Local Queeries #2: The Charlotte Museum Te Whare Takatāpui-Wāhine o Aotearoa
“I really love the Charlotte Museum because the collection contributes to a life that we’re living, to a struggle that we’re unfortunately still having to fight,”
“To relive?”
“Yeah, to relive. I can’t believe we have to do this again, it sucks!”
It’s 2025. We’ve just celebrated the 12th anniversary of same-sex marriage legalisation alongside a healthy handful of other milestones—the conversion therapy ban, the ability to self-identify gender on birth certificates—and the Wellington Council are officially adopting a Rainbow action plan, intentionally including their tākatapui and rainbow communities in increasing city accessibility.
It’s 2025. Little Gay Out got cancelled. Events for Auckland Pride, LGBTIQ+ social groups and inclusive spaces are being targeted by “protesters.” And even if queer hate and hate crimes aren’t on the rise, the tensions that we feel as a community are.
In response to recent antagonism and the threat it poses to the dignity and wellbeing of our rangatahi, The Charlotte Museum Te Whare Takatāpui-Wāhine o Aotearoa are hosting an exhibit of young queer creatives from August 27 to September 20. Featuring photographs, zines, sculptures, and paintings, the museum is still open for more submissions from queer youth and is happy to hear your story and about your process.
But what even is The Charlotte Museum Te Whare Takatāpui-Wāhine o Aotearoa? Why are they invested in making sure our community flourishes?
Cue Sarah Buxton (she/her), museum director and a self-proclaimed ‘broken stereotype’ of a fairly butchy lesbian, who knows nothing about cars and loves stories. In the past five years, she’s transformed the museum into an absolute cornerstone of Auckland’s queer communities across all generations.
“So, uh, silly question… but can you tell me what exactly separates The Charlotte Museum from other cultural and historic institutions?”
“Essentially, we are the only lesbian sapphic museum in the world, that’s pretty much it. We have a rainbow queer collection, absolutely, rainbow pride collection… but as a lesbian sapphic museum, we are the only one in the world. I think what makes us unique is that we have these collections and archives that are all about lesbian sapphic communities and rainbow queer communities and [it’s] quite diverse, pretty much there’s something for everyone here. And there’s not even a lot of that in New Zealand. Even the bigger organisations in Aotearoa, who are doing a really good job of queer collecting, [...] it’s not really always visible or accessible, and I think that’s the difference as well. I think we really try and make as much as we can accessible.”
The Charlotte Museum is a museum, archive, and research library. Housing three distinct collections, the Lesbian Sapphic Herstory Collections, the Rainbow Pride Cultural Heritage Collection, and the Saphira Research Library and Document Archive, they accommodate the incredible diversity of queer identities by updating and preserving their collections via their online library portal and E-Hive catalogue.
But that’s not all.
“Our other function is that we’re a community space. We have people who come in here and yes, they use the library, but really they’re coming in here to hang out and read for a while, have a cup of tea. We have people who come in and use the space for their community groups, or have a hui, and then we collab with people: Radiqal Movement, Small Batch Pottery, and Ethnic Rainbow Alliance, and obviously we’re part of the Te Whare Aniwaniwa, we’re one of the keystone organisations that are involved in that project. [...] And we host queer artists and creatives and performers [...] we’ve had musical performances, we’re going to be doing a play later in the year. [...] And then we host people for exhibitions, at the moment we’ve got the highschool students and young people in, doing their exhibition.”
“You’ve got your fingers in a lot of pots! That’s crazy.”
“Yeah, no, it is. We do quite a lot of different stuff and really what we’re about… I mean obviously the collections and the archive are really important and our whole emphasis around that is trying to share as much as possible and make it accessible for people to use, we get a lot of students and researchers looking for content that they can’t find elsewhere. And then on the community side of it, we sort of try to do lots of different things and keep people engaged and we just provide them really with a space to use.”
Having spent time working old clubs on the notorious Karangahape Road, immersed in what was then a lesbian scene, and with a bachelor's degree in History, a post-grad in Museum and Cultural Heritage, and an avid interest in stories ever since she was young, Sarah has unique insight into the tensions we face today.
“I think what I was struck by when I first visited is the concentration of things that you have, certainly unique. [...] I really love the Charlotte Museum because everything is still contributing to a life that we’re living, to a struggle that we’re unfortunately still having to fight.”
“To relive?”
“Yeah, to relive. I can’t believe we have to do this again, it sucks!”
“I think that everything that happened around Auckland Pride or during Auckland Pride, Little Gay Out, and then the impact that had [...] I think it was really disheartening. When Little Gay Out was cancelled and I sort of said that to a few people, they were like, oh my god, you should’ve told me. I would have come to the school and stood out in the road and yelled at the protesters [...] Quite a few people said that to me.
And I was like, yeah, that would’ve been great! I don’t know whether it was appropriate to be happening at a high school, but it was people’s impulse. In a way, [... our community is] coming back to [thinking] ‘we’re not going to be quiet, sit down for the sake of self-preservation.’ We’re going to stand up and stomp our feet a bit because this isn’t actually okay.”
“Obviously queer people are here to stay, and also Charlotte Museum as a whole. But I wonder what it’s like [... to] keep withstanding these cycles of hate. As a young person, I feel pretty disillusioned with the world and I struggle with the idea that true acceptance isn’t within reach in my lifetime.”
“Yeah, I understand that. I absolutely do acknowledge that there are not really very good things happening in Aotearoa, but we also have to be careful because [often] it’s a situation [happening] on the international stage that is really not good.”
Among other attacks, Sarah cites the US $215 million anti-trans campaign spent on advertising, blogging, and social media messaging in North America.
