A B'Old Woman

 Today, March 25 th , is the one-year anniversary of the worst mob violence ever seen against women in New Zealand. Today, I also heard that a Labour Member of Parliament has employed the man, Shaneel Lal, who was instrumental in whipping up that violence, as an executive assistant. Not only was he instrumental, he videoed himself on the day being jubilant about it. Allegedly, that MP is the Hon. Jenny Salesa , the MP for Panmure-Ōtāhuhu in Auckland, and the spokesperson for Ethnic Communities, Customs. So far, I’ve only had hearsay that she’s the MP who has employed Lal, and phone calls to both her electorate and parliamentary offices to verify it were answered only by voicemail. However, she and Lal do go back a few years, when she selected him to be her youth MP at the age of 18 . If it’s correct that Lal is indeed an executive assistant for Ms Salesa, it’s difficult to see how he can be an astute choice as an aide for the Spokesperson for Ethnic Communities, considering his bac...

 A man who helped to stoke up violence against women at the Let Women Speak rally in Albert Park, Auckland, on March 25, has just received an award. Many of us have now seen the videos of the violence against the women who attended that rally. One of the main instigators of this violence, Shaneel Lal, has just received the ‘Young New Zealander of the Year’ award, whose main sponsor is Kiwibank. All week prior to the Let Women Speak rally, the mainstream media, politicians, and activists stoked up aggression against Kellie-Jay Keen and the Let Women Speak rally. The lies and distortions by these people about Kellie-Jay Keen - and by extension those of us who are also opposed to gender ideology - were beyond anything rational, reasonable, professional or dignified. There was no observable attempt to investigate the slurs and allegations against Kellie-Jay Keen, before publicly parroting them. Nor was much attempt made to talk in a non-hostile way to her, or those of us who have the s...

 The Christchurch City Council in New Zealand has gradually been eroding women’s and girls’ rights to single-sex spaces over the last few years. Now, they have sealed it with their new Equity and Inclusion Policy , which replaces some older policies. The new policy fails to include ‘sex’ in the categories it serves, which are “ age, gender, disability, ethnicity, culture, faiths, geographical location, sexual orientation, neurodiversity or socio-economic status”. The committee which put this policy together saw fit to have the word ‘gender’ amongst the categories, but not ‘sex’, even though gender is slippery to define. Despite several submissions to the committee requesting inclusion of the word ‘sex’, an open letter to the Council which made a judicious case for that, plus individual emails to all to the councillors, the word ‘sex’ was not included, and the policy was adopted by the Council without it on 6 th March this year. So, now we women and girls in Christchurch have an “...

  Opinion : There’s been some fairly explosive news in the last week around the WPATH files , and England’s NHS announcement , eh?  At grassroots level, and as is probably very evident by now, I believe it’s vital for women and girls to retain, or regain, our single-sex spaces. This applies to any space, either indoors or outdoors, and whether or not individual changing cubicles and toilets are also provided. I have written previously about why there are good reasons  for women and girls to have single-sex spaces. No man (or older boy) has the right to be in women’s and girls’ single-sex spaces. This includes men who say they’re women, irrespective of their appearance or character. As soon as one man who says he’s a woman is permitted entry into a women’s and girls’ space, how do we stop any man at all who says he’s a woman? Do we make the decision based on whether he’s ‘woman-looking’ enough? If just one man gets through the door of a women’s and girls’ space purely upon...

  I had no idea that the  Reserve Bank of New Zealand  was no longer a relatively august institution, which took its management of NZ’s financial systems seriously. I realised it wouldn’t be completely unpenetrated by ‘progressive correctness’, because any workplace which hires university graduates will get that brought in with them. However, I didn’t expect to find that the Bank now likened itself to Tāne Māhuta, the God of the Forest. Tāne Māhuta  is a magnificent giant kauri tree in the Waipoua Forest in Northland, near the top of the North Island, and is estimated to be between 1,250 and 2,500 years old. It’s named after  Tāne , the Māori god of forests and of birds. Somehow, the Reserve Bank, with permission from a northern Māori hapu (subtribe), has decided that this revered centuries old natural marvel has a lot in common with the Bank, and has embraced it as a way of  explaining NZ’s financial system . Tāne Māhuta is apparently emblematic of th...

    An extremely disturbing exposé of WPATH - World Professional Association for Transgender Health – was published in a report this week by Mia Hughes. In it, WPATH comes under fire for “ clinicians who shape how “gender medicine” is regulated and practiced around the world consistently violate medical ethics and informed consent .” In New Zealand, we have PATHA – Professional Association for Transgender Health Aotearoa. On the executive of PATHA is Jaime Veale , a man who identifies as a woman, and originally hails from Canada. Veale says in his PATHA profile that he is “ a member of the Global Board of Directors of the  World Professional Association for Transgender Health  (WPATH), and I am one of the authors of the latest revision of the WPATH Standards of Care”. New Zealand’s Ministry of Health endorses PATHA’s guidelines, but has never assessed them. Jan Rivers, an ex-public servant, and now a citizen researcher, has herself done an assessment of the PATHA g...