The two authors of the piece, Dinithe Bowatte and Dr Max Soar - who give the impression of being a female scientist and a male academic, but may reject that sex binary classification for something more creative – say “Scientists have increasingly come to understand sex as a spectrum, rejecting the two-sex model’s neat categorisation”.

However, one of the authors, the female one at a guess, Dinithe Bowatte, who’s a scientist, seems to unconsciously revert to the “two-sex model” when she states in her bio that she (they?) uses “interdisciplinary feminist methods to study disease emergence in Uganda”. I don’t know what that means, but I do know that by using the word ‘feminist’ it implies two sexes, because otherwise what does feminism mean, and where does it begin if sex is a spectrum?

The piece finishes off with “If biological sex were so obviously natural, so universally experienced that it goes without question, it would not need to be maintained, stabilised, and enforced by paternalistic policy.” I don’t know what that means, either, but “paternalistic” implies male, doesn’t it? If not, what does it mean, and where does paternalism begin if sex is a spectrum?

As far as I can make out, they – and others of their ilk – have decided that because we humans aren’t exact template copies of each other, and have variations in our makeup, there can be no overall rule of what constitutes the binary of female and male biological sex. It’s just a feeling … or something …. but nothing that can be measured in any meaningful way.

Fashionable gibberish is the politest way to describe the opinion piece. It carries a number of the same repetitive non-factual claims and assertions we see riddled throughout most narratives around gender ideology. The authors give the impression of having fallen for something which psychologists call the illusory truth effect, meaning a cognitive bias where people find a statement more believable simply because they have heard it multiple times. In a previous age, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels understood this, with the attributed phrase “repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”. This is the gender ideology playbook, and even scientists and academics get duped by it.

Fortunately, not all scientists.

Dr Chris Pook and Dr Julia Schaletzky wrote a robust rebuttal² of Dinithe Bowatte’s and Dr Max Soar’s opinion piece. And in a move that probably wouldn’t have been made a couple of years ago, Newsroom published it!

The rebuttal sweeps through the ‘sex is a spectrum’ piece like a scythe through a noxious weed patch, starting with -

“It asks readers to believe that the two sexes are an eighteenth-century European adoption, that XX and XY chromosomes were merely “allocated” to women and men, that rare developmental disorders demonstrate a spectrum of sexes, and that scientists increasingly reject male and female as biological categories.

These false claims blend developmental biology, social identity, historical speculation and advocacy terminology until a political position appears to be a scientific conclusion.” [my emphasis on ‘political position’]

There is no science attached to gender ideology, it is purely beliefs and behaviours – both changeable - which have been marketed together and presented as a solid actuality, and then politicised by its adherents. We see this politicisation everywhere – in schools, universities, the public service, the private sector, institutions, and political parties.

Although Bowatte’s and Soar’s ‘sex is a spectrum’ opinion piece isn’t directly about matters pertaining to gender ideology, that certainly comes across as forming the basis of their opinion and opposition to the bill to define women and men in legislation.

No discourse here in New Zealand that dismisses the sex binary is complete without making a reference to pre-colonial Māori and their supposed ignorance of the sex binary, and how they had variety of genders. Sure enough, we’re told “elsewhere, including in Aotearoa [New Zealand], Indigenous communities [Māori] held a variety of understandings of gender that did not necessarily conform to sex-associated binaries.”

Mana Wāhine Kōrero (Sovereign Women Speak) have refuted this on more than one occasion, and have provided strong arguments for their refutations in written articles, including in Quillette.

Their latest Substack piece titled The “Sex Spectrum” Myth Fails History and Science³ takes Bowatte and Soar to task over their repetition of false information -

“In their recent comment piece published by Newsroom, ‘Marcroft’s sex definition bill fails basic science’, the contributing authors have constructed a false narrative that hinges upon a profound act of historical omission, attempting to rewrite both Western history and traditional Māoritanga to serve a modern political agenda. By asserting as fact that the two-sex binary was an 18th-century European scientific invention, they reveal their total reliance on a single, thoroughly debunked, 35-year-old American humanities thesis.”

“The masquerading of this outdated cultural history as “basic science” does a massive disservice to the New Zealand public, but its application to te ao Māori is particularly patronising and deeply offensive. The implication that pre-colonial Māori held no concrete, binary understanding of biological sex until 18th-century Europeans invented the concept is flatly contradicted by ancestral reality.”

It’s a good read. At some stage when the way is clear - there are reasons it isn’t right now, as per their X post – Mana Wāhine Kōrero may submit it to Newsroom to publish. It will be interesting to see if Newsroom has the raho (testicles) for it.

¹Marcroft’s sex definition bill fails basic science

²Sex definition: Science is not a political prop

³The “Sex Spectrum” Myth Fails History and Science

In the Guidelines for Courtroom Conduct for Counsel, paragraphs 38 and 54 state:

• 38. It is counsel’s responsibility to make sure they know the correct spelling and pronunciation of the names of their clients and witnesses and also the titles and pronouns they use. Wherever possible, this information should be conveyed to the registrar in advance of the hearing. [my emphasis]

• 54. Witnesses should usually be referred to using their formal name, including their title (e.g., Mr, Ms, Dr, Professor, Sir, Dame, Lady or other title), and their pronouns should be used. It is generally appropriate to refer to children or young persons by their given or preferred name. [my emphasis]

Although witnesses are not compelled to use preferred pronouns, it’s hard to imagine that an activist judge wouldn’t look unfavourably upon one who didn’t. Unfortunately, striking an activist judge is not as rare an occurrence now as it should be.

Jan Rivers posted on X that using terms like ‘her penis’ is now basically official advice:

Does this mean a victim of rape could feel coerced to call a rapist who discovers his womanhood at the courthouse door she/her, and refer to ‘her penis’ to avoid disapproval from the judge, and risking an unfavourable judgment due to that? If a witness is brave enough to stand their ground and use correct sex-based pronouns, there’s also the possibility of the ludicrous situation where the counsel calls a male defendant she/her, whilst the witness calls him ‘he/him. And would a ‘gender fluid’ person be allowed to change their pronouns during the case?

An NZ organisation called TOAH-NNEST, an advocacy group against sexual violence, informs us that:

Although they use the word ‘gender’ (they ought not) I’m going to take a leap and presume they mean that rape is sex specific. However, I acknowledge that you never know anymore what is meant by ‘gender’. But – and stay with me here - if a woman gets some skin on her forearm or thigh removed to use to use in the grafting of a facsimile penis near her groin area, and one day manages to subdue another woman – or man – long enough so she can do what’s necessary to make that thing erect, and rapes them, can it then be referred to as her penis’? Or, does the fact that she probably wants to be called he/him make ‘her penis’ a ‘his penis’?

The NZ Crimes Act doesn’t go down the road of mentioning surgically altered genitals in the instance of rape, as far as I’m aware. As per section 128, it seems to remain content to make our heads spin with with references to ‘Person A’ and ‘Person B’, instead of ‘woman’ and ‘man’, and talks about “the penetration of person B’s genitalia by person A’s penis”. Undoubtably, gender ideologues had a hand in that bollox, in the event one, or both, of those persons has surgically altered genitals. I’d better stop there, because this is starting to get mad.

The UK wound back from the compelled use of preferred pronouns in court in early 2025. The guidance was revised following some high-profile court cases, such as that of double rapist Adam Graham, who identified as a ‘transwoman’ after committing the crimes and then called himself Isla Bryson, being referred to as she/her in court. The Christian Institute reported that:

In late 2024, Claire Methven O’Brien wrote an interesting analysis about preferred pronoun use in court. She suggested that using female pronouns for male defendants of crimes against women and girls could be “inconsistent with international human rights standards”, due to a re-traumatising effect on women and girls from doing so.

Whilst the NZ Guidance for Courtroom Conduct for Counsel doesn’t state that witnesses or victims must use preferred pronouns for defendants, there will indisputably be indirect coercive pressure to so from counsel and judges in some cases. Maybe it will be due to activist judges and/or counsel simply wanting preferred pronouns to be used, or maybe it will be to prevent a ridiculous situation from arising where everyone is using different pronouns for a person, or people.

The Free Speech Union has issued a media release about the matter, in which they say:

This mandate to use preferred pronouns, which is what it amounts to, is going to result in a mess, as the UK found out. It seems incredible that our courts here in NZ haven’t twigged to that from the UK’s example.

New Zealand was the first self-governing country in the world where women won the right to vote – i.e. suffrage - irrespective of circumstances. It kind of seems worth recognising that with more than just paying a bit of lip service to it each year. Winning that right was no easy ride – it took three attempts, and then finally the women’s suffrage bill passed by just two votes on 19^th September 1893.

There are some blokes still bitter about that to this day – lol.

This year, the 19^th September falls on a Saturday, so the Women’s Suffrage flag will have its inaugural hoisting on Thursday 17^th, being the closest House sitting day to the 19^th. I intend to be in Wellington for it, of course, and, if allowed, may even do the hoisting myself. Or, perhaps my sister’s granddaughters, who’ll be there with me and my sister, might be allowed to do it, instead.

I know others will be there, too - the more the merrier. The flags get raised at 8.30am, so those who are working may not be able to attend, but with any luck an MP or two might be able to spare fifteen minutes to come outside Parliament and have a gander. The media will be informed, but I have no idea if this will interest any of them or not.

Whatever happens, it will still be a day to remember.

There is a caveat on flying the Women’s Suffrage flag, and that is the Speaker cannot guarantee it to be an ongoing event each year, so it may be a case of making an application for each occasion. I’ll have to find out more about that. However, now that it’s been done once, perhaps it will create a precedent that’s easier to follow.

As well as the inevitable bitter blokes who feel emasculated by women being treated as human beings with their own agency, grinches will come out of their caves to grumble and growl about ‘more important things’. I agree that more important things do exist - and as long as we humans walk the earth, that won’t change. As one important thing gets resolved, another arises. Some never get resolved, try as we might, which is why we’re never given a timeframe for when the grand resolution of the ‘more important things’ might occur.

We juggle big and little things in life all the time, because that is life. How happy would it make us to grimly focus only on the ‘more important things’ to the exclusion of anything else? Of course, grinches aren’t unknown to refrain from grinching when a less important thing is something they approve of. Funny, that.

I would argue that something which inspires and uplifts us does have an important place in our lives. The Women’s Suffrage flag is symbolic of achievement through great perseverance, and that speaks to us all, no matter what we’re pursuing.

The vote is a great equaliser, as it does not give one hoot about what beliefs or opinions we have, or whereabouts on the political spectrum we may be. In a polarised world, the white camellia on the NZ Women’s Suffrage flag pictured below - which is the flower that was given to the MPs who supported the women’s suffrage bill to wear in their lapels, when they went into Parliament to vote on it - shows no favouritism. Whatever kind of woman you are, the vote was won for you.

