Rally to protest ‘preposterous' Bill
Dunedin rally organisers (from left) Mika Danks, Oscar Bartle, Neave Ashton, Brandon Johnstone and Patrick Gibbons display a poster and fly a transgender flag ahead of a protest to be held in the Octagon on Saturday. Photo: Stephen Jaquiery
Organisations around Dunedin are joining forces to stand with the city's transgender community against a proposed Bill they call "preposterous".
A rally organised by the Dunedin branch of the International Socialist Organisation Aotearoa in collaboration with Dunedin Pride, UniQ Otago, the Rainbow Otago Medical Students' Association and Pride in Law Otago is scheduled to take place in the Octagon this Saturday.
Dunedin branch committee member and protest co-organiser Oscar Bartle said the "main reason" the rally was organised was in response to New Zealand First's introduction of a member's Bill to define the terms "woman" and "man" in law.
The Bill was "preposterous", Mr Bartle said.
"It's just incoherent garbage, really.
"You can't claim to be protecting women while writing trans women out of law."
The Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill announced last week proposed to define "woman" as "an adult human biological female" and "man" as "an adult human biological male", in the Legislation Act 2019.
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters said in a statement the Bill was "not about being anti-anyone or anti-anything".
"This is about ensuring we as a country focus on the facts of biology and protect the term 'woman' in law".
Member's Bills are usually only debated in the House if selected at random from the ballot, and Parliament's website states "very few member's Bills become law, most not passing the first reading stage".
Mr Bartle said the wording of the Bill "essentially erases trans people from the legal system" and he believed it could inevitably result in transgender women or men being sent to the wrong prisons.
NZ First was "stoking up hatred and bigotry and division" and the Bill was an "attack" on transgender people, he said.
"It's just rhetoric to rile people up and get people focused on things that aren't the anti-worker, anti-environment stuff that they've been pushing through."
It came amidst a "global upsurge in far-right and transphobic rhetoric", and after last month's unanimous decision by the UK Supreme Court that the terms "woman" and "sex" referred to a biological woman and biological sex, under equality laws.
Mr Bartle said there was a "great level of concern" among Dunedin's transgender community.
Music, stalls and speeches had been arranged.
It had received "quite a bit of attention" on social media and he would be surprised if fewer than 200 people attended, he said.
NZ First did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.
tim.scott@odt.co.nz
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