A round up of New Zealand’s year of gender ideology in 2025.

Things are changing, but trans lobby groups and transactivists still wield a disproportionate amount of influence in NZ. The true number of the victims of gender ideology is likely never to be known.

At the beginning of 2025, I wrote that I felt a sea change coming in around gender ideology, with the public increasingly rejecting it. This rejection continues to grow, however, the resistance to any changes by those wedded to gender ideology is still strong. Our public service and many organisations, including our legacy media and universities, remain peppered with transactivists. As much as possible, they defy making any changes away from gender ideology, and impose blackouts on criticisms irrespective of the changing social climate. But, as Helen Joyce noted when she visited NZ this year, we have a vibrant alternative media, so the ‘blackout’ has many holes in it where the light comes through, and helps us to keep up the public opposition to both gender ideology and DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, which sounds lovely, but in reality is dire). That opposition, whether we’re free to express it or not, must be maintained, because it does lead to a ‘vibe’ that permeates society, which can’t be ignored forever.

So, the year finished with Rex Landy’s last court appearance on December 16, after a series of them for writing hurty words about a man who says he’s a woman, and who now goes by the name of Caitlin Spice after changing his name from Daniel Johnston. The Police Prosecution Service finally agreed to restorative justice and community service, instead of a criminal conviction under the Harmful Digital Communications Act. Persecuting Rex in this manner on behalf of Spice, a well-known perpetual and belligerent complainer, was a huge waste of police time and resources. Rex had many supporters and donors to her court costs, including NZ’s secret terf t-shirt printing business called the Secret T Society, which offered a 50% donation to Rex’s expenses from the profits of all the #WeAreAllRexLandy t-shirts sold.

The same man also made a complaint to Netsafe about Yvonne van Dongen’s hurty words, shortly before Rex’s final court case. Yvonne is a former journalist who, like a number of us, now writes her own column on Substack about things the legacy media won’t touch. She’s currently writing a series called ‘Gender Villains’ which names prominent NZ gender ideologues, so their names never disappear. In one of these columns, Spice gets a fairly innocuous mention, but one which he took exception to, as is par for the course. Upon getting a call from Netsafe, Yvonne removed the section about him from her column, as she was about to embark on a month’s holiday overseas and didn’t want the nuisance of responding to emails about it while she was away. Once she returned, however, and backed up by the Free Speech Union, she re-published that section in another column about the whole fiasco. Just as a fyi, Spice also threatened me with legal action a few years ago if I didn’t remove my social media posts which mentioned him. I ignored it.

Puberty blockers for gender-confused kids (almost) got the heave-ho this year. In November the government announced new restrictions on prescribing them, which would take effect on 19 December. The decision was a long time coming after the Ministry of Health reached the conclusion in 2024 that the evidence of any benefits for blocking gender-confused kids’ puberty was very poor. Knowing of this conclusion, NZ First leader Winston Peters warned of the likelihood of future lawsuits against the government by those who’d been prescribed puberty blockers for gender confusion, often after only short consultations with medical professionals. Earlier in the year, the law firm Franks Olgivie sent warning letters to more than 20 different medical practices and organisations on behalf of their client Inflection Point about the potential for litigation due to prescribing, or promoting, the use of puberty blockers for minors. Here in NZ, we have the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC), which is a no-fault scheme for injury or accident, and it can cover medical mishaps. However, it seems that due to the increasing amount of information internationally available about the negative impacts of puberty blockers, medical professionals might not be able to rely on ACC to save them from litigation for what could be considered wilful recklessness in prescribing them. As entirely expected, the pushback from trans lobby groups to the government’s announced restrictions on puberty blockers was swift. The Professional Association for Transgender Health Aotearoa (PATHA) filed an urgent injunction seeking to block the enactment of those restrictions. Judge Wilkinson-Smith decided on a judicial review sometime in 2026, to ascertain whether or not the government has acted lawfully.

