How did I get here? A bit about me in brief(ish).

I never thought that, as an older woman, I’d be fighting to retain women’s rights and safeties. I thought we had firmly established them, and all that remained was to fine-tune and build on them. That was lesson number one – never think that what you have can’t be taken away by slick methods you don’t see coming. Lesson number two is pay attention to the trivial. Much of the erosion of women’s rights we’re now seeing in the pursuit of radical gender ideology⁵ was years in the making; it was surreptitious and incremental – i.e. trivial changes.

What woman amongst us hasn’t been scorned for focussing on so-called trivial (women’s) matters, when there are much larger worldly concerns? I certainly have, and those haughty scorners can go to hell. We women and girls find ourselves where we are now, with our rights and safeties being eroded by radical gender ideology, through classic foot-in-the-door tactics done on the quiet. When we did become aware of what was happening, we got played. We got duped into believing that allowing tragically ‘vulnerable’ men who identify as women into our spaces and sports was just a small – i.e. trivial – act of kindness, which we would rarely need to enact. To be fair, right from the start some women saw the bigger picture of how this would quickly spread to be an extensive violation of women’s and girls’ spaces and sports. Others, like me, got here in due course. Some are still being played.

So, how did I get here? Having grown up in a large, robust and rambunctious working-class family, I wasn’t squeamish about a little argy-bargy if needed, and I definitely saw a need here. I didn’t go to university, but my mother worked at cleaning jobs for many years to scrape the money together to send us all to good schools. Having brothers, I was acutely aware from an early age of the difference in opportunities and freedoms boys and girls had, however, I still never put myself right at the forefront of second-wave feminism. True, I put my feet on the street at times for it, and got called a “man hater” by a number of men in places I worked, so I clearly had strong opinions. Coming from the family I did, though, a strong opinion was a normal thing. Just as an aside, I didn’t hate men, but I didn’t know how to not see men at that time as the ‘opponents’ who stood in the way of women having the same opportunities and freedoms they had. More on this further down.

I left school after my sixth form (year 12) and mucked around for a while. My working life entailed a variety of jobs, including bar work and working in a supermarket, until settling into administration and accounts work. I didn’t seem to be ‘wired for kids’, so I had none. That turned out to be a good thing as I didn’t seem to be wired for relationships, either, and was in and out of several before settling for the autonomy of singlehood, with both its’ advantages and disadvantages, as the best place for me. I always enjoyed writing, but never began developing it until my mid-forties. It’s become a satisfying pursuit, with various articles published from time to time.

Eventually, I became a vegan - and that’s how I know exactly how the woke think when caught up in trying to bring about the perfect world as seen through their eyes. I would once have considered myself one of them. I know how utterly compelling, believable, and capturing a well-worded narrative is, which taps into our mission when we’re primed and ready to receive it.

I’m still a vegan, but more of a dietary vegan now (which can also be referred to as plant-based) than a lifestyle vegan. A dietary vegan simply focusses on not eating animals or their by-products, whereas a lifestyle vegan also incorporates not utilising products or wearing clothing derived from animals as much as possible. The official definition for a vegan is:

"Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals."

I wasn’t the craziest of vegans around, but I still daresay my family consider accommodating my gender critical beliefs a walk in the park compared to my staunch vegan days. As radical gender ideology started becoming more apparent to me, and I began connecting with people outside of vegan circles about it, my staunchness began to wane alongside that. I also began getting pushback from the vegan groups I was in for not being a believer in ‘transwomen are women’. That came to a head when two vegan blokes harangued me for being a bigot, because I didn’t think that men who say they’re women should be allowed in women’s and girls’ spaces and sports¹. That was it – I took myself out of vegan circles, and into the wild.

But I also took with me a lot of understanding about how easy it is to get emotionally captured by what we consider a worthy belief, and to think we can change everyone to believe it alongside us. It’s a small step to begin viewing those who don’t adhere to the same belief as ‘wrong’. Making the discernment that although our belief may not necessarily be incorrect, neither will it be correct to everyone, can be hard. I don’t want to say too much more about this, as I can already see the “told you so” smirks from certain people, so that’s enough smirk-fodder for them at the moment😊

My sister and I got involved with Speak Up for Women NZ, and attended some of the events on their speaking tour about sex self-ID² in 2021, including the culmination event in Wellington. As was par for the course, it was treated by the then mayor, some city councillors, and the media like the devil was coming to town. They, too, really need to get out of their circles and into the wild some more. We were also going to attend Kellie-Jay Keen’s ‘Let Women Speak’ rally in Wellington earlier this year, but, as we know, it got cancelled after the mob violence at the Auckland rally the day before showed that there was a credible risk of suffering serious harm from the out-of-control protestors who would turn up to it. However, we still ended up going to Wellington for the day with a friend and our other sister, anyway - and got kicked out of a restaurant for being terfs³.

