Queer activists vandalise ‘GAYTM’ cash machine
A group of queer activists have claimed responsibility for destroying a Pride-themed ATM.
Australia and New Zealand bank ANZ had installed a number of ‘GAYTMs’ ahead of Pride season.
Paint was thrown over one of the colourful cash machines in Ponsonby, Auckland on Thursday – with media reporting that it was suspected to be a homophobic attack.
We were sad to see our NZ-designed #gaytmnz has been vandalised overnight. Clean up is in progress. pic.twitter.com/DFPBOmV8SQ
— ANZ New Zealand (@ANZ_NZ) February 19, 2015
However, a group known as ‘Queers against Injustice’ has posted a statement claiming responsibility for vandalising the ATM – to protest against the bank’s use of Pride symbols.
The anonymous statement said in part: “We targeted the Ponsonby GAYTM firstly to draw attention to the commercialisation of the Pride Festival.
“As queer subjects, we object to the representation of queer identity in terms of consumptive and wealthy citizens.
“Associating queer politics with personal banking within a gentrified area reduces the queer subject to a bourgeois, cis-gender, white, male subject, and in doing so reproduces many of the intersecting injustices by which queer subjects are marginalised.
Technician tending to our vandalised GAYTM – looks like it’s going to be a big clean up job #GAYTMNZ #PRIDE @anz_nz pic.twitter.com/zYxQkyYoDL
— ANZ NZ Media (@ANZ_NZ_Media) February 19, 2015
“We sought to draw attention to the lack of representation of bodies that counter the racist, classist and cis-biased nature of Pride.
“By renaming their ATM a GAYTM, ANZ reproduces the frequent sidelining of queer subjects who fall outside of the ‘gay’ sexual identification, and as a result are further marginalised by the politics of ‘tolerance’ practiced by institutions such as ANZ.”
