The 'Let Kids be Kids' roadshow of the South Island NZ gets pushback from the usual suspects.

I chose not to be a parent, for no other reason than I simply didn’t seem ‘wired’ for children. However, I’m not completely disinterested in parents and children, and like some parents, I also have concerns about what children are being taught in New Zealand schools regarding gender-identity ideology, and age-inappropriate sex education.

Those concerns saw me going along to the Let Kids be Kids presentation in Christchurch on their South Island roadshow. The event outlined what kids are being subjected to in the Ministry of Education’s Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) guidelines, and the transgender ideology targeted at kids by neo-rainbow organisations (i.e. those organisations primarily driven by transgender and queer ideology). Although I retained my own opinion about some things presented, I agreed that others were disturbing, and I could understand parents’ concerns.

Naturally, the Let Kids be Kids roadshow got pushback. There’s always pushback when we want to talk about the impacts of gender ideology on us or our kids. The reactive hyperbolic lambasting from trans activists hits overdrive, which – to be honest – it’s seldom out of, even on an average day. Sunita Torrance, the female drag queen character (yes, there is such a thing) of the Erika and CoCo Flash duo, who read to kids in libraries in full drag queen garb, got busy on the phone ringing around the venues trying to get them to cancel the Let Kids be Kids bookings. I suspect there may have been a bit of revenge motivation behind her actions, due to the duo having a couple of library gigs cancelled because of the threat of (apparently unfounded) public protests by those who think drag queens aren’t suitable entertainment for kids. Imagine that.

Sunita also got into community Facebook groups in the South Island to give them the usual telling off – hate, bigotry, lies, etc - for promoting or hosting the presentation. She got a bit more innovative in one group, though, and invoked Jesus in her castigation of them -

So far, two venues have had the willies put up them, and cancelled their Let Kids be Kids bookings, however, other venues were easily obtained. Neither of these cancellations were in Nelson at the top of the South Island, though, much to the disappointment of the Deputy Mayor -

Stuff reporter Amy Ridout gallantly took up the challenge to life, liberty, and freedom in Nelson from Let Kids be Kids, and sent Penny Marie an email for information about their event –

After initially replying with a standard Let Kids be Kids response, Penny Marie followed up to ask where the complaints came from -

It seems that someone went digging into Penny Marie’s personal social media accounts and tied comments made in that capacity to the Let Kids be Kids event. Whatever we think of the issues named in Amy’s emails, or how anyone’s opinions are expressed about them, I have a tiny suspicion that Amy may have been trying to discredit the event through the time-honoured rag tactics of personal character assassination.

If I was to say I’m surprised that the Deputy Mayor of Nelson made the claims he’s alleged to have, in the above email from Amy, I’d be lying. And if I also said I was surprised that the claims of one “member of the community” could get a Stuff reporter chasing a story, I’d be lying again. The claim has all the trigger words in it guaranteed to get a woke 23 or 24-year-old deputy mayor and Stuff reporter frothing at the mouth. It was a surefire thing - no gun could have been more easily loaded.

The “member of the community” squawks out the standard ‘what about what went on in the Church’ trope, without one gram of comparative commonsense. Policies which allow drag queens to entertain kids in full drag queen regalia, and policies which allow men who say they’re women into all women’s and girls’ spaces have been with us for barely five minutes, and collecting data on that is still in its infancy. No official agencies in New Zealand have been set up to collect and monitor the consequences from these policies, of course, as that’s bound to be considered ‘transphobic’, ‘hateful’, and ‘bigoted’.

We are relying on informal data collecting here, which is liable to be considered inadmissible in any official context, as well as what gets recorded by overseas endeavours, such as the online magazine Reduxx. Funnily enough, though, informal data collecting both here and overseas, in the form of self-reporting and unscrutinised surveys from the LGBTQIA+ community, are embraced and held up as incontrovertible ‘evidence’ of how that community (primarily the TQIA+) need everything they ask for, otherwise life is unbearable for them.

What is actually incontrovertible, is that there’s content in the Relationships and Sexuality Education guidelines which some parents are concerned about, but parents are finding that they are increasingly being removed from having a say about what is going on with their kids in school. Our new-ish government has agreed to review and replace these guidelines, amidst howls of protest. In a recent media interviews, the Mental Health Foundation’s CEO, Shaun Robertson, was a whisker away from outright insulting parents when he appeared to imply they were ignorant for having objections to some of the content in the guidelines. My argument back is that if those who champion the RSE guidelines are so confident the guidelines are beyond legitimate reproach, then they won’t mind them being reviewed.

Before going on leave, Amy from Stuff didn’t get any further response from Penny Marie, but her editor followed up –

Warren’s clarification of what exactly the Deputy Mayor of Nelson said is appreciated. At the time of this blog-piece ‘going to press’, Penny Marie is contemplating letting Stuff have their story, in full knowledge that it’s likely to be unflattering, to put it politely. Keep your eye out for it in the Nelson Mail.

·       As well as the group Let Kids be Kids, Resist Gender Education is dedicated to exposing and resisting the disruptive teaching of gender identity ideology and age-inappropriate sex education in schools; and Mana Wāhine Kōrero are fighting to protect children, and women, from the harms of gender ideology on a wider front. They also emphatically refute that pre-colonial Māori culture embraced ‘transpeople’ in the manner popularly disseminated now, whilst acknowledging that same-sex relationships existed as they have in every culture all throughout history.