DALLIANCES WITH DHBs

So what kind of project did Matthews manage at the DHB concerning ‘transgender healthcare’? What does ‘trans healthcare look like at the DHB with his influence.

I started with the Auckland District Health Boards’s page on it here.

Now the Auckland Region has transgender health services. ‘Hauora Tahine’. This is their description from their webpage:

I feel like the term ‘gender identity’ is so broad as to be completely meaningless. But even so, Hauora Tahine will work with me to ‘establish your transition related health goals’. I can even access specialist services like, uh, plastic surgery and voice training.

Wait a minute. Stop. ‘Puberty blockers’? Uh oh.

Yes, the Auckland district health boards are now offering transition to children. Gender non-conforming children that are overwhelmingly more likely to grow up gay than trans. There is plenty of evidence for this. Like this article ‘Gender Identity Disorders in Childhood and Adolescence’ which concludes:

“The types of modulating influences that are known from the fields of developmental psychology and family dynamics have therapeutic implications for GID. As children with GID only rarely go on to have permanent transsexualism, irreversible physical interventions are clearly not indicated until after the individual’s psychosexual development is complete. The identity-creating experiences of this phase of development should not be restricted by the use of LHRH analogues that prevent puberty.”

The article also contains this gem:

“Multiple longitudinal studies provide evidence that gender-atypical behavior in childhood often leads to a homosexual orientation in adulthood, but only in 2.5% to 20% of cases to a persistent gender identity disorder (3, 6, 22). Even among children who manifest a major degree of discomfort with their own sex, including an aversion to their own genitalia (GID in the strict sense), only a minority go on to an irreversible development of transsexualism (6). Irreversibility of the manifestations, however, is considered to be an indispensable requirement before the diagnosis of transsexualism can be made, or any body-altering treatments initiated. In England and Canada, in accordance with this view, hormonal treatment or surgery is not recommended until the patient’s somatic and psychosexual development is complete.

In fact, the evidence is fairly overwhelming that gender dysphoric children mostly deist and grow up to be healthy gay and lesbian adults. Here’s another article on the topic ‘Ethical Issues Raised by the Treatment of Gender‐Variant Prepubescent Children’

“In contrast to the relative lack of controversy about treating adolescents and adults, there is no expert clinical consensus regarding the treatment of prepubescent children who meet diagnostic criteria for what was referred to in both DSM‐IV‐TR and ICD‐10 as gender identity disorder in children and now in DSM‐5 as gender dysphoria. One reason for the differing attitudes has to do with the pervasive nature of gender dysphoria in older adolescents and adults: it rarely desists, and so the treatment of choice is gender or sex reassignment. On the subject of treating children, however, as the World Professional Association for Transgender Health notes in their latest Standards of Care, gender dysphoria in childhood does not inevitably continue into adulthood, and only 6 to 23 percent of boys and 12 to 27 percent of girls treated in gender clinics showed persistence of their gender dysphoria into adulthood. Further, most of the boys’ gender dysphoria desisted, and in adulthood, they identified as gay rather than as transgender.’

Why are Auckland District Health Boards transitioning children, a group of whom often grow up to have no gender dysphoria and often into homosexual adults?

Instead, transition is now being pushing, including puberty blockers, which will lead to sterilization.

Instead, the DHB’s are giving out misinformation aplenty. Like this lie. Not even the researchers cheerleading this stuff know what the long-term effects are. This is a big fat lie. The Health Board is lying to children. The DHB’s own consent letter, which I will discuss below acknowledges they don’t know if use of puberty blockers will lead to long term osteoporosis.

Want proof? Here is the consent form for ‘blocking female hormones’ for children. It contradicts itself and the information above — supposedly blockers are reversible, but three paragraphs down, the letter admits that it has no idea of the effects of Lupron (the brand name for the generic Lucrin) on the chances of osteoporosis. Those chances were the subject of an investigation in American medical newspaper Kaiser Health News, which reported numerous cases of adult women who had taken the drug to prevent precocious puberty subsequently having serious bone problems. The article reports over 10,000 adverse event reports were filed with the Federal Drug Administration in America, describing side effects such as brittle bones and faulty joints.

Oh, and I’ll quote this for emphasis.