I will confirm and update on matters as we get closer to Thursday 17 September, but if you can be there, do come 😊

Thanks to all those who have supported this initiative, and me, to get here, and to the Secret T Society (e: SecretTSociety@proton.me) for designing the flag.

However, in her piece, titled “Cancer screening chaos echoes indifference to women’s healthcare”, Andrea uses the word ‘woman’ without explaining that she’s only talking about the female type of woman. There seems to be an acceptance by her that the reader will know only that type of women has a cervix, and not the mythical male type. Which, of course, we do know – but Andrea hasn’t been renowned so far for showing the same kind of awareness.

There are also the women who say they’re men but don’t like to be called ‘women’, irrespective of having a cervix because they’re female. As a committed Leftie wokester, why didn’t Andrea use the term ‘person with a cervix’ in her opinion piece to appease those women who like to pretend they’re not woman, or the men who like to pretend they are? I expect Andrea really does know that a woman is an adult human female.

In the piece, she highlights some of the dreadful systemic failures reported in an independent 118-page review released by Health NZ into its national cervical screening register, which can be read in the screenshot at the bottom.² However, she ignores the bits about how some of those failures are due to replacing identification by ‘sex’ with ‘gender identity’. The only mention of gender identity is in conjunction with taking a swipe at the current government.

By “legislative messes” in the above snippet, I’m surmising she’s referring to the Parliamentary bill to define women and men in legislation according to their sex. We know it needs to be refined, and that process is underway right now. To digress a little, we should be glad that Christopher Luxon has retained his position as leader of the National party, after another coup to oust him yesterday failed, if for no other reason than another leader may be even less likely than him to whip the party into supporting the bill through a second and third reading. There’s no guarantee Luxon will do that, as he did for the first reading of it, but a different leader, particularly the one most speculated to succeed him had the coup come off, almost certainly wouldn’t.

It’s a credibility stretch by Andrea to claim that having legislative clarity on the definition of a woman is going to create a mess, whilst ignoring the mess which using ‘gender identity’ instead of ‘sex’ in the cervical screening programme has contributed to. She might swerve around the role that has played, but Jan confronts it head on. In her Genspect NZ press release¹ she says “News reports to date have been coy about one of the underlying reasons for the failure.”

She explains that “In 2024 Te Whatu Ora [now renamed back to Health NZ] issued guidance that the primary data point collected for whether a person is male or female must not be their sex, but their gender identity. The report on the cervical screening failures makes it clear that a significant part of the problem is the misidentification of a person’s sex in the database.” [my emphasis]

There it is. What Andrea either didn’t want to acknowledge, or didn’t think was important enough, is that using ‘gender identity’ in health matters can create significant problems. Not a biggie in Andrea’s world, apparently, with issues around gender identity just being a “distraction”. Somehow, she manages to be comfortable with both knowing exactly what a woman is when it suits her, and brushing aside the fact that gender identity muddies the waters of knowing exactly what a woman is.

Jan goes onto say that the Health NZ review has made recommendations which propose correcting the problem of using ‘gender identity’ instead of ‘sex’. It will undeniably be a battle to implement these recommendations, as Health NZ is currently riddled with gender ideologues who’ll likely be vehemently opposed to making this correction.

If Genspect NZ’s press release makes it into any NZ mainstream media I’ll be surprised. They are all largely Left aligned, and the narrative of the press release – worded calmly and concisely though it is – is not the preferred narrative around gender ideology of the mainstream media. Like Andrea, they prefer to turn a deaf ear and blind eye to issues arising from it being embedded into policies and legislation.

The review of Health NZ’s national cervical screening register has reported some extremely dismaying failures in the system. The public who read Andrea’s opinion piece, though, would have remained completely unaware that gender-identity ideology played a part in those failures. In fact, Andrea’s snipe about the concerns of gender identity just being “troll-farming distractions” was basically a deflection tactic. Heaven forfend that she looks at the matter honestly, and actually acknowledges the role gender identity ideology has played in women missing out on cervical cancer screening.

• ¹Failures in HNZ’s cervical screening programme – press release by Jan Rivers of Genspect NZ

• ²

Previously, changes were allowed for genuine clerical errors, or in the rare instances of those born with a disorder of sexual development (a DSD), via an error correction process with Births, Deaths, and Marriages. And, transsexuals could go through a Family Court process after they’d had medical or surgical treatment, in order to be granted permission to change their sex marker.

Then, transactivists duped enough politicians into prioritising feelings over facts, and believing that anyone should be able to easily change the sex marker on their birth certificate, based on those feelings. Making that change has become a simple matter of a statutory declaration that the person believes they’re actually the opposite sex to that which they were born, or that they’re nonbinary. Once they’ve officially created this fiction for themselves, they can then have their child’s birth certificate updated to reflect their new parental ‘gender’, if they wish to.

So, how many of these people have changed the sex recorded on their birth certificate to a ‘gender’ of their own choosing since June 2023?

The organisation Family First have done an Official Information Act (OIA) request to find out. They’ve discovered that in the last three years, 2,099 people have done this. Of that number –

• Male to female

984 were over 18 years of age

49 were between the age of 17 and 18.

37 were 15 years old and under.

• Female to male

592 were over 18 years of age.

107 were between the age of 17 and 18

42 were 15 years old and under

• Male to nonbinary

<=5 for both age groups under 18 years old, and zero older than 18

• Female to nonbinary

0 were over 18 years of age

16 were between the age of 17 and 18

7 were 15 years old or under

• Nonbinary to female

<=5 over the age of 18, and zero for both age groups under 18

So, nearly one man a day over 18 years old has changed the sex marker on his birth certificate to female during the last three years in NZ, a country with a population of less than 5.5M.

In his interview on The Platform, Bob McCoskrie, national director of Family First said that New South Wales in Australia has it even worse than New Zealand. Their population is 8.6M, and three men a day there change the sex marker on their birth certificate to female.

Back in NZ, a woman over 18 years old has changed her sex marker to male approx. every 1.84 days.

For the age group between 17 and 18, the consent of a parent or guardian is required to change the sex marker on a birth certificate. In the event of a parent not agreeing to it, a guardian can be found who will. There is no restriction on who can be deemed a guardian. Every week in NZ a parent or guardian has consented to this.

For the 15 and under age group, only parental consent can be given, and 86 parents have given that for their 15-year-olds and under to have the sex marker changed on their birth certificates. A parent, or parents, have consented to this every 1.81 weeks in NZ.

Passports also get changed, and in Family First’s press release on the above data, they state that “Approximately 1700 passports have also been changed for adults 18-plus since January 2023, and approximately 250 passports of young people.”

These numbers show that trans ideology still has a disturbing influence, aided and abetted by well-funded lobby groups. Although there are heartening reports that school kids are increasingly rejecting the ideology, there remains a significant cohort with mental and social problems who are being ‘treated’ by allowing them to believe they can change their sex, or opt out of biological sex by declaring themselves nonbinary.

There is no obligation to consider a birth certificate as proof of a person’s sex, as confirmed by the Dept of Internal Affairs, who state that “other factors can be considered over and above the registered sex listed on a birth certificate”. In other words, those factors can be what our eyes and ears tell us.

Undoubtably, there are many, many more men and women who declare themselves to be the opposite sex to that which they were born, or no sex at all, but who don’t change their birth certificates. After all, when they’ve played around with being trans for a while, and forcing numerous others to play along by various direct and indirect means, they might want to return to playing at the sex they were born. I myself have recently heard of a case where a gay man decided he was trans for a few years, but has now gone back to being a gay man.

Those who did go to the bother of changing their birth certificates can just change them back again when they change their minds about who they are. There’s no limit to the number of times they can do this. Who knew that feelings could be so changeable?

Women’s Rights Network UK describe themselves as “a network of women from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland who promote the human rights of women and girls.” They believe that men can’t become women, and vice versa – just like most of the world.

WRN NI had been accepted by Féile to hold a panel discussion, titled Respect, Rights and Reality at the festival, which included a speaker from Sex Matters UK. I’m picking that Féile must have then got complaints from transactivists about this, so like all arts wokesters who dance to the tune of transactivists, Féile dutifully cancelled WRN NI. They issued a statement on social media which said “Féile an Phobail was unaware from the initial submission that this event would promote campaigns against rights for the transgender community.“ WRN NI said it was made clear to the festival organisers that it was about women’s sex-based rights.

Of course, we know the so-called ‘trans rights’ Féile were anxious to protect are really nothing more than ‘trans wants’.

Cue a big kerfuffle. JK Rowling offered to fund WRN NI for legal action against Féile an Phobail, which they didn’t take up, choosing to fund it themselves instead. Sex Matters UK waded in saying that WRN NI were being discriminated against. Initial talks between Féile and WRN NI broke down, but an agreement was later reached between them for the panel discussion to go ahead at an alternative venue, and WRN NI withdrew their legal challenge. ¹

Added to that, an Irish journo called Allison Morris wrote an opinion piece about the kerfuffle titled Women’s rights are at risk — just not from a tiny trans minority, which basically said every stupid thing we’ve ever heard said about men who say they’re women being no risk to women and girls. Both she and Helen Joyce from Sex Matters UK were invited onto BBC Radio Ulster to discuss the matter of Féile cancelling WRN NI.

Allison Morris is apparently a very good advocate for women’s rights, but on the subject of men who say they’re women in this interview with Helen Joyce, the verbal diarrhoea was truly something else. Helen held her own, as she’s very good at doing, but even she had trouble stopping the cascade of BS that flowed at an incredulous rate from Allison’s mouth.

Afterwards, American woman Mary Jane Murphy - writer of Breaking the Spell, which breaks down the manipulation tactics used in language – analysed this car crash of an interview. It’s super educational in showing us all the mind-messing manoeuvres Allison uses in her pro-trans zealotry. A great listen, and extremely helpful for future use, wherever you might live.

Helen Joyce vs. Allison Morris

¹Women’s organisation withdraw legal challenge over cancelled Féile event

The report focusses solely on hate crimes, with no mention of ‘hate speech’, due to the Law Commission having been specifically instructed to exclude it. However, they had been working on it beforehand, as directed by the previous Labour government, but that got scuppered by the current coalition centre-Right government after they won power in late 2023. So, we’ve had a narrow escape from that particular insanity. Even so, it didn’t stop some groups and individuals bringing it up during the hate crimes consultation process. No prizes for guessing who they might have been.

Minister of Justice, Paul Goldsmith, asked the Law Commission in 2024 to review the law relating to hate crime in New Zealand, prompted by a recommendation in the Royal Commission of Inquiry report into the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks. The rising number of hate-fuelled terror attacks across the globe undoubtably gave weight to that recommendation. Although, the Bondi Beach terror attack across the ditch didn’t happen until December 2025, after the review was already underway, the Law Commission can’t have been unaffected by that, yet they still made a sensible recommendation. For a while, it seemed they’d been irredeemably captured by wokery, so it’s a relief to catch a glimmer of hope they might not be entirely subsumed by it.

