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AgenderNZ – Media Advisory – 15.11.2019 – Megan Murphy Visit & “Feminism 2020”
From: Agender NZ
To: All Media
Release Date: 15.11.2019
AgenderNZ says it was invited to participate in a debate with visiting Canadian TERF (Trans Exclusionary Reactionary/Radical Feminist) Megan Murphy on NewsHub Nation on Saturday morning. However, the timing of the invite was too close to organise a spokesperson to attend.
Accordingly, AgenderNZ issued a media advisory addressing issues that it believed would be raised by Ms Murphy. The points outlined in the Media Advisory would counter the misinformation spread by anti-transgender hate groups.
[Please note, this document has been amended from the one sent out to Newshub Nation, but is not materially different to the previous version.]
“Gender critic/TERF” claims & rebuttals:
* “Women deserve their own ‘safe space’.”
Response: The safest space for girls and women should be in their own homes. Yet according to Justice Ministry figures, the majority of violence to girls and women is from male figures they know, in their own homes or workplace. Suggesting that cis women are threatened by trans women is a gross mis-representation of domestic violence reality.
The issue of “safe spaces” was raised during the 1986 Homosexual LawReform Bill debate, with homophobes spreading fear that gay men would invade “safe spaces” such as toilets, schools, scouting organisations, etc., to prey on children. It was rubbish then, it is still rubbish.
Women’s Refuge have clearly stated there has never been a problem with trans women using their safe houses:
“The head of the New Zealand Women’s Refuge national collective, Ang Jury, says there is a solid process around deciding who gets into safe houses, and that transgender women have been allowed into many refuge spaces for years without issue.”
See related document here: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/381878/sex-self-identification-debate-a-cesspool-of-harmful-stereotypes
* Toilets – safety. “Threat by trans women to cis women”
We are not aware of any recorded instance of a trans woman harassing someone in a toilet. This is homophobic-type slur and ignores the fact that harassment of women is by cis men, not trans women.
If anyone (man, cis women, trans women) is harassing someone in a toilet the answer is to call the police and get the person responsible arrested, not ban an entire minority of society from using those toilets. We regard this as typical “bogeyman type” scaremongering.
* “Trans women are a threat to cis women in prison”
Response: A OIA report from Corrections NZ Dept released on 3 September 2018 lists six incidences where trans women were allegedly involved. It does not specify if those trans women were victims or instigators; whether one person or more was involved; or who instigated the incident. If a trans woman is harassed in prison and she defends herself, that is recorded as a “trans related incident”.
Corrections NZ declined to provide details of the six incidences because of the Privacy Act.
See related document here: https://fmacskasy.wordpress.com/corrections-dept-oia-statement-on-transgender-prisoners-3-9-2018/
* “Trans women are erasing ‘real’ women”
Response: this is a ridiculous and highly chauvinistic attack on trans women. We are less than 1% of the human population. It is impossible we could do such a thing. Trans women could not and will not erase cis women just as marriage equality has not erased marriage for heterosexual couples, or gays rights erased heterosexuality, or the end of Apartheid in South Africa erased White South Africans. It is an absurdity to think otherwise.
This is the kind of irrational fears being stoked by a few misguided individuals.
* “Sex is immutable; men are men, women are women”
Response: Human sexual biology is more diverse than a simple binary male and female. There are many ways in which genes, hormones, sex hormone receptors, and embyonic development interact to provide a surprising multiplicity of intersex conditions that span the gap between “female” and “male”. Throw in gender identity and sexual orientation and there is a rich diversity in the human sexual and gender condition that should be celebrated not demonised.
In fact, it could be argued that the TERF dogma of sex binarism is at odds with the real world of human diversity and a threat to gay men and lesbian women because it reduces us all to biological entitles with only one purpose; sexual reproduction. TERF ideology eventually leads to the conclusion that homosexual orientation is not “natural” because it conflicts with binary biology.
The argument of sex binarism is not just a fallacious argument, it is biologically incorrect as many animals can, and do, change sex.
It also reduces women to their genitalia – something feminism has struggled against for decades.
* Trans women “will unfairly dominate in sporting activities”
Response: To date, very few trans people participate in elite level sport. And none have won in the Olympics. This is an identity-politics version of “reds-under-the-bed” scare that is not supported by the tiny number of trans people in top level sports. The evidence of a problem just isn’t there. In the 2016 Rio Olympics, no openly transgender athletes competed, and even if they had there is nothing to suggest they would win.
In 2016, Dr Beth Jones at the School of Sports Exercise and Health Sciences in Loughborough University found that transgender athletes did not have any unfair advantage in sporting competition. She said;
“There is no research that has directly and consistently found transgender people to have an athletic advantage in sport, so it is difficult to understand why so many current policies continue to discriminate. Inclusive transgender sporting policies need to be developed and implemented that allow transgender people to compete in accordance with their gender identity, regardless of hormone levels.”
See related document here: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/spotlights/transgender-in-sport/
Dr Jones’ research contradicts recent research results from Otago University academics who claimed unfair advantage by trans women athletes. The Otago academics did not state how female-to-male trans athletes faired in competition.
