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Sue Edwards's avatar

I commented on the Free Speech Union post about this on Facebook, in which they argued for free speech absolutism basically, i.e. they supported the right for the drag queens to do the story reading and opposed the Destiny Church group. I asked if the FSU would be willing to distinguish between the right of adults to speak freely to other adults, and the right (or lack of it) to speak freely to children. I personally think there is a big difference, and I think that there is a general expectation among the vast majority of people that adults DO in fact need to speak guardedly to children, and that adults should not speak to children or expose children to the same things that we recognise that adults can be exposed to. As Katrina says in her article here, this is not really a case of freedom of speech, as children are involved.

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Resist Gender Education's avatar

I have written to the FSU in the past making the same argument, to no avail. I wonder if they support film classification or condemn it as interfering with free speech?

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Anne Stafford's avatar

I'm an FSU member and I'm really shocked at their stance on this. We're talking children ffs! Free Speech is surely context-specific - should I be able to stand up the middle of a theatre performance of 'Hamlet' and start pontificating about whatever I want? No, of course not. Should this DK be able to read stories to adults in some dodgy club? Absolutely. Read it to kids? Never.

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Katrina Biggs's avatar

The FSU have consistently and determinedly got this wrong. No one is protesting against the 'speech' of these drag queens/kings, but their presence at a kids' event because of who they are. I'm a member of the FSU, too, and they p*ss me off about this. I remain a member, though, because of when they do get it right, which is pretty much any time apart form the matter of drag queens/kings.

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Anne Stafford's avatar

It an interesting blind spot they have there.

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Yvonne van Dongen's avatar

Yes I agree they’re the easy villain in any msm story. Lazy journalism. The outrage their actions inspired contrasts with the silence following the mob attack on defenceless women two years ago. I’m cheered by the knowledge that hardly anyone trusts msm these days.

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Katrina Biggs's avatar

Apparently, a bit of a scuffle did take place, but it seemed to be amongst some women in the foyer - lol! Some are calling it 'violence', but to others - e.g. me - it was just a bit of a scuffle. It shouldn't have happened in a public place like a community centre's foyer, of course, but I'm not convinced that the Destiny gals started it, although they didn't back away from it, either :-)

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Ellis J's avatar

I don’t understand how drag has been given a free pass for so long. A man dressing as a woman is the sex-based version of blackface. It’s not ‘drag’, it’s womanface. It’s misogynistic, dealing in offensive stereotypes, and has nothing to do with diversity.

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Katrina Biggs's avatar

It's a puzzle, all right. It's a mixture of things, I expect, not least that they have had years to perfect their 'soft sell' to generations desperate to make up for the wickedness of having had biases in the past. Many people seem to have no idea now where to draw a line between safeguarding and not being biased.

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Chuck Bird's avatar

A few years back this was done in the Waikato. I found that they paid the drag queens about a grand. I should have raised this with the Taxpayer's Union but did not think of it. Rates should not go for this. If you or the Tamakis find that this was paid by rates then you should let the Taxpayer's Union know.

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Katrina Biggs's avatar

I haven't heard that the drag queens/kings do this for free, quite the opposite, and they get well-paid for their performance in front of kids, so taxpayer money would definitely be used to pay them. I believe Tamaki is all over this.

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Graham Adams's avatar

I see NZonAir gave $1.12 million in their last funding round of 2024 to Hugo Grrrl. The funding agencies pump a lot of money into promoting trans ideology.

https://www.collaborate.co.nz/journal/nz-on-air-greenlights-new-kiwi-shows-for-2025

Mr Hugo’s Little Library (TVNZ 2, TVNZ+ & RNZ)

A joyful musical adventure set in a world of books, fables, and life lessons. Mr Hugo welcomes young viewers into his larger-than-life library, where stories come to life in the most magical ways.

Episodes: 8 x 12 minutes

Production Company: Gibson Group

Funding: Up to $1.12 million

This came after a grant of up to $596,849 in June 2023 for Mr. Hugo’s Little Library,

(8 x 12’, Gibson Group for TVNZ+ and RNZ)

https://www.screenscribe.net/nzoa-invests-8-5m-in-kids-slate/

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Katrina Biggs's avatar

You nearly made me choke there, Graham - 1.12M for a drag king! What a rort - grrrrr.

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Graham Adams's avatar

In fact, it's $1.71m over two years.

Some time I must go through all the NZonAir funding rounds for the past five years or so and see how much they have paid out to trans activists. It will be a lot.

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Katrina Biggs's avatar

Stop it - my blood is boiling - lol!Please do write about it. I’d love to read and share an article like that.

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Hāns's avatar

That’s a MASSIVE amount of funding!! …the equivalent of many school lunches

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Rex Landy's avatar

It is not a free speech issue for sex clowns to be able to inculcate and normalise their lifestyle choices to children via reading to them. This is not a human rights or free speech issue. R18 is for R18 whatever they're doing.

