1 200 Campaign Season E 1 Trans Voices on Anti Trans Legislation

down the gates again to the party. Golden was just room and now the king of his Hello and welcome to one of 200 the New Zealand politics and news podcast which is currently on hiatus because Kyle is just too damn lazy to do the job anymore. My name is John and am doing the intro and the outro of today's episode. am joined by three experts in respective fields. But there's been some news this week which concerns them their lives their rights. The plan is to have an episode of them talking about it and occasionally bullying me mercilessly. So, first we have Jen Shields, director of Qtopia and Christ Church's number one great picker of places to have breakfast. Hello, Jen. Mhm. Yeah, good compliment. Thank you. We're also joined by Simone, who is every opposition researcher's favorite podcaster. Hello, Simone. That's true. That's true. John, good morning. Although it's kind of afternoon now, which is quite rare for us, isn't it? Now, am not merciful? There'll be mercy in the bullying. And we're also joined by Mia who has spoken to us at the beginning of this podcast and explained that that she is is young person which has instantly terrified all of us old people who do these podcasts and don't watch Jimmy Beast videos. Yeah, I'm 23. I'm resident. speak at protest sometimes. don't know. I'm just here for the hell of it. Okay. So, what week, They just coming. Yeah, the the years start coming and they do not in fact stop coming. like that we stopped the current events podcasts right before more stuff happened. It would be really good if Francis Fukyama write and history did end, but it doesn't end and it hasn't ended. In many ways, Kyle is the Francis Fukyama of the New Zealand left. He always saying this, he's sock dam. He declared that politics was he declared that politics was over for for the winter so he can go and hibernate in his the opportunities parties leaflets nest that he's built and you know unfortunately those of us who actually live in the real world sorry Kyle have to continue. So who would like to start this conversation? like his hibernation actually the Kyle can slow down his heartbeat to only 20 beats per minute. there has been bill that was wild transition. There has been bill. actually want to hand this over to Jen Shields who knows lot more about this. and just kind of do bit of segue because think it's good for us to actually get things factually correct most of the time on this podcast. That's what I'm hearing from the fans. love that I'm the one that's trusted to be factually correct. That's great. There are some people on the internet who would really heartenly disagree with that characterization of me, but that's exactly what we're here to talk about. Read biology textbook, Jan 101. yeah. Yeah. On Wednesday this week, the legislation definition of woman and man amendment bill passed first reading, much to our country's shame. this is very brief piece of legislation. Maybe takes the award for briefest, most unbelievable of piece of legislation to have ever existed, considering all of the flow on effects to other pieces of legislation. Because the bill almost in its entirety says that in New Zealand legislation, woman refers to adult human biological female and man refers to adult human biological male. And similarly for male and female having incredibly hilarious flow on effects in terms of things like fisheries legislation setting rules for the size of adult human female biological lobster tales that you can take from the ocean. and maybe more worryingly intersects with our age of majority legislation which defines the age of majority as 20 and then immediately specifies that any use of the word adult in New Zealand legislation refers to someone over 20. So therefore anyone under 20 in altered under this piece of legislation no longer has biological sex. So thank you New Zealand first for making my job thousand times easier. It was actually really woke. Everybody agenda. Okay, maybe we should let them cook. It is. It is true. mean, we talk about the silliness and think this is part of what Sean Paul calls the kind of fascist's right to play, right? They don't have to believe in the meanings of words and there is really just political veilance to what's going on here because in with respect to drafting, it makes no sense. This was written on the back of napkin by Winston Peters when he was 10 drinks sober into something at bar because he's always sober and we never do defamation on the show and it's quite concerning think for the reason that there is kind of show of power and incompetence to me at least and that there has been such the split because correct me if I'm wrong Jen but it was actually in New Zealand first kind of sign off under the previous Labor government which had allowed the changing of people's birth certificates right with their gender on it with the new name rather than doing the whole rigma roll which people have overseas where they have like recognition certificate or some other such extra piece of paper that was don't want to get it wrong was that Tracy Martin or someone else yeah don't even think it was necessarily their sign off think she led that work so that's an example where yeah we've seen this kind turnaround and think it's important to pull this back little bit and say that the puberty block as number of other bills aren't and and pieces of secondary legislation and guidance aren't in isolation shall we say they exist within the context of rising fascism both within the Anglophere and also within kind of the European sphere of influence as well generally speaking in the kind of imperial domain of the world right and this is Not not to kind of dehumanize anybody who's at the sharp end of this, which includes, you know, people on this podcast, but it is tactic, right? The intention is to try to drive these wedges and to divide and to try to, for want of better word, for lot of people, this becomes kind of