Nineteen fifty-three was something of a watershed year in Aotearoa New Zealand. Princess, Elizabeth had assumed the throne, Sir Ed had knocked the bastard off, and I discovered Christine Jorgensen
It was the latter experience that was to have the most profound effect on me. I was eight, living my young life in Otautahi Christchurch, and knowing, in my bones, that something wasn’t right. I was doing all the things someone identified as a boy at birth could be expected to do in 1950’s New Zealand, I played rugby, cricket, and lived a somewhat secluded life with parents who loved me. My stepbrother and sister tolerated me and we had a variety of small creatures who found their way into the hearts of my family.
But as I said something wasn’t right.
My father was a telegraphist, and apparently a good one. Well, he had been before he trucked off to the second world war in 1939. He was a single man who had signed up in the hope that it would mean someone with a family didn’t have to. And of course, he then met my mother. My mother was a widower with two children and the relationship they entered into lasted until he passed away, aged sixty-three. He loved my mother to distraction, and on his return from the war, having been bashed about at Al Alamein, they married, and I was born in 1945.
At age eight, and a prodigious reader, I looked forward to the arrival, every so often, of a magazine called the ‘Australasian Post’. Culturally, it was very outback Australia, but there was a section at the back, of snippets from around the world. I loved these bite sized narratives. On this particular night, I disappeared into the lounge while everyone else was finishing dinner, and I flicked into the Australasian Post and found the clips at the back. There I found an iconic photograph of a beautiful woman descending from the DC3 aircraft looking like Marilyn Monroe. It was Christine Jorgensen. The story that went with the pic said that this was the first woman in the world to undertake gender reassignment surgery. She left America as GI Joe and returned, profoundly changed, as Christine. I read the story, looked at the picture, and, even at eight years of age, I knew this was me. I stole the magazine and hid it under my mattress, where it stayed until it fell apart.
Jump forward to the ‘90s and this young human had been a secret cross dresser for many years. The secret life was exciting, but it was also dishonest, and people were hurt because of it. I regret that very much.
In the late 90s, I sought counselling for sexual abuse in my childhood – not a family member. I needed to sort my life out. I was lucky. The counsellor I went to knew there was a something other than the sexual abuse. He was right, and having played some gender games, it became clear that the reality of my life was anchored in my cross-dressing persona, and not the unhappy man I presented to the world on a daily basis.
I have always been an activist involved with the queer community and, even though I presented as a heterosexual male, secretly I was a cross dresser, and this gave me access to this other world. What my counsellor did enabled my true self to come out of the deepest of closets and I chose to transition. This journey was not without its challenges, but I leapt into it with my usual gusto.
I discovered a group called Agender and became the Auckland coordinator. In so doing I discovered that there was much in our legal situation that needed attention. It was not unusual for people like me to be beaten up and life at times was horrific.
Not everything was awful, however, and I came out at a time when Georgina Beyer, was in full flight. She was a hero to all of us and remained so until her death just a few days ago. My only regret is that the door she opened has closed and, as yet no-one has had the guts to knock it down again. I’d hate to think that Georgie’s legacy is to simply remain one of a kind because, when she was elected to Parliament, it seemed as though everything imaginable was possible.
History reminds us that in 2004 she put forward a member’s bill that would have added gender identity as a prohibited ground under the Human Rights Act, but she withdrew the bill after the Solicitor-General provided a legal opinion confirming that gender identity was already covered by existing law. It’s worth noting here that changes to legislation that would support improvements for transgender people have only ever been possible when a Labour government has been in power. The Solicitor-General letter was in my view, a nonsense then and remains a nonsense today, but because of the cost associated with testing the letter in court, it has hung like an albatross around our necks, for almost two decades. Sex and gender identity are not the same thing.
Not much happened after that until Auckland Council created the Rainbow Communities Advisory Panel and Len Brown in the first instance, and Phil Goff in the second, went into bat with the government to bring about changes in human rights legislation that would enable us to be covered and protected as other vulnerable groups have been. I was active in this process, and well remember receiving then Minister of Justice Amy Adams letter denying our request yet again citing the Solicitor General’s opinion as a reason for continuing to do nothing. In a conversation with John Key, I asked him if he was aware that transgender people were not protected by the Human Rights Act. He said yes, he was aware, but that this was not a priority for him.
I was strangely unsurprised.
Despite making noises of support, the Ardern government backed off changes to the Human Rights Act that might have been unpopular, and this was at a time when gender critical feminists, always the enemy and always well organised, put pressure on the government using the spurious argument that, to give us protection or allow us to self-identify, would somehow eradicate women’s hard won sex rights. My question has always been ‘what sex-based rights will be impacted by allowing me to be who I am, and to have inexpensively obtained documentation that supports my identity?’
I await a rational reply.
We are now in a situation, where, while in June self ID becomes law, we are still not identified by a unique term for protection under the Human Rights Act. This looked possible for quite some time, but suddenly, and almost without warning, this was taken off the table and replaced by declarations that enable religious groups to be protected from hate speech but not us. I was devastated by this and remain deeply upset. Religious groups and individuals produce much of the hate directed at us and currently do so with impunity.
I understand that, following March 15 and the horror enacted on that day, minority religious groups must be cared for and protected, but surely, it’s just as important to protect another minority group, the gender diverse community who are equally at risk as the data proves. Research undertaken by Dr Chris Wilson from The University of Auckland leaves us in no doubt, but the LGBTQI community are seriously at risk of a terrorist-like attack similar to those that took place at Pulse and Q nightclubs. This is deeply disturbing since Wilson’s research also points out the constant online threat to women, It’s relentless. If it’s relentless for women, it’s hard to imagine it being any less for transgender women.
We await the outcome of these recommendations, which have been sent back to the Law Society for comment.
So, twenty years after my first foray into the fraught world of gender politics, my community has barely travelled anywhere. Society has changed, however, and is much more threatening to our safety now than it was two decades ago. Over 300 bills have been introduced into US state legislative bodies that can only be described as anti-transgender just this year. They attack care for young trans people, they attack self-identification, they attack any form of legislated protection for transgender people, they attack drag queens, and they minimise our healthcare. New Zealand tends to follow US trends and we can all already see this happening here. Rhetoric from the Act Party and the silence from National make it clear that, should there be a change of government, our future looks even more bleak than it is at the moment bleak.
I fear for our future.
I was forty-one years old when I started on this journey to enable change to our legislated protections. I’m now seventy eight, and while I can celebrate Homosexual Law Reform, Civil Unions, Marriage Equality, the legislation that outlaws Conversion Therapy, and the passing of the Self-ID Bill, but I have yet to see any legislation passed that will make me any safer from the increasing numbers of angry and disturbed people who would threaten my well-being and my life.
We talk a lot about safety in our community and there are many forms that safety can take. The suicide rate among our young people is shocking and data collected by a University of Auckland study suggests that most mental health issues that face transgender people are anchored in the way society treats us. The discrimination is relentless as can be seen by the pushback against any attempt to enable transgender women to participate in women’s sport. The science is ignored and the vile rhetoric of the far right, becomes the norm.
I’m frightened by this for myself for my whanau, for my friends, and for my colleagues. A leap to the right doesn’t just happen in the Rocky Horror Show, it’s happening to my community right now. It’s not easy to say that I plead with the government to put in place protections for me and my brothers and sisters.
It’s not that hard.
All it takes is the will and the courage to do it.
(I was commissioned by Grant Shimmin of Stuff to write this, but I don’t think he used it)
dykiegirl 