The Peter Wells Lecture is named in memory of Samesame but different’s late founder, the great writer and activist Peter Wells. Each year we invite a writer to discuss issues close to their heart that directly affect the LGBTQI+ community. This year we invited  Kassie Hartendorp to deliver the lecture.

Kassie Hartendorp (Ngāti Raukawa) grew up in Whanganui and is based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. She is a renowned community activist and organiser working in the areas of youth, takatāpui, anti-racism, workers rights and housing. She is a former youth worker who supported LGBTIQ+ young people and serves on the Tīwhanawhana Trust, a takatāpui community group. Kassie has written essays for The Spinoff, Pantograph Punch and Vice on gender diversity, whakamā, and being queer and Māori.

This year she edited/organised The Aunties Magazine, a one-off magazine about political organising in Aotearoa. She’ll talk about how  we as LGBTIQ people have a crucial role to play in the broader movement for change. How we  bring our whakapapa, our strengths, our pain, our joy and our lessons to help create a better world, how that will allow us to find home in the new world that we will birth together.