distraction, right? Which it isn't because this has material effects on real human people, adult biological people and child biological people, right? you know, there will be serious harmful flow and effects physically for lot of people because of these attacks. Not to to get too grizzly about it, but yes, and think it is worth noting that yes, this is part of kind of overall strategy by the far right, which has just become the right-wing and lot of our countries, lot of the settler colonies and within lot of Europe as well, that this is project to roll back number of rights, including despite whatever turfs will tell you, women's rights. You know, this is not government in New Zealand, for example, which cares about women's rights. They scrapped pay equity. They definitely don't. And don't let anybody tell you otherwise. So, think it's worth kind of seeing that within that broader scope without conceding the humanity of who this is going to affect because it will because people who are trans are human people and they have lives. Except for furies. love you guys. yeah, it's really evident in the legislation itself, right? like bill that is purported to protect the safety and rights of women. You think they would have analyzed the impacts of the bill enough for them to pick up on the fact that it would make access to abortion impossible for anyone under 20 because of how it intersects with our abortion reform legislation. Like these people are not seriously they're not serious about it, but they are in that they're not obviously not serious about protecting women. They are serious about the actual intent of the bill which is creating that division, increasing social cohesion and using trans people and our lives and worsening those lives as the mechanism to do that. We get the worst of both worlds. we both get to suffer like worsening social cohesion because of the way that our needs and experiences and lives have been created or used as wedge to drive that division further. So we have to live in world and get the blame for it at the same time. Where have we seen that before? Right. yeah, me did want to turn to you as kind of young person and as somebody who is an activist basis and undertakes some of that organizing work. From your perspective, what is what is this bill and what does that kind of mean? So this one's interesting because would actually like didn't know that this wouldn't allow people under the age of 20 to access abortion. That's horrific. didn't know that was thing. my understanding of this bill and plead again correct me if I'm wrong because I'm unfortunately not always the most like aware of everything I'm not super annoy some of our wonderful other scholars are but mine is ending is this is bit of nothing burger but you guys know you guys have heard the term nothing burger okay if say any slang that you guys don't know please can clarify that one's millennial special you don't get to claim that one you can tell cuz it's twe but anyways, my understanding was that this is nothing but bill that is more about posturing to far right audience and about kind of like building legal framework for discriminating against French people rather than any meaningful impact on us right now if that makes sense. And so it's it's you know volunteer for Rainbow Youth. had my my youth group last night. Is this today? Saturday. Yes. Yes. Last night. And it was it was just had kids coming in crying and you know like it's it's it's again like tried to kind of talk them through what might happen and what can be done about it and reassure them. But it's just I'm seeing so much despair from everyone my age because we just keep seeing more and more transphobic, racist, sexist, homophobic, able ab ableist laws just bigger than million different ways be proposed and passed. And think my generation feels very doomer in that there's nothing we can do about it. It seems we just kind of cooked. We sit here and we watch as the boomers get all of their property values and all their all their stock values and all their their their housing that will never get to while we just get slowly discriminated against and marginalized and turned against each other is think how my generation sees it. Yeah, you're so right. you know, the way that our human rights legislation is set up, you know, the terms male and female, man and woman, aren't in the Human Rights Act that the terms sex is. And that's where, you know, our protection from discrimination comes from legally. So, you you're so right. On paper, this bill doesn't do what it says it will do and doesn't have any like immediate clear legal effects for us purely because of how how how unbelievably useless in the way that it's been drafted like it what it will do is create huge amount of legal uncertainty in terms of how the courts interpret that law. And think what you've nailed there is like because I've seen it in the community already, you know, hearing from people who are supporting their friends in crisis because of because of the bill passing first reading. And so much of the intent, think, is that that posturing and in some ways kind of relying on the obscurity of the legal framework as to where our protection in terms of the human rights comes from. People are scared and it is really hard to give clear like advice about what might happen next because the bill itself is so vague and so messy. But it's definitely like step further down direction we don't want to be going in and we've seen, you know, we have the benefit of being able to see overseas as to how these things play out. And yeah, think that's one of the other reasons why our communities are reacting to this bill so strongly already is because we have that awareness of of how bad is internationally and know that, you know, even though this is huge, confusing, complicated mess, we know where it is headed. We know what that is like for our friends overseas. Maybe we should zoom out little bit then and talk about something that's happened almost