“Being on blockers may lower your desire to have sex. It may cause your vagina to become drier. This increases the risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV if you are having any sexual contact with this part of the body. Condoms provide good protection against STIs and lubricant helps to prevent any discomfort”

Do you know the intended target of these letters? Pubescent children. That’s why they’re called ‘puberty blockers’. Most pubescent children are under the age of consent.

The Auckland DHBs are advising under sixteens to use lube if sex hurts. They’re under the age of consent — they shouldn’t be having sex.

I don’t wish to start hormone blockers, thanks!

But regardless of the risk of needing a hip replacement in your twenties from using these drugs, they can help children avoid the ‘unwanted physical changes’ of puberty and stop the ‘anxiety and depression’ that the distress of puberty may cause. And that is why children who would mostly turn out gay and bisexual need to take off-label chemotherapy drugs to stop puberty. Could we see cases like in the US, with Christian parents thanking the Lord that their son is really a girl, and not gay:

“Family members were flat-out asking me if this kid was gay. It made me nervous, and I was constantly worried about what people would think of me, of us and of my parenting. While family was questioning whether Kai was gay, a Christian friend of mine, who is also a child psychologist, asked me: “Have you noticed Kai’s feminine behavior?” It was such a gentle question, as opposed to the harsh accusations of others. I said, “I’ve noticed, but I figure she’ll just grow out of it.” I can laugh at that now. It’s so clear, in retrospect, that this was not a passing phase. But when my friend asked me that, I still wasn’t ready to accept it. As I continued to watch my child developing, my friend started pointing out red flags that there was something very real going on. She told me that Kai being transgender may be something I needed to consider”

Totally no chance of this being homophobia.

While we’re here, let’s look at the rest of the consent forms; they are just as bad as the above.

Maybe we’ll look at our first visit too:

A holistic, psychosocial consultation… what does this even mean?

This effectively the DHBs apologizing if it takes more than one appointment to set up a referral with hormone treatments. The DHB says people are their own experts on their ‘gender identity’ which translate into ‘no gatekeeping’ for this service.

Good God — ‘having mental health problems doesn’t stop you getting started’. A mental health problem could be causing your gender dysphoria — the DHB will prescribe you hormones and transition anyway.

The DHBs also offer an informative pamphlet on ‘fertility preservation information for those starting oestrogen’.

This advises the male-to-female patient that hormones will sterilize them. This includes children who have gone on puberty blockers.

And of course, trans women cannot carry babies, so you’ll need a ‘person’s uterus’. Nice dehumanization of women there, DHBs.

And children who are given puberty blockers don’t produce sperm, so are infertile. And even if some sperm was recoverable, the DHBs isn’t funding that (it’s too focused trying to get laser hair surgery funded).

This is from the consent form aspiring young trans men sign before they are prescribed transition:

Even though you’re a ‘trans man’, one still has to use contraception to stop yourself getting pregnant, if you’re having ‘sexual contact that puts you at risk of pregnancy’.

And repeats the advice to use lube. At least we’re not telling minors to use lube any more.

And this wonderful admission that no one really knows if it works for your mental health. It might make you angry! Note the inherent gender stereotypes associated with the hormones here.

Of course, the real meat is in the paragraph titled ‘potential risks of testosterone’.

The form admits that taking these hormones will increase your risks of things that can kill you, like liver problems, or heart attacks, or strokes.

But it’s worth it for ‘quality of life’.

If you want to destransition, too, you must come to the DHB, which has already told you that risking heart attacks is worth it to validate your gender identity. I wouldn’t put it past the DHB to try and convince people out of detransition.

The form for aspiring trans women really isn’t any better.

The consent form doesn’t know if oestrogen will increase the risk of breast cancer, but brushes that concern off.

The DHB is going to shrink your balls.

Oh yes, and you’re infertile after taking this stuff, too.

The DHB will fix your penis if it’s not up to standards for ‘sexual pleasure’ while you’re trying to transition into becoming a woman. But I thought women didn’t have penises?

Oh, and here is some sexism — these hormones make someone ‘more emotional’. Right, because that’s not a gender stereotype in the least.

The potential risks of taking estrogen aren’t that great:

‘The full medical effects and safety of taking hormones are not fully known’. But they can give you blood clots, pulmonary embolisms, strokes, and heart attacks, along with the possibility of ‘benign pituitary tumors’.