After much searching for a journalist with the courage to write about the tragic death of a 17-year-old young woman who identified as a man, referred to as Vanessa, journalist Ruth Hill took up the challenge, and the story was published in June. For various reasons, Vanessa was a troubled teen with issues, but even so, adults from her school and various agencies affirmed her ‘trans’ identity as a boy, despite her parents and her psychiatrist knowing it was the wrong thing for her. Eventually, she left home and severed contact with her parents. In January 2023, Vanessa starved to death alone in a motel room from anorexia, whilst in state care. The story by Ruth Hill is a grim read. Seemingly, not grim enough, though, to give pause to trans lobby groups’ aggressive advocacy, or the setting up of ‘gender affirming’ clinics such as that of Dr Elizabeth McElrea’s in Napier, or to the woman who gives away breast binders and groin gaffs through her knitting yarn website.

The Buddhist term ‘idiot compassion’ came to my attention recently, described as “well-intentioned but unhelpful kindness that enables destructive patterns, avoids truth, or prioritizes temporary comfort over genuine, long-term well-being for oneself or others, often stemming from ego, fear, or a desire for approval”. I immediately saw how that applies to so many people, both on a personal level and in how they run our organisations. The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) is one such organisation, who on one hand state that “Sex refers to the biological characteristics that define humans as female or male”, but are aghast at NZ First’s member’s bill to define ‘woman’ as an adult human biological female, and ‘man’ as an adult human biological male in law, because ... in a surprise to no one … trans. The NZ Police seem to have a bit of ‘idiot compassion’ lurking in their ranks, too. They have a link on their website to a guideline, supplied by Gender Minorities, about “countering anti-transgender extremism”. In this guideline, amongst a multitude of false assertions, it’s claimed that elderly women commonly attack men who say they’re women. I kid you not! A letter co-signed by Mana Wāhine Kōrero, Resist Gender Education, Parents Against Gender Education, and Active Watchful Waiting was sent to the Police Commissioner pointing out the numerous concerns with the guidelines, and how the lack of accuracy and the misinformation was inappropriate for the police website. The response from the police on 5 December defended the guidelines, because the “advice primarily appears to be not to engage if attacked”. It was agreed, however, that some clarification would be good, and an amendment would be made as a part of a scheduled review and update. Nothing appears to have changed yet.

Early September saw the resignation Green MP, Benjamin Doyle. He had been the subject of public disapprobation for some time due to dodgy pictures and commentary spotted on his then open Instagram account, which allegedly featured his son. When Doyle’s Instagram account was initially exposed in March, the Green Party raced to his defence in a spectacular demonstration of DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender). Finally, the public “hate” got too much for Mr they/them Doyle, and he issued a statement of resignation, where he proceeded to mis-pronoun himself by using “I” instead of ‘we’, as a they/them surely should. It didn’t go unnoticed how our mainstream media stuck to their bias and stayed silent on the scandal when it broke, because Doyle was in their favoured (Leftist) group.

Apart from the DEI diehards, I expect much of our public service heaved a sigh of relief when the Public Service minister, Judith Collins, announced in May that DEI requirements are being removed from the Public Service Act. DEI, which embraces gender ideology, abounds in many places, of course, such as the NZ Teacher’s Union, and is an eyewatering waste of money. That waste includes what gets thrown away specifically to the trans/rainbow rort – e.g. the $170K given by the Wellington City Council to Gender Minorities (yes, the same group that the police website links to) to run an online sex course for ‘transgender’. Yvonne van Dongen writes more on the trans/rainbow rorts here.