in parallel in the United Kingdom, which is in recent years really just gone down. really led myself into the sentence. It's gone down the in terms of trans trans rights, right? and and you know, rights for who is not man essentially. while kind of doing this under the banner of proclaiming this is to do with women's rights and single sex rights, etc., etc. kind of all these transphobic talking points and discourses and things keep getting worse and worse. There's almost competition think amongst the political class to see who can stick the boot in amongst this minority more. So you see these competitions between Star and West Streeting and Andy Burnham about who can who can be the worst to trans people and particularly to attack trans women. But obviously anybody who is interex, non-binary, trans man or otherwise in some way gender non-conforming is going to be caught up by all of this. And there is almost kind of patronizing, insulting kind of degendering component to the attacks on trans men in England where you have all of these turfs saying, you know, come and be woman. You'll, you know, you're baby machine." All that sort of stuff. Irreversible damage. You know, just disgusting stuff. we've seen most recently and wanted to talk about this because it's happened so close to what's happened here in New Zealand is this new guidance from the AHCR. Can you talk about that little bit, Jen? Yeah. Yeah. So, the UK's Equalities and Human Rights Commission, you know what you said, the EHCR has been working on this updated draft guidance for man. just talked about how, you know, obtuse our legal framework for human rights is. The UK is so much worse. So, they've released guidance for services. So, I've been trying to work my way through this this morning. The law is the law obviously and then in the UK on top of that sits specific guidance that the Human Rights Commission puts out for different sectors. So, organizations that provide services to communities, education, workplaces each have their own separate guidance. And the guidance that has come out is for services which contributes to how confusing this is already looking to essentially update guidance after the Scottish minister's Supreme Court ruling that really with things in the UK declaring yeah particularly around around single sex bases and this idea of biological sex. the updated guidance in is meant to look to put that in practice. The way that it's being talked about is like so because you have on one hand the media who are basically saying the guidance says everyone must exclude trans people. You have trans people looking through it and doing the analysis and trying to figure out where exactly it says you can and can't exclude trans people. And then you have the Labor Party talking about how horrible it is that trans people had to wait so long for this guidance to be delivered. We should get better at telling trans people they can't exist in public life faster is the takeaway for the Labor Party there. But some of the headlines from this updated guidance is the fact that they consider that an organization providing services that are sex specific and include trans women and cis women is discriminatory. inherently discriminatory. But if they provided services to trans women, cis women and cis men, then it's fine. If they provide services to cis women and cis men, it's fine. It's just the trans woman that is the issue. And then like you touched on, you know, trans men are also facing more and more of the brunt of this in terms of how think as result of how often they have been an afterthought in turf minds other than trying to dransition them. The guidance now says that trans men can be legally excluded from single sex spaces, both men's and women's spaces, purely on the basis that some woman may feel uncomfortable with trans man in the space. So, we're at the point in the UK now where someone's perceived discomfort is enough to legally exclude trans person from an area of public life. And it's perhaps worth interrogating little bit that very obviously if it is such fundamental biological thing, there's no kind of social effect going on here, why would it be that cis woman might be uncomfortable with trans man being in quote unquote her single sex space, right? And it's only because we have social gendered perceptions of people and bodies and the way that they present themselves and speech and attire and all of this, right? Like it's so clearly obvious that there's there's total logical contradiction in every trans phobe's worldview. But it doesn't matter because the whole point of this kind of fascism really is we have power. We can define reality at any moment. It doesn't matter if said something different 5 seconds ago. This is the same reason why Trump is able to make the speeches that he's able to. Why nothing has to be consistent because there is only an ever shrinking inroup and an out groupoup which can be attacked for the satisfaction of the inroup. Right? It's this imposition of gendered hierarchy in way which kind of in intends to attempt to invite cis women into higher gender hierarchy in the hopes that they will turn on anybody in the out group. But think lot of people say this is really weird and disturbing and off-putting and the UK certainly can't speak for and New Zealand not to say it can't happen here. There could be concerted efforts and think that people mostly kind of go with the flow here but lot of people feel like New Zealand culture particularly park culture is lot of like don't want to know if that makes sense. You know we're not interested in unless politician brings it up we're not particularly interested in their religion. It's not like in America where you have to have wife on your arm and start talking about the church that you go to. Even Obama had to pretend to do that, right? This isn't something that we're particularly interested in. And lot of people feel like it kind of doesn't matter. Now, there is very obviously still discrimination