Health NZ puts the ‘men’ in menstruation.

I know New Zealand is down the rabbit hole of gender ideology, but I can still get surprised at just how far down. Gobsmacked is probably a better word.

When our public service organisation in charge of health services across New Zealand, Health NZ, comes out with a draft ‘Gender Diversity Policy’, which says in the section titled Menstruation that “Having a period is not a feminine thing, and people of all genders menstruate, including non-binary people, agender people, and even plenty of men”¹, picking our jaws up from the floor after reading that may be least of our problems with this organisation.

As co-leader of the Women’s Rights Party, Jill Ovens, says in her interview on The Platform² “it’s bullshit”. No argument there. In a statement about Health NZ’s ludicrous communication written by Sunil Williams³, he points out that “The policy’s definition of ‘menstruation’ has been lifted word for word from the Australian Transhub site, which describes itself as a “resource platform for all trans and gender diverse (TGD) people in NSW, our loved ones, allies and health providers”.” So, a Transhub site is now where our public health service gets its information on menstruation to disseminate to the public? Surely this has to be rock bottom.

Those of us in the know about the convoluted language which ‘trans’ activists have successfully persuaded our public service, schools, and universities to use, realise this Health NZ draft policy has in all likelihood been written by a ‘trans’ indoctrinated uni graduate. S/he, in all their glorious know-it-all wokery, will fully believe it’s okay to mix up the words ‘women’ and ‘men’ in a health policy to appease the feelings of women who say they’re men, and men who say they’re women.

We in the know, know that wokester language needs to be translated into comprehensible language for mutual understanding – or do we? Maybe our health professionals and policy makers really do think that words can change the sex we were born. How do we know if they think the same as the majority of the population anymore about women and men? Gone are the days, it seems, when public information was written to be understood by most people most of the time in the shortest practicable time. Now, we have to translate messages from the preferred language of the wokester who wrote it into something comprehensible, and then second-guess ourselves afterwards.

But what about those who aren’t in ‘the know’, for any reason? It’s arrogance by Health NZ’s policy writers to even propose putting this bullshit into policy, in complete disregard for the majority who need to clearly understand it. That arrogance shouldn’t be tolerated in our public service.

And how does saying that men can menstruate fit into the tikanga (Māori lore) that our public service tries to incorporate into its systems? As one commenter on X noted, how can Health NZ claim to follow tikanga, yet promote breaking the tapu (sacred, set apart) of women’s menstruation? It’s an insult to wāhine (women) and tāne (men), they said. I only have a superficial knowledge about Māori culture, so usually opine little about it, but possibly there’s a point there. Mana Wāhine Kōrero would know more about that.

It's pleasing to see that it’s created a bit of a furore here, which may not be ignored this time⁴. Having said that, our ‘leaders’ in all spheres have been very adept at ignoring gender-identity nonsense, or letting it quietly slip off the radar in the past. So, we’ll wait and see.

Incidentally, we’re still waiting for Health NZ to issue a new statement about puberty blockers, after reassessing the erroneous information they had on their website in light of new information from overseas – e.g. the Cass Review. If this yet-to-be-seen statement about puberty blockers doesn’t have PATHA’s fingerprints all over it, then Health NZ may not have entirely lost all credibility. However, if the latest cringeworthy draft policy telling us that men can menstruate is any indication, their staff have found even further depths to the rabbit hole than we ever imagined were there.

¹

²Jill Ovens Discusses Health NZ’s Gender Guidelines Draft Document | The Platform (9.53 mins)

³Who menstruates? Health New Zealand doesn't know. (womensrightsparty.nz)

⁴Laura Trask Reacts to Health NZ’s Bizarre Gender Diversity Policy Draft | The Platform (7.57 mins)

PS: Full disclosure about the title of this piece – I filched it from Bernard Lane on X @Bernard_Lane, and who also writes Gender Clinic News :-)

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