But while Hero parades in the 1990s attracted cheering supporters, jeering opponents remained.
Fast forward to 2002 and I'm sitting in a Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) public briefing.
"Why isn't there a sexual orientation question in the Census?" I ask.
"Isn't excluding this question discriminatory?" The room goes quiet.
"Isn't SNZ failing in its statutory obligation to collect data to inform government policy and enable communities to make a case for resources?"
I never did get a decent answer then. But the more a question is evaded, the more important it is to keep asking it.
Because data from a sexual identity question will allow us to examine if the rights and needs of sexual minorities are being met, illuminate our diversity and the social environment, and underpin further research.
This is why researchers and academics have advocated such a question be included in the Census for decades, along with public submissions to SNZ since the 1990s.
SNZ stuck fast to its position despite law changes aimed at improving the environment for sexual minorities. In response to complaints, the Human Rights Commission determined that excluding the question could represent indirect discrimination.
SNZ executives grudgingly accepted a data need but maintained the question might make some people so uncomfortable they wouldn't complete the Census.
Many government agencies were indifferent, as shown by their responses to more than 200 Official Information Act requests in 2010.
I wrote to departments, agencies and NGOs asking if they had an interest in, or identified an information need for, sexual orientation data, or requested SNZ include a sexual orientation question in the Census.
Only the Human Rights Commission and the NZ Aids Foundation had, while a handful responded with diversity and equal opportunity policies.
So almost every government department, agency and NGO was blind to the needs of sexual minority communties, ignoring human rights law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and lacked the data required to evaluate their policies.
Many politicians from the Helen Clark era and since have supported including a sexual orientation Census question. In 2018, then SNZ Minister James Shaw and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed a question would likely be included in 2023's Census.
Which begs at least two more questions.
Will sexual minorities become soft targets once it becomes widely known that 2023's Census will include questions on sexual identity and gender? And can SNZ be trusted to actually publish the data it collects?
Being a journalist, covering homosexual law reform, civil unions and same-sex marriage law changes was about reporting how communities organised in support - and against -change.
Since the 1980s, as more rainbow MPs have joined our Parliament, the religious right has morphed from Norman Jones, petitions and the Salvation Army, to Brian Tamaki, social media and Family First.
These fundamentalists inhibit expressions of otherness, conjuring up the world imagined by Margaret Atwood or the real-world architecture of Donald Trump.
Hopefully most of us won't be intimidated by such pressures and simply answer the Census question: Which of the following best describes how you think of yourself? Heterosexual/straight, gay or lesbian, bisexual, another identity or prefer not to say.
As with all new Census "topics", the value of the data will increase over time, and the confidentiality of the Census should allow those who want to disclose this to feel safe doing so.
SNZ has undertaken not to release information in small sample sizes that threaten anonymity. "Prefer not to say" gives an out to those who are unsure or think a sexual identity question is invasive, while those who prefer other terms, e.g. takatāpui, sex worker, asexual, have the "another identity" option.
We can take some heart that SNZ field tested the questions on sexual identity and gender in 2020.
But wait a minute. When SNZ announced last October that the 2023 Census would include a sexual identity question, it did not commit to publishing that data. "If the data is not of sufficient quality, we may not be able to release it."
In OIA requests this year [July 2022], I asked SNZ what thresholds might apply to determine "quality responses" and precedents for withholding Census data.
SNZ's said the same "quality assessment and criteria" would apply to sexual identity data as other Census topics, and that it was "rare" for data on a Census topic to not be officially released. Exceptions? Civil Union data, from the 2006 and 2018 Censuses - not officially released due to "data quality issues", and iwi affiliation data, from 2018's Census - not released due to a high non-response rate.
Do these precedents indicate SNZ remains more sensitive to those who prefer not to answer a Census question than the rights of those who do?
SNZ maintains the proportions of people who disclose or do not disclose a sexual identity would be "extremely unlikely" to shape whether sexual identity data was released. "However, we cannot rule out the theoretical possibility."
Not everyone grows up wondering about their sexual identity. Those who do often assume they are alone and what they see about how the world treats sexual minorities scares them.
That's why we need a question on sexual identity in the Census and why we need the data. That's why it's definitely time to stand up and be counted.
