Name changed for privacy reasons. I am a PP in this thread.
Just sent the following email:
Dear Mr Hipkins,
I was horrified to read, in the international media over the last few days, reports of the assaults carried out on Kellie-Jay Keen and other women's rights protesters, by trans activists in Auckland.
In case you are unaware of the context, Kellie-Jay Keen is a British women's rights campaigner who holds events under the name "Let Women Speak". These events are low budget and low tech, consisting mainly of a patch of grass and a microphone. Any woman who has something to say about women's rights is permitted to do so. Kellie-Jay Keen was invited to New Zealand by a group of Maori women to host this event.
Similar events have taken place in other countries, namely in the UK but also in Australia. Due to the focus on single sex spaces for women, which are currently under threat all over the western world where transgender males are allowed to self ID into such spaces, these events typically attract counter-protests from trans activists. Women exercising their right to peaceful protest have been verbally, physically and in some cases sexually assaulted by violent trans activists, for example, in Bristol and Brighton in the UK, in Melbourne, and now in Auckland.
What has shocked me to the core about the events in Auckland is the fact that, after multiple women were assaulted by trans activists simply for exercising their right to speak about an issue which is having serious consequences for women everywhere, and after Kellie-Jay Keen herself was forced to flee your country due to fears for her own safety, New Zealand politicians spoke out, praising the trans activist community for a job well done.
Kellie-Jay Keen and many other women worldwide have legitimate concerns about the presence of transgender males, not all of whom are harmless or benign, in women's changing rooms, rape crisis groups, prisons and sporting categories. Even if their concerns were not legitimate, which in my view they are, they should still be entitled to exercise their right to peaceful free speech without being threatened and assaulted by people who are supposedly on the "right side of history", and who are aggressively demanding that women "be kind" to them.
This is not the first time that New Zealand has shown itself to be completely tone deaf on this issue. Many of us were disgusted about the smug, self-congratulatory speeches emanating from New Zealand about being the first country in the world to send a trans woman to compete as a woman at the Olympics. Most people around the world saw this for what it was: a mediocre, privileged, white male weightlifter from a rich country, who had failed to excel at men's weight lifting, stealing the opportunity of a lifetime for a young, elite, female athlete to represent her country at the Olympics.
This is not progressive. This is misogyny. If you think that New Zealand is painting itself in a positive light on this issue, you are very much mistaken.
I will be boycotting New Zealand products until further notice, and encouraging others to do the same.