Of course, they may still blot their copybook in future reviews they undertake, but for now they’ve saved us from going down an idiotic and unmanageable ‘hate crime’ path, providing the current government accepts the Law Commission’s recommendation to not go there. Hopefully, it’s a no-brainer.

In the UK, where they have implemented hate crime laws, which we in NZ might have copied or used as a guide to make our own – indeed the Law Commission cites the UK in their review - they have five categories of protected characteristics -

Race or ethnicity

Religion

Sexual orientation

Disability

Transgender identity

What is a “transgender identity”? I thought being trans was supposed to be something a person was innately born with, and not a choice they’ve made to identify as such.

Naturally, there were those who wanted specific protections for trans in NZ, too, but the Law Commission rejected that with the recommendation “We do not recommend reform to adopt a closed list of protected characteristics for the following reasons….” (page 162).

Notably absent in the UK’s list above is any mention of ‘sex’ as a protected category against a hate crime. Perhaps ‘sex’ gets protected in other ways, but it’s not listed on the UK Crown Prosecution Service’s Hate Crimes webpage.

However, whilst the NZ Law Commission doesn’t recommend a closed list of protected characteristics, they do recommend -

“Adding ‘sex’ to the list of characteristics covered by the aggravating factor in the Sentencing Act. This would clarify that offending motivated by hostility based on sex, particularly hostility towards women, is a hate crime.” (as written in the summary)

They elaborate further with “As we have explained, hate crime laws in several overseas jurisdictions refer specifically to ‘sex’ or ‘gender’ to address hostility towards women. In the New Zealand context, given that ‘gender identity’ is already included in the illustrative list, we consider the term ‘sex’ is preferable to address hostility towards women. Although the term ‘gender’ is sometimes used as a synonym for sex, it has various other meanings depending on the context. It is sometimes used to refer to a person’s social or personal identity as male or female or another gender such as non-binary, gender fluid or bigender. It is sometimes used to refer to the social and cultural norms, roles and hierarchies associated with men, women and other genders. It is also sometimes used as an umbrella term covering both gender identity and gender expression.” (page 170)

But, what is a woman? If it’s anyone who says they’re one, then using the word ‘sex’ in relation to a woman doesn’t hold up in this matter, which the Law Commission acknowledges in its rejection of using the word ‘gender’.

As luck would have it, we have a Parliamentary bill in progress right at the moment to define women and men in legislation, with many recommendations in the submissions on it to define ‘sex’ as well. How fortuitous is that? I daresay that those who reckon sex isn’t binary, and who oppose this bill, will have conniptions at the binary way the Law Commission has referred to women. I’m sure they’ll attempt to twist the narrative to try and make it not what it says, but to me the binary nature of the recommendation stands out like a dog’s you-know-whats.

The bill to legally define women and men still has some way to go before it makes it into legislation, which will only happen if it keeps the support of those who voted it past its first reading in Parliament. In the event a woke Left-wing government gets into power in the general election in November this year, it’s an absolute certainty it won’t.

• ¹Law Commission Recommends Strengthening Hate Crime Law — But Not New Offences

Review of Hate Crime Law

This NZ Herald article doesn’t specify whether the female prison officer started off working in the female prison estate, and then transferred to the male one after deciding she was a bloke. However, it’s clear that’s where she was when her ‘trans troubles’ arose, due the fact some of her colleagues didn’t go along with her ‘man’ fiction.

Being a woman, she wasn’t allowed to search or rub down male prisoners, even if some of them might have quite liked it. This is bog-standard practice – or it was until the litigious actions of this woman who says she’s a man got Corrections to change their mind about that. Now, Corrections says it has reconsidered its position re: trans staff – if they still want to employ them (who would?) – and has made a statement to say that trans staff can now “carry out the full range of duties that align with their gender”. And that it “better reflects its values of inclusion and diversity”.

I want to puke.

And so, the caliginous creep of ‘inclusion and diversity’ ends up corrupting everything. Does this mean that prisoners of either sex can no longer request they be searched or rubbed down by a prison officer of the same sex as them, and that’s just tough luck?

This is trans down to a ‘t’. They are incapable of thinking about anyone except themselves. This woman who says she’s a man announces “I am proud of myself for standing up for my rights. One of the main reasons I brought this case was to show that the transgender community deserves protection and respect.” Protection and respect for others doesn’t seem to come into their radar.

In what would be taken as satire in anyone else, the female prison officer, who has a non-publication order of her real name, and goes by the name of Adam, claims “I just want to be able to exist like any other man.” Except she’s not a man, that’s a fantasy in her head, where she can do what she likes, but the real world is a different place. Thanks to her, though, Corrections have changed their policies even more to pander to what goes on in the heads of trans. I doubt there’s anything left that they are denied.

Of course, prisoners are not all unfortunate people who’ve made just one mistake. Some of them are downright hideous and dangerous, but surely a blanket rule of being searched or rubbed down only by members of the same sex makes sense on many levels. It’s naïve to expect nothing will go wrong when that commonsense policy is removed. Systems which have biological sex as their axis fall apart when ‘gender’ replaces ‘sex’, not least because no one really knows what ‘gender’ even means. It’s true that there are those who now claim that sex can’t be categorised or have a definition attributed to it, either, but that’s just because that particular part of their brains which should know better has been broken.

Unsurprisingly, ‘Adam’ got some shite in the form of transphobic jokes and insults from her fellow prison officers, most of whom were likely to have been blokes, after declaring that she was a man. What did she expect? That they would squeal with delight and clap like seals over her ‘brave’ transition? Being a prison officer is a tough gig, and reality for them can be brutal – why would they celebrate having a brat in their ranks who demands they deny reality and buy into her trans delusion?

Whilst there’s an element of truth in that they could have just left her alone with her delusion, the game changes when others are expected to buy into it, as well. That’s not a reasonable expectation, but then trans’ demands are anything but reasonable.

Although it beggars belief that a prison service would be woke instead of realistic, Corrections NZ have been that for some time. A while ago I wrote about the experiences of both a woman inmate and prison officer who suffered due to the department’s wokery.¹ Clearly, not much has changed, and as we know, transactivists within organisations will die on this hill.

In her blogpost, Ani O’Brien wonders Was this Corrections case settled to avoid a precedent Crown Law & Human Rights Commission did not want? I can see that with the wins against trans ideology we’re starting to see overseas, Corrections NZ may very well not have wanted to risk a ruling that deemed any of their trans policies unlawful, as we saw happened recently with the Scottish prison service.

They’ve done a fairly good job of covering up and keeping the things that go wrong with their trans polices quiet so far, but nothing to do with trans ever quietens down for long.

¹ Ex-prison inmate, Frances, tells her story of living with a trans-identifying male (a man) in an NZ women’s jail

² Ex-Corrections NZ prison officer, Josie, shares her experience of dealing with trans-identifying-males (men) in women’s prisons.

I won’t share the actual photo I took of the logo, as someone unfriendly to terfs might recognise the place, and nark on me for making the space unsafe by my presence – and it’s convenient for us to go back there, strange as that might seem.

After our get-together, I decided to have look into this Safe Space Alliance outfit, and waddya know, it’s a New Zealand registered charity. Of course it is, because …. ‘rainbow’.

So, the Charities Act sets out four types of charitable purpose –

1) Relieving poverty

2) Advancing education

3) Advancing religion

4) Other purposes beneficial to the community

I’m guessing that #4 is what Safe Space Alliance has designated as their ‘purpose’. Charities Services says that purpose must include “a clear benefit to the community”. Okay – what would that clear benefit be, I wondered?

Turns out it’s a list. A list of places where the alphabet-acronym people are ‘safe’.

Safe from what exactly?

To summarise from Safe Space Alliance’s webpage, safe spaces are needed in places where being LGBTQI+ is criminalised – so, not in NZ, where LGBTQI+ people can hold hands and/or kiss, and because there may be those who don’t like LGBTQI+ people and aren’t interested in hearing about their lives (not quite sure how you can force that). It’s a classic grievance industry narrative, where - with exception of the places where it’s criminalised to be gay, and also possibly TQ - what may be micro vexations are blown up into macro problems. And the more frequently and cleverly it’s said and portrayed, the more it’s believed and lived.

The list currently has 8,472 ‘safe spaces’ listed worldwide, with 275 of them being in New Zealand. There are membership plans from free for a ‘Friend’ of Safe Space Alliance, to price on application for Corporate Partners. I couldn’t find where it was explicitly mentioned how the money received was invested back into the community, although they do have four ongoing projects, of which only the one about “helping LGBTQI+ people get to safety” appeared to might need funding, as opposed to perhaps being nice-to-fund for the others.

All in all, the website came across as being cleverly worded for maximum impression of grievance and oppression, a bit vague about the “clear benefit to the community”, and not too transparent how the membership plan money and donations were spent. In a NZ Herald article (paywalled) in March 2021, the founder of Safe Space Alliance, NZ artist and activist Shannon Novak, said “We are a registered charitable trust, with no intention to make money. We don’t charge anyone to sign up to be a safe space or to be a partner.” Maybe the paid membership plan came in later. Up until 2025, the charity’s income was $164,060 and its expenditure was $70,060, leaving a surplus of $93,677, with no income tax on it.

Shannon Novak founded Safe Space Alliance in 2020. It began as an art installation by him at The Suter Art Gallery in Nelson, before expanding into what is now an international non-profit organisation. If it has done any work of significance, it’s not mentioned on the website. He was also behind the formation of the Conversion Therapy Action Group in 2018, along with Shaneel Lal – remember him and his role in the violence against Kellie-Jay Keen and the Let Women Speak rally attendees in Auckland? - Harry Robson, Max Tweedie, and Neihana Waitai, to pressure the government into passing a bill to ban Conversion Therapy. The bill was passed into law in February 2022. Notably, there wasn’t ONE complaint to the dedicated Conversion Practices Response Team during its time-limited formation after the bill was passed, and it has now been disestablished.

Is Safe Space Alliance really a working charity, or a feel-good dabble for Shannon Novak and the two other guys who run it with him? Does it provide a “clear benefit to the community”, or only provide a vague nice-to-have social credit perk for businesses? Where’s the evidence of the success of its purpose?

But, as we know, anything ‘rainbow’ barely gets even a fleeting scrutiny at the moment, not least by the Charity Services, it would seem.

