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Otago Daily Times
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
NZ First Bill would ‘write trans people out of' law
A Saturday protest placed human rights concerns of the rainbow community in the spotlight. Stand Against Transphobia - Fight the Far Right challenged moves to undermine transgender rights. Organised by International Socialists Otepoti Dunedin and Dunedin Pride, the gathering drew about 300 queer and trans members and supporters. Speakers responded to a proposed Member's Bill from New Zealand First MP Jenny Marcroft that would define a woman as an adult human biological female and a man as an adult human biological male. Protest co-ordinator Oscar Bartle said the party's Bill was a blatant attempt to erase trans and non-binary people from law. ''Not only will this result in situations where trans people will be sent to the wrong prisons and other such injustices, it will also serve to legitimise and embolden the transphobic far-right.'' International Socialists Otepoti Dunedin member Neave Ashton said the world had become a much scarier place for trans people in recent years. ''This Bill, if passed, would effectively write trans people out of legal recognition.'' It could mean trans women would be sent to men's prisons where they were up to 13 times more likely to be raped and sexually assaulted. It might result in ''big, burly trans men with full beards'' being forced to use women's toilets, they said. ''It could also mean that our medication, like puberty blockers and gender-affirming care, could be banned or restricted.'' Local drag performer Ann Arkii, a genderqueer transgender man hoping to receive top surgery later this year, said transitioning had been lifesaving. ''I wouldn't be standing in front of you here today if I was unable to live my life the way that I needed to. ''Who I am as a person is not something that can be defined, debated or legislated by the state.'' Bills like this one were mere distractions from bigger problems such as the cost-of-living crisis, climate change, famine and genocide. ''Trans people will not be erased, not from public life, not from history, not now and not ever. A world without trans people is a world without humanity.'' @
Otago Daily Times
01-05-2025
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
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.
