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Yvonne van Dongen
Veteran NZ journo incredulous gender ideology escaped the lab. Won’t rest until reality makes a comeback.
When Labour loses the coming election, their members would do well to consider the party’s attitude to women and the role that played in their repeat demise. And National would do well to heed the lesson also.
To date Labour has continued to underestimate the damage leader Chris Hipkins and other leftists did when they dumped on women wanting to talk about their sex-based rights in Auckland three years ago. Never mind Hipkins’ inability to define what a woman is.
Repeatedly dismissing women’s fight for sex-based rights as an insignificant skirmish in the culture wars mischaracterises the issue by an order of magnitude. The cause is so much bigger, deeper and significant than that.
At the very least, a failure to acknowledge the reality of what humans have known for millennia to be true is a sign of the depth of the intellectual rot of the left. If you can’t acknowledge the fundamental reality of dimorphic sex, chances are your entire intellectual, as well as your moral framework, will be founded on falsehoods.
The time is fast coming when Labour will have to decouple itself from the crazy runaway unicorns of gender ideology to gain back the trust of the public. The public are not the gullible dopes they once were. Successful campaigns by women’s groups have educated them and the public now recognises the folly of gender ideology.
The latest Curia poll on defining sex in biological terms in law reveals that more New Zealand voters agree than disagree across all political parties. Support from left-leaning party voters has shifted markedly from a poll conducted by Curia for Family First a year ago, between 30 April and 4 May 2025, and a poll conducted for Speak Up for Women between 14 and 19 May 2026, also by Curia.
This time last year, Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori voters were more likely to oppose than to support defining women and men in biological terms. In the latest poll these voters were more likely to support than oppose these definitions:
The biggest shift has been amongst Te Pāti Māori voters – a majority now support defining women and men in sex-realist terms.
What is even more remarkable about this shift in public opinion is that it has occurred against the backdrop of a wholly hostile mainstream media. That’s the thing about reality. It cannot be denied forever.
Fortuitously, the poll came out the same day as the first reading in parliament of NZ First MP Jenny Marcroft’s private member’s bill to define sex in biological terms in law. Both her speech and that of ACT’s Karen Chhour were strong and clear in support of the bill.
Unlike National’s Minister of Women Nicola Griggs whose response can only be described as tepid and muddled. She said there were “real and substantive” concerns with the bill’s approach – including that many pieces of legislation have moved away from using gender.
I’m not convinced that this bill would advance the rights and opportunities or the wellbeing of women and girls in any way, shape or form in New Zealand.
However some people felt strongly about it, she said – so National would vote for it “to ensure that New Zealanders have the opportunity to have their say” during the select committee process.
Hardly a ringing endorsement.
In fact, her response was so half-hearted, it prompted the Platform host Michael Laws to predict that this bill would suffer the same fate as the Treaty Principles Bill. It would not get past its second reading.
If that is true, the Uniparty of Labour and National politicians will be going against the wishes of their voters. Here’s what the latest Curia poll on the bill revealed about the views of the parties tilting right.
The bill has now been referred to the social services and community committee for public submissions. Submissions close on 2 July, after which the committee will review them, hear from some submitters (if chosen), and report back to the House. This process typically takes several months. The second reading can only happen after the committee reports back so it seems unlikely this will happen before the next election.
Predictably the left’s condemnation was unequivocal. Green co-leader Chloë Swarbrick called it “absolutely despicable” and Te Pāti Māori called it “legislative erasure of trans people”.
Both Labour and National politicians were dismissive of the bill, but in a time-and-motion cost-efficiency way.
Senior National minister Chris Bishop previously called it a “distraction”.
“Is this the biggest thing on the planet? Talking about the definition of a woman? I would argue, no,” he told 1News.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins echoed Bishop when he spoke to RNZ about the bill.
“It’s a distraction. New Zealanders want to see us focused on getting people back to work, growing an economy that creates jobs for people, and fixing the cost of living.”
Labour’s Camilla Belich said the bill was “pointless and a complete waste of time”.
Disappointing though these comments are, they could be worse. They could be operatic oratorios about the unadulterated cruelty of this bill for trans people, such as can be found on TRAs handmaiden Emily Writes’ Fb page.
I have many trans friends and I know many parents with trans children. They fight for you and your rights. Will you now let them be abused? Will you stand with them and support them? Or will you turn away as they’re vilified and attacked and humiliated and used as a scapegoat.
Trans people just want to live a good life. Parents of trans children want what you want for your children.
Please, please stand against this. This is cruel …”
What do Labour and National pollies say? Distraction. Waste of time. Pointless. Big woop. None of them are saying that trans people will be harmed, that this is rolling back their rights or that they in any danger whatsoever. They are not even endorsing the reality of trans people.
My hunch is that Hipkins et al knows what a woman is and knows that this issue is a dud. He always has. But he’s been hostage to Labour’s rainbow caucus. By calling it a distraction, he is one step closer to loosening the reins of the runaway gender unicorns, hurtling them into the nether reaches of fantasyland where they belong.
In any case, it won’t matter after November 7 because he won’t be in government and he won’t be the leader of the Labour party for much longer after that. Letting those gender unicorns fly into the wild blue yonder, never to be seen again, will be someone else’s job.
This article was originally published on the author’s Substack.
