NZ’s Supreme Court refers to the adult male rapist of a child as “she”.

Just writing that title made me feel a bit sick in the stomach. This is the ‘gift’ that sex self-ID in New Zealand has given us, and will keep giving us, until both the law and the ideology enabling it are thrown into the fire pit where they belong.

In 1995, an 18-year-old man abducted a 12-year-old girl, tied a rope around her neck causing her to lose consciousness, and then raped her. He was sentenced to prison for 11 years for that, and “since then has either been in prison, on parole, or under an extended supervision order (ESO), which allows probation officers to monitor and manage someone considered a high risk for up to 10 years at a time.”¹ It’s not difficult to see he’s amongst the worst dregs of society. Now this rapist says he’s a woman, and therefore thinks his supervision order should be lifted. Our Supreme Court denied him that – phew - but indulged him with female pronouns.

Sex self-ID was made law in New Zealand in mid-2023, and technically it’s about allowing people to change the sex recorded on their birth certificates to that of the opposite sex to which they were born, or to a ‘non-binary’ gender. However, it also gives heft to self-ID as an ideology which enables any person to identify as anyone or anything they want, in any situation, irrespective of what’s on their birth certificate. This ideology has been permeating into policies for some time, with full and enthusiastic collusion from so-called ‘progressives’. Anyone with half a brain can see that that’s a shit idea. But, to date, a male rapist of a child still gets called “she” by our Supreme Court if he simply desires it.

There is no legal obligation in New Zealand to consider someone the opposite sex to that which they were born due to a changed birth certificate, or upon their own say-so, nor to call them by opposite sex pronouns. Those who do this, do it because they want to, and then if they can, they make organisation-specific policies to enforce it. Their tyranny is justified as the cost of empathy for ‘transpeople’.³

We terfs, and terf-supporters, did all we could to fight against the implementation of sex self-ID. Groups, organisations, and individuals vigorously opposed it, and a country-wide speaking tour to highlight the problems was carried out. Well, it was as country-wide as could be on a shoestring budget, with ratepayer-and taxpayer-funded venues rushing to cancel bookings. As a volunteer event organiser in Christchurch at the time for the speaking tour, I got this cancellation email from the manager at Tūranga, the central library, at 5.36pm a few days before the scheduled event -

Of course, the entire mainstream media was against us, too, and as it turned out, so was Parliament. It unanimously passed sex self-ID into law in December 2023. Nicola Grigg, who was the National Party’s shadow minister for women then, and is now the Minister for Women, said “she was concerned some of those opposing the changes were blocked from organising debates on the topic. However, Grigg said she believed those fears were unfounded.”²

Jan Tinetti, Labour’s Minister for Women and for Internal Affairs at the time, was over the moon at the passing of the bill, and “referred to a time when she was principal at a school and an 8-year-old student, who the "world saw as a boy knew they were a girl". ”²

Ex-Green MP Elizabeth Kerekere cried as she said "As a takatāpui, cis-lesbian fem ally to our takatāpui, trans and intersex non-binary whānau, I am very proud to commend this bill to the house". I invite you to check out Māori women’s group Mana Wāhine Kōrero’s own story here, to read what they think about Ms Kerekere’s modern-day version of Māori culture.

And now here we are with the male rapist of a child being called “she”, because nothing must be denied to those who claim a ‘trans’ identity. They’re all just misunderstood, and terribly vulnerable people. This is where I point out, thanks to a reader of this blog, that the results of the Ministry of Justice’s latest Crime and Victims survey show there is no evidence that ‘trans’ are more vulnerable to offence than any other group.⁴

When we were fighting against the implementation of sex self-ID, we were a tiny number of women, and some men, fighting a monster of a machine. We had little but our learn-on-the-job wits and courage. We may have lost that battle, but all is not lost. The world is waking up to the fact that self-ID, with or without legislation, comes with a host of harms.

If you have the time and/or inclination, read the news articles below with a ² symbol beside them about the passing of the sex self-ID bill in NZ. The fawning comments over ‘transpeople’ aren’t going to age well, is my bet.

¹Dunedin paedophile tries to get supervision order lifted | Otago Daily Times Online News

²Parliament passes 'Self-ID Bill' at third reading, making it easier for trans people to update birth certificates - NZ Herald

²Parliament unanimously passes sex self-identification law, simplifying changes to birth certificates | Stuff

³How Empathy Makes Us Cruel and Irrational - by Gurwinder - a long-ish, but brilliant, read.

⁴ NZCVS 2023 Key Results (Cycle 6) - see page 12, as numbered at the bottom of the pages.

Header image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay