‘Policing’ is not a dirty word, and women and girls need to re-claim our ‘frontline policing’ role of female spaces.

 I’m off to Wellington on Thursday this week¹, as part of a combined delegation from the Women’s Rights Party NZ and Mana Wāhine Kōrero, to give an oral submission to a Law Commission panel. The Law Commission has put out an issues paper about including the word ‘gender’ in NZ’s Human Rights Act. Although the Law Commission is not a Public Service entity, they give the impression of being every bit as institutionally captured by gender ideology as our public service. I retain a small hope I’m wrong, but it’s doubtful.

Looking at the ‘Expert Advisory Group’ whom the Law Commission consulted on the issues paper - and paid them well for it, I expect - there is a detectable theme of TQ+ and woke-leaning bios amongst them. Unsurprisingly, the issues paper has language running through it which is straight from the mouths of TQ+ lobbyists, and evidently adopted by the Law Commission.

With this in mind it’s not unreasonable to anticipate, when it’s pointed out to the Law Commission how ‘gender’ in legislation will allow any man who says he’s a woman to have free and unfettered entry into all female spaces, for them to ask how we would “police” those spaces. This is a red-herring question, and once again, straight from the mouths of TQ+ lobbyists. Hopefully, the Law Commission won’t totally embarrass themselves by suggesting the only way to police single-sex spaces is by inspecting genitals, but a little bird has told me there’s a real possibility they may ask if birth certificates need to be presented for that purpose.

Sigh.

First, the Law Commission of all people should know that the Dept of Internal Affairs says that “birth certificates are not usually used to determine a person’s right to access single sex services or spaces”, especially since sex self-ID came into law. It also states that “other [unspecified] factors can be considered over and above the registered sex listed on a birth certificate”. The methods we can use to ascertain a person’s sex from other factors are also unspecified. This means it’s not unreasonable to infer we can employ the old-fashioned method of using our eyes and ears, just like we’ve always done.

Yes, we know no system is perfect and mistakes can be made, and a woman could be wrongly accused of being a man, but this is usually rectified with just a few seconds of conversation. Is this rare mistake worse than allowing any man who says he’s a woman into female spaces, with the potential of making women and girls so uncomfortable or distressed that they don’t want to use that facility again? Or for them to be so anxious about using any other female facilities they reduce their engagement in public life?

Women and girls are now being made to feel we can no longer challenge people in our spaces whom we don’t think should be there, for fear of giving offence, or being chastised for it by others. This is absolutely wrong! We should retain the right, no matter what, to challenge anyone in our spaces we don’t think, or aren’t sure, should be there. It’s called safeguarding our spaces, and the ‘frontline policing’ of that starts with us.

We’ve always had to police our spaces and the situations we go into, to some degree or other. That’s life, and probably always will be, whether we like it or not. ‘Policing’ is not a dirty word, it’s a strategy we use to help keep ourselves safe. The sign on a communal toilet or changing room door which says ‘women’ or ‘female’ is there to show that an enforceable policy is in place, and there are consequences for not adhering to it. But the frontline policing of it begins with women and girls. We understood that very clearly once, and we need to reclaim it.

If the word ‘gender’ goes into NZ’s Human Rights Act, then women and girls face the real threat of losing the ability to police our spaces from any man at all who says he’s a woman. We will be made ‘toothless’, and subject to the whims of those men. It’s bad enough that some councils and workplaces, for example, are already doing this, without it becoming the law of the land.

After I’ve made my oral submission to the Law Commission panel on Thursday, I’ll do a write-up of how it went, and include a copy of my submission. I fully expect them to be utterly puzzled about how we can have single-sex spaces without inspecting genitals or birth certificates, and be aghast at the thought we could just police those spaces in the same manner we always used to do.

I expect they may need to be re-educated that ‘police’ isn’t a dirty word, and that perhaps it would be a better to take the (woke) notion that it is right out of their heads 😊

¹Thursday 15^th August 2024.

Header pic by Harris Rigorad