Act with Conviction

Yvonne van Dongen
Veteran NZ journo incredulous gender ideology escaped the lab. Won’t rest until reality makes a comeback.

Election year in New Zealand. It arrives in this part of the world every three years, one of only six countries in the world with such a short cycle.

Once I lamented this fact, now I’m relieved. Once I was a predictable lefty, now I’m a swing voter. Once I excused people’s ignorance when it came to gender ideology, now I say they should know better. Everyone has been educated and those that still hold fast to the fantasy are beyond redemption.

So my swinging vote in this election will be guided by a party’s position on transgender madness. I make no secret of this fact, and I refuse to be shamed for holding this view. Even if fellow TERF mates lament, ‘Surely you’re not going to let a single issue determine your voting preference?’

Absolutely I am. Also I reject their minimising of the significance of this vital criterion. There are many valid reasons to make this issue front and centre, most of which my readers will know – women’s sex-based protection, safety of children, erasure of women etc.

But the key one for me, the one I cannot ignore, is that this issue is foundational. Any party or person willing to support a damaging, fanciful ideology is a person or party not grounded in reality. Or truth. Or basic commonsense. The way I see it, the downstream effects of cleaving to such delusional articles of faith calls into question their judgement on every issue. These are not serious people.

In some circles this may not be a popular view. God help anyone who lives in Wellington or works in the public service. But I know what I want and expect from the politicians who seek my vote. I want them to be able to withstand the potential reputational damage and risk of social ostracism simply for holding an unfashionable, albeit accurate, view. I want them to stand up for truth and reality and women and girls. I want the politicians I vote for to be bold and fearless and to act from a base of conviction.

My ideal politician should be able to ignore the most scorching condemnation from the likes of Chloe Swarbrick, the hyperbolic ridicule of Shaneel Lal and any amount of manipulative moralising by transhausen mothers. They should not care that they might be labelled far-right, bigoted, transphobic or just big meanies. They should not give a good goddamn about any of the kindsters trying to tie them up with their kind strings (thanks to the reader who gave me that description).

So, up until a few weeks ago, and excepting the Women’s Right’s Party, of which I am a member, that left just one major political party deserving of my vote. New Zealand First. The rest have all been tainted by transmania.

Labour, Greens, Te Pāti Māori and The Opportunity Party – each party is an avowed disciple of the church of gender. National pretends to be less ardent but their minister of women said she had serious reservations about a bill before parliament to define sex in law. So that’s a hard no from me.

As for ACT, the libertarian party voted for self-sex ID in 2021 and the conversion therapy bill in 2022 protecting gender identity or gender expression, along with all the other reality-denying traitors to the female sex. Deputy Leader Brooke van Velden spoke in favour of the bill, emphasising acceptance and living authentically. Later, as minister of internal affairs, she introduced an amendment allowing two same-sex people to declare parentage on a child’s birth certificate. A child can be listed as the off-spring of two mothers or two fathers, despite this being a biological impossibility. So ACT was all in.

Up until a few weeks ago, that is, when suddenly their leader David Seymour appeared to have had a ‘come to Jesus’ epiphany. In response to a question about the NZF bill to define sex in law, he said ACT supported the bill because people were “sick of pretending”.

“There are two biological sexes. People don’t have to believe that but they don’t have the right to tell other people they’re not allowed to say it.”

He also said he was sick of hearing terms like ‘pregnant people’ and ‘chest-feeding’.

His revelation prompted me to contact the minister via email. I asked:

1. Does David Seymour and the ACT Party regret voting in favour of the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Bill in 2021? Introducing a self-identification process allowing people to update the sex marker on their birth certificates via a simple statutory declaration, did, in effect, endorse a falsehood. It gave primacy to feelings, not fact, since a baby can only have two biological parents.
2. As a result of the BDMRR bill, opponents felt it necessary to introduce a bill endorsing biological sex. Had it not gone through this would not be required. Was the BDMRR bill well-intentioned but misguided?
3. In 2024 Brooke van Velden announced regulatory changes that allowed parents to choose whether they are named on their child’s birth certificate as “mother”, “father”, or “parent”. Is that consistent with Seymour’s desire to reflect reality when it comes to sex and gender?

Here is the response – to be attributed from an ACT spokesperson.

1. The BDMRR Bill, introduced by NZ First’s Tracey Martin, had to be sent back to select committee in 2019 precisely because it minimised the importance of biological sex. The bill was then improved and ultimately ACT supported it on the basis of select committee feedback. We continue to listen to New Zealanders’ concerns – this is reflected in our first-reading support for the bill to define sex in law.
2. As for Brooke van Velden’s regulatory changes, we note these were focused on allowing gay couples to be correctly listed on the certificate. Prior to Brooke’s changes, for example, one woman had to be listed under “mother” and her partner had to be listed as “parent”. They could not both choose the word “mother”. This made no sense, so Brooke fixed it.

So the first paragraph indicates that ACT is willing to follow the public’s shifting views on this issue.

Recent polling by Curia Market Research on behalf of Family First NZ found that 52 per cent of eligible voters support the Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill, while 29 per cent oppose it. The data shows a notable consolidation of public opinion on the issue. Comparing the initial Curia poll for Family First in mid-2025 to May 2026 data, support from left-leaning party voters has shifted upward.

NZF wasn’t in parliament when Self-Sex ID and the Conversion Therapy Bill was passed unanimously. ACT was but even if the party had opposed both bills, it would have made no difference. ACT’s position aligned with the prevailing consensus at the time but was not pivotal to the outcomes.

The second paragraph says that ACT, through Brooke van Velden, is prepared to endorse a fiction to protect the feelings of same-sex couples, though technically only one person can be the biological parent. As ever when it comes to this issue, no one thinks of the child, who surely has a right to know who their biological mother and father are. Fortunately that information is retained by the Department of Internal Affairs even if their own birth certificate records a lie. I have also sent her office questions but as yet have not received a reply.

Brooke van Velden is leaving parliament at the end of this term. Naturally I can’t help but wonder how much influence she had on ACT’s position on this issue to date.

Or was it simply that David Seymour got sick of pretending because he saw that truth-telling wasn’t exactly harming NZF in the polls?

In any event, that leaves me with two mainstream parties I can vote for. So now I can interrogate them on other issues that concern me which is why, next week, I intend to attend a meeting David Seymour is holding with Professor Paul Spoonley to discuss demographic change.

I’m guessing both men will argue that demographic change is a progressive good and that we should all lean into it otherwise we will be regarded as small-minded, insecure and xenophobic. But I could be wrong. Like David Seymour, I’ve been wrong before.

Feel free to send questions you’d like me to ask.

This article was originally published on the author’s Substack.