if you kind of, you know, walk down the street and there will always be shitty people. But do think that this is something where people feel if it's being imposed or heavy-handed, they have kind of rebound effect to it, right? They flinch at that. And this isn't popular politics at all. Perhaps think it might be worth, you know, not to not to assume that our audience is, you know, not hashtag woke or anything like that, but it might be worth picking into what exactly doesn't make sense about lot of this. Maybe we'll start with this idea of you know this isn't in the bill woman means an adult human biological female and female means human biological female. mean this the definitions are toological right that doesn't make sense to start off with. secondly legally in New Zealand there's been large movement in our legislation towards degendered language just you know person right gender neutral language because otherwise it doesn't make sense. Prior to that, of course, contrary to what transphobes would tell you, there wasn't this idea of, you know, two sexes, man and woman, existing as this, we used the third person pronoun he to encompass all people because women were kind of subset of men who were missing something. You can see this in Shakespeare, right? Much to do about nothing. The idea that having nothing is what, you know, sis woman's genitalia are, right? It's missing. you are missing the component of humanity that makes man more human than you. Yeah. And women are kind of contained within that subset. So we see that these things change across time. But want to attack this kind of concept of biological because it really doesn't make sense on any level. Trans women, unless they're like robot girls or something, are biological, right? you know and they are biological women and they have the same if they are you know transitioning their sex they have the same hormones as cis women do it's just introduced externally right downstream so there's kind of this silly thing where the the development of secondary sex characteristics is totally denied there is almost kind of if might say kind of gender creationism about this particular brand of transphobia, right? It is not only essententralized it's essententralized in way which suggests that there is just this platonic ideal which kind of pops into existence on earth and this is sis woman right that there is no other process going on and that transitioning sex characteristics isn't something which happens which it does this is materially true this is just reality right there's kind of nonsense to it and that's part of what the attack is is kind of attack on reality think yeah and And think you know through through Pathther's judicial review obviously one of our central claims is that the pub blocker ban is inherently discriminatory because it you know is limiting access to health care for one population and and not another and in New Zealand's human rights framework you know that discrimination under gender identity is protected under the grounds of sex. So this issue is has been you know relatively central to lot of that work. So, it's been really fascinating to, you know, increase my own understanding around this and to talk to some of the experts like Ed Hyde who's an OBGYn and biology specialist who contributed some quotes to Qutopia press release we released this week and he put it really simply and and so straightforwardly is that you can't there there is no way to create biological binary definition of biological sex because biological sex is not binary. There is no definition you could create that would not unintentionally exclude some cisgender woman alongside transgender woman. It's totally impractical. And you're so right, Simone. Like there's nothing about my body that isn't biological. There's this comes up in my work so much when we're talking to like in the healthcare sector and even in healthcare. There's actually think relatively advanced understanding that sex is so much more than just like this static thing that happened to you once at birth and everyone's body is the same. became an identical after that. Like the kind of health care that need and the reference ranges that people use for tests and huge amount of, you know, so many aspects of medical care are not the same as for cis man's because my body is not cis man's because I'm not biologically male. Like it's it's totally nonsensical and is an entire social construction to try and claim that sex is naturally in inherently binary in way that makes sense to be able to enshrine it in legislation. It's entirely unworkable. And kind of peeling back even from that, the fact that this has to be defined in legislation puts the lie to the fact that this is biological, right? Laws are something that we create socially amongst ourselves in order to govern society in order to have expectations about how we ought to treat one another if we don't have really close familial or village ties to them. Right? This is way of mitigating and mediating each other and conflict and whole number of host of other kind of factors that come from human society arising. Right? There is nothing biological about that except for that human people are doing it. We have these constructs of language itself being technology that we use, right? There's something almost silly about it if it wasn't dangerous. This insistence of no, this is biology happening here. Because when transphobes use the term biology, what they really mean is sociological category with political veilance. and the political veilance is tending toward genocide. That's what we're talking about here. The intention of drawing circle around particular kind of person with the intent to try to exclude other people is to eliminate and eradicate that group, which not to freak out your youth group, Mia. I'm sorry, but like this is along the same wedge, right? It's just further along. And it behooves us, think, in New Zealand not to sit back and say, "Well, this wouldn't happen