I think I’m a fairly ordinary woman whose life has had, and still has, its’ share of thrills and spills. By now, I really thought I’d be doing the ordinary thing of going into cruise mode with the hard yards mostly done. What that kind of life comprised wasn’t a fully formed picture, but it didn’t involve butting heads with radical gender idealogues. However, it turns out that butting heads has been unexpectedly transformational. In fact, what a ride! Since entering the fray a few years ago, I have been on a journey I never envisaged. I have engaged with women and men from all walks of life, city council staff, Ministry of Women staff, Members of Parliament, and of course radical trans activists. I have written to people, and about things, I would never have done otherwise. It has brought attributes out in me I like (and others may not), which may have remained dormant had I not taken up sword and shield and forced them to come out of the shadows to help. My world has expanded, and it’s sharpened me up.

True, it’s also frustrating. We shouldn’t be having to fight to retain women’s and girls’ rights and safeties from being given away by the wokerati upon demand from the TQ+. It’s eye-wateringly ridiculous that just because some men have appropriated the word ‘woman’ for themselves, they get free and unfettered entry to all women’s and girls’ spaces and many sports. When in the entire course of human history has there not been a significant number of men in all cultures and groups who will take advantage of any opportunity to predate on women and children, irrespective of what they call themselves? We created female-only spaces and sports so that those men would never be in there. Now we’re told that men who say they’re women are allowed in, and when – and only when – enough reportable problems arise from that, it may be re-looked at. This is a live experiment on women and girls, and it’s worth noting that a vast number of men think it’s rotten to the core, too, whilst, conversely, there are many women condoning it. Men know men, and they know that just as the sun will rise tomorrow, allowing men of any stripe in women’s and girls’ spaces is bad policy.

How eye-opening it’s been to see which men are on our side with this, and which aren’t. All those men who once called me a “man hater” may well be standing strongly by me here. It brings home again how even though we’re all flawed, men and women alike, some people still have a foundational decency that comes out when push comes to shove. I have formed friendships and acquaintanceships with men (and women) in the midst of this fight who, regardless of differences, have that core of decency. It has been a sobering and soul-searching experience. Then I look at the woke-bros, those who are supposed to be the ones who have more of an understanding of women’s rights, and I don’t like much of what I see there.

The ongoing erosion of women’s and girls’ rights and safeties to prioritise the feelings of men who say they’re women has been aided and abetted by Labour and the Greens, and not stemmed by any other political party in Parliament. This wilful abandonment saw longtime Labour members and super-contributors Jill Ovens and Dawn Trenberth break away and form the Women’s Rights Party⁴. Yes, I’ve signed up as an active member.

It will be another learning curve to be active in a political party, and another world opening up. It seems the ride’s not over yet.

¹ How two vegan men peaked me into being a committed women’s rights ‘bigot’. (substack.com)

² Sex self-ID in New Zealand has a 'get out of jail' card for service providers. (substack.com)

³  Four ol' terfs walk into a bar ...... - by Katrina Biggs (substack.com)

⁴ New! The 'Women's Rights Party' is now up and running in New Zealand. (substack.com)

⁵ Radical gender ideology.

Because it’s difficult to find an adequate description of what radical gender ideology means, I’ve attempted to explain it here.

Radical gender ideology is the belief that humans should be considered as, treated as, and have access to the all the opposite sex’s spaces and sports if they feel they are the opposite sex to their biological body. This has led to the invention of the terms ‘transwomen’ and ‘transmen’, and the devolvement of women’s language, in particular, to nonsensical and dehumanising terms like ‘cervix havers’ and ‘people who menstruate’ instead of the word ‘woman’, so that men who say they’re women, but don’t have women’s biological bodies, aren’t offended.

Gender ideology is based very much on female and male stereotypes – e.g. if a boy is effeminate and likes ‘girly’ things, then he must really be a girl in a boy’s body, and vice versa. Radical gender ideology imposes this concept into policies and laws, so that the public are forced to comply, even though they know it’s wrong to allow any man or boy whomsoever says he’s a woman or girl to have free and unfettered access into all women’s and girls’ spaces and sports.

The actual reality is that gender non-conforming men are not women, and gender non-conforming women are not men.

Radical gender ideology can mean prescribing puberty blockers for children, double mastectomies, complete testicle and penis castration, breast implants, wrong-sex hormones for life, and the creation of a false vagina or false penis (massive complications are especially common with the latter). For more info on the travesty that is called ‘gender-affirming’ treatment for children, go to Fully Informed NZ.