier.

And I think when we start to get in, as you've touched on about race, if we talk about disability, or if we talk about things beyond the binary, so people who don't necessarily identify as gay or lesbian, but perhaps bisexual, perhaps non-binary, and other terms that might be used, then my impression is some people find it difficult to understand that sort of experience of people.

Because... as someone who doesn't identify with the binaries and who is a disabled person, I think the way that we live our lives, including who we're attracted to or anything like that, we can't be squeezed into sort of this simple box of, OK, this is the whole of who you are.

Because particularly as a disabled person, like, there are so many... that we are navigating in society, in the systems that we have that don't meet our needs and perhaps require us to be one particular way when our impairments are, like, just factually, like, they can't, it doesn't work.

So I guess that's how I would describe the practical and lived terms.