In conversation with Sammie Le Gallais, Doctoral Student in Clinical Psychology, Auckland University

GLE's England Lead, Peter Molyneux in a Podcast with Sammie Le Gallais, who talks about the impact of colonialism and today’s structural determinants on Maori queer people. The colonisation of Maori people and the imposition of a “Victorian” rhetoric around gender and sexuality has led to a deficit narrative in clinical training and we now need to go beyond traditional notions of cultural competence - and celebrate these cultures and how much we can learn from each other. Too often, we approach cultural competence through the lens of the negative impact of colonisation rather than looking at how wonderful Maori cultures are. That requires all of us to challenge what we think of as normal and where our identities have come from and that we can learn a huge amount from Maori culture in terms of how gender and sexuality are portrayed.