It’s hard to know what Safe Space Alliance actually does, apart from provide a list of what really could be nothing more than gratuitous ‘safe spaces’, and apparently help LGBTQI+ people “get to safety”. It’s worthwhile reading what longtime journo, Yvonne van Dongen, has previously discovered about the ‘rainbow rort’ –

• The charity industrial complex

• The Great Rainbow Heist.

Is it surprising that scepticism crops up about anything with the ‘R’ word or colours in its vicinity now?

Although the details of this might be lost on overseas readers, I’m sure the broader story won’t be exclusive to these small islands at the edge of the world. People are, after all, much the same everywhere.

Michael Laws is rather ‘waspish’, to borrow the word that a friend used to describe him. I tend to be a little less polite, and opine that he’s a bit of a pr!ck. However, I only know of one talkback host at the moment who isn’t waspish – it seems to be part of the job’s requirements. Mind you, I might be waspish myself, if I was a talkback host/ess, just quietly.

I have called in and spoken to Michael on his talkback show on two or three occasions, when he’s been speaking about a topic that interests me, and I’ve been interviewed by him once. That interview was terrible, because I was new at doing that sort of thing, and nervous as heck. Between that and the call-ins, he has been a mixture of reasonably pleasant – for Michael - and, in the words of my sister, a c*nt.

However, being an older woman, I find that I’m a bit more “yeah, whatever” over insults and barbs now, so I tend not to lose sleep over them, nor their utterers. Quoting my sister again, “it’s like water off this ol’ duck’s back”. I should give some credit to the terf wars, though, because the sort of invective that transactivists trade in has helped me develop a great line in shoulder shrugs.

Michael has now joined the ranks of NZ First, a smaller political party on the rise, to stand as a candidate for the Waitaki electorate in NZ’s upcoming November general election. Waitaki is in the South Island, about halfway between Christchurch and the bottom of the island. The word is that he will continue with his gig on The Platform, but if he makes it into Parliament, I’m guessing it will mean no more Michael the talkback host.

He’s no newbie to both national and local politics, nor to scandal and controversy. He’s already done a stint with both National and NZ First in the past, including as NZ First’s campaign manager back in 1996. The party has won some Parliamentary seats in nine out of eleven general elections, and is currently experiencing a surge in popularity. They’ve been called the new party for the working class, now that Labour’s become a party for the lanyard wearers.

The news about him throwing his hat in with NZ First rattled a surprising number of cages in the mainstream media, not least that of Andrea Vance’s. Andrea is woke up the wazoo, and very waspish towards our centre-Right coalition government. For some reason, but true to form, a wasp got right up into her knickers about Michael Laws’ selection by NZ First. In fact, her opinion piece in the Sunday Star Times ‘Welcome to the NZ First manosphere: now featuring the undead’ (paywalled) is a wasps’ nest of mammoth proportions.

A quick peep inside it shows us the multiple stings we can expect, if we dare venture further -

“Winston Peters’ roll-call of candidates is basically a doomscroll through the darkest, most aggrieved corners of the internet.

It’s an algorithmic collection of outrage merchants, culture-war hobbyists, and men convinced Western society is on the brink of collapse, and they’re only one homemade podcast away from saving it.

With the party polling at a steady 11 or 12% and chasing its 1990s glory days, a cast of embittered political zombies has shuffled back onto the scene, looking to reanimate their dead careers.

On Friday, Peters dug up his old crony Michael Laws, helped along by broadcaster Sean Plunket, who’s kindly given Laws gainful employment at The Platform, his second-hand shop for washed-up talk show hosts.

Laws has spent the better part of four decades finding new and creative ways to keep his snout firmly attached to the public trough. For a man who built a lucrative talkback brand railing against bureaucratic waste and privilege, Laws has spent almost his entire adult life being paid by your rates or your taxes.”

This is the tone of the piece for several hundred more words. To be fair, in a strange kind of way, its ugliness is almost a thing of reverence. I come close to admiring the talent of someone who can come out with line after line after line of vitriol like Andrea has. But maybe the real talent is not doing it.

You couldn’t call Michael a charmer by any stretch of the imagination, whilst I understand Andrea can turn it on. In a prior article about the revision of the pay equity law, she even got away with using the ‘c’ word about some female MPs, although admittedly the word was written as “c….”

I’m sure Michael has called both men and women the ‘c’ word before, too, but I doubt it will have ever made it into an article published in the mainstream media – unless they were quoting him. And I would put money on it that he never said it under the guise of moral righteousness.

I’m tossing up between who’s the more obnoxious - a waspish stale, pale, male; or a waspish woke woman with ‘progressive’ morals.

Tough choice - or is it?

• Header image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

To the National Board of Rural Women New Zealand,

I am writing as a rural woman, mother, farmer, and member of Rural Women New Zealand.

I am deeply disappointed with the submission Rural Women New Zealand made on the bill to define the words ‘woman’ and ‘man’ in New Zealand legislation, on behalf of its members.

This bill raises important questions about the legal meaning of those words, and the protection of women’s sex-based rights in New Zealand law. Whether members support or oppose the bill, it is an issue of major significance to women.

For that reason, I expected Rural Women New Zealand (RWNZ) to consult its members before taking a public position.

To my knowledge, that did not happen.

I first wrote to RWNZ on 29 May 2026, asking the organisation to support the bill, or at the very least to engage with members before speaking on their behalf. I received an automated reply. I followed up with further emails and messages, only to be politely fobbed off.

I saw no member survey, no online discussion, no invitation for feedback, and no open communication asking rural women for their thoughts on the bill.

Despite that, RWNZ lodged a submission strongly opposing the bill.

I find that deeply concerning.

A national organisation should not take such a strong public position on an issue of this significance, without first engaging with the women it claims to represent.

I am also concerned that Rural Women New Zealand did not actively inform members that submissions on the bill were open, seeing as you clearly intended to make one. There was no visible social media discussion, no encouragement for members to have their say, and no explanation of the organisation’s position before submissions closed.

RWNZ’s submission was only placed on your website¹ after the submission period had closed. By then, members had little or no opportunity to consider the organisation’s position, while making submissions of their own.

That is simply not good enough.

I was equally disappointed by the quality of the submission itself. It repeatedly states that the bill would not improve the rights or wellbeing of women and girls, yet it provides very little explanation of how defining the words ‘woman’ and ‘man’ in legislation would produce no benefit. It reaches broad conclusions, but offers little evidence. Simply stating that something is harmful does not make it so.

What is equally concerning, is what the submission does not address. It gives almost no consideration to the reasons that most women support the bill. There is little discussion of sex-based rights, women’s privacy, safety, fairness in sport, single-sex spaces, healthcare, or the need for clear legal definitions to underpin laws that exist to protect women and girls. These are central issues in this debate, yet they are largely absent from the submission.

RWNZ concluded that the bill would not improve the lives of women and girls, but it never adequately explains why defining the word ‘woman’ in law as an adult human female would diminish women’s rights or protections. Given that the organisation was speaking on behalf of thousands of rural women, I expected a balanced, evidence-based submission that engaged with both sides of the debate and carefully examined the bill’s legal effect. Instead, it largely presents one perspective, while overlooking the concerns of many women who believe the bill would strengthen, rather than weaken, the legal protections afforded to women and girls.

Many rural women care deeply about women and girls’ rights, and I am one of them.

It has taken me years to find my voice. For a long time I stayed quiet because I feared being judged as unkind, labelled a bigot, or called a TERF. Then I look at my young, small, vulnerable daughter, and my motherly instinct is on fire! I cannot stay silent when I believe the rights and protections of women and girls are at stake.

Why I Support the Bill

I support this bill because I believe the law should reflect biological reality.

A woman is an adult human female.

A man is an adult human male.

These definitions have never been controversial until recent years, yet they form the foundation of our lives and of many laws that exist to protect women and girls.

Sex matters

It matters in sport, where fairness depends on recognising the physical differences between males and females.

It matters in prisons, women’s refuges, rape crisis centres, hospital wards, changing rooms, toilets and other single-sex spaces where privacy, dignity and safety are important.

It matters in healthcare, where biological sex affects diagnosis, treatment, and medical research.

It matters in language.

It matters in collecting accurate data so governments can identify where women are disadvantaged, and develop policies that address those disadvantages.

Women are a protected class because of our sex, not because of how we identify.

If the law cannot clearly define what a woman is, then it becomes increasingly difficult to apply and protect sex-based rights. Laws designed to protect women become uncertain if the category of ‘woman’ itself is left undefined.

Women have fought for generations to secure legal recognition and protections. We fought for the right to vote, equal opportunities, maternity protections, women’s healthcare, women’s sport, and services created specifically because women face unique challenges because of our sex.

Those protections should not be weakened by the refusal to implement a clear legal definition in favour of concepts that are subjective, or open to interpretation.

I have also become increasingly concerned that many women are reluctant to speak publicly about these issues.

Women who raise legitimate questions about sex-based rights are often dismissed, labelled, or subjected to personal attacks instead of having their arguments considered on their merits. Too many women remain silent because they fear being called names, losing friendships, damaging their careers, or facing public criticism.

Women should be able to advocate for their own rights without fear or intimidation.

Supporting the legal definition of woman and man is not about excluding anyone. It is about ensuring that laws written to protect women and girls can continue to have clear meaning and be consistently applied.

This bill provides that clarity and consistency.

What about the opinions of the members of Rural Women New Zealand?

They deserved transparency before RWNZ spoke publicly on their behalf.

They deserved to be heard.

Who does Rural Women New Zealand represent?

Does it represent its members?

Or does it represent the views of a small group, who don’t see the need to first consult the women it claims to represent?

I believe RWNZ should explain:

Why were members not properly consulted?

Why were emails and messages from members not meaningfully answered?

Why were members not actively encouraged to make their own submissions?

Why was the organisation’s submission only published after submissions had effectively closed?

How will Rural Women New Zealand ensure this does not happen again?

Why did Rural Women New Zealand conclude that this bill should be opposed, when many women believe it would strengthen the legal protections afforded to women and girls sex-based rights?

The problem is speaking for rural women, without first asking rural women for feedback, particularly as you acknowledge in your submission that “there will be some RWNZ members who support this Bill”.

Before stating its position in the future on matters of such importance the organisation should consult its members, communicate openly, and make statements which reflect the views of the membership, not only those of the Board.

Rural women are not a single voice.

We are mothers, grandmothers, daughters, farmers, workers, volunteers, business owners, community leaders, and advocates.

In my view, the submission lodged on behalf of Rural Women New Zealand cannot genuinely be said to represent its membership, because members were not consulted before it was made. It reflects the views of those who prepared it, not the collective voice of the women the organisation exists to represent.

Emmy Maxwell.

Rural woman, farmer, mother and member

“When a brave man [or woman] takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.”

