The words we use to talk about rainbow people, populations and issues are evolving all the time. No terms are perfect, but it’s useful to understand the background and context of different words when choosing which ones to use.
This page shares our thoughts about rainbow population terms, and explains how we use these words.
Rainbow
We use rainbow as an umbrella term to describe people whose sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics differ from majority, binary norms.
This includes people who identify with terms like takatāpui, lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersex, transgender, queer, non-binary or fa’afafine, as well as people who don’t use specific words for their identity, people whose identity changes over time, and people who are in the process of understanding their own identity and may not have ‘come out’ to themselves or others.
When we’re talking about rainbow populations, people or issues, we often use rainbow because it is inclusive of everyone who is affected by shared issues and experiences, and avoids framing our identities based on Western worldviews and understandings of diversity.
Rainbow isn’t necessarily a term that individual people identify with, but a word that describes a population. That is, lots of people who fit under the rainbow umbrella would not describe themselves as rainbow.
Sometimes our work isn’t speaking about the whole rainbow population. When we’re talking about issues for transgender people, or takatāpui, for example, we’ll use more specific terms that relate to the group we’re talking about. If a kaupapa does not include the whole rainbow population (for example, Stats NZ’s reports on the LGBT+ population that do not count intersex people) we would describe this using specific terms (like LGBT+) rather than using rainbow.
Rainbow communities and rainbow population
If we’re talking about rainbow communities, we’re usually referring to shared community structures and cultural reference points, rainbow-led organisations and our ways of coming together in community, like through Pride events.
When we talk about the whole rainbow population, this includes people who don’t necessarily connect with rainbow identity labels or cultures, or live in community with other rainbow people.
We often talk about the rainbow population when we’re discussing whole-population issues like health, employment discrimination and housing. Whether or not rainbow people identify and connect with wider rainbow communities, we share the experience of being part of a minority population that experiences disproportionate social exclusion and rejection, discrimination and stigma.
Rainbow organisations and the rainbow support sector
When we talk about the rainbow support sector, we mean the network of organisations, groups and individuals who provide peer-based health and social support services to rainbow people.
Rainbow organisations are led and governed by, for and with rainbow people. They are distinct from whole-population health and social services that provide services targeted to rainbow people. Many rainbow organisations start as volunteer-based groups before developing into legal entities, like Charitable Trusts or Incorporated Societies.
Our rainbow organisations page links to some of the key organisations providing support across Aotearoa.
Other terms
Other words that are sometimes used to talk about the rainbow population include:
LGBTI+ (or related terms like LGBT, LGBTTQI, or GLBTI). These initialisms refer to specific identity terms like lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex. A + sign is often added to acknowledge that these initials aren’t a complete list of all relevant identities. In New Zealand, a second T can refer to takatāpui (this approach has been popularised through workplace diversity programmes). Sometimes specific letters are used to talk about a subset of the rainbow population (for example in Stats NZ’s LGBT+ population data, that does not include intersex analysis). These ways of talking about the rainbow population can tend to focus on Western worldviews and identities, and keep others invisible.
The term MVPFAFF+ was originally developed by Phylesha Brown-Acton to encourage and facilitate wider use of traditional Pacific terms such as mahu, vakasalewalewa, palopa, fa'afafine, akava'ine, leiti (fakaleiti), and fakafifine. This term is often used to talk about Pacific rainbow people in a collective way, with the + acknowledging the range of traditional and newer Pacific identities.
SOGIESC (and SOGI, SOGII, SOGISC). The term SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) came from a human rights context – it’s used in the Yogyakarta Principles as an umbrella to talk about shared considerations related to human rights and discrimination on the basis of sexuality, gender or sex characteristics. SOGIESC includes gender expression and sex characteristics. This term is more accurately used when talking about rights rather than people. Every person has their own sexuality, gender and sex characteristics, so the term SOGIESC by itself does not clearly refer to a particular group, and isn’t an equivalent to rainbow.
Sex, sexuality and gender minorities. This term came from health research, and frames the rainbow population as minority groups who have specific health needs, analogous to racial minorities.
Sex, sexuality and gender diverse has been used in academic settings to talk about the range of rainbow identities and experiences without using specific identity labels. We avoid using these terms, because they can be ambiguous and unhelpful. Grammatically, diversity refers to the full range of human identities and experiences of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics. Every person is part of this diversity – no individual’s identity is “more diverse” than another’s, not should “diverse” be used as a euphemistic opposite to “normal”. Rainbow identities are not “more diverse” in comparison to straight, cisgender and endosex identities, but they are more marginalised or minoritised, and they differ from majority norms. We included more thoughts about “diverse” identities in our submission on the Integrity Sports and Recreation Bill.
Queer, trans and intersex is a community-based framing that names key aspects of rainbow identities through using umbrella terms related to sexuality, gender and innate variations of sex characteristics. Depending on context, these umbrella terms can be inappropriate (for example, ‘queer’ has been used as a slur and can be offensive to some people).
Takatāpui is a reclaimed Māori term that was first defined in English as ‘intimate companion of the same sex’, and now refers to Māori whose genders, sexualities and sex characteristics differ from binary colonial norms.