here because we are different, because people are notably chill here." Well, perhaps the reason, you know, the fact that we're chill actually makes political action more difficult in New Zealand because people are apathetic. You know, there are all sorts of different sides of these coins. We can't really rest on our laurels. think not to say that anybody here is doing that. don't think so. But want to implore the listenership not to accept that just because things are like this here now that they will always be like that. Think about how quickly this turned in England and there are particular class components to that which are different and there are other aspects of the polity in the United Kingdom which make that different. But it doesn't mean that there isn't an intent to move this toward kind of genocidal political veilance right here. And it's important for us to really think about what we're going to do to plan for when that same exact strategic plan of action unfolds here because it has started. And we do have figures in the press, media figures who are essentially for one of better word, they are people who could ultimately hang at Nuremberg, right, about this. And we have to be very careful and we have to be proactive. think this is not an opening salvo, but it is one of the first. Right. And like we were saying, this is very it's very small bill. It has what is it? 1, two, three, four, just principal sections and then it's got 13A and 13B and that's it. Less than page, right? But it's kind of critical to really understand that the intent of this is to try to widen and push and push and push that that agenda, the fascist agenda, by using trans people as kind of minority that they intend to create and generate disgust and hate about. This is why you see genocidal language with transphobes like discussion of trans bodies as being disgusting or mutilated or in some way kind of taking medical language and using the exact flip side because one could use that about heart surgery, right? It is disgusting to look at open heart surgery, but it's also life-saving. And this is what medication is for transgender people. Much like you know for any other person who has or needs medication for any particular purpose. This is life-saving medication that puberty blockers as compromised position certainly are kind of backs stop for mental health for young people. Right. And it is exactly the inongruity which shows the project for what it is. Like you were just talking about Perth's court case over the puberty blocker ban which says well cis children can be prescribed these if they precocious puberty so why can't trans children right and it is because the intent is discriminatory in this sense also want to highlight the fact that creating this kind of or attempting to enshrine this nonsensical binistic definition in law is an attack on interex people in this country who exist and live lives and are adults and are biological and human. want to, if it's okay, just want to quickly jump back to what you're saying about my youth group because love my kids so much. Sure. They think they know what's going on and think really implore people to listen to our youth and to listen to our trans youth. There's reason do the work do, not this and that and but also in regards to like to the lot of work with the puberty blocker ban stuff which primarily was targeting our trans youth. They know they might not have the language necessarily to communicate it the same way that we do you know talking about like fascism and genocide and looking at historical examples but they can look at what is going on around us and it is so cruel. Like just want to don't know. want to emphasize it is so heartbreaking to see the most autistic youth you've ever seen who should be talking about the new Five Nights at Freddy's movie and bullying me for being old, which is what they their normal conversation topics. yeah, they you guys are like dust to them. They think I'm ancient. They think knew Jesus. told them my age the first time. They asked if knew the dinosaurs. that's anyways, point being they should be have they're youths. They're the youngest kid we've got is they're like 13 years old. They should be having fun and talking about financial freedom and Minecraft and Roblox. don't It breaks my heart to see them coming in sobbing about what's going on. And and just think like don't know. feel like there's lot of like arguments about you know like the tactics and stuff like that but sometimes feel bit odd about how divorce it gets from emotion because like cruelty is the point of it all and it is really when think if you the transphobes this may be giving them too much credit and too much humanity but generally think if some of these people saw the effect that they were having on bunch of young children don't know like just it's it didn't make sense in my brain guess don't know if that makes sense But you got Yeah, you have to hope that if they were confronted with the the real human impact of of what this is doing that it would change their hearts. Yeah, think you're you're so right. And think was thinking about what you were saying as well, Simone, in terms of how, you know, think in New Zealand we can be bit more apathetic because we have this idea that, you know, we're not as bad yet or, you know, we've got time or or it won't happen here. But think it's think in lot of ways it is already here, right? Like just in my Facebook memories this week, you know, cropped up that is 2 years this week since Brian Tamaki was promoting an event with the slogan line time to the slogan time to kill talking about trans people. like the the vibes in this country have been off for probably well over five years when it comes to trans people in ways that our community have been noticing and that think in ways that our young people in the community notice as well. And think that has an effect on the sis people in this country as well. If you are surrounded by media environment and thankfully we are not as bad as the UK yet. they were really averaging about 200 articles per month about trans people. The scale is not there, but think lot of the general public are sitting in this cultural, you know, soup that is posing trans people as as an issue. And think, enough time exposed to that rots the brain, you know. So think we need to be acting now because not necessarily to stop something from arriving but to stop what we have already happening here from getting worse. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. think about exactly what you were talking about Mia fair amount because when we see well think about Palestine for example you know which people have astutely pointed out is the paramount issue of our time because it encapsulates within itself every other horror right think sometimes about Yaya kind of being confronted in the interview about well why do you you know why do you fight about this why aren't you Gandhi and him just immediately talking about how there are kids who live right next to the sea in Palestine and Gaza in particular who will never be able to swim in it and they can't fish. They can see it every day and they can't swim in it. And think there are lot of trans youth who when this gets worse and worse will probably be in that exact position. and you can see your peers doing things, but your world shrinks and it gets smaller and smaller. There might be almost too much credit to say that trans phobe saw that that it would change their heart. hope that for some it would hope you know think that's little optimistic of me but don't know I'm Christian. I've got to believe in you know humanity or go crazy. Yeah. No, there are people who when they see like kind of suffering that's the only thing which gives them any kind of spark or like impetus or you know stimulus right so it's the only thing that can make them feel alive is just inflicting cruelty so but sorry what were you gonna say think me an ally that's could be wrong on top Valentina one of the things which often stops sis people from holding anti-trans, anti- interex views is knowing somebody who is trans or interex. It was the same with with gays and lesbians. It's actually knowing someone and seeing that, they're person. They have to wash the dishes. They have to pay the mortgage. They want to live and love and look at butterflies and ride bicycle and do all of these things that normal people do. However, for the very hardcore anti-trans movement, they cannot conceive of that because they do not see human or person. They see problem which, as Simone has said, needs to be eliminated. And this week wrote 122 emails. Some of them were funny, most of them weren't to every MP. And couple of the responses got back, even from allies, was, "We don't want to get into culture war. We don't want to add more fuel to the fire." to which I'd say the culture war is here. The fire is burning and it has been since the BDMR which Tracy Martin started and then she stopped and she gave the legislation to panel and instructed them that they were not meant to recommend self ID as part of their deliberations and that panel went and did it anyway and then she just sat on it until her and New Zealand first got kicked out of parliament. Then Janeti picked it up and against strong opposition from the same people who were wrong about homosexual law reform, civil unions, gay marriage, conversion therapy ban, she brought it home. The culture war started years ago. It didn't start when Emmy Rakete lit up an Annie O'Brien on Twitter. But for lot of people, that was year zero. And that was nearly or over decade ago. Okay, that was over decade ago. We have been fighting this for over decade now. And the idea that well, you know, now that this bill has got to parliament, said it this morning. All of the previous bills have been about advancing the rights of our community. This is the first one which directly attempts to roll it back. And it is being supported by the people who lost every other time, which means we know they can lose. We know that their ideas are unpopular, but it is incumbent on our politicians, even those who are allies, to say something about it. Because everyone in this on this podcast today is going to be active. We are going to put in our free time and make it clear and get out there and talk to as many people as possible, right? But unless the political will is there, like as Simone has said and as Mia has said and has, Jenna said, this this has to get killed off and only gets killed off by concerted political and community effort. And at the minute, we know we've got the community effort, the political stuff. look at the UK. watch the Labour Party fold unprompted. watch the S&P fold unprompted. It can happen here. It shouldn't, and we're going to do what we can to stop it, but it can happen here. And will now go back to being the quietest guy. think about defying destiny because you mentioned Emir and there was both total dropping of the ball by lot of organizations that peeled off and said no no no no we can't stand up to Brian Tamaki and Papa as well as some other people came and said no no no that we actually have to stand up to these people because there are more of us and did it. But what happened with Defying Destiny and afterwards was lot of attacks by ostensibly left orgs and activist orgs against Papa and against others who were involved in Defying Destiny. want to note that those people are cowards and that there is war already going on. You just have to join the fight about it. To everybody who tries to draw on safety and say, well, we don't want to put people directly in danger. That's not copa. We don't want to, you know, stir pot." That sort of thing, right? You have to have really safe protest. you have to do this and that the right way. Those things aren't working and we know that we're being attacked extrajudicially and judicially and legislatively. So what are you going to do about it? Certainly don't turn on your