We can rise above divisive culture wars and stand proudly as a beacon of love, understanding, and equality – because ultimately, I know that’s who we are as a nation
Opinion: For more than four decades, successive governments have slowly but surely ensured progress for LGBTQIA+ communities.
From homosexual law reform in the 80s, the Human Rights Act and Bill of Rights in the 90s, civil unions in the 2000s, marriage equality 10 years ago, and to the passing of the Conversion Practices Prohibition Act and the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 2021 in the last term of Government – there’s been continuous progress in the pursuit of equality, dignity, and justice for all.
Even beyond these headline achievements, gradual reforms of policies across a range of core issues have evolved overtime to reflect the diversity within Aotearoa from health, to education, housing, and many more. That isn’t to say that these haven’t been without significant challenges and fierce activism, but on these issues the country has been going in one direction: forward.
This election, that progress is severely under threat.
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Winston Peters could see during the violent, riotous Parliament occupation that a path to return to that very Parliament was through what he saw before him.
That a way to attain the power was to use vulnerable communities as a political weapon, cynically scapegoating them to drag himself back over the 5 percent line.
With migrants deemed a political target unworthy of Peters’ divisive modus operandi, he has set his sights on the rainbow community, and more specifically the trans and gender diverse community.
After the "genocidal" (according to Disinformation Project researcher Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa) level of vitriol targeted at our communities following another unwelcome arrival by a British person, Posie Parker, Peters cemented ‘anti-woke’ non-issues as a cornerstone of his campaign.
NZ First policy targets the trans community across education, sport, and justice – but most notably promises to amend the Building Act to enforce a trans bathroom ban that will see trans people excluded and unsafe, and sex essentialists empowered to question those that dare express themselves beyond a medieval gender binary.
The only way to enforce such a policy of course is to employ fulltime bathroom police that are empowered to strip search anyone they believe doesn’t conform to a marker on their birth certificate. It’s undoubtedly ridiculous and archaic.
When Peters announced the policy it was laughed off the campaign trail, decried as a non-issue for New Zealanders. But was it only because he wasn’t polling near the 5 percent threshold at the time? Will Luxon, the evangelical Christian right-wing PM-in-waiting who believes abortion is akin to murder, stop Peters and the bathroom police in their tracks? Don’t bet your freedom to pee on it.
At the time of writing (a week out from the election), National doesn’t have a rainbow policy. Act doesn’t have a rainbow policy either, besides abolishing the Human Rights Commission and not passing hate speech laws.
With no substantive policy from either of the right-wing parties, not only is the rainbow community not remotely a priority for either of them – it leaves the door wide open for Peters to force his dangerously regressive policies on the country.
Meanwhile Labour and the Greens, both with a much more extensive track record of support for rainbow communities and detailed policy, promise a much brighter future for our communities still in need of comprehensive legislative change.
Labour will continue to roll out policies across health, including the expansion of life-saving gender affirming care, and the HIV action plan that seeks to bring an end to the epidemic locally. Additionally, Labour promise to introduce reforms to surrogacy laws and expand access for queer couples, alongside protecting intersex babies from unnecessary medical intervention, and a review of blood donation criteria that currently discriminates against all men who have sex with men.
The Greens are campaigning for a more comprehensive approach to rainbow issues in Aotearoa by continuing to propose a Rainbow Ministry – something I’ve publicly advocated for as a solution to the historically uncoordinated and under-resourced way that Governments have approached rainbow issues.
The proposal for a Rainbow Ministry is supported by a vast array of other policies for the new Ministry to champion. They include the development of a national rainbow suicide prevention strategy, amending the Human Rights Act to specifically prohibit discrimination against trans, gender diverse, and intersex people, banning non-consensual and unnecessary surgeries on intersex people – and providing reparations to survivors, and protecting rainbow refugees and asylum seekers.
Together they’re a set of evidence-based, community-led, effective solutions to the remaining inequities rainbow communities face in our daily lives. They’re a positive, inclusive set of policies that envisage an Aotearoa free of discrimination and bigotry, which at its core are seeking to reduce the number of queer people we lose to suicide each year.
The 2018 Counting Ourselves report found that two in every five trans and gender diverse participants surveyed had attempted suicide at some point in their lives. An unacceptable and shameful statistic that should be a stark reminder to our political leaders of just how dangerous their rhetoric can be.
I feel a deep sadness about the need to write this column, to remind our country on the eve of an election just how important the lives of our communities are, to have to challenge the use of vulnerable communities as a political football in a grossly transparent attempt to win votes, and to try and prevent our country from following the same path as Republicans in the US and Conservatives in the UK.
So this election progress itself is at stake, and our communities need your vote. Together, we can reject the disgusting gutter politics of Winston Peters, and the coalition partners that will enable his return to power.
Together we can support an equitable and inclusive future that sees us continue to advance progress for rainbow communities, saving lives. And together we can rise above divisive culture wars and stand proudly as a beacon of love, understanding, and equality – because ultimately, I know that’s who we are as a nation.
