Scared and depressed at the situation in NZ

@SunnyintheSun I am in NZ and have to tread really carefully on this as I have a senior role in public healthcare and have to follow rules around not being publicly political.

However, I am pushing back on the self ID stuff at work by being well read on this topic and asking the right questions at work. So for example, on discussions about the use of 'people with a cervix' for communication about cervical cancer I asked if we had checked the rates of understanding of the word 'cervix' among the population with the lowest rates of screening (Maori, Pacific and lower socio economic groups). I've also raised the issue of access to prison and refuges under self ID over lunch room chats etc.

The sport thing will be a big deal here. Women's sport is huge here compared to UK and there will be outrage at the lack of fairness. I reckon if a transwoman turned up looking for a place in the national netball team it would be game over.

I watched that interview @FOJN and it was excellent. Extremely heartening that some prominent and respected sportspeople have spoken out.

Another NZer here and I feel much like you, Sunny. Ardern is very good at sussing out what has the cool factor. Plus, coming from marketing, she's doing a great job with ladling out Be Kind slogans. It's all very depressing.

Nonetheless, I'll write to my MP, and write to the dirtdumb venues giving SpeakUpForWomen a hard time. Maybe fire something off to Stuff and NZHerald. As Jane Clare Jones says, "Pull!"

This may be of interest to you, Posie Parker speaking to a NZ campaigner for women's sport.

I think what turned the tide in the UK was the huge meetings of women in the big cities, it wss inspjrational even for those who could not attend. New Zealand is far less populous country but I hope something similar can be organized in Wellington or Auckland. I have been to NZ and met many Kiwis over here, I love the nation and the people and have faith they can turn it around

UK, Spain, Germany and Finland (I think it was Finland) have all very recently stopped self ID laws.

This is not a done deal.

If it is being snuck in undercover your job right now is to make sure as many people as possible hear about what is happening.

Do you have friends irl who you can discuss this with?

You've a difficult road ahead of you in NZ and I can only hope that if there's a change in the UK this makes it smoother for you, with fewer battles to be fought.

This is new to NZ, whilst it's been a prominent issue here for many years now. I remember becoming fully aware of the scale of the issue around 4 or 5 years ago in the UK, whilst it wasn't talked about in NZ at all.

An NZ family member, who had been totally disinterested in anything I had to say on the matter God not this again out of nowhere a few months ago, made a wee cynical joke to me about something connected. I was 😲 and it showed that awareness and interest is growing in NZ.

The case of Laurel Hubbard is certainly raising awareness of what this means for girls' sport, which holds great importance in NZ.

The tide is turning in NZ too.

Hi Sunny.

Depressing as that sounds, that was exactly the position the UK was in a few years back. Women’s meetings were smeared as controversial and regarded as an outlier position. But slowly that is changing and those controversial groups, while still rather pilloried (as women’s groups often are) there are definite signs that political changes are afoot.

Keep pulling.