• NB: Just as this blogpost was about to be published, Emmy finally got this reply from Rural Women New Zealand -

Kia ora Emmy
As you know Rural Women New Zealand (RWNZ) has submitted in opposition to the Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill. We do not believe this Bill will improve the rights, opportunities, or wellbeing of women and girls in New Zealand. At a time when rural communities are dealing with real and pressing challenges, this Bill represents time and resource that could be far better spent on issues that genuinely improve women's lives. This position reflects our commitment to backing causes that genuinely improve life for women, and the Board's judgement that this Bill doesn't do that. Within RWNZ we support members to self-identify, we don't hold data on gender identity and do not plan to start doing this.

I realise that this is disappointing to you. We know our members hold a range of views on this issue, and always encourage members to submit to legislation to ensure their voice is heard.

Ngā mihi nui
Sandra Kirby
CEO

¹ Rural Women New Zealand’s submission opposing the definition of the ' words ‘woman’ and ‘man’ in legislation.

Metiria Turei is a former Green Party co-leader, and now lectures in law at Otago University. She resigned as co-leader of the Greens, when previous benefit fraud whilst she was a single mother came to light. For a while, as a former Leftie, I considered her to be the last sensible leader of the Greens, despite that. It’s now clear that if she’d stayed on, she’d have regressed to being as bonkers as the rest of them.

There’s a lot of ‘stupid’ to unpack in Metiria’s piece, but I’ll only touch on the main points.

Let’s start with her opening assertion, which amounts to ‘inspecting genitals’. Like many who trot this one out, I doubt very much if she has to go about her daily life inspecting the genitals of everyone she interacts with, before she knows whether they women or men. Presumably, she didn’t have to inspect her husband’s genitals when she first met him to know that he was a man. I’m taking a liberty here, and surmising she uses the word’ husband’ in its correct meaning of a human male, and not in the meaning of a woman who says she’s a man.

Somehow, though, when it comes to not wanting men in women’s spaces, the only way we can tell women from men is by “creepy peeping” at what’s in their pants. And here we were thinking that centuries of humans walking the earth had made us slightly more perceptively sophisticated than that. But, according to the Metirias of the world we can only tell by eyeballing each other’s genitalia. Next, they’ll be insisting that that’s not enough, and we have to sniff them, too. I hope I’m just jesting.

Then we come to “it discriminates against transgender, intersex and non-binary whānau and elevates the already heightened risk of violence and abuse against them”. How does it discriminate? Because they won’t be able to use the words ‘woman’ and ‘man’ indiscriminately? And where’s the evidence that these groups are at such a heightened risk that defining those words in legislation will elevate that? A 2023 Crimes and Victims report from our Ministry of Justice stated that “The proportion of transgender adults who experienced at least one offence in 2023 has been suppressed due to high statistical uncertainty” ¹ So, too few trans were victims of crime here in NZ to make a statistic.

It’s no surprise that Metiria uses the loosely managed 2022 survey called Counting Ourselves to back up her contention of ‘elevated risk’. This survey is based purely on the self-reported feels of “trans and non-binary people”, but it does have the advantage of serving exaggerated claims better than a factual report from the Ministry of Justice.

I do agree with her when she says “Any bill which encourages violence should be immediately and unequivocally rejected”, but I fail to see how defining the words ‘woman’ and ‘man’ in legislation encourages violence. Perhaps just truthfully calling a man who says he’s a woman a man (and vice versa) is ‘violence’? Like the majority of her opinion piece, Metiria draws an extremely long bow here by associating the bill with violence. I’m sure the conjured-up scenarios depicting how it could do that made for great videos in her head, but it’s not quite the same as sober reality. There really are very good reasons why it’s best not to fire a piece off to the editor of a newspaper after that third glass of wine.

Another thing I agree with Metiria on, is that the bill needs some clarifying and amending – she’s not wrong about that. Where her criticism falls down, though, is her apparent assumption that the wording of the bill is fixed in place as it stands now. It’s not, and submissions to the select committee in charge of the bill will identify where the fixes need to be. As a law lecturer, this shouldn’t be beyond her understanding.

Seemingly, gender nonconforming women are at risk from this bill to define women and men in legislation, as well. It “means any woman who does not conform to a narrow, subjective physical ideal can be challenged and humiliated in public spaces.” And that “Evidence from overseas shows that women who are tall or small, have broad shoulders or short hair have already been confronted and interrogated at bathroom doors.” I wonder what that ‘evidence’ is? Social media posts? Jan Rivers from Genspect NZ has written a wonderfully excoriating letter to Metiria Turei, on her own behalf, asking for this evidence to be produced. ²

Like most who come out with the whatabout gender nonconforming women, the subtext is that in order to not upset these women due to them having what might be a masculine appearance, we should also let men who say they’re women into female spaces. There’s not a lot of thought that goes into this, is there? There has always been the occasional woman who presents in a masculine way, and whilst I don’t deny that being challenged might be trying for them, we never before suggested that to preserve their feelings we should let any man who says he’s a women into female spaces – until those men told us we should. Go figure.

But, to her creative credit, Metiria brings out an objection to the bill that I haven’t actually heard before – and that’s that the bill is fetishistic. I kid you not. If you can get your head around her statement that “the Bill’s fetishistic focus on a single aspect of a woman’s biology is a dangerous oversimplification that obscures the complex threats women face”, you’re doing well. The old ‘more important things’ always surfaces, but I’m going to take a punt about that which what precedes it, and guess she’s talking about vaginas, seeing as she’s already alluded to what’s in our pants. I didn’t realise the word ‘woman’ only focussed on that. Sounds a bit like something Andrew Tate would spew.

Apart from the wild fetishistic claim, Metiria’s objection to the bill doesn’t say a lot that’s different to any other objection I’ve seen. She just managed to make hers a bit madder than those. Even if it’s only an opinion piece, you’d think a law lecturer would be capable of putting something together better than emotionally manipulative hyperbole, supported by nothing but hypothetical arguments.

Can we surmise from this then, that there is actually no clear, credible, legal, and evidential case against defining the words women and man in legislation?

In contrast, retired District Court Judge made a clear and concise case for defining the words in legislation in his recent opinion piece in The Listener. To summarise, he wrote that we have laws which pertain to women and men, but because these words have been made unstable in their meaning over the last several years, we need them to be clarified and defined. Simple, and true.

¹ “The proportion of transgender adults who experienced at least one offence in 2023 has been suppressed due to high statistical uncertainty,” the report said.

² Does defining men and women legislate creepy peeping?

• Here is Metiria Turei’s opinion piece in the Otago Daily Times. I’ve divided it into two sections for easier reading.

  

  

There are 13 registered political parties in New Zealand, six of which are inside Parliament, and seven outside it. The Opportunity Party is one of those outside Parliament, and has been since its registration in 2016. It claims to be a centrist party, but a number of its current policies suggest definite left-leaning tendencies. This would make them a good coalition party for Labour and the Greens, if they could get 5% of the vote in the general election later this year to get them into Parliament. With Te Pāti Māori (The Māori Party) in complete disarray, and no one wanting to go near them, Labour and the Greens need a new coalition partner. Hello, TOP.

Most of the time, we hardly hear anything about The Opportunity Party in the mainstream media, but word has it that when we’re heading into an election, they have a history of become a media darling. It would appear that not only is this year no different, it may even be on steroids, so desperate is our left-leaning mainstream media to oust our current centre-Right coalition government.

I asked AI to sum up the number of articles featuring TOP in some way from the NZ Herald, RNZ, Stuff, and The Press over the last six months. Now, I know that AI isn’t infallible, but it will give us an idea. It calculated approximately 35 – 45 articles where TOP had more than just a passing or casual mention, which would roughly be between one and two articles per week. On television, radio, and digital podcast programmes, the party’s leader, Quilae Wong – who often goes simply by the initial ‘Q’ – has had seven or eight appearances.

I asked AI the same question about the six other registered minor parties in New Zealand. It couldn’t find any that came even close to getting this kind of “obsessed” media coverage, as opined by Chris Lynch Media¹.

Quilae has been TOP’s leader since November 2025, and is young-ish (37 years old), female, Asian heritage, personable, and new in the game – a perfect package of credentials for Left leadership, and being a favourite with the media.

And, fitting even further like a glove with the Left, she professes to personally believe that a woman is anyone who says they are one. When asked the “what is a woman” question in an interview on The Platform, she initially tried to dodge it, as often happens, but when pressed, eventually said “someone who was born or becomes a biological woman”. Then proceeded to justify that assertion by going on to say someone – i.e. a man - can become a biological woman by taking hormones. TOP has since refused to appear again on The Platform.

However, it seems that this is not just Quilae’s personal belief, but that of TOP as a party. They recently made a submission on the bill to define women and men in legislation, whereby they made it known they opposed it, because somehow “it harms New Zealanders” (how?), and “Opportunity are firmly supportive of LGBTQIA+ rights”. Ah – so those New Zealanders. TOP showed no interest in supporting women’s and girls’ rights in their submission, as a legal definition for women and men would, but were only concerned with how it would affect transpeople. They’re almost already married to Labour and the Greens.

Quilae is a woman on the rise. She got the job as leader of The Opportunity Party after seeing it advertised in the party’s newsletter, which she then applied for, and got. Prior to that, she worked as a sustainable business consultant for KPMG New Zealand. So, how does an intelligent woman fall under the ‘trans’ spell? This is the million-dollar question many of us are puzzling over, but the fact that in today’s world it will aid and abet her ambition can be no small factor, even if her belief in ‘trans’ is all a pretence.

Some are speculating that TOP’s successful eruption into media visibility is down to their experienced manager, Iain Lees-Galloway. Iain is a former Labour Party MP - until he got the heave-ho by then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern for an inappropriate relationship with a staffer – as well as having been a union organiser, and publicity coordinator. No amount of clever PR by a minor non-Parliamentary political party would work without a willing partner in the mainstream media to pump it up, though.

Scenarios are being painted on social media about The Opportunity Party’s real game plan, which cunningly, might not be as obvious as we think it is. Social media’s a fun place for reading about intrigue and plots, eh? But politics is full of intrigue and plots, so I neither believe everything, nor discount it. All I know, is that - to cite Sall Grover - once someone says that a man can be a woman, why would we then believe anything else they say?

¹ Opinion: Why the media is obsessed with TOP – by: Chris Lynch.

To be fair, Lianne Dalziel is far from the only seemingly intelligent person to make nonsense arguments against this bill. For example, the Opportunity Party – a minor political party, who’ve never been in Parliament, but whom the mainstream media inexplicably love –also made a nonsense submission to the select committee to oppose the bill. I haven’t read the submissions from the Greens, Labour or Te Pati Māori (the Māori Party), but I heard the arguments they made against the bill in Parliament², and they were pretty cringe for the most part – i.e. heavy on emotional manipulation and catastrophising, and light on evidence.

