NZ’s Law Commission is proposing to make ‘misgendering’ and ‘deadnaming’ illegal – have your say via the Free Speech Union and tell them “not on my watch”.
The Law Commission of New Zealand has released a 211-page document on a proposal to add ‘gender’ and ‘gender identity’ to the Human Rights Act. The whole proposal’s a hot mess, but this particular blogpiece is about the hit to free speech contained within it, and how a submission to the Law Commission, via the Free Speech Union, can be made through the link at the bottom.
The title of the document is: “Review of the protections in the Human Rights Act 1993 for people who are transgender, people who are non-binary and people with innate variations of sex characteristics”.
Whilst there’s much to pick apart in the review, the Free Speech Union NZ (FSU) has approached it from the perspective of it being a back door to resurrecting the ‘hate speech’ laws that got ditched when the Coalition Government got into power in October 2023. They have pinpointed the likelihood of ‘deadnaming’ and misgendering’ being made illegal, because those things hurt feelings, if ‘gender’ and ‘gender-identity’ are made protected characteristics in law.
‘Deadnaming’ is calling someone by their previous name, if they now identify as the opposite sex to that which they were born and have changed their name to reflect that; and ‘misgendering’ is calling a man ‘he’ instead of ‘she’ if he says he’s a woman.
Calling a person by their changed name and pronouns must only ever be considered a social nicety at best, which we are free to observe or not, and not be subject to prosecution under any circumstances. The can of worms it would open to legislate this type of speech, or even try, is enormous. Explaining all the implications and convolutions that would arise from it would be a long essay indeed. It beggars belief that those advocating for it, including the Law Commission despite trying not to appear so, don’t see this. Of course, I don’t really believe they don’t see it, and if the tone, language, and expressions they use throughout the review are anything to go by, it seems they want it, no matter what.
The word ‘reckless’ comes to mind.
Here is the link to the Free Speech Union’s webpage where you can make an easy submission to the Law Commission, which can be individualised if you want, and tell them “not on my watch”.
Hate speech laws appear to be coming down the pipeline again! (freespeechsubmission.nz)
header image by 愚木混株 Cdd20 from Pixabay
I wrote this:
I am very worried about those that will really struggle to distinguish between what their senses tell them about a person's sex, and the expectation of the person to be perceived as the sex they want to be perceived as. These people include: those with Autism spectrum disorders who already really struggle to get inline with societies rules of engagement; the elderly who largely don't have a clue about this subject and also already struggle to maintain community engagement; and children who are learning how to trust their senses who might then be told they are wrong and thus, in my opinion, decreasing their safety in the community. I strongly believe that making trans identified people a protected class and legislating around use of names and pronouns will not be inclusive at all. I think it will destabilise our communities by forcing most of us to ignore the innate safety mechanism of speculating on a person's sex for fear of breaking a law. It will further ostracise trans people when the general public decide to stop interacting with them at all, due to this
understandable fear.
The solution is simple - avoid pronouns altogether. Instead of saying 'his' or 'her', say 'Jane's or 'John's'. The only thing left to the zealots would be to outlaw this by resorting to compelling the use of pronouns. I for one would be prepared to go to prison for refusing to use such compelled speech. The last use of compelled speech was the mandatory greeting and goodbye of 'Heil Hitler'