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Yvonne van Dongen
Veteran NZ journo incredulous gender ideology escaped the lab. Won’t rest until reality makes a comeback.
My prediction that trans is tanking, a la the Trans Titanic, stands.
In coming years the number of young people identifying as trans will plummet, which means fewer youth will request medication and mutilating surgery. Trans as a marker of cool will fade and be seen for what it really is – a marker of mental illness. This is already happening in the birthplace of gender madness, the USA.
While pornofied transvestites will keep trying to inveigle themselves into women’s spaces, my guess is that public support for this sort of caper will also tank.
But woke? By which I mean the sacralisation of minorities regarded as oppressed (except Jews and white people) and consequent resource grab by said minorities – it’s going nowhere. In fact, in New Zealand the woke industrial complex is digging in, embedding Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in institutions, the law and the workforce. Anywhere they can.
Who’s behind it? Women on the whole. Bolstered by compliant males.
Case for the prosecution, Your Honour. In support of this submission, I rely on two items of evidence.
The first is the law itself. In her recent influential essay The Great Feminization, American writer Helen Andrews warned that the rule of law would be imperilled by the increased participation of women in the legal work force.
Her actual words were:
“The rule of law will NOT survive the legal profession becoming majority female.”
Andrews contends that feminine patterns of behaviour prioritise empathy over rationality, safety over risk and cohesion over competition. These qualities are ill-suited to the adversarial and rule-bound nature of the legal system.
A ‘feminized’ legal system might selectively bend rules to favour sympathetic groups while strictly enforcing them against others, eroding core principles like due process.
Andrews predicts this ethos could spread more broadly, leading to a system where judges treat laws instrumentally: that is, bypassing formalities in pursuit of perceived justice.
She says this trend has been evident in the United States since 2016 when law schools became majority female.
If that’s so, then New Zealand is even more at risk. Women here have been the clear majority in law school since the early 1990s.
As of June 2025 women made up 59 per cent of lawyers and men 42 per cent (the remainder identified as gender diverse or not stating). Among newer lawyers women are even more dominant at 64.5 per cent.
Women make up 41 per cent of senior legal roles and 40 per cent of partners in legal firms while judges are 49 per cent. In the Supreme Court, 50 per cent of judges are women, in the Court of Appeal that figure rises to 60 per cent and in specialist courts, such as Māori or environmental, that ranges anywhere between 50 to over 80 per cent.
New Zealand is not short of what some critics call “activist” judges but the ‘feminisation’ effect is muddied by ‘decolonisation’ trends and progressive appointments generally. Many of these cases are linked to Treaty of Waitangi/tikanga Māori claims or Bill of Rights interpretations favouring certain groups. These trends have roots in our unique bicultural and human rights legal framework.
However, this month Wellington lawyer Stephen Franks blamed “censorious” women for his recent censure and fining by the Law Society. On behalf of a client, Franks had written to 20 medical practices about the possible legal risks of continuing to prescribe puberty blockers to minors. This prompted six complaints, all of which were eventually overturned.
Franks’ explained on the Platform that many professional bodies are now dominated by censorious women who are quick to reprimand people for not being nice or upsetting others.
Does he have a point when it comes to the law?
Although there are no legal requirements favouring women in hiring, promotion, or partnership, the New Zealand Law Society does have a Gender Equality Charter (launched 2018). Signatory firms/committees commit to actions like unconscious bias training, gender pay audits, flexible working, equitable briefing (e.g., voluntary target of ≥50 per cent external instructions to women on significant matters), and increasing women in senior roles.
This is voluntary (not mandatory).
As well, this month until the end of April, New Zealand lawyers have been invited to respond to a survey “supporting diversity, equity and inclusion in the legal profession”. This is important because “As a kaitiaki, the Law Society has a responsibility to support a flourishing legal profession – now and for the future.”
The strategic plan for DEI will include “an aspirational statement for the future of the legal profession”.
You can access the survey here.
Potential aspirational statements include:
The makeup of the legal profession reflects the demographics of the country. This is true overall as well as for leadership roles and the judiciary.
People from all types of backgrounds see a place for themselves in the legal profession and feel like they belong.
All members of the legal profession feel valued, heard and supported in their work and differences are respected and celebrated.
Respondents are also asked whether this applies to women, Māori, Pasifika, Asian, other non-Pākehā, the disabled and LGBTQIA+. Also what strategies or actions are recommended for enhancing the DEI of the profession and progress made so far in DEI.
This blatant push to enshrine DEI in the New Zealand legal system is against the backdrop of the Trump administration, which has gone out of its way to eliminate federal DEI mandates and aggressively discourage it elsewhere, framing it as a return to merit, legality, and unity.
But New Zealand is still stuck in the ‘play-nicely, make-sure-everyone-has-a-turn, feels-over-facts’ mindset. That such a values-based survey is currently underway is an indication that the legal profession continues to favour sex and race-based preferences, aka the identity-based spoils system. It has yet to acknowledge that this approach discriminates against non-favoured groups (e.g., “anti-white racism,” men, or merit-based candidates).
They may well not be the only profession shoring up this ideology but their role as upholders of the rule of law gives them a special significance.
Your Honour, this is the first item of evidence proving that woke continues to thrive unabated down-under. As for the second – may the Court be adjourned until the next Substack.
This articles was originally published on the author’s Substack.