With Lianne’s piece, I’ll start by going straight to the end of it, where she says - “I have friends whose adult children are facing significant challenges around their identity. I cannot bear that they become the present-day scapegoats for not addressing the real issues and ensuring the promotion of tolerance, understanding and respect for what makes each of us who we are.”

And there we have it. We’ve lost count of the number of proponents of trans ideology who are blinded by a personal investment in it. Suddenly, it makes sense why Lianne Dalziel, as Christchurch’s mayor, was happy to open the new Linwood Pool in October 2021, with the declaration that “transgender women, and people who identify as being women” were welcome in the women’s session. To be honest, I expect the current mayor, Phil Mauger, would have said it, too, but he just doesn’t care about the matter of males in female spaces, whereas it’s not hard to imagine now that Lianne would have been right on board with it, and maybe even helped it along.

I don’t understand the concept of ‘trans’ becoming “scapegoats”, either. Scapegoats for what? The meaning of scapegoat is a person who is blamed for something that someone else has done. The only conclusion I can come to, is that Lianne thinks that men who say they’re women shouldn’t be penalised for the things that other men do. Well, that would apply to the majority of men, but there’s a certain cohort who believe that men who say they’re women should be given a free pass. What is the difference between them and any other man, apart from the way they dress and what’s in their heads?

Going back to the beginning of Lianne’s piece, she starts by saying that “the bill delivers neither clarity nor consistency.” She’s right, it’s faulty, but the vision and intention of it is clear. Submissions to the select committee this bill is assigned to will help panel beat it into being fit for legislation. Lianne and her ilk know this full well, but appear to pretend that the bill begins and ends at its first draft, when no other bill ever has.

Then she goes onto the old ‘more important things’ spiel, much of which is directed specifically at women –

• discrimination in the workplace

• unconscious bias in everyday life

• equal pay for work of equal value

• cost-of-living crisis

• rising unemployment

• stagnant wages

• increasing inequality

• closing the gender pay gap [What’s a ‘gender pay gap’? The gap between women and men who have gender identities as women?]

• supporting more women into leader roles

• addressing issues of safety – particularly family and sexual violence

• improving access to economic opportunities, so that women and girls can thrive no matter where they live

But if women are undefined, how can any of these issues be properly addressed? Or is Lianne like numerous others who know precisely what a woman is when it suits them?

Whether or not you agree or disagree with everything on this list, that’s still one helluva list of things we have to sort out first, before we can discuss the simple matter of defining women and men in legislation. Perhaps Lianne could give us a time frame of when the items on the list might be ticked off, so we can have that discussion.

Surprisingly, she didn’t trot out the word ‘distraction’ to describe the bill, as it’s one of the favourites for those who oppose it. However, she made up for that omission by trotting out the other old favourite “dog-whistling to divert attention”. Here’s a thought, Lianne, perhaps you and your cohort are the ones making more of it than it needs to be.

The word ‘divisive’, yet another favourite of the wokerati, was unexpectedly missing, too. Maybe it’s being saved for another day. If there’s ever a time when life and politics aren’t riddled with divisive issues, let me know. Talking about women’s rights versus the wants of men who say they’re women, though, gets us a selective scolding for being ‘divisive’. It’s a shutdown tactic - but good luck with that.

Lianne goes onto say – “Jenny Marcroft, the NZ First MP whose name the bill is in, stated that the issue had been a one-sided conversation, where one group of people had demanded their rights, but at the expense of another group’s rights. However, it is hard to understand what rights are being undermined.”

What is hard to understand, in fact, is Lianne’s obtuseness. When any man who says he’s a woman can have free and unfettered entry into women’s and girls’ spaces and sports, how does that not undermine women’s and girls’ rights? I’m going to take a guess, and say that, if asked, she would trot out old favourite #5 that it’s ‘cis-men’ who women and girls have to worry about, and not men who say they’re women. I beg to differ – men who say they’re women are imprisoned for sexual offences at around twice the rate, and more, than that of ‘cis-men’, and are more likely to be murderers than be murdered.

Most of us will recognise that allowing just one man of any description into female spaces, and taking away our right to object to that, is a serious undermining of women’s and girls’ rights. It adds to our insecurity in public places, and forces acquiescence to these men – why wouldn’t that make women and girls furious? But there’s none so blind as those blinded by trans ideology.

Lianne doesn’t give one single consideration to women and girls in her piece over why we might want unequivocal clarity for the words ‘woman’, ‘man’, female, and ‘male’. Not one. She claims that “This bill, in defining a biological male and female, has omitted the real target of the legislation, namely those who are transgender.” Wrong – the target is women and girls and our rights, safety, and wellbeing. If ‘transgender’ people can’t exist – to paraphrase their own words – without being able to manipulate the words ‘woman’, ‘man’, ‘female, and ‘male’ to mean whatever they want them to mean, with no regard to anyone else, then the problem does not lie with those words being defined in law.

No pro-trans piece would be complete without mention of ‘male-to-female’ transsexual former MP Georgina Beyer. Right on cue Lianne tells us that “I had the honour and privilege of serving in Parliament with Georgina Beyer, the first out trans mayor and MP in the world. I did not for one minute think of her as an “adult biological male”. And neither was she the only person who has been or is still an important part of my life and whose biological status does not reflect the complexity of who they or indeed any of us are.” It doesn’t matter how Georgina Beyer might have been thought of, or how one personally chose to refer to him, nor his complexity, he was still an “adult biological male”, and said so himself. Once again, Lianne makes a matter of provable concern to most women about her own personal feelings.

Don’t we love these women? I know men do it, too, but it feels especially traitorous from women.

Facilities and accommodations should be made for those who fall outside the norm, but they should never undermine those of women’s and girls. No man should be allowed to call himself a woman and automatically gain entry into female spaces and sports purely on that basis. Those who advocate for this are a menace. They are why we need this bill to define women and men in legislation. We cannot trust those invested in trans ideology to not use women’s words in ways that serve us very badly indeed.

¹ Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill

² The bill to define women and men in legislation passed its first reading in NZ Parliament. This is our chance to be heard now.

When Jill Ovens, co-leader of the Women’s Rights Party, mentioned it might be a good idea to fly me up north to speak to other Women’s Rights Party members, I laughed. Who would be interested in coming to hear what I have to say? After all, I am no VIP. But, because a reader of my Substack had previously mentioned to Jill that they’d like to meet me in person one day, that got her cogs working. Next minute, it was all planned.

And I began thinking “why not?” Why shouldn’t we ordinary mortals, who are no VIPs by any stretch of the imagination, but have something of an online presence, travel to different places from time to time to connect with others in the actual real-life flesh? Of course, a VIP has considerably more pulling power to an event, and we mere mortals can only reside in the shadows of that – but, still, why not do it anyway?

So, there I was, winging my way up to Auckland, with fingers crossed that at least one or two turned up to the events Jill had arranged.

Meeting writers is a strange thing. We’re seldom anything like what our readers presume us to be from our writing. For example, I’m not the most gregarious sort of person, no matter what impression my writing, my X posts, or my (underused) YouTube channel might give. I will say, though, that being in the ‘gender wars’ has changed me quite a bit, so I found I was looking forward to this novel experience.

From the airport, where Jill collected me, we drove 2.5 hours up to Whangarei, New Zealand’s northernmost city, with a population of around 58K. That was where the person who’d expressed an off-the-cuff desire to meet me lived. Seeing as she had inadvertently kicked off this whole idea, that’s where we went first. Fortuitously, our route along the way took us close to Orewa, so we were able to swing by and pay an impromptu visit to a longtime friend of mine. Although she and I talk periodically by video call, there’s nothing like a catch up in the flesh.

In Whangarei, the aim was to have a casual café meet-up, with no particular input required by me. I must admit, I did wonder if Jill and I would be the only ones there - lol - but we weren’t. To be honest, I don’t know how much I would have minded if we had been, as the excursion itself was really pleasant just on its own. However, we ended up in good company, and had a good chinwag as we terfs tend to do. When we parted we all knew each other that little bit better.

The next day back in Auckland, Jill had arranged a pre-event lunch at the Art Gallery café in the central city, for those who were interested in starting the afternoon that way. The thing she had planned for us to do after that didn’t pan out, so instead we all walked up to St Matthew’s Anglican Church. Why did we do that? Because, St Matthews is woke, and true to form, they’d erected a billboard outside the church to state their opposition to the current bill to define women and men in legislation. Their opposition centred around the cringe trope of not caring what’s in people’s pants. Just how old are they exactly?

So, those of us who were wearing a ‘bosom billboard’ – credit to a friend for coining that phrase – which is a t-shirt with a message on it, stood in front of the church’s cringe billboard, and outclassed it hands down!

The group dispersed after that to make our own ways onto Ferndale House where the ‘main event’ was happening. That is, Yvonne van Dongen, a longtime journo, was going to do a Q&A interview with me before an audience, and then we’d indulge in a high tea.

Along the way back to the car, Jill and I encountered a protest march against the bill to define women and men in legislation. It was the usual motley bunch, and only a few hundred strong. Amusingly, it was initially reported as “thousands” in the mainstream media, but then the number got adjusted down to “hundreds” soon after.

Bizarrely, the protest was Māori-led. I found out later that Christchurch also had a Māori-led rally. Go figure. As Di from Mana Wāhine Kōreo said on X “There is not 1 piece of Māori history that is trannny focused”. Winston Peters, the leader of NZ First who are behind the bill to define women and men in legislation, and who is also Māori, came out with the best commentary on X and Facebook about the protest –

There are many who oppose the bill, and are making noise about it. Many more support it, if the latest poll which shows an increase in numbers against men who identify as women being in women’s spaces is any indication, but they are quieter. Most of what I’ve read from the opposers is BS, even from those whom we might expect more critical thinking. I will break down a couple of these in my next blogpost to show you how ‘thinking’ is a distant consideration with what they’re doing. Supposition, emotion, and catastrophising are the heavyweights in these opinions and submissions on the bill, and actual evidence is very much the lightweight.

But, the event at Ferndale House went so well, the cringe billboard and protest twats ended up simply being a bit of ick to wipe off our shoes on the mat, before we went inside the building. About a dozen people turned up to listen to Yvonne and me - and for the food, too, which was all provided by the attendees. Being an experienced journo like she is, Yvonne led the Q&A/conversation seamlessly, and dare I say it, the audience even seemed interested 😊

All in all, I have to say that I very much enjoyed my couple of days ‘up north’ doing something that was a first-time experience for me. I was happy to be the guinea pig for hopefully future events featuring other online personalities, who may not have a VIP bone in their body, either 😊

Submissions on this bill will be received by a Parliamentary select committee until 2 July, Any person or organisation from any country can make a submission. It doesn’t matter how flash it is or isn’t - some will be far superior to my submission, for example, and some won’t. What matters is having your say. More details at the bottom.