comrades. Stop doing it. Resident young person here to speak again. volunteered as marshall for defying destiny and also volunteered for Kayafna. don't want to speak on behalf of Papa or Kayafina because I'm just little guy. I'm just little guy who helped out sometimes. but there's this assumption that we are helpless. think when it comes like these kind of conversations about safety like it's either like we do these completely safe protests or it's all going to ship, right? Like it's weird black and white thinking. There's lot of good things you can do. There's lot of good things you can do to be practical and be safe and to like engage in this kind of fight back while not endangering people. The team for the Defy Destiny rally was incredible. We were on top of it the whole time. the team that we had for like the Marks to Humanity last year, think it was at Poprena. incredible team. We were on top of it the whole time. Destiny showed up. They couldn't do anything because we outnumbered them. Right. There are things you can do about this. There are like tactics that you can use and organizations you can join like Kayafa if you are interested in safety. And it's not like don't know. It's it's it's the language that is used as if like these are like going to become like violent mass murder events is frankly think unrealistic to me and seemingly don't know. It just all it does is gives opposition more power. Sorry. Could you explain what you mean by the last bit? like when when we Sorry. Yeah. the autism of it all. You know how it goes. think like when we when we like seed this ground when we say we can't do these rallies because they might be unsafe when we say like there's nothing we can do to protect safety who cares that Kayappa will show up to almost any rally if you contact them and you're like sagely leftwing who cares about all this stuff if if you don't put any attempts you don't put any attempts to marshall you don't put any attempts to learn how to do any of this stuff and you just kind of say we just won't do any of these pro protests you're allowing the far right to to their protests which often aren't as concerned with safety because they're all in their minds big scary men who will beat up any any leftists, any soy boys who show up. weird is giving them the power and the goodwill to go ahead with their protests, to go ahead with their events, to go ahead and do whatever they want, to say whatever they want, to intimidate people at Tiatu Library and assault some of my friends at Library who to you know, rally in support of Posie Parker and try to intimidate anyone else from showing up at these things. We're just giving them the power to run rampant with whatever they want to do and push this normalization of faright activities and events and rallies without any kind of negat. And that is think severely severely damaging to our cause. Yeah, exactly. You have to actually show up and we have to have rallies and have to have counter protests and we also have to be proactive, right? Like there has to be actual defense. Yeah. which is why think it's critical to learn lot of those skills including things like dear arresting for example particularly when the police are set against us. So this is getting little bit further off think what the actual overall topic of the episode is about. But it is worth kind of considering what is next by looking at the playbook perhaps about what's happened in the UK and what's happened in the United States because there are strategic moves by lot of these farright actors who are avatars of capital now right and that is ultimately what happens that kind of fusion that these extremist elements become fused with what is the interest of capital and we have to have some kind of ability to meet that by understanding what's going to happen and some of them are open about it, right? There is sometimes documentation in the United States. There's for example the 2025 project. Yeah, that was an example where people knew beforehand what was going to happen. Not in every respect, but in some respects and so it is worth being vigilant about lot of those. wondered if you had anything else that you wanted to add before we close out. think spend so much time keeping too up to date on all the bad that's happening overseas, which is horrible for my mental health. but know it's something that lot of us do, right? Like it's really easy to keep up with the bad news. and we do it because it feels protective to kind of know what's happening and to feel like we're able to prepare. But think it's also really important and something I'm trying to do more of is like highlight the winds overseas as well. And found it really interesting during the first reading this week. Good old Genitalia Marraftoft pointing out two different countries internationally where there had been legislative moves around this issue. one being the UK, which she obviously claimed as correct and right and the place that we should emulate because of their Supreme Court ruling. but she also referenced Australia the the tickle versus Google court of appeal ruling that was handed down week before last think which is an incredible success in case of if you're not familiar quote unquote female only dating app discriminating against the trans woman who won the initial case under cause of indirect discrimination and then was taken to appeal by the the turf who lost the appeal and the charge was upgraded to direct discrimination. To my mind, there's no meaningful difference as to why between those two countries why one is good, one is the other than the political agenda. But my point being is that what also happened in Australia this week is Pauline Hansen introduced essentially an identical bill to the definition of woman bill here and entirely failed. You know, so there are places around the world where we can also look to for the benefit of not just knowing about the bad things that may happen, but the ways people are succeeding at pushing back against