Kiwi4Justice
I am an independent journalist who aims to help provide a counterbalance to NZ’s mainstream media that is increasingly under the paid control of the NZ government. Evidence, facts, and REAL science over controlled propaganda and corporatized science.
What is a woman?
It’s the question that had our recent prime minister squirming in such embarrassing fashion on national television not so long ago. The entire country could see the terror leap into Chris Hipkins’ eyes when he heard the dreaded question, followed by his agonising word salad dance that he attempted in response.
Well, it seems that the question really wasn’t that difficult or confusing after all. The landmark decision in the UK Supreme Court on April 17 confirmed what most of the population already knew, had always understood, and had lived by their entire lives. According to the UK Supreme Court judges, a woman is still legally defined as an adult human who was born a biological female. The UK judges confirmed that this was always the case legally and still is the case. So, it seems it really wasn’t that tricky a question after all, Chris.
It was a monumental victory for all women in the UK, especially lesbian women, and it was also a critical victory for the rights of women’s and girls’ sport. So, what are the implications for NZ of this landmark outcome? Sadly, nearly every politician, nearly all mainstream media, and many heads of organisations across NZ have taken a similar position on this issue to our former prime minister. This has been to the tremendous detriment of the hard-won rights of women and girls in NZ. NZ rightly has a very proud history on the issue of women’s rights. The first nation in the world to give women the legal right to vote. I am a patriotic male Kiwi, and I proudly have a framed copy of the petition, with my great-grandmother’s signature on it, from the NZ suffragettes that led to that historic moment of NZ leading the world on women’s rights.
So how can NZ now have fallen to such a place on this issue as we now find ourselves? Having originally led the world in such a pioneering fashion, NZ is now somewhere near the back of the train with regards the issue of protection of ‘women only’ rights. Only two years ago we had Posie Parker having to dash to the airport, fleeing NZ, with her physical safety in serious danger, and even the NZ Police seemingly ‘stepping back’ to allow that situation.
What was Posie Parker trying to achieve with her gathering in Albert Park in Auckland that was so violently shut down? She was simply trying to facilitate a platform for concerned NZ women to be able step up and publicly voice their concerns at their ‘women only’ protections being eviscerated. The very same rights that the UK Supreme Court just confirmed as having always been there and are still there. They were NZ women simply trying to exercise their freedom of speech to air their very serious concerns, and they were brutally and violently shut down.
Of biggest concern regarding that Posie Parker event was the NZ Police implementing what seemed to be a stand-down order, literally standing back and allowing those peaceful women to be physically beaten, and the NZ mainstream media and politicians whipping up a storm of misinformation and hatred towards Posie Parker and that event. Really incomprehensible for that to be NZ.
For the NZ women who were there at Albert Park trying to speak on that shameful day, just trying to have their say and raise their concerns, the April 17 decision in the UK would surely have felt like a very mighty moment for them. That decision, while being in the UK and not NZ, unavoidably changes the narrative in NZ. No longer can the NZ mainstream media and politicians get away with twisting, gaslighting, dismissing, and ignoring these women’s very legitimate concerns anymore, as they have been doing. It is also hopefully a huge positive for women’s and girls’ sport in NZ. The issue of protection of ‘women only’ rights in sport is an area where NZ has also been dragging the chain badly compared to current world trends. Many national and international sporting organisations have in recent times been moving back towards protecting women’s sport as only being eligible for biological women. The IAAF, the world governing body for athletics, is one such organisation taking a firm stance on this. Many others are also finally going in this direction, albeit there is still a long way to go.
In the US, the Trump administration has moved decisively for protecting women’s sport and is removing federal funding for any organisation that fails to protect the rights of biological women in sport. That is, any organisation that allows trans women (biological men) to participate in women’s events. As a demonstration of their strong commitment to this issue, the Trump administration is in the process of taking legal action against the State of Maine for failing to comply with this, as outlined in this powerful press conference on April 16, led by US Attorney General Pam Bondi and supported by many high profile and outspoken female sportswomen in the US.
The significant shift in this direction for women’s sport has been helped along by the evidence and conclusions put forward from the Cass Review in 2024. The Cass Review was an independent review in England looking at many issues around the scientific and medical evidence associated with the process of gender transitioning for youth, and its conclusions highlighted many serious red flags around gender transitioning processes and implications.
However, despite these strong trends around the world towards increasingly protecting women’s sport, NZ is lagging behind the pack badly. Sport NZ, the governing body for sport in NZ, is still strongly maintaining a position of inclusivity for trans participants in women’s and girls’ sport, particularly at levels below international level. This position then has a ripple effect to the individual sporting organisations around the country.
This seems a quite incredible situation when we consider that one of the very top strategic priorities of Sport NZ and the NZ government is increasing participation rates in sport for women and girls. Yet we have Sport NZ setting their transgender ‘guidelines’ that allow for boys or men to participate in, and win, the girls’ or women’s events, and also for those biological boys or men to be in the toilets, changing rooms, and showers alongside those girls or women. It doesn’t matter if those boys or men are fully intact with full male genitalia: they are to be allowed in the girls’ or women’s changing rooms and showers without question. So what happens if a female sport participant understandably objects to this ridiculous situation? Often that results in the female sport participant being disciplined for intolerant or ‘transphobic’ behaviour. It is this kind of crazy and totally unacceptable situation that the UK Supreme Court judgement is so applicable to. That decision in the UK courts confirms that (biological) women and girls have protected rights to ‘women only’ spaces and activities. Sport NZ’s current position is at very direct odds with that legal position just confirmed in the UK and is very inconsistent with the current trends of world sport.
So, while NZ has sadly gone from ‘hero to zero’ on the issue of being a leader on women’s rights, the outcome of the UK Supreme Court will surely begin forcing the issue here in NZ and will hopefully help NZ to catch up with sanity on this issue. Therefore, the decision in the UK should be strongly celebrated here as a huge step in the right direction for women’s rights in NZ.
A closing point here regarding the rights of the trans community. None of this takes away from the fact that the trans community absolutely have rights like all other members of the community. However, those rights do not supersede the legal rights of (biological) women to ‘women only’ protected spaces and activities, as just confirmed by the UK Supreme Court.
This article was originally published by the Daily Telegraph New Zealand.