My submission:

I support the ‘Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill’. I support its intention, vision, and ultimate implementation, and would like to see it progress to that.

I am a New Zealand-born woman living in New Zealand, and have been in this world for long enough to know that without strong, uncompromised, legal sex-based protections and rights for biological women and girls, defined in clear and universally understood language, we cannot thrive to our full potential. The safer that women and girls feel to participate in public life, the richer society is for it as a whole.

My submission on this bill is made primarily from the perspective of being a woman – an adult human female. I was born female, and cannot change that by simply choosing something called a ‘gender identity’, or using alternative words to describe myself. I am female for life, because humans cannot change their sex. A gender identity is a personal choice – our biological sex is not.

The term ‘gender’ identity’, which is impossible to define in any concrete way, needs to be removed from the bill completely. Once it gets used in legislation, even in the context of this bill, it will be picked up on and argued as a legitimate term to use and insert elsewhere.

In addition, the bill would also benefit from having a definition for each ‘sex’. I back the suggestion put forward by others that -

• ‘Female’ means the sex characterised by reproductive anatomy and physiology oriented toward the production of ova.

• ‘Male’ means the sex characterised by reproductive anatomy and physiology oriented toward the production of sperm.

I note that since the bill was drawn from the biscuit tin, there have been a number of references to those with an intersex condition, and questions as to where they fall between female and male. Intersex people are not an in-between category. They have a disorder of sexual development, but are still either female or male.

Whilst provision should be made for those who fall outside the norm, because all people should be able to participate in public life, the presence of groups that make up a tiny percent of the population should not be regarded as reason to negate women’s and girls’ sex-based rights, nor our ownership of the words ‘woman/women’ and ‘female’.

My focus as a woman is on designated female spaces. I use the word ‘woman/women’ as being synonymous with the word ‘female’, as it has been, unchanged, for centuries until five minutes ago - in a manner of speaking.

In recent times, the words ‘woman’ and ‘female’ have devolved into a being little more than descriptions, which any man can use for himself for his own purposes. This is not an organic change of language in the way language often evolves, but has been driven by those with vested interests in changing the meaning of the words ‘woman’, ‘man, ‘female’ and ‘male’. We need this bill to establish that the words ‘woman’, ‘man, ‘female’ and ‘male’ once again become words that we all understand to mean the same thing in all circumstances, according to biological sex. Considering the trajectory we now find ourselves on, where the meaning of these words have been reduced to uncertainty, the only way to do this is to define them in legislation.

I want to know that when I see the words ‘woman’ or ‘female’, I feel secure in the knowledge it means what it says, and does not also mean men who call themselves women. I don’t want to walk into spaces with the word ‘woman’ or ‘female’ on the door and wonder if there will be a man in there, because if he calls himself a ‘woman’ he can be. What is the difference between a man who calls himself a woman, and one who doesn’t? I don’t want to have to wonder what kind of character he might have, and will he be offensive, or not. Or, will I have to pretend I don’t see him, or be nice to him, so I don’t have to manage his anger if I challenge him or his behaviour? I don’t want to have to be tense and on alert, because he’s there.

What if he is offensive? Should I risk challenging a man who has already shown that he doesn’t care about women’s privacy and boundaries? Or should I just scarper as fast as I can, and try and forget about it? Perhaps I should get security or management, but what would they even do, providing he’s still there by the time they arrive at the scene? Does voyeurism and/or exhibitionism by him count as offensive, if they say he’s allowed to be there because he says he’s a woman?

No women or girl should ever have to go into a female space wondering if there’ll be a man in there, merely because there’s nothing stopping him from calling himself a woman. This is irrespective of whether some women might say they don’t mind those men using female spaces, or whether we ever encounter one there. We do not need yet another life-burden like this put on us, due to the words ‘woman/women’ and ‘female’ becoming nothing more than a matter of preference and interpretation.

My engagement with the Christchurch City Council on the matter of them allowing “transgender women, and people who identify as being a woman” (i.e. men) into their women’s swim sessions, introduced me to the world of council machinations. Therefore, the bill should also contain a section which prohibits service providers, especially councils, from creating their own in-house policies about the meaning of the words ‘woman’, ‘man, ‘female’ and ‘male’ which bypass legislation that defines women and men.

I realise that if service providers are required to use the words ‘woman’, ‘man, ‘female’ and ‘male’ correctly and honestly, they will find inventive ways to say that men who call themselves women can also use the women’s services, but at least they won’t be able to be openly deceptive, with the actual truth in the fine print. Their use of ‘work arounds’ will be a clear signal in itself of their stance, and easier for customers to address, should they wish to.

There has been a lot of catastrophising about this bill from those who oppose it, with many dramatic claims of division and disaster. No evidence to back up these claims is ever presented, though. They go unexplained, but endlessly repeated and embellished.

People are still free to identify as they wish. There is nothing stopping that. But if a person’s identity rests on manipulating words and language to support that identity, and forcing others to comply with it no matter how it may negatively affect them, then this bill to define women and men in law is not the problem.

Ends.

• Written submissions can be made via the link below by any person or organisation from any country up until 2 July. Oral submissions can also be requested as well, or instead of, a written submission, and will be heard at a notified time at some stage afterwards (probably a few to several months). Anonymity can be requested, but a reason needs to be given and then permission granted. There will be many, many, many submissions from those opposed to this bill to define women and men in law, so any submissions supporting it - even if it’s only a paragraph - will add weight to the bill. Some easy useful guidelines to making a submission can be read here. You don’t have to include all the suggestions in this guideline when making a submission, just what is of the most concern to you will do.

Make your submission here: Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill

You mightn’t be surprised to hear that all those who voted against were the Left-wing parties, whose debate speeches consisted of wailing about ‘poor trans’. It’s pretty clear they know that being able to twist the words ‘woman’ and ‘man’ to mean whatever they want is vital for trans ideology. There was barely a mention of women and girls from these parties, apart from assertions that defining women and men in legislation will somehow work against them. The reasons given for all their catastrophising varied from non-existent, to ridiculous.

A day before the first reading of the bill, National announced they would support it through to the first reading, and ACT announced the same support on the day of the first reading. Whether or not there was any influence from poll results released that same day, which showed increased support amongst all political parties for ‘sex’ to be defined by biology, compared to when it was done a year ago, we may never know. It remains to be seen if National and ACT continue to support the bill at its second and third readings.

In contrast to the Left-wing parties, the parties on the centre-right - i.e. NZ First, National, and ACT - focussed on women and girls in their speeches, and all the reasons why we have come to a point where defining women and men in law is now needed. They all, bar the Minister for Women Nicola Grigg (I’ll come back to her), gave brilliant speeches, which centred women and girls, were based on facts, and what our reality has become.

If you’re interested, all the speeches can be read in the link at the bottom.¹

Nicola Grigg is the National MP for Selwyn, and was born and raised on the family sheep and beef farm. Her four portfolios include being the Minister for Women. You’d have thought she might be quite keen on this bill, given she must be acutely aware of sex differences, but could barely summon up even a small puff of enthusiasm for it. She was not happy her party as a whole was supporting it, and claimed there were ‘more important things’ for women – can’t disagree, aren’t there always? – it was badly crafted, and wouldn’t achieve much. The vision and intention behind it, and how having legal definitions for women and men will actually help women as a sex class, seems to have unaccountably bypassed her. Word is that discussion in the National Caucus about whether or not the party should support the bill, prior to the decision to do so, got a bit heated. I expect Nicola may have been amongst the ‘heated’ opposers of it.

The thing about this bill to define women and men in legislation is that it’s a member’s bill, which means it is a bill that an MP who is not a government minister put into a ballot to be drawn at random. These bills don’t have the benefit of being shaped and polished by the party machine beforehand, so it’s quite normal for them to be rough around the edges, and need refining. This gets done by the usual process of them going to the select committee, who then hears and reads the public submissions, and makes adjustments and amendments accordingly.

This bill will go to the Social Services and Community Committee, and after the submission process it gets re-presented to Parliament for a second reading. It can take some time, so may not be done before the general election on 7 November this year. If at the second reading it gets more yes than no votes again, a third reading in Parliament is required with the same outcome, before it gets passed into law.

If passed, this law will go into the Legislation Act, rather than the Human Rights Act, so it has greater coverage over all legislation. Right on cue, twats on X started sharing a meme which claims that putting the word ‘male’ (as in, man = adult human biological male) into the Legislation Act to cover all legislation, means it includes legislation which talks about the likes of male lobsters, because somehow the word ‘human’ can be overlooked. I kid you not.

Submissions to the Social Services and Community Committee close on 2^nd July, and they can be either written, oral, or both. Yes, I’ll be making both a written and oral one 😊 As will transactivists, transmaidens, and transbros who are loud, numerous, and now raging on social media about the bill. Shaneel Lal, the horror who was instrumental in whipping up the mob frenzy against Kellie-Jay Keen in Albert Park in March 2023, is rallying his troops again to oppose it.

If you like the idea of women and men being defined in legislation according to their biological sex, and don’t want other voices to drown ours out, then please do make a submission to tell the committee you want this bill, and why. It doesn’t have to be long and fancy, but do make your voice heard. Individuals and organisations from overseas are also permitted to make written and oral submissions. The link to where and how to do this is at the bottom.²

As already acknowledged, the bill needs some refinement and amendments, and the select committee process is where any wrinkles can be ironed out. An excellent submission already published on X by Peter James Steven identifies some of those wrinkles, and may help if you want to make a submission which addresses the more technical details. It’s worth a read, regardless.

However, there’s no need to get technical, or try and address every single issue wrong with the wording of the bill in your submission. A submission based simply on personal experience of encountering a man in a women’s space, for example - if you’ve had that experience – or of not wanting either yourself or your daughter, granddaughter, or niece to have that experience, is fine. Some good general guidelines to help with whatever you choose have been created here.

I will publish my own written submission in due course. One thing I’ll be asking in it, is that Councils and organisations not be allowed to make their own meanings for the words ‘woman’ and ‘man’, or ‘female’ and ‘male’, and put it into their policies as a sneaky way to bypass the legislation.

• ¹Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill – First Reading scroll about three-quarters of the way down the webpage, and look for the heading ‘Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill - First Reading’ for the speeches.

• ² The link to make your submission is here: Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill

• You may also find Ani O’Brien’s five-minute video clip on X entertaining/enlightening, where she talks about the nonsensical reactions to the bill by Left-wing MPs, and how they miss the most basic of all reasons why we need this bill to define women and men in legislation.

Sadly, it means I mightn’t be buying the margarita I’d promised myself if they didn’t respond with a template fob-off, or corporate PR patter. And it’s not as though they didn’t know what was at stake, because I wrote at the end of my complaint “If I get a reply that is more than a template fob off, or corporate PR patter, I have promised to buy myself my first margarita in years. Here’s hoping.”