“And the same can be said for women’s rights, abortion rights, rainbow queer community [rights]... in Florida, they’re painting over the rainbow crossings. They’ve taken down the Pulse Night memorial. The Stonewall Heritage site has been completely decommissioned as a heritage site. It’s pretty awful.
But we have to remember that those things are happening in North America, and in Aotearoa, I think our experience is slightly different. [...] what we’re seeing on the internet, on social media… and it’s a constant feed of information [where] you start to associate what’s happening in other places with what’s happening here. But I don’t think it’s all doom and gloom. I think that [our local] community is generally really good and is trying and I think there’s a lot of comfort and visibility.
I walk around in my Charlotte Museum ‘I work at the only lesbian sapphic museum’ t-shirt all the time, like at my kids’ sports events, at the supermarket, going up to the local dairy. Going out to lunch with my mother, you know, just in the course of my daily life.”
With the recent and sore departure of our very first nonbinary MP Benjamin Doyle from parliament, it is imperative to stop doom-scrolling and look out to the queer people on your street: not just the librarians or the people who work your favourite coffee shop, but your friends, the people you pass by as you run an errand, as you visit a park.
“I think there’s definitely a lot of value to be found in the ‘struggle’ part of our identities. But you never want that to distract you from the joy of being queer, which is something I’ve only come to find as I’ve gotten older, like a lot of other younger people.”
“I really feel for them, I mean I remember what it was like to be a teenager and to be dazed and confused. I suffered from a lack of information. A lack of understanding my feelings or what was happening, you know, [...] there was no public communication whatsoever. You had to go out and hunt for community, and if you didn’t, if you were a teenager who didn’t have money or anything like that, it’s very hard to find.”
It’s an interesting contrast, the influx of information that we suffer today and the lack of information that older queers can attest to. And yet we end up with the same issues around our visibility, pride, and interconnection—as a teenager in the ‘80s, when homosexual law reform had yet to be instated, Sarah remembers vividly just how challenging it is when you can’t easily access connection.
Art pictured left to right: ‘Loud & Proud (2025)’ by Charlotte Green, ‘Various Zines’ by @tussockmoss
“This is what the [Queer Art Project] exhibition is about, it’s about giving people a chance to come and see that there is community here when they’re ready, and that we’re not hiding away. We want them to know that we’re here and that they can come here and participate and volunteer. They are absolutely welcome to just have some time in queer space. At those ages, you can’t really do the bars and clubs because it’s, you know, it’s not a safe environment… It’s not really a safe environment for most adults either.”
“You’re so brave for saying that.”
“(laughs) I think that’s the challenge, to have alternative places to go that are still queer but aren’t bars and pubs.
I do understand about being a young queer person and when you’re queer, you know, you don’t fit into your biological family whakapapa in the same way. In a way, when you come out and you find community and you’re sort of gaying up in community, you find this whole legacy and this whole history that you didn’t even have an inkling about because it was never accessible or available to you in any way.
We’re living at the moment at this time, [...] some of us are going out marching for Palestine, for hikoi, and it’s really important stuff, it’s really meaningful. And then I talk to these women who are in their ‘80s and I hear about them climbing the fences at Auckland airport in 1976 to stop the apartheid tour plane on the tarmac, and it’s like, who are you crazy, fabulous people?”
“Wow, yeah, it’s like parallel lines–”
“It’s that passion and that total commitment to the cause, you know… And they sat down around someone’s dining room table and created a whole magazine that was published for 25 years.”
“Man, I wish I lived in that period where you could just start something and it just… it happens.”
“I think there’s potential for that to be, [...] Really, that’s sort of my history, like the way that they built community and formed community, [...] when it was my turn, I was going to the spaces that they created. There’s a lot more out there that we don’t know about”
“And there’s a joy in discovering that.”
“Yeah, yeah absolutely.”
“Well, to top it all off, do you have any messages for the rainbow youth of today?”
“Really, just come and see us. We’re here. We want you to be here. We don’t want to be some mythical community that’s out there, that you have to grow up to come out and hunt and look for. We’re here if you want to do stuff, if you’ve got an idea or a project or you want to just come to and talk us. We’re really open to ideas. We’re really welcoming. We’re really interested in you participating. And don’t listen to what you hear on the Internet.
We have rights and we have legal status. My partner and I have been together for 30 years now and we haven’t got married [...] but our legal status as a couple has always been equal to the legal status of a heterosexual married couple, and that’s the law in Aotearoa. I think that it’s really easy to forget that, that those are real protections. Same with when our children were born, you know, we’re both on the birth certificate as mothers.
God, I’m not saying it’s always ideal, but it’s certainly never been a visible issue, or I’ve never had any sort of negative feedback about any of it. We’re coming out all the time, our kids go to sports, our kids have friends, our kids go to people’s houses and now going to parties [...] and so we’re coming out to new people all the time, and it’s never really felt like there’s been any issue around that. In fact, our child tells us regularly… we, well you know, [we say] we’re cool, we’re the rainbow parents, and she’s like “oh God, no one cares mum,” (laughs).”
“(laughs) No one cares! Love that.”
“‘Who cares?’ It’s delightful.
I know people have challenges, and sometimes they need to see something different or do something different to give them a different perspective.”
The Charlotte Museum Te Whare Takatāpui-Wāhine o Aotearoa is a wonderful hub of information, resources, and connection for our queer community. Check out the Queer Art Project Exhibition now, or if you’re a young artist or creative, take a step forward and submit something for display!
If you want to check out the fantastic mahi that The Charlotte Museum Te Whare Takatāpui-Wāhine o Aotearoa are doing, their website and Instagram are linked below:
Website: https://www.charlottemuseum.co.nz/
Instagram: @charlotte_museum_aotearoa