this internationally. And have also heard from people overseas how Altered is looked to as place that sets precedent and is influential, you know, in terms of communities internationally looking to us. So, think it's really important for us to hold ourselves to that and to do everything we can to push this back. And submissions have just opened. They're open for what is it? 60 days through to early July. John's chucked it in the chat, but he's on mute. Another 39 days. Thanks, John. but yeah, think also, you know, John, you've literally sent well over 100 emails in the last 72 hours. And can just imagine, you know, that took so much work. But if everyone listening to this episode did tenth of that and sent 10 emails off to 10 different MPs, we hear constantly from, you know, people who have been in that position or people who worked in MP's offices how much of difference five emails can make. so think our best chance of winning this is getting it shut down real tidily at that second reading. And the way to do that is to really put pressure on on people in government because even Nicola Grigg, who happily voted it through alongside the rest of her party, the speech that she gave for National was not one in support of the bill, you can tell they had really serious reservations. so really leaning on those points and hammering in the fact that this is think more than anything National showing huge amount of weakness. It's just giving one of their coalition parters partners another little present that's going to look for them. They haven't don't know that they've had single win in that coalition this term. think the only thing they've done is give things away. just be immediately betrayed by New Zealand first at the election. What What did you want to say, John? Changing government in November can also kill this bill. So, you know, there's immediate eyes on the prize here for this select committee. And being prepared to submit, submit in person. Ignore Bob McCrosski and everyone else who submits because we know what they're going to say. It's what they've said for about 45 years now, which is they're not really people, so they don't count as people. But also writing letters to the editor of your paper. So pitching comment pieces to go out there because we know we know that they're coming. We know that the narrative is going to try and be set. So the more people that just 100 words saying, "Hey, this bill's really stupid. Has everyone checked out how stupid this bill is?" Or in more polite language will get you somewhere. There are so many organizations have seen in the last 3 days who have put out really strong statements on social media. share them on your Facebook so your mad auntie can see them. You know, it may infuriate her, but also someone else will see it and go, "Yeah, that's weird." There's lot we can do and there's lot of work to be done, but for the old decrepit people on this podcast, you know, in our 30s and 40s, it's work we have done before and we've won. And when we got the BDMR through unanimous, great day. Conversion therapy banund like almost all people voted for it again. Great. Abortion law reform, great. Equal marriage. Remember that? That was great. Like you got to hold on to those. When we win this, it's going to feel really good. It's just going to suck for about six months unless it gets killed before then. And will hand over to Mia because have done that thing again. Bye. Thank you. lie. No, just wanted to say one quick another quick word for action that will feel really good. think please show up to protests. am in talks, it's early days yet, but I'm in talks with few different queer organizers around the country and we are doing what we can to organize events coming soon hopefully to city near you. please show up. again, we want to make noise. We want to show politicians and also far-right friend groups like Destiny Church that we are not afraid of them, that we're not going to back down, that we're going to keep fighting for our rights. And also, more importantly, if you're sis and you're listening to this, trans people are going to be at these protests. They're going to be the the young trans youth, the people that I'm looking after, they're going to be at these protests and they're going to be afraid. They're going to be deeply, deeply anxious. And by showing out, you can support them. you can show them that people actually care about them, that there's something worth fighting for and living for, that there's hope for the future, and that it's really vital to our community right now, especially again, youth correspondent over here, and especially to our our queer teens, our trans teens who are really going through it right now. Showing them that better world is possible is so vital. And so please if you can even if nothing else go up to the protests that protests that happen in support of them in support of our yeah our faro bank. Exactly. John, do you want to close us out and thank you everybody? Thank you all for agreeing at very short notice to come on today. and agreeing with you. Thank you for all agreeing with me. It's so it's so nice to be validated by women. yes, so valid. But basically there's going to be lot of media over the next few weeks about this in months. And it may be very rare that you hear trans voices in that media. Partly because the media deliberately excludes them from discussions about their own rights. but also because trans people putting themselves in position where the mainstream media can attack them directly or you know basically putting spotlight on them is terrifying and can result in some material harms being done to people. So, one of 200 will continue to host as many trans voices as it can throughout this process, and we hope that other media work out ways to safely platform trans voices at time when their rights are under attack. Join the Patreon, do all that other we said earlier, and thank you and fight to the party. Golden door was just now the king of his