Very mean-spirited of them indeed.

Naturally, the BSA’s guidelines are flawed up the wazoo, as all gender identity guidelines are, and, as it turns out, their guidelines are just their woke reckons – or should I say their “views”.

Unlike them, I have more than ‘views’ – I have facts and pertinent points. Notably, they didn’t dispute those, probably because they couldn’t, and I duly acknowledged that in my reply to them.

Ah, well – like the BSA, the days of gender identity ideology are numbered. It’s losing popularity in society as a whole, and students are increasingly aware that it is nothing short of BS. I don’t doubt that prising the ideology out of policies in which the indoctrinated have embedded it will be one helluva journey, though, so maybe a margarita for the road is in order, anyway.

¹ Complaint to the NZ Broadcasting Standards Authority about their cringe ‘gender identity’ guidance.

Here’s what I wrote -

Dear Broadcasting Standards Authority – I am writing to advise of some contestable assertions and use of language in your guidance called COMPLAINTS CONCERNING GENDER IDENTITY ISSUES, and suggest that some corrections to these concerns, as noted below, may be in order.

1: There is language used in the guidance which is recognised transactivist language. Examples are:

• Sex assigned at birth. The phrase “sex assigned at birth” is used in the guidance in relation to gender identity. Sex is not ‘assigned’ at birth. A person’s sex develops in utero from the time of conception, and is observed at birth, or beforehand by ultrasound. The phrase ‘sex assigned at birth’ has been taken from the intersex community, who, due to a difference of physical development in utero, sometimes have their sex mistakenly observed at birth, and are initially deemed to be the opposite sex to that which they biologically are. In these instances, it is only once puberty commences that their biological sex becomes obvious. A gender identity has nothing to do with a mistaken observation of sex at birth, as occurs with the intersex community.

• Takatāpui. The Māori word ‘takatāpui’ translates historically to an intimate companion of the same sex, and is not “a term used to embrace all Māori with diverse genders, sexualities and sex characteristics”, as asserted in the guidance. This assertion is copied from paragraph 27 in the BSA’s findings on the Kathleen Stock interview with Kim Hill which aired on 14 May 2022. But you have failed to also include paragraph 28 from it, which goes on to explain that “However, cultural acceptance of gender diversity is not uniform within these communities [my emphasis] and we must be cautious of making any finding to that effect. As noted above, the role of the Authority is to reflect community standards and attitudes, not be the promoter of social change.”

  You also reference Dr Elizabeth Kerekere’s thesis from 2017 in the same findings, in which she states that “There is not yet evidence that Māori had diverse gender identities or that takatāpui played specific roles in pre-colonial times” on page 82. To my knowledge, she has never said that she made a mistake in her thesis about this, despite her change of tack since then for whatever reasons. To use ‘takatāpui’ in a way that has been broadened from its original meaning to now encompass diverse genders, sexualities and sex characteristics does no favours to the integrity of the Māori language in its public re-emergence. Whilst the English language is robust, widely spoken, and has evolved over time, the Māori language is unique and more care needs to be taken to keep it true to its origins.

• Misgendering and deadnaming. It is not ‘misgendering’ to correctly observe and state a person’s sex. It is simply being accurate, which can be vital to others’ safety and right to privacy. To use a person’s former or original name is not ‘deadnaming’ – it is only referring to them by the name they used to go by, which can also be vital to avoid deception. Misgendering and deadnaming are hyperbolic terms that are not used for any other community or situation. Under this section in the guidance, you refer to the Human Rights Commission and the United Nations, but both are widely regarded as being ideological in this matter, and not unbiased.

  The guidance goes on to say in this section that “The BSA has acknowledged the trans community is particularly vulnerable”. Is this information obtained from any other source other than LGBTQ+ lobby groups, who have produced ‘evidence’ based on nothing more than anecdotal data? The reality is that for such a small percentage of the population, the trans community poses an outsized risk to others. Data from Corrections NZ shows that men who say they’re women are imprisoned for sexual offences at twice the rate of other men, sometimes more. This ratio is consistent across all the countries which collect the data. A recent paper by New Zealander Michael Biggs at Oxford University in the UK, titled Transgender Homicides in Britain, 2000-2025: Victims and Perpetrators, shows that men who say they’re women are more likely to be murderers than murdered. In contrast, the NZ Crimes and Victims Survey from 2023 by the Ministry of Justice, as reported in the Waikato Times (paywalled), did not include stats for transgender people, stating “The proportion of transgender adults who experienced at least one offence in 2023 has been suppressed due to high statistical uncertainty”. In other words, the sample size was too small, which leads to high statistical uncertainty and low reliability in that specific subset.

• Harm. The word ‘harm’ is used five times in the guidance, including in the word ‘harmful’. In all contexts it appears to mean hurt feelings. Yet, the BSA does not consider that using transactivist language like ‘people with cervixes” to talk about women and girls is harmful or hurtful to their feelings or dignity, but instead “was accurate and did not constitute denigration of women”. Conversely, in the same guidance it seems that “harm can be caused” when using accurate language about people who claim to be the opposite sex to that which they were born.

2: An erroneous assertion is made under the section in the guidance labelled ‘Gender identity’ issues are not new, that “…. NZ law recognises sex is not immutable.” This is a false claim. There is no law that recognises biological sex is changeable. ‘Sex’ is more than just a word that can be chopped and changed by choice - it’s a biological reality, and unchangeable. The law which allows a person’s sex marker on their birth certificate to be altered, as per the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act, does not state anywhere that it means their biological sex has changed. A birth certificate is only a document, and does not create some magical metamorphosis to the opposite sex for the holder of it when it gets altered. The Dept of Internal Affairs makes this quite clear when they advise that in determining a person’s sex “other factors can be considered over and above the registered sex listed on a birth certificate”. They would not say this if they considered that biological sex could be changed by altering the sex marker on a birth certificate. It’s clear that although they acknowledge a birth certificate can be altered, it does not mean that others have to consider the person’s sex has actually changed. Whatever a person thinks about the changeability of sex in their head, or however they might frame the narrative, in the real world no one can ever change their biological sex, and NZ law does not recognise that they can.

In conclusion, I realise that there are plans to disestablish the BSA, but the above points should still be corrected in the ‘Complaints Concerning Gender Identity Issues’ guidance. It’s not good practise to subject staff to erroneous information - they deserve to know the whole truth so they don’t make false claims, share these contestable guidelines, or take the erroneous information contained within wherever else they may go.

PS: If I get a reply that is more than a template fob off, or corporate PR patter, I have promised to buy myself my first margarita in years. Here’s hoping.

(Just as an fyi for readers, yes I did include that last sentence in my complaint :-) )

Naturally, the guidelines have nonsense in them like saying ‘misgendering’ and ‘deadnaming’ are harmful, which I guess means hurt feelings, and “the trans community is particularly vulnerable”. Yeah, right. In other words, they reckon the most pandered-to demographic on the planet doesn’t get enough special treatment, so here are some guidelines to give them more. The BSA seems to have missed the stats which show that men who say they’re women are imprisoned for sexual offences at more than twice the rate of other men, and that they’re more likely to be murderers than murdered. Vulnerable, my rear end.

Apparently, it’s not considered demeaning to call women “people with cervixes”, though, and they claim that the Māori word ‘takatāpui’ is “a term used to embrace all Māori with diverse genders, sexualities and sex characteristics”. This is simply a modern-day stretch, to fit the trans agenda, of its original meaning of those attracted to the same sex as themselves.

They go onto to state “NZ law recognises sex is not immutable. Our legal system has allowed changes to nominated sex on a birth certificate ….” That first assertion is a lie. There is nothing in legislation around sex self-ID at all which recognises that sex is now magically not immutable, because the marker can be changed on a birth certificate. That is pure fabrication by the BSA. Additionally, guidance from the Dept of Internal Affairs makes it quite clear that the sex marker on a person’s birth certificate does not have to be taken as proof of a person’s sex. I’ll be informing them of these facts, irrespective of their forthcoming dissolution, for the (unwanted, I suspect) edification of their staff wherever they may eventually end up. If I don’t get an obfuscatory reply, I’ll buy myself my first margarita in years.

Some background on the BSA, and how it came to eat itself. It was established in 1989 to create, maintain, and uphold programming standards for New Zealand radio and television. It has the power to order apologies, and/or impose fines. Since 1989, the landscape of broadcasting has changed dramatically with the advent of the internet, though, and questions have been raised for a while about the BSA’s continuing relevance due to that. However, it clung on.

Its demise started back in August last year, when an individual by the name of Richard Fanselow made a complaint to the BSA about The Platform’s host Sean Plunket’s reference to tikanga Māori as “mumbo jumbo“. Tikanga is societal lore within Māori culture, and there are as many differences as to how this is practised as there are iwi and hapu (tribes and sub-tribes). My understanding is that Sean made his “mumbo jumbo” comment in the context of expressing an opinion about a public service job advertisement, which had knowledge of tikanga Māori as a requirement, even though it wasn’t relevant to the job.

Richard Fanselow is known to me, too. He has made virulent comments on my Substack and in direct emails to me, and I eventually had to block him. Others, besides Sean Plunket, have also been on the receiving end of his offensive attention. Why the BSA decided to run with his silly little complaint about the “mumbo jumbo” comment by Sean can only be surmised. To me, it’s not unlikely that the staff at the BSA have a collective dislike of The Platform as a whole, due to its non-woke position, and that was the foundation for upholding the complaint.

The matter went public. Questions started being asked about how much jurisdiction did the BSA have over a programme which transmits from the internet, as The Platform does, and was the BSA still relevant in today’s world? Finally on 6 May, Paul Goldsmith, the Minister for Media and Communications, said “no” it wasn’t. It will be disestablished after the general election on 7 November, as it will retain responsibility for candidate and party advertisements on radio and free-to-air TV during the campaigning period. What happens after that is still to be determined, but if a left-leaning government gets in they will in all likelihood keep the BSA, because it has the same ‘values’ as them.

If all goes according to plan, though, I’m curious about whether the BSA’s closure will free up the traditional media to accurately report a person’s sex, instead of their gender identity. Although guidelines are not rules, they can get wielded as such and have a chilling effect. Admittedly, the woke-indoctrinated personnel who now litter TV and radio may be quite happy with that chilling effect.

But if they were wise – yes, I know, a long shot - they should embrace that freedom, so they stop looking stupid. Recently, a man who says he’s a woman was reported as missing. This is the headline and picture that the NZ Herald used.

Whilst the NZ Herald is not TV or radio, they sing from the same gender ideology song sheet as them, and if just of them one is brave enough to throw away that song sheet, others will follow.