It's not about the reading to children; it's about normalising fetishes, sex work, rainbow nonce-sense and boundary erosion.

If something needs 'normalising' it's not fucking normal.

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Digital Canary 💪💪🇨🇦🇺🇦🗽's avatar

Shame must change sides.

Ostracism has its place.

It’s not shameful to wish to protect women and children; those who wish to promulgate harmful practices deserve to be shunned.

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Katrina Biggs's avatar

Yes, ostracism is at its root a safeguarding measure. We know ostracism can get too severe, but too much tolerance can hurt more people than ostracism does.

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Sarah's avatar

Thank you Katrina. Once again presss the pressssss...and then perhaps boil the juice.

These information abusers label themselves as entertainment and their reviews are dropping as they lose hold of their scripts..

The Politicians do not require a truthful check or to have been there to weigh in on it either.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/542026/destiny-church-protesters-went-too-far-luxon

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Katrina Biggs's avatar

Funny how all the politicians have found their voice on this, but lost it on 25 March 2023,

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LDA's avatar

So assaulting women who want to discuss whether they want perverts on their spaces, is an example of a good thugs veto, but protesting when children are exposed to individuals who are open about their fetishes is bad?

Give it 10 years and we'll see another wave of victims who've been raped by supports of the TQMAP community but who were ignored because NZ decided that normalising sexual deviancy was "tolerant, loving and kind".

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Katrina Biggs's avatar

I expect that if young children today are exposed to much more of this kind of ‘tolerance’ they’ll end up very confused about what boundaries they can have with who.

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Katrina Biggs's avatar

Repeating or rhyming, we humans never seem to behave any differently than we always have.

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Stroppius's avatar

I'm currently reading The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton. He mentions how the German and Italian fascists were helped by authorities who saw them as useful and tended to turned a blind eye to their political violence against the left. It got me thinking about how history can repeat itself, or perhaps more apt is Mark Twain's assertion that history doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes.

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Dusty Masterson's avatar

Thanks for this , Katrina.

I don't know anything about the Destiny Church but I think ' well done.' I agree with what Sue Edwards says in the comments.

Have cross posted

https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/the-lion-in-winter

Dusty

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Katrina Biggs's avatar

Thanks, Dusty. Destiny Church is a mixture of things you’d probably admire, and those you don’t. For all its faults, it can’t be denied that it has helped many, many men - mostly Māori - find some grounding and ethos in their lives that means something to them. The women in the church are not subservient to men, as is the case in some churches.

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Dusty Masterson's avatar

Hi Katrina

I could see from the videos that the women are certainly not subservient😃

What occurs to me is that, if the TRAs at Nottingham LWS ( see my previous update Heroic Women) had come up to us, drummed and shouted for about ten minutes ( like the Maori did in doing the haka at the rainbow pride event) and then backed off that would be fine but of course their aim is to completely stop the whole event taking place or to drown the women's voices - hence the title 'Let Women Speak'.

Thanks again for your report

Dusty

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Wattlepeak's avatar

A woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman… is that what a drag king is? The mind boggles. 🙄

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Chris's avatar

Evening just wanted to alert you to this brilliant Canadian Terf cartoonist. I discovered her thanks to an Aussie friend. Mostly on x. I googled this @5uffragette and found among other things this https://x.com/5uffragette

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Katrina Biggs's avatar

I have seen some of those cartoons, and now know the mastermind behind them. Thank you :-)

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Stroppius's avatar

Drag queen story time as a vehicle to introduce young children to queerness and the political agenda behind it is not well publicised but it is there to see in the queer theory literature if one bothers to look. It appears Brian Tamaki has looked as he was mentioning queer theory today in an interview on the Platform. The accusations of sexualising children is something of a red herring I think. It is more about disrupting and destroying the normative family by pushing gender fluidity. Story time is an on ramp.

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Katrina Biggs's avatar

Yes, you’re right about it being in the ‘queer’ playbook. Once we look at that, we see more than just this one tactic has been used - e.g. the one which advises sneaking sex self-ID into law on the back of a popular or innocuous one, or change to one, has also been used here and nearly worked. It was stopped when that was tried, but did make it in later.

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Di Landy's avatar

Good read thanks. Children Cannot Consent

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J.M.Venning's avatar

When the councillor who is standing for Mayor of Christchurch writes to me that she is " totally in favour of DQSH" despite my pointing out child safeguarding concerns and under my subsequent OIAct request asking what safety measures council would have library staff put in place for children the reply was 'when participants are in the doors will be shut' presumably to

a.keep children and deluded parents in and

b. to prevent protesters (aware of the grooming and concerned for the children), out!

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Pearce's avatar

They gave a 16 year old girl a concussion and one of them has been charged with indecent assault, but "it was just a bit of a scuffle" and they were there "to protect women and children?" Blimey.

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