Joyful Movement

Movement, exercise, and community are all significant protective factors for people of all ages and has been shown to have a positive impact on your mental wellbeing. But for some groups, like the trans and gender-diverse community, accessing and engaging in physical activity is still a great challenge.

To start addressing these challenges, Community Action on Youth and Drugs (CAYAD) launched Joyful Movement, a research based kaupapa focused on creating opportunities for trans and gender diverse young people to participate in movement and fitness that brings them joy.

Born out of a report that indicated trans and non-binary people are exercising less than the rest of the general population, a key part of Joyful Movement is to learn and better understand the thoughts and experiences of our trans and gender diverse communities in the movement and exercise space.

“We’re taking a holistic and collective approach to physical health that isn't about just exercise. It’s about wellbeing,” says CAYAD kaimahi Rhion Munro (he/they).

“Joyful Movement is about getting to the very heart of the issue and growing from a place of value where trans and gender-diverse people can start to have healthy conversations around exercise, weight, eating disorders, nutrition, drugs and alcohol.”

For CAYAD it was important that these discussions were led by Rainbow young people. Together with Community Think, a social change collective, they have created eight part-time paid roles for LGBTQ+ young people to work and build capacity and confidence as community researchers. It is the role of the researchers to talk to young trans and gender-diverse people to hear their thoughts, ideas, experiences and use that data to imagine what opportunities could be created so that more Rainbow young people can stay physically active and healthy.

One of the researchers, Emily Yu (they/them) says this part of the mahi has revealed how truly diverse the needs of Rainbow youth are when it comes to movement and exercise. But that what stood out was that many of them wanted interpersonal connection, which Emily points out, makes sense.

“Minorities are often deprived of acceptance in the face of being themselves,” Emily says.

“Bodies and movement can seem like a bit of a hush hush topic. Seeing my own feelings, experiences and insecurities laid out so matter-of-factly in the survey responses and in the discussions I had with co-researchers was powerful.”

“I think I could say that all of us want the wider gender diverse and trans community to feel heard and respected in a similar way that we all did. Healing happens when we know we're not alone.”

This process of healing through community and connection Rhion says is crucial to the kaupapa and that the changes they want to see must come from within the Rainbow community itself.

“Positive change comes from bringing the community together and helping them to understand that they have the power to heal themselves and heal one another too.”

“It's about taking the conversation away from everybody else and reclaiming the narrative because right now, the power sits with everybody else who is talking about us, as opposed to us being able to talk about what we need.”

So far, the team has run a survey, focus groups and interviews that involved 105 trans and gender diverse young people living in west Auckland. They are now in the process of analysing the results from this research to pull together their learnings into an insights report. From there they will continue engaging with Rainbow whānau as they collectively build and prototype solutions that will increase accessibility to fitness and exercise spaces where trans and gender-diverse rangatahi can thrive.

About CAYAD

Community Action on Youth and Drugs (CAYAD) is funded by the Ministry of Health to reduce the harm young people experience from alcohol and other drugs. The programme is guided by the National Drug Policy 2015-2020 and operates in 21 locations throughout Aotearoa New Zealand.

CAYAD coordinators support leaders from communities, organisations and young people to collaborate and create lasting changes in their environment that will promote wellbeing and reduce the risk of harm.

CAYAD projects are informed by local, cultural and academic evidence. Our work includes improving policies, systems and practices; community action to reduce supply of alcohol and other drugs; and increasing opportunities for young people to be healthy and reach their full potential

CAYAD Tāmaki Makaurau sits within the Youth Empowerment team at Community and Social Innovation.