The Otago academics based their findings on testosterone levels. However, recently South African middle-distance runner and 2016 Olympic gold medalist, Caster Semenya was embroiled in controversy when her eligibility was questioned due to naturally high levels of testosterone in her system. Ms Semenya is a cis woman, not transgender.
Ms Semenya lost her appeal case against the international athletic governing body, IAAF. She will be compelled to take medication to lower her testosterone levels if she wants to continue competing against other women in international running events. It is important to note that trans women are bound by the same rules.
* “We are not transphobic”
Response: SUFW bans trans people from membership of their group. Imagine if an organisation banned Maori, Jews, gays, lesbians, people of colour, from membership. There would be an uproar.
Why is it considered acceptable to treat trans people as pariahs? What makes us a “punching bag” for every chauvinist to think they can attack us?
The answer, we submit, is because SUFW is a chauvinistic organisation that is openly transphobic.They are fearful of what they do not know.
* SUFW is “pro women”
Response: SUFW to date has done nothing to promote women, whether lesbian or heterosexual. They exist solely to denigrate trans people, trans women in particular.
* Puberty blockers “are being giving to little children”.
Response: This is false. Puberty blockers are offered under strict medical supervision and exhaustive psychological assessment just prior to puberty. Despite misrepresentation of puberty blockers as “unsafe” (echoes of anti-vaxxer lies), the Ministry of Health confirms that they are safe and reversible:
“Blockers are a safe and fully reversible medicine that may be used from early puberty through to later adolescence to help ease distress and allow time to fully explore gender health options.”
See related document here: https://www.health.govt.nz/your-health/healthy-living/transgender-new-zealanders/transgender-new-zealanders-children-and-young-people
* Aotearoa New Zealand celebrate a milestone for LGBTQI progress
Finally: we celebrated the election of the world’s first transgender MP, Georgina Beyer, to Parliament in 1999. SUFW undoes that achievement for no good reason except fear.
AgenderNZ embraces diversity and rejects fear.
End Advisory
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From: Agender NZ
To: All Media
Release Date: 16.11.2019
US TRUMPIAN INSPIRED RHETORIC FROM ANTI-TRANS GROUP NOT A GOOD FIT WITH NZ SOCIETY
Trans-rights support groups around the country have been dismayed by recent divisive and repellent comments by Stand Up For Women (SUFW), a group calling itself feminist but almost exclusively fixated on denying trans people, especially trans women, their rights.
SUFW want women-only spaces, such as changing rooms, women refuges, and women prisons, to be denied to trans women to ensure the safety of vulnerable girls and women from marauding men masquerading as women. This morning on TV3’s “The Nation” SUFW spokesperson Megan Murphy argued that sex is immutable; men are men, women are women, and women need to be protected from trans women with their penis out in their spaces.
Tracee Nelley, President of Agender NZ, a trans support group, deplores this type of hateful profiling. She said,
“We regard this as typical “bogeyman type” scaremongering. We are not aware of any recorded instance of a trans woman harassing anyone in a toilet or changing room. This is homophobic-type slur and ignores the fact that harassment of women is by cis men, not trans women.”
Nelley added,
“If anyone, whether cis man, cis women, trans women, is harassing someone in a toilet or changing room surely the answer is to call the police and get the person responsible arrested, not ban an entire tiny vulnerable minority of society from using those spaces.”
Nelley noted that the issue of “safe spaces” was raised during the 1986 Homosexual Law Reform Bill debate, with homophobes spreading fear that gay men would invade “safe spaces” such as toilets, schools, scouting organisations, etc., to prey on children.
“It was rubbish then, it is still rubbish and New Zealand society has moved well beyond the Trumpian inspired rhetoric that Ms Murphy has brought from North America and espoused on The Nation today” Nelley said.
Nelley also noted that the views of SUFW are not a good fit with her members experience in New Zealand. She said,
“My reading of current social media is that the views of Ms Murphy and SUFW generally are not getting much traction in our society where we have a broad and inclusive view of human gender identity and expression. It’s noteworthy that a diverse group of New Zealanders on The Nation panel immediately following the interview with Ms Murphy, unanimously rejected her views.”
Nelley also condemned the SUFW focus on a strictly biological binary view of the human condition. She said,
“Human sexual biology is more diverse than a simple binary male and female. There are many ways in which genes, sex hormones and their receptors, and embryonic development interact to provide a surprising multiplicity of intersex conditions that span the gap between “female” and “male”. Throw in gender identity and sexual orientation and there is a rich diversity in the human condition that should be celebrated not demonised.”
In fact, it could be argued that the SUFW dogma of sex binarism is at odds with the real world of human diversity. It also reduces women to their genitalia – something feminism has struggled against for decades.
Nelley observed that,
“Over the last thirty-three years since the 1986 Homosexual Law Reform Bill, the election of transgender MP Georgina Beyer to Parliament in 1999, and the Marriage Equality Act in 2013, New Zealand has increasingly celebrated sexual and gender diversity, moving beyond the fear mongering and divisive comments espoused by SUFW. SUFW’s views are repellent and do not sit well with the vast fair-minded majority of New Zealanders.”
End statement.
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Website: http://www.agender.org.nz/
