Women in NZ have been thrown under the bus, this legislation was passed on the 9th of December unanimously with an extremely flawed process. They are claiming a small, wee, change that won't affect hardly anyone and talking about recognition apparently still failing to see the birth certificate is a primary identity document not a means of validation of feelings. One even claimed it was about reducing government interference in peoples lives. The minister is using their own unique definitions for words, claiming they are defined in law (that's because some things are self-evident or were). The only saving grace is that there will be a long lead in time before the provisions are brought in.
Still had people born overseas complaining because they will only allow NZ citizens born here to make the change, they don't apparently understand that they can't interfere with registries in other countries or alter their laws even though they wasted a lot of time looking at it.
The provisions are:
- Anyone can do this by filling out a form saying they identify as and that they understand the consequences. Younger people under 18 just need an affadavit added.
- A person can get their name changed at the same time as the marker and these unlike name changes under other provisions they will be provided with a birth certificate that appears the same as the one issued at registration of their birth.
- A person can change this multiple times and they will allow many gender markers, they plan to work this out regulations. They may add in extra requirements for multiple changes, but under no circumstances will there be a requirement for medical treatment.
- No provision to prevent misuse of the provisions for criminal purposes.
- Currently the corrections department places inmates in first instance on sex, verified by birth certificate if necessary and then they can apply if not a sex offender, apparently they are off looking at that because now birth certificates are now rendered unreliable.
- No provision for cancelling previous identity. At select committee they were aware this could allow a person to maintain two identities. They propose information sharing to manage this but outside of the government (if they eventually catch up, there is no provision for this to be proactively managed) only the person themselves or a deceased estate would be able to access this information. This won't be available to anyone else, so no idea what is to happen with external organisations verifying identity, doing police checks, even secondary documents like passports that rely on the primary identity documents being actual evidence of identity in the context they can be changed multiple times.
- They did throw a scrap at women that service providers could consider other things if deciding who is eligible, but doubt that will work in practice when it's full on self identification and all organisations and parliament are captured. They reject any points that women's rights may be reduced by them gutting the definition and allowing anyone to identify in with no restriction, any effects on sports and other areas.
At least the legislation in Victoria, Australia had an affadavit, have to return original birth certificate for destruction and update other documents maintaining links with ID (with some limits placed by federal law), offenders have to apply for approval and if they do get it, the change must be notified, they have limits of once every 12 months for changes and only 3 name changes allowed in a lifetime. Also changes in markers are limited to the 3 accepted ones in most jurisdictions.
It's a disaster, they couldn't even listen enough while pushing it through to put in some basic provisions against misuse.