Yes, Prime Minister, bathrooms do matter on planet Earth, despite saying that anyone who thinks so is “on another planet”.

Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, when on the pre-election campaign trail, scoffed at the idea that bathrooms might be an election issue, and anyone who gave credence to it was on another planet. Ah, the luxury of being in a position where one could say that, and actually believe it.

Chris Luxon’s response to the idea that bathrooms do actually matter to some of us, was elicited by a reporter asking him what he thought of NZ First’s promise to protect women’s and girls’ single-sex toilets from men who say they’re women. Mr Luxon thought it was a mighty amusing question, and replied in a derisory manner that was several years out of touch.

I’d give a lot to bring back the days when a question like that wouldn’t need to be asked. The days when I went into female spaces, and they felt safe. The days when it never occurred to me to be on the alert for male intruders claiming to be women. It seemed impossible that those days would disappear, because the sheer logic of women and girls having some spaces away from males in any guise, based on the entire history of humankind, was indisputable.  Yet, here we are.

Although there was never, and never can be, a solid guarantee that nothing bad would ever happen in a female space, the chances it wouldn’t were once a helluva lot higher than they are now that men have control of those spaces. How could it not be, when all any man has to do is say he’s a woman, and hey presto, he gets free and unfettered access to women’s and girls’ spaces? The control has unceremoniously been put into men’s hands, and it’s not only women who are decidedly unimpressed about this – to put it mildly.

Rodney Hide is a father who is amongst the decidedly unimpressed. He relates his story here about his first experience of encountering a man dressed as a woman exiting the same changing shed his daughter was about to use; and trying to get a coherent answer out of The Remarkables ski area about their conversion of a female toilet into a free-for-all.

RODNEY HIDE: On Another Planet

I also wrote back in March 2023 about the tourist attraction called Hell’s Gate in Rotorua, who allow men who say they’re women into women’s changing rooms.

It's a bit hellish for women at Hell's Gate in Rotorua, NZ.

And I had a comprehensive chinwag here with Rodney on Reality Check Radio a few weeks ago.

Header pic by Cottonbro Studio.