Scared and depressed at the situation in NZ

[SunnyintheSun]

Hi, long time member but I rarely post these days. Based in NZ and read this on the news tonight:

i.stuff.co.nz/national/125347551/controversial-womens-group-granted-use-of-nelson-council-venue

Speak Up For Women is a feminist group, wanting to talk about proposed new self-ID legislation that has been introduced to the NZ Parliament after Select Committee, ie zero consultation. The group is described in the article as ‘controversial’ and has apparently been banned from some venues. How has it come to this? Not only that women’s rights to politely debate legislation and defend their existing sex-based rights are being removed but that one of our major news sources, Stuff, seems to think this is absolutely fine??

I feel scared to be a woman in NZ tonight and profoundly let down by both our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, and by the media.

Thanks for alerting us to the petition @SunnyintheSun. I have signed.

Thank you, I have signed the petition.

Ok, so the Stuff commentary is hopelessly misogynistic but the good news is that the Save Women’s Sports petition has been accepted into Parliament…by National:

i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300329574/petition-targeting-trans-women-in-womens-sport-accepted-by-national-mps

Two things puzzle me:

1. In NZ heaps of community sports are played in a modified way (with rules that minimise contact etc) mixed sex - touch rugby, indoor football, casual netball. It’s the competitive sports that are single sex. If you are trans why would you not join a mixed sex team?

1. I’m a life long Labour supporter but it looks like only National (= conservative for Brits) are picking this up. Do Labour and the Greens have any idea how many votes they might lose over this??

Hand in hand with the self ID/gender recognition and sports comes a consultation on your surrogacy laws. Which, from what I've seen, looks as if it will go exactly the same way as ours. Ie remove rights and protections for women and babies in favour of producing a breeder class of woman to supply babies for those that can afford it.

A post from me on that thread.

"Under New Zealand law, there are no legal protections for parents having a baby by surrogate or for the surrogate herself. The surrogate is considered the legal parent and the biological parents must adopt the child after birth to make the relationship legal. This means that under NZ law, the surrogate can either terminate or keep the baby as she wishes. It also means that the biological parents can change their minds and abandon the surrogate with the baby.
Given the lack of protections for either party, some legal experts say our laws are "not fit for purpose". Labour MP Tāmati Coffey, who, with his partner Tim Smith, welcomed their son Tūtānekai by surrogate in 2019, currently has a members' bill in ballot calling for modern laws for modern families. It includes reform of birth certificates, providing a way
to enforce surrogacy arrangements and creating a register of potential surrogates."

They talk about enforceable contracts, which are indeed the case in the commercial USA. Whatever happened to "her body, her choice" which proponents of surrogacy often trot out as a reason why women cannot/should not be prevented from having a surrogate prefix they wish. And yet they would force a woman who realises this is a mistake early in the pregnancy to carry in and complete the deal? And if the commissioning parents change their minds and abandon the baby (as happens from time to time with several well documented cases I have seen) ?Well it would obviously be a terrible outcome but it's probably better that other arrangements are made for the baby than that it is sent home with reluctant parents who don't want it and won't love it.

Whoops. Here's the link to a recent thread about a case is surrogacy gone wrong that hit the newspapers in NZ.

Surrogacy ends in abortion and ends a friendship www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4239144-Surrogacy-ends-in-abortion-and-ends-a-friendship

And another posters comment:

'the surrogate can either terminate or keep the baby as she wishes'

What a difference a word makes. Reading that phrase with the word 'surrogate' replaced with 'Woman' makes me realise why the other side is so desperate to erase the word woman.

I am a NZer. I am a cis female. I support the right of people who identify with a gender to live a life as that gender. I may disagree profoundly with that women's group but support their right to meet and discuss whatever they want to discuss. They are entitled to their views without being pilloried for it although personally I do find the focus of many such groups on public conveniences quite peculiar. I support people who actually identify as a gender using the conveniences of that gender. The thing is that I mean people who actually identify as that gender. I know people who are XX who would cause outrage if they used a ladies because they look, sound and dress like men. Not surprisingly they don't actually do that because they have sensitivity eg they may go to the gym already in gym clothes and shower at home. Some random man who wanders into a ladies changing room is not the same thing.

Despite my views, I do have real reservations about sports though. I can't quite see how it is fair for somebody who was XY and went through puberty as XY with the height, bone structure and muscle development that entailed competing against XX women in rugby for instance. The XX women are liable to be flattened in a tackle.

Hi Rangoon

I hear you, but where do you draw the line? Do we want the Karen White situation in our prisons? twitter.com/catsiesXX/status/1402821136665120769?s=20

What about our women’s refuges? Should women fleeing domestic violence have access to a single sex space?

And what happens (as in the UK) when rape and sexual violence statistics are recorded by preferred gender rather than sex? It only takes one or two to completely skew the data.

I almost can’t read the surrogacy messages - the situation is so awful. :-(

1. In NZ heaps of community sports are played in a modified way (with rules that minimise contact etc) mixed sex - touch rugby, indoor football, casual netball. It’s the competitive sports that are single sex. If you are trans why would you not join a mixed sex team?

In mixed community sports in the UK the rules are altered to be competitive for women. I used to play mixed tag rugby and there was:

• a minimum number of female players on the pitch at all times
• double points if a try was scored by a woman

Even with that, there was still a tendency for the men to just pass to each other and ignore the women. Some male players also used physical strength advantage to intimate women. For example, it's a foul for an attacking player to run right into a defender, but if a big guy runs straight at a woman it's either move or get wiped out.

I don't think a trans woman would playing on a mixed team would solve any problems: do they count as a female player (unfair to opponents and to women who may be subbed off for another guy) or as a male player (distressing as not affirming gender identity).

I also think that amateur community sports need more safeguards than professional sports. Explicit fairness is more important at a high level because the stakes are much higher (medals, national team selection etc). However, people playing amateur sports have lower fitness levels and poorer technique, so there may already be a higher risk of injury, just because players may not be so aware of how to play in a way that keeps themselves and other players safe. (I'm not totally sure about this but anecdotally I've seen some life altering injuries in very amateur roller derby and several sprains and fractures in casual tag rugby. Incidentally, I would never ever play roller derby because the gung-ho attitude to injury in the people I know who play is terrifying.) It worries me a lot that the focus in sports is on fairness in elite sports, with safety in community sport compromised because it's seen as less important.