NZ Parliament’s biscuit tin unleashes a bill to make ‘gender identity’ a protected characteristic.
Here we go again, potentially facing further erosion of women’s and girls’ rights and safeties in New Zealand.
A bill to prohibit discrimination on the grounds of “gender identity or expression” was pulled out of New Zealand Parliament’s biscuit tin on 3 August. The full title of the bill is the “Human Rights (Prohibition of Discrimination on Grounds of Gender Identity or Expression, and Variations of Sex Characteristics) Amendment Bill”, and was submitted by MP Dr (PhD) Elizabeth Kerekere.
Dr Kerekere was a Green Party Member of Parliament, but resigned amidst controversy in early May to sit as an independent MP until the upcoming General Election in October, when she will retire. She is an advocate for trans rights, which includes giving the right of free and unfettered entry into all women’s and girls’ spaces and sports to any man whomsoever says he’s a woman. Dr Kerekere is also known for aggressively clashing with women and men from time to time who don’t believe that men of any stripe should be in women’s and girls’ spaces and sports.
The bill’s last sentence in its explanatory note reads “The Bill does not change the already existing grounds of discrimination of “sex” and “sexual orientation”. It only [my emphasis] adds more provisions to better encompass people in communities that have historically and presently been discriminated against.”
Only, there is no “only” about anything to do with entrenching gender ideology into policy or legislation. Women have been duped with the only word from day one of the pressure to cede ground to men who say they’re women. It’s always only been a small concession we’ve been piteously asked for, and only for a tiny number of men. Now look where we are with our government, public service, organisations, and service providers all being firm adherents to trans and gender ideology, with ears closed to reality-based oppositional arguments.
We were assured it wouldn’t negatively affect women and girls in any way. When we didn’t believe that, the assurance was changed to the impact only being minor. So, policy-making gender idealogues were prepared for women and girls to suffer some fallout, but wouldn’t say, of course, what the ‘body count’ had to be, before it was too many. Never mind that the whole reason we have single-sex spaces and sports for women and girls, is so that - as much as is humanly possible - there is never any ‘body count’. We shouldn’t even have to think that a man could legitimately be in our space at any time.
What are we supposed to do when our daughters ask us why there is a man in the communal public toilets with them, as recently happened here in NZ? We try and teach our daughters how to have safe boundaries around men to protect themselves, and yet all that flies out the window if the man is wearing a dress and a wig. And Dr Kerekere, and accomplices, wants to entrench this in law. Women’s and girls’ freedom in public life is being compromised, because allowing men who say they’re women into their spaces is deemed more important. No official avenues are supplied to collate women’s and girls’ experiences with this. To rub salt in the wound, we’re then told there is no evidence to show that women and girls are being negatively impacted. Do you see what’s been done there?
The group Speak Up for Women made a media release about Dr Kerekere’s bill, with the claim that by introducing the concept of ‘gender identity’ as a protected characteristic, it “seeks to differentiate between sex, gender identity and gender expression in law”. I see merit in this, and if the word ‘sex’ got further defined to ensure the differentiation was clear, then it could be a useful distinction to have in legislation. Even as it stands now, the mere use of the words ‘sex’ and ‘gender identity’ separately in the bill indicates a heretofore unspoken acknowledgement that they are two different things.
Mana Wāhine Kōrero, however, was immediately suspicious about Dr Kerekere’s bill, despite the assurance that “The Bill does not change the already existing grounds of discrimination of “sex” and “sexual orientation”. I see merit in this, too, because, as I’ve written above, very little about the introduction of gender ideology into policy and legislation has been insignificant or harmless to women and girls. Mana Wāhine Kōrero were instantly, and rightly, onto this aspect.
They refute the assertion in the bill that their pre-European culture incorporated the multitude of gender diverse personas which are now emerging in modern life - or re-emerging as Māori academics would have it - and object to Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi) being mentioned into this bill to apparently give it more clout. Dr Kerekere herself said in her thesis, on page 82, that “There is not yet evidence that Māori had diverse gender identities or that takatāpui played specific roles in pre-colonial times; notwithstanding any roles which have developed over the past 150 years.” Yet, she seems to ignore her own research when it suits her agenda.
However, it’s not my place to speak at length for Mana Wāhine Kōrero - they have written an excellent piece themselves about their stance, titled ‘It is by women and by land, that the people are given life’. In addition, they have written and sent a report to the United Nations, as attached below.
The bill, in further effrontery, suggests that the amendment to current legislation against discrimination incorporates “mannerisms” as part of the meaning of gender identity or expression.
The mind boggles. Imagine feeling entitled enough to think that protecting your personal mannerisms by law is a legitimate request. What mannerisms exactly would these be, and how would they be defined?
As I wrote in a previous piece, I learned that we should not always ignore what seems to be trivial. Doing so has led us to a place where our daughters, granddaughters, nieces, sisters, mothers, and grandmothers can no longer have female-only spaces and sports - and somehow we have to explain to them how this happened.
You are so right to be suspicious about this Katrina. Women are lied to and manipulated into "being kind", which here is a code word for prioritising the wants, desires and feelings of men (and their followers) over the actual needs and safeguarding of women and our hard fought for rights. Exactly how many is "too many" girls and women harmed by entrenching misogyny into the NZ legal system? Who is counting? Written over two years ago, this is even more relevant and frightening now than when it was published: https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/sex-and-statistics?fbclid=IwAR3SM-HWUPsr_zDUlUnFpM_llG6M0WUN0rFQrMKzTCRkeqx9fkKs4OqgFgI
"I see merit in this, and if the word ‘sex’ got further defined to ensure the differentiation was clear, then it could be a useful distinction to have in legislation. Even as it stands now, the mere use of the words ‘sex’ and ‘gender identity’ separately in the bill indicates a heretofore unspoken acknowledgement that they are two different things."
This is an important distinction. I am often minded of the observation of both of my 3 year olds sons' independent response to finding sticks of a certain size on the ground. These were almost immediately utilized as swords or rifles for war play without being told or shown that possibility. Unfortunately I do not have any daughters so I cannot say they do not do the same, but I strongly suspect they tend not to.
However if a three year old girl, were to pick up a stick and join in that behaviour that does not mean she is a male and should go on hormone blockers and have her breasts removed.
Nor if a 6 year old boy pretends to gallop like a horse and play ponies with a group of 6 year old girls, does that make him a girl and allow him to go into girls changing rooms.
But there is no room for nuance in this cult, so the nuance is deliberately ignored, nuance being an enemy of ideology.