- Our work has never been solely focused on queer straight alliances, so we wanted a name that didn’t place boundaries on the work people perceive us to do or the work we want to do in the future!
- We wanted a name that is more culturally inclusive, that doesn’t label people with Western concepts of sexuality or put anyone in a box.
- We wanted a name that wasn’t an acronym, that was shorter and easier to say and explain!
- We wanted something more youth friendly and fun!
These principles were what guided us towards choosing our new name, InsideOUT or Kōaro in Māori. We chose InsideOUT because:
- It speaks to how with our sexual or gender identity we start this journey inside ourselves. Once we have begun to accept ourselves internally, we can then go out into our communities – here we have a classic pun about coming out – but to us the ‘OUT’ relates more to the idea of how a lot of our work is about supporting people to go out and make positive change in their schools and communities.
- We also like the idea that something being inside out means it’s a bit different, it’s not the norm – kind of like how queer means strange, but it was reclaimed and used as a positive word in the rainbow community. We want to embrace inside out in a similar way – we think it’s awesome to be different and everyone should be free to be who they are!