I don’t think that’s safe at all.

That sounds safe and medically proven! Not.

Here’s a good question: Who can refer young people to Haora Tahine?

School counselors can refer young people for transition related treatment. Or the school nurse. Or a GP. I wonder if a parent’s permission is required before young people go on unnecessary, life-changing medication that could sterilize them. Probably not.

And don’t forget to plug RainbowYOUTH!

The DHB also wants more services to be available including providing ‘gender-affirming care’ that includes Government-funded laser hair surgery for trans women. Seriously. Don’t believe me? I have receipts! This is from the 2016 proposal on the services.

Want more receipts?! Here’s the 2017 Northern Region Transgender Health Work Plan on the issue.

Nurses are underpaid, and Middlemore is full of asbestos, but some men with gender dysphoria need better access to laser hair removal. That this is even being considered for DHB funding is an absolute scandal.

This is a contentious issue — have the DHBs talked to doctors who may not be keen on it? No. They hired the executive director of a pro-transgender charity to run their transgender health project. The conflict of interest was obvious. They clearly intended a particular direction for this project. A direction that is to the detriment of gay and lesbian people.

Miscounting Ourselves

Other health initiatives include the Counting Ourselves survey.

Looks open and left-wing and inclusionary, and accepting. Sigh.

Look at all these groups thinking they’re doing good! On an extremely twee website! SAVE ME

Survey objectives

Oh, so the included definition is so broad as to be meaningless and make the data useless

lol

Cookies aren’t anonymous.

Also, if I refresh my cache, or use an incognito window, I can fill out this survey multiple times. I tested this with an incognito window and was able to open numerous instances of the survey that let me complete it multiple times.

Now, Counting Ourselves acknowledges this flaw, and has a foolproof solution:

“We will collect your IP address, which is a unique number based on your internet connection. It does not identify you or your physical address. We will only use IP addresses to double check for multiple responses from the same person, and then we will delete all IP addresses”.

Screenshot of this statement on their website.

That’s not a foolproof solution — because IP Addresses not static. Most major ISPs in New Zealand do not use static IP addresses. For example Spark do not include Static IP’s on their broadband plans by default — the majority of their customers have dynamic IP addresses. To make new entries in the survey that couldn’t be detected would simply require someone to reset their router. It would be extremely easy, from a technical point of view, to manipulate the survey data, and make it useless. That’s not a good look. Similar instances of transgender surveys having flaws like this that bring into question their whole methodology and validity is the American National Transgender Survey, which had similar flaws where multiple people could take the survey over and over again. That hasn’t stopped that study being recited like it is gospel. With these kinds of flaws, it brings into question what these surveys actually aim to achieve.

The Curious Case Of The Hijacking Of Auckland Pride

Nowhere is hijacking more evident than at Auckland Pride. It primarily involves anti-law enforcement group People Against Prisoners Aotearoa, (PAPA), formerly known as No Pride In Prisons (NPIP).

In 2015, three protesters invaded the parade route to protest the New Zealand prison system, specifically the way trans women were treated in prisons and the presence of Police and Corrections in the Parade. They were dragged away from the route and an oncoming police motorcycle by security staff, with one of the protesters, trans woman Emmy Rakete, having their arm broken in the scuffle. The protest was criticized by onlookers, who shouted that the protest was ‘ruining the parade’. The protest at the parade occurred a day after the ANZ Bank rainbow-coloured ATMs called ‘GayTMs’ were vandalized. A group called ‘Queers Against Injustice’ widely believed to be the same group as ‘No Pride In Prisons’ took credit for the vandalism, claiming they were fighting ‘pinkwashing’, and fighting ‘homonormativity’ of the ‘queer subject’.

