New Zealand Police and the TQ+ influence

 First published 5th June 2023

When violence erupted at the Let Women Speak rally in Albert Park¹, like many, I was shocked at the police inaction. Whilst trans activists aggressively mobbed Kellie-Jay Keen and the rally marshalls, and also behaved aggressively towards other women attending the rally, a handful of police stood by and let it happen. Their response, when asked for help, was “we’re not here to protect you”. It had the disturbing feeling of them being instructed not to act. It was only when Kellie-Jay Keen’s security team and citizen-protectors got her outside the park that the police took over, and got her safely away. Whoever gave the police the instruction not to help may never be revealed, but questions have been asked. If we ever do get a straight answer, I personally would not be surprised if a Diversity Liaison Officer featured significantly.

Like much of New Zealand’s public service, our police force has been subjected to neo-rainbow² inculcation. An Official Information Act request has given some answers about the extent of this. The person’s name who received the attached response below from the police has been blacked out, as they jokingly(?) wondered if publishing it might put them on a 111 blacklist. This particular OIA request focussed more on how much neo-rainbow inculcation was there in the police force, rather than on the inaction of the police at the Let Women Speak rally. It ended up raising more questions, though. If those questions get asked and I get to see the answers, I’ll publish a follow-up to this. 

Following, is a précis of some pertinent points in the OIA information attached. Currently, the police have a 128-person Diversity Liaison Officer (DLO) network, and the number continues to grow. As we’re all well aware by now, the ‘Diversity’ part of the DLO appears far more focussed on the TQ+ end of the LGBTQIA+ acronym, than anything that goes before it. The number of DLOs in the police network equals around 0.8% of NZ’s 14,000 police personnel, which is also around the same percentage of transpeople in NZ. In contrast, there are 23 x Ethnic Liaison Officers, which is around 0.16% of the police force. According to the 2018 census, the combined non-European ethnic population of NZ was 37.67%. Unlike the Ethnic Liaison Officers, the Diversity Liaison Officers are not named on the Police website. However, this may be because they are voluntary roles.

In addition, there are three community police vehicles in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch which have the “Rainbow Pride” livery added to them. Any increase in the number of vehicles sporting these colours will be at the discretion of the 12 District Commanders.

Some questions were asked around the matter of searching detainees in the police station. Detainees are searched by someone of the same “gender identity”. No definition of gender identity is provided in this OIA information, although at one point the words ‘male and female’ confusingly appear in brackets alongside the term ‘gender identity’ near the bottom of the page numbered 16/33. A man who says he’s a woman can request a female officer to search him, which also applies to a strip search. It’s not clear if a female officer can request not to search a man who says he’s a woman. This could be a follow-up question. If the police are classifying detainees by gender identity instead of sex, that smacks of having the Diversity Liaison Officers’, and/or neo-rainbow lobbyists, fingerprints all over it, which inevitably means scant consideration given to women, irrespective of what side of the law they’re on.

As well as engaging Diversity Works New Zealand to provide various diversity training modules, the Police also have an online Rainbow 101 training module. It’s introduced by Rhona Stace, a male police officer who (carefully) says he’s transgender, as opposed to claiming to be the woman he presents as, and who is the Senior Prevention Partnerships Advisor – Inclusion³.  Rhona tells us “You don’t have to understand everything, or buy into everything in this module” - which sounds like a good start, until I notice he doesn’t also say it’s okay not to comply. From there, he continues into the emotional appeal of “Just know that it’s important to the safety of some particularly vulnerable individuals, all of whom are someone’s whanau [family]. It will help you to deliver on our promise to make them feel safe and be safe, too”. I wonder if it’s occurred to him that women may not feel safe or be safe if men who say they’re women are allowed into women’s spaces, upon nothing else but the claim of having a ‘woman’ gender identity? That’s a failure of the police promise right there.

The module contains much of the neo-rainbow message we’ve come to expect, but may be a bit dated as it only lists 27 genders - amongst which are Drag Kings or Queens! When did a sexualised parody of women become a gender identity? This is seriously misleading – but, upon reflection, when did the neo-rainbow let truth get in the way of a good story?

Of course, pronouns get a big push. There is not one single thought given to the consequences of using wrong-sex pronouns. Pronouns are permission; they are the gateway to allowing any man whomsoever says he’s a woman to have free and unfettered access to all women’s and girls’ spaces. How do you tell a man you’ve just called “she” that “she” can’t go into female spaces? How do you tell one man that “she” can go into female spaces, but tell another man that “she” can’t? How do women and girls “feel safe and be safe” if any man whomsoever is called “she” gets entry into their spaces? How we refer to people in our own time is up to us, but being compelled by our workplace, organisations, and the Public Service to call a man “she/her” has negative consequences with long tentacles.

I want to be quite clear that I’m not anti-police. What I am ‘anti’ is women’s rights, safety, and wellbeing getting a hiding just to appease men who refer to themselves as women. Language that represents women and girls is being eroded, as well as women’s and girls’ choice to say “no” to men. And many of us are very, very anti those things.

OIA request response from NZ Police 

¹Albert Park, Auckland, was where the Let Women Speak rally was held on March 25 2023.

Trans activists make women terrified for the safety at the Let Women Speak rally in New Zealand (aboldwoman.blogspot.com)

² Neo-rainbow is my term for what is often referred to just as ‘rainbow’. The LGBTQIA+ rainbow now has almost nothing in common with the LGB rainbow as it was originally devised and intended for, and stayed for decades. Once the TQ+ attached itself to the LGB it altered everything, and the TQ+ now dominates the rainbow community. All rainbow policies and references are in fact centred around the TQ+ now. The rainbow is no longer recognisable as the rainbow community it once was. Hence, my term neo-rainbow.

³A Senior Prevention Partnerships Advisor is a role in the New Zealand Police. The job description includes working with communities and partners to develop and implement prevention strategies that reduce crime and victimisation. They also work to build relationships with key stakeholders and provide advice on prevention initiatives. [copied from a Google search]

Job description: senior_prevention_partnerships_advisor.pdf (police.govt.nz)

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