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Overview
This placard was carried at a protest event in Auckland on 26 March 2023 against the visit of controversial British anti-trans campaigner Posie Parker (Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull) on her Australasian ‘Let Women Speak’ tour of New Zealand organised by Standing for Women NZ.
Standing for Women was founded by Parker in Britain. She claims to be a women’s rights activist (but not a feminist), and that a woman is an ‘adult human female’(standingforwomen.com). She and her supporters believe that biological sex cannot be changed. They claim that transgender rights endanger and discriminate against women, and that trans women should not be able to use women’s spaces such as toilets and changing rooms. Parker has spoken out against the rights of trans people to be legally recognised for their gender, trans people’s participation in sports, and access to trans healthcare.
New Zealand trans activists sought for her visa application to enter New Zealand to be denied because of her harmful anti-transgender rhetoric. Even though Immigration Minister Michael Wood condemned her ‘inflammatory, vile and incorrect worldviews’, Parker did not meet the threshold to be considered an excluded person under Section 16 of the Immigration Act 2009 (Chin, 22 March 2023).
Trans Liberation Alliance organised a protest against Parker’s first speaking event on 26 March 2023, held at Albert Park, Auckland. The event was attended by about 150-200 supporters of Parker, but she was immediately drowned out by about 2000 protesters (Davison 2023). Eliana Rubashkyn threw one litre of red tomato juice at Parker to symbolise the harm her ideologies caused the trans community (Harris 2023). Parker aborted her speaking tour and left the country soon afterwards.
To some feminist and LGBTQI+ rights groups, Parker’s beliefs are described as trans-exclusionary radical feminism (TERF) which opposes the concept of gender identity and transgender rights, particularly gender self-determination. Such transphobic attitudes can lead to violence, discrimination, and harassment, taking a heavy toll on trans people who already experience high rates of discrimination and self-harm (Veale et al 2019, iv-v).
The independent research group The Disinformation Project has recently released a report that shows hatred towards transgender people in Aotearoa New Zealand has increased significantly in 2023. One of their key findings was that ‘harm and hate towards transgender and non-binary people in Aotearoa measurably increased in both volume and tone during the period 18 March – mid-April 2023. This corresponded with the tour of UK-based anti-transgender activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’ (Hattotuwa et al 2023).