Linguistic gobbedlygook in health messaging got addressed by Associate Minister for Health, Casey Costell in April, when she directed Health NZ to use the word ‘woman’ in its communications, instead of the gobbedlygook it favoured. A few months later, the Minister of Health, Simeon Brown, in a shocking disregard for gender ideology, used the words ‘mothers’ and ‘babies’ in a public health message. However, Health NZ defiantly continues to use gobbedlygook language, and as Genspect NZ writes, “Health New Zealand websites and documents continue to confuse public health messaging. ‘Pregnant people’, ‘people giving birth’, ‘breastfeeding parents’, ‘chest feeding’, ‘those who have a cervix’, ‘most people who have a miscarriage’, free abortion services to any ‘pregnant person’, are the terms being used instead of ‘pregnant women’ across a range of public information websites.” It’s notable that men aren’t subject to nearly the same amount of linguistic indignity. Another organisation allergic to using the word ‘woman’, the Midwifery Council, exceedingly grudgingly added ‘woman’ to their revised Scope of Practice, after doing their darndest for the last few years to leave it out. But, they couldn’t help themselves from tagging “and gender diverse people” onto the word, because they’re a pack of gender ideology-indoctrinated numpties. The College of Midwives, previously stalwart in adhering to sex-based reality, invited “expressions of interest for an inclusive [i.e. gobbledygook] language work group” in October. Although it was ultimately decided that “a work group is not the right approach to take at this time”, it doesn’t preclude another stab by those invested in this to try again to drive the College to use ‘inclusive language’ in its communications and documents. One bright spot amidst all the linguistic indignity rained down upon women, was a NZ Herald article (about the UK Supreme Court ruling that the words ‘woman’ and ‘man’ in their Equality Act meant biological sex, and not gender identity) where the editor allowed Posie Parker to be referred to as a “pro-women activist”, instead of the usual ‘anti-trans’ description. Could’ve knocked me down with feather.

To date, many of our Councils remain black-heartedly determined to allow free and unfettered access to female spaces for men who say they’re women, and refuse to countenance any arguments as to why single-sex spaces and sessions should remain single-sex. They prioritise gender-identity over biological sex, or promote ‘all-gender’ facilities, even though data from Corrections NZ shows that men who say they’re women are incarcerated for sexual offences at around twice the rate of other men. These statistics, and worse, are repeated in all other countries where this same data has been collected. Men and boys can benefit from single-sex spaces as well as women and girls, but people indoctrinated with gender ideology are particularly thick when it comes recognising that women and men can have different needs. I spoke to a couple of women from Napier who run a strictly women-only swim session, and they tell of how women and girls can thrive in these environments.

Sports NZ took nine months to update their trans inclusion guidelines to prioritise fairness and safety in community sport, instead of prioritising trans inclusion, as directed in October 2024 by former Sports and Recreation Minister, Chris Bishop. It was clear that they reallyreallyreally didn’t want to put women and girls first in women’s and girls’ sports, but in July the CEO of Sports NZ, Raelene Castle, made a statement that read like she’d written it through gritted teeth, which announced that their ‘Guiding Principles for the Inclusion of Transgender People in Community Sport’ had been removed from the website. Perhaps the subsequent Sports and Recreation Minister, Mark Mitchell gave her a hurry up, after getting a nudge from Save Women’s Sports Australasia.

Some more good news came in the form of gender ideology being purged from schools’ Relationships and Sexuality Education curriculum. Resist Gender Education campaigned relentlessly for this, and write more in depth about it here. Public submissions on this change to the RSE are open until April.

To end on a good note for events, the Women’s Rights Party brought two prestigious visitors to New Zealand this year. Vaishnavi Sundar, who made a documentary about trans widows (women whose husbands decide they’re women) called Behind the Looking Glass, came here in March; and Helen Joyce, who is the Director of Advocacy at the UK group Sex Matters, came in October. Helen was interviewed several times by alternative media, including by Chris Lynch Media. She was also interviewed by Philip Matthews from The Press, the only legacy media to do so, and who created some controversy for his style. Nevertheless, both the visits from Vaishnavi and Helen were fabulous.

And lastly, my petition to fly the Women’s Suffrage flag (suffrage = the right to vote) outside Parliament on 19^th September each year closes on 27 January. Seeing as all the Pride and neo-rainbow flags you can imagine get flown at Parliament at different times, I didn’t think it was unreasonable to request a commemoration on just one day of the year for something that was actually achieved through dogged hard work, but my request was rejected, hence the petition. If you haven’t signed it yet, and feel inclined to do so, here it is. I and my friends and associates haven’t got big platforms to share it, consequently the number of those who have signed isn’t large, so any extras would be very welcome, from anywhere in the world 😊

I also have a wee YouTube channel where you might see something you’d like to watch.

My X handle is: @KatrinaBiggs2

• Header photo by Viridiana Rivera