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National minister Erica Stanford better sort out her priorities pretty darn quick, because her inability to separate fact from fiction regarding the Posie Parker debacle makes her a target for political manipulation and of real concern when she takes on more responsibility in the new government.
Political careers depend on media endorsement, making politicians more susceptible than most to their persuasion: politicians need to be much more scrupulous about the facts than they currently demonstrate.
Earlier this year Stanford made the mistake of publicly siding with the transgender community in an interview with Jack Tame, a political faux pas she should at least attempt to correct. ‘I’m sorry, I made a mistake’ is an opportunity to regain the confidence of intelligent, forgiving voters. We all make mistakes, don’t we?
Kellie Jay Keen-Minshull, aka Posie Parker, visited NZ to support women who don’t want men using women-only spaces, ie transgenders in women and girls bathroom facilities in schools, sporting and public events or men competing against women in sports events. The violent backlash from an overly sensitive LBGT community was nothing short of astounding.
NZ public libraries had just hosted the Drag Queen Story Hour. Drag queens reading to pre-schoolers, part of an international movement to normalise the transgender movement, disguise the risk of paedophiles lurking within and “defy rigid gender restrictions”.
Imprinting their version of sexuality onto children has met with a huge backlash in the US, where the movement began and where conservative Christians still regard child raising as their parental responsibility not to be delegated or taken by force.
More recently, the BBC was criticised for “scrubbing a recent story about Andrew Way, a convicted pedophile, to remove references to his past as a drag queen performer using the stage name Miss Gin”.
Turns out it’s not quite as straightforward as trans-activists envisioned to take their sexual proclivities out of the privacy of their bedrooms and parade them in public with almost total media endorsement.
Media can be forgiven for not wanting to offend the precious transgender movement, can’t they? Stanford didn’t want to either, as she explained to Jack Tame when he asked if she would have attended the Posie Parker rally:
No, I don’t think so. I wouldn’t have wanted to give her [Posie Parker] anymore airtime than she deserved and I think where this all leads to, is the fact that the Greens started this all off by putting it out there in the media. You know, if she’d come in under the radar, a few people would have turned up, no one would even known she was here, she would have gone and we would have carried on our tolerant and normal ways as we do in NZ.
1News interview 2:50 in
Blame someone else and avoid confrontation was Stanford’s answer to the violence that ensured: short-sighted and falling well short of the open discussion required for transparent governance.
The Posie Parker “Let Women Speak” title is a dead giveaway for the purpose of the rally, which, contrary to transgender, media and Stanford’s expectation, was not to call out and insult individual transgenders – or physically attack them, as Shaneel Lal said he feared before the rally – but for NZ women to have a voice in the subtle grooming of their children about transgenderism, obvious to anyone except the wilfully blind NZ media, media hungry Stanford and the Disinformation Project.
Disinformation Project Researcher Dr Sanjana Hattouwa [sic] reported that after Keen’s visit to New Zealand, the amount of vitriol towards the trans community was “to a degree we’ve never studied before” with “extraordinarily violent” content towards trans people being distributed widely. He described the level of hate towards trans people as “genocidal”.
The Disinformation Project
For someone working daily on disinformation, Hattotuwa missed the mark entirely. The physical violence at the Auckland rally was instigated by transgender protesters.
Media were groomed in advance by the queer community to expect violence at the rally.
We cannot ensure the safety of queer people at that [Posie Parker] event having seen how that event played out in Melbourne, but also now that she’s here, now that people are listening to someone like her, that will have a flow on effect on Aotearoa.
Queer Activist Shaneel Lal speaking to 1News prior to the event
Avoiding parental concerns about the fringe transgender movement infiltrating their children’s lives was a no-brainer for media and Stanford, who was not thrilled about being asked to take a side, but admitted she would have preferred Posie Parker to be refused entry to NZ. Given transgenders are part of the rainbow movement, it would be churlish not to support them, wouldn’t it, and, anyway, what harm are they doing?
I really hope Stanford takes a more responsible attitude in future when faced with tough decisions because taking the easy way out and avoiding discussions is not what we expect from our ministers.
Posie Parker was blamed for the violence that ensued, despite the fact that she and her mainly female, some elderly, supporters were no physical threat to anyone. It was a media beat-up well ahead of the event and indeed the opposite occurred – women were concerned for their safety at the hands of the raging transgender mob of protestors.
“I thought they were going to crush us to death,” she said.
She followed this up with a post on Twitter.
“For wanting to make space for women to speak I genuinely feared for my life today,” Parker tweeted.
“My activism is simple, we #LetWomenSpeak. Why does that make anyone so angry? We showed the world what happens to women when they try to speak. No one can pretend they don’t see the salivating misogyny.”
Posie Parker after the event
The extraordinary violence that concerned Hattotuwa and the NZ media was instigated by the transgender community and its supporters, and some of them are in court facing charges of violence.
A 21-year-old man with name suppression admits assaulting an elderly woman at the Auckland rally, and transgender and intersex activist Eli Rubashkyn is charged with common assault for dousing Keen-Minshull for tomato juice. If convicted, Rubashkyn could face up to six months’ imprisonment and a $4000 fine.
Keen-Minshull recently cancelled her planned return visit to NZ because her family fears for her safety.
So do tell, Ms Stanford, what will you do to maintain a “tolerant and normal” life for all New Zealanders?
When you are in government, will you speak up and support women’s rights or will you censor opposition to the rainbow community openly targeting our children simply because you know the violence of which they are capable?
