November 2024
Suzanne Levy - Speech at the Global Protest Against Sex Self-ID - New Zealand
This time five years ago I was living in a kind of suburban lesbian utopia - blending in with a house in the suburbs with my partner and daughter - and although we weren't married, we were no longer prevented from being so if we wished; we had the choice just like other couples.
In terms of women’s rights I was fairly confident that our daughter would grow up with things at least as fair as I did; I was living in blissful ignorance. Those were my “good old days” and we have the feminists of the 60s and 70s to thank. Some of them are here today, no doubt wondering why it’s taking so bloody long!
It was around this time that I first heard the term self ID. I heard the term self ID in relation to a women’s conference that had just been cancelled by Massey University in Wellington; it was to be held in November 2019. Almost exactly five years ago. That conference was for Speak Up for Women.
I did a tad of investigating and realised that the woman who were being described as bigots, transphobic and anti-gay were nothing of the sort. This information made me pretty determined to attend the conference, so my partner and I went along with a load of other women (and some men I think) from Wellington and further afield, and enjoyed listening to some really fantastic and empowering speakers.
Holly Lawford-Smith
Megan Murphy
Melissa Derby
And of course, Ani O'Brien - it was eye opening to say the least and there was no going back.
The first thing that struck me about the term self ID is that it was obviously being used by people to describe something about themselves or someone else that isn’t a reality.
Nobody who is actually something ever has to use the term self ID - they simply are.
But then I began to really dig and found to my astonishment that the term “reality” was decidedly old fashioned and was only used by fascist, nazi bigots. Not only that, thoughts and feelings that centred women’s rights on women were to be avoided at all costs! Once I realised that the word woman was being used to describe men, well, then I really lost my shit.
So, I entered the world of TERFs, my partner and I spent a memorable (for all the wrong reasons) few weeks making all sorts of terrible discoveries about AGPs, ruined lesbian dating sights, rapid onset gender dysphoria and men in women’s sports. A friend who peaked at the same time messaged me and said “whatever you do, don’t google the cotton ceiling”... And here I am…
So what is the LEGAL situation with self ID?
The thing that the German self ID legislation and the New Zealand legislation both do is confirm that it’s all pretend. Our birth certificates are vanity documents.
In Germany the legislation has exclusions for sport and other areas and doesn’t seem to count when it comes to military conscription in wartime. In New Zealand our birth certificate may or may not be used to determine a person's sex - we can determine a person's sex in other ways, dangerously still permitted to use our eyes and ears! This important addition was implemented thanks to Speak Up for Women and other feminist groups who pointed out the insanity of the law change on other legislation and most importantly on the rights of women.
In both countries, from a trans activists point of view - the law gives with one hand and takes with the other. For the general public not familiar with the ins and outs of our laws, it creates confusion, an impression that self-ID actually means someone has changed sex.
But one thing is clear: the lawmakers do not really believe that trans women are women.
In Germany this makes it all the more ridiculous that there is scope for punishing someone who uses the name and sex of someone who has gone through the legal process of changing their birth certificate.
This might come as a shock to many of you but in New Zealand there is no legislation that prevents a service provider from providing single sex spaces.
Our BDMRR (or self ID) legislation has the “out” clause mentioned above and our human rights act outlines specific situations where it is not unlawful to discriminate on the basis of sex - these situations include sports, accommodation, changing rooms and bathrooms and counselling of a personal nature - plus others. Our Human Rights Act does not mention gender or gender identity once. It’s all about SEX.
So with the law on our side, why is it so hard to maintain women-only spaces, services and sports??
Well, nearly 20 years ago, Georgina Beyer, our first transgender MP proposed a bill to include gender identity in the Human Rights Act; it was in a limited form and proposed adding gender or gender identity to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination - also referred to as protected characteristics. It didn’t propose amending the exceptions - the parts of the act that give us protection based on our sex.
Rather than going through the normal bill process in parliament, the draft was sent to Crown Law - the Government lawyers - for an opinion to see if the change was actually necessary.
The short answer is that Crown Law said that in their opinion, changes were not necessary because gender was included under sex. The logic AND CONTEXT to this conclusion is best described using an example.
Let’s say a man applies for a job. The job is not sex specific; let’s say the job is a bus driver.
The male applicant dresses in a way that could be described as “like a woman”, to be honest, probably not like the way I am dressed today - but you know, like a gender-conforming woman! The male applicant doesn’t get the job and the reason given is that it is to do with the way he presents. Crown Law says that he should be able to claim that he is being discriminated against on the basis of his sex because he is not conforming to sex stereotypes - attire that is perfectly acceptable on a woman is not considered acceptable on him and the potential employer is unlawfully discriminating.
We actually think this is fair - it is how the law should work. This isn’t about whether he wants to be legally recognised as a woman, it’s about sex stereotypes and whether our appearance matches the perceived standard for our sex. And that’s what the Crown Law opinion was about.
That was in 2006, much has changed but men still can’t be women.
But in more recent years the human rights commission has picked up this opinion - and that is all it is, an opinion - and run with it. They have made it their own, have altered the context and have told govt agencies, councils, employers, service providers and anyone who will listen that it is unlawful to discriminate against transgender women in women’s spaces. Our previous Human Rights Commissioner believed that men could be lesbians. We have high hopes for the incoming commissioner and hope to meet with him very soon.
After some questioning from Speak up for Women, the HRC public guidance has changed; they now note alongside their women-hating advice that the law has not actually been tested in court - but the damage has been done. Organisations that should be able to rely on the HRC for good advice have been misinformed and women have been the losers and that’s putting it mildly.
The HRC - and the organisations that listen to them - have done a wonderful job of destroying the social contracts that keep women safe.
Our society runs on social contracts. Although it doesn’t always feel like it, in New Zealand we still live in a liberal democracy, we don’t have millions of tiny laws that govern our every move. For the most part we are left to our own devices to use common sense and social norms to decide how to behave and to decide what sort of behaviour is acceptable from others.
We know that it’s not ok to throw a stick for a stranger's dog at the dog park and we definitely know that it’s not ok for a man to be in a space where women and girls are vulnerable. But this contract is broken. We can no longer expect to be supported when we invoke it. In the past we didn't even have to invoke it
But thanks to TRAs and the Human Rights Commission, the social contract hasn’t just been broken or even ripped up, it’s been shredded into a thousand pieces, dropped in a puddle and urinated on - remember how they only want to pee?
So, it’s up to us, the women and men who know that it’s wrong and who have common sense and good memories.
We have squirrelled away our own copies of that contract and it’s up to us to wave it around, shove it in peoples faces and say “REMEMBER THIS???”
OH AND TRANS WOMEN ARE MEN.