By renaming their ATM a GAYTM, ANZ reproduces the frequent sidelining of queer subjects who fall outside of the ‘gay’ sexual identification, and as a result are further marginalised by the politics of ‘tolerance’ practiced by institutions such as ANZ. Secondly, we sought to draw attention to the way ANZ is using GAYTMs to distract attention from the treatment of their workers. The recent strikes by ANZ workers occurred in response to ANZ’s attempts to implement demands for ‘flexibility’, in the form of irregular rostering and frequently shifting labour demands. These proposed reforms attack workers’ rights to control their own time outside of their normal work hours, and constitute an assault on precious family time, time in the community, on religious or personal lifestyle choices, and the dignity of autonomy. We understand that the political and theoretical discourse that foregrounds the intersectional basis of queer subjectivity, attending to the ways race, class and gender cooperate with and exacerbate queer oppression, is often overlooked in favour of a positive outlook. This outlook attempts to portray queer identity as purely fun, consumptive and nationalistic, and in doing so bars critique from within. We can understand the media’s interpretation of this as a homophobic act, because being an angry queer subject who disagrees with the co-opting of our identity is irregular in the face of Pride’s projected homonormative and aforementioned presentation of the queer figure.”

Where did this group come from? Levi Joule, former Queer Rights Officer at the Auckland University Students Association wrote a controversial article in Express that discussed the groups emergence from Auckland University student politics. Joule states the group was formerly known as ‘Petty and Vindictive’ a ‘fringe collective responsible for the pride protests and paint splattering of Auckland’s GayTMs and police stations’.

Joule claims the group emerged from the inaugural university pride week in an attempt to ‘radicalize it’

“Petty and Vindictive’ originated, as a group set up to ‘radicalise’ the University of Auckland’s inaugural pride week held last year. Subsequently some members went on to form the ‘No Pride in Prisons’, the group that invaded this year’s Pride Parade and “Queers Against Injustice” who claimed responsibility for the GayTM and police station vandalism.”

Another person, Tessa Naden, then the University Queer Rights Officer, was quoted as saying the following, though my birdies tell me she later denied the quote on social media:

“University of Auckland Queer Rights Officer Tessa Naden who is responsible for Queerspace says, “this group have caused considerable emotional distress for a lot of people involved with rainbow activism.” “They do nothing but cause trouble for organizations whom they’ve scarcely engaged with, perform melodramatic psychoanalysis of the various bigotries of their members, and then devote themselves to offensively flailing at anybody,” as highlighted by their recent protests.”

Joule even quotes a former member of the group:

“ Petty and Vindictive are quick to label anybody with a dissenting view to theirs as anti-trans. A former member of Petty and Vindictive (who spoke to express on the condition of anonymity) said the group did not tolerate dissent. She was booted from the group because of a differing view on the GayTM vandalism. She tells us, “after I expressed my disagreement with the vandalism of the GayTMs, they immediately claimed I was racist and transphobic. They had no evidence of me being either of those things besides me openly disagreeing with one person that is trans and not white, as well as a cis white girl over [attacking] a GayTM.”

No Pride In Prisons evolved quickly from the initial protest, again hijacking the Auckland Pride Parade in 2016 with a much larger protest. The parade was delayed over an hour as police dealt with a sit-in. Gathering on Karangahape Road before the protest, the protesters chanted ‘Police are violent, we won’t be silent’.

Lexie Matheson, the then former Pride board member and future Pride board chair, was quoted in the Herald on the protest:

“Lexie Matheson, an AUT lecturer in events management is an activist for transgender prison rights, is at the scene of the protest on K Rd. She said the ‘No Pride in Prisons’ rally had begun as an hour of speeches and between 400 and 500 people were moving along K Rd towards Ponsonby Rd peacefully. “Traffic is patient and largely supportive. The cops have arrived." She said the march was non-confrontational and protesters aimed to raise awareness of the mistreatment of trans women in men’s prisons and the Pride Parade’s allowing cops and Corrections to march in uniform. She said it was unlikely that marchers and the Pride Parade would meet.”

Matheson estimated 400–500 people at the protest — the police estimate of the number was around 50. Rakete, the protestor who had their arm broken at the protest, is also quoted in the Herald.

“Spokeswoman for the protest group No Pride in Prisons, Emilie Rakete, said they were there to protest the involvement of Police and Corrections, which she said were “primarily racist, violent institutions”. She said her group had been in contact with two trans women in the past four months who had been raped while in custody. Rakete said this was a direct result of policies introduced by Judith Collins, namely double-bunking and over crowding.” When asked about Collins’ appearance at the Parade today, she said: “Yeah, she’s not our f*****g friend. She’s violent — these are violent institutions.” “This is obviously going to be a really divisive issue because some people are happy with how things are at the moment. Some of us recognise that these institutions are extremely violent. “So some people were less than happy to see us, and some people were really happy to see us.”

Things changed in 2017. There was no protest, and Corrections did not march in the Parade.

“Corrections staff were able to march in uniform for the annual Auckland Pride Parade last year and in 2015. However, the Auckland Pride Festival Board said they had failed to live up to promises made about improving the support for prisoners who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersex, queer, and particularly those who are transgender. Correction’s involvement with the parade has been marred in the last two years with protesters using it as a platform to challenge its treatment of LGBTQI prisoners. Last year staff were allowed to march in uniform after the event’s Board and Corrections agreed to come up with ways to support transgender prisoners through 2016.

Why did this occur? How was a Government department no longer allowed to march in a Council-funded Pride Parade?

“Corrections staff were able to march in uniform for the annual Auckland Pride Parade last year and in 2015. However, the Auckland Pride Festival Board said they had failed to live up to promises made about improving the support for prisoners who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersex, queer, and particularly those who are transgender. Correction’s involvement with the parade has been marred in the last two years with protesters using it as a platform to challenge its treatment of LGBTQI prisoners. Last year staff were allowed to march in uniform after the event’s Board and Corrections agreed to come up with ways to support transgender prisoners through 2016. Festival Board chair Kirsten Sibbit said they had not seen that happen. “For us it was important to see that some of those policies they talked about last year had been implemented and that those changes were being seen at the coal face in prisons,” she said. “The information that they gave us didn’t convince us that has been the case and that the commitments they made last year have been followed through.” Corrections was the only organisation to be refused participation, with around 55 groups — including police — set to parade on 25 February.” “Staff would still be able to attend, but not in uniform, and had been offered the opportunity to march with other groups.

Okay, but where did these demands come from? We can see from news reports that the protesters weren’t well received.

Wait, there’s more to this news article. Maybe that will have the answer?

It was a move welcomed by activist group No Pride in Prisons, which protested against Corrections and the police being allowed to participate in the parade last year and in 2015. Spokesperson Emilie Rakete said it was a symbolic victory but it needed to bring about actual change. “It’s taken us two years of very public, very bitter, drawn out critique of the Department of Corrections and they still haven’t produced the transgender prisoner safety plan which they promised a year ago,” Ms Rakete said. “If two years of desperately poor PR for Corrections is not enough to get them to implement the barest measures to protect trans prisoners’ safety and basic human rights nothing will do it. “

Oh, Pride capitulated. Or did it?

I mean, Corrections did what NPIP/PAPA wanted.

Corrections said it was disappointed with the decision. About 15 staff marched last year after many were put off by protesters and the department had been hoping for a bigger representation this year, it said. Acting Northern Region Commissioner Alastair Riach said over the past year the department had done “a lot” towards improving its policy around transgender prisoners and members of the rainbow community. He said Corrections had been developing a plan along international best practice that would include developing a safety management plan for each trans prisoner; allowing trans prisoners to have personal items required to maintain their gender appearance; housing trans prisoners in single cells unless they consent to being placed in shared cells with other trans prisoners of the same biological sex.” “Trans prisoners would also be searched in accordance with their gender identity — for example, a transwoman would be searched by female staff. Some of those changes were already underway, Mr Riach said. However, the changes were yet to go into official operating manuals and staff had not been trained. “Our next step is to roll this out with our staff but we’ve got over 3000 staff in prisons — it’s quite an undertaking [and] we want to do it well.” He believed Pride Parade organisers were aware of that “but their view was that we’ve taken too long”. “I think running a big organisation like that, we’re actually running at a good pace,” he said. At any one time, 12 to 20 prisoners out of the 10,000-strong prison population identified as transgender, Mr Riach said. “Whilst they talk about training all of our staff, for some of them it’s a rare event so that’s why we just need to be careful to ensure our training is correct.””

What’s going on?

How did an organization of ‘neo-liberal gaystreamers’ capitulate to a ragtag band of protesters? That’s a good question.

Let me attempt to answer it.

Do you remember Lexie Matheson from the above news article? If not, let’s continue anyway. Matheson, an AUT lecturer on ‘event management’, and an out trans woman who identifies as a ‘lesbian’, is a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to theatre and ‘LGBTQI+ people’. Matheson has been on the Pride Board twice, resigning from the board initially in 2014 after disputes with other board members.

“Matheson has said that she resigned from the board because they had “grown apart, like a marriage really.” “I just feel at odds with the way the board is going. I just feel like it is becoming too corporate.” Matheson also says she feels that the board is no longer transparent and accountable in relation to the way appointments are made and the way the community is communicated to. “If you lose track in how you talk to your community and stakeholders, than there are serious issues.” She expresses concerns around lack 0f transparency in board appointments as well. “The suggestion I made, which was that we restructure and go back to square one. That we deconstruct the three positions, end the contracts and start again.” That idea was rejected by the board, which in large part resulted in Matheson’s resignation.”

The divorce from the Pride Board didn’t take though, and Matheson was back in the board by August 2016, which met with criticism from former board member Phylesha Brown-Acton in (now sadly defunct) news website GayNZ in an article by Sarah Murphy (archive linked):

Advocate and community leader Phylesha Brown-Acton says Lexie Matheson, who has recently been re-appointed to the Auckland Pride Festival Board, has previously publicly “verbally attacked and slammed” members of the Board, including herself, with “racist, inappropriate and unforgiving statements” and that the community should be questioning the process of her re-appointment.”

Wait? What are these ‘racist, inappropriate and unforgiving statements’?

At the time she stated that she had been at odds with Board members regarding the direction and the decision it made not to speak out on important matters. “I have no ill-feelings about her”, says Phylesha, “I barely know the person, my issue is the process with her re-appointment considering she has verbally attacked and slammed many voluntary members of PRIDE publicly for reasons other than trying to place blame and speak untruthfully of others.” She is referring to comments Lexie made on Facebook during the time Phylesha was serving on the Auckland Pride Board. The comments — which a member of the pubic took a screen shot of and sent to her at the time — were made publicly on Facebook and Lexie was in conversation with people Phylesha says she is not connected with. She believes the comments were made in reference to her as she was serving on the Board at the time they were made. The comments, that the screenshots show are written by Lexie, read “Me too, [name] Gutless. And the transwoman of colour on the board? What’s her agenda? Oh, that’s right. She’ll do whatever gets her the best deal.” “Yes, [name], my community has been cast adrift and the idea that there’s a transwoman on that board makes me want to vomit!”

Phylesha took issue with this because she doesn’t identify as a ‘trans woman’.

In regards to these comments, Phylesha says “The screenshots speak for themselves, they were obviously written when I was a APFI board member of recent, regardless whose Facebook page and protecting the anonymity of the persons, the context is they are public statements made by Lexie about me via social media, placing the colour of my skin into question as something inadequate, questioning my agenda which is obviously to represent Pasifika LGBTQI peoples and their families, attributing the colour of my skin as something that bastardises me to be a beggar that would take anything I can get the best deal for! The second screenshot sent to Phylesha during her time on the Auckland Pride Board. “And that her other statement clearly speaks for itself, She is a trans woman, that thinks I as a trans woman makes her want to vomit, ignorantly labelling me as a trans woman when I am firstly an indigenous person to Niue Island and the term I identify with is “Fakafifine”, so please stop forcing westernised labels on me, my body and being is not for you to further colonise and abuse!”

Brown-Acton also raises a valid point: Matheson does have a conflict of interest.

“APFI has over time been overwhelmed and bombarded with community politics and having to deal with that as a priority over the more important internal matters,” she says. She says she believes the community should be asking what the process of Lexie’s re-appointment has been. “A 360 peer evaluation process should have applied for her application and taking into consideration her previous unprofessional behaviour of publicly slamming others and now defaming a previous APFI board member via social media and taken into consideration her behaviour that misleads community, which are integrity and professional concerns for anyone in a governance role. Governance roles should never support the personal or ego agendas of anyone.” Lexie Matheson She says Lexie’s appointment to the Pride Board also raises the question as to whether this creates a conflict of interest as she is also a member of the Auckland Council Rainbow Advisory panel who fund, through ATEED, the festival. “Firstly, her role on Pride is voluntary, there is a pecuniary conflict of interest here as her role on the Auckland City Council Rainbow Panel is a paid position by rate payers and Pride receives its core funding from ATEED, an Auckland City Council organisation. “Secondly, has she resigned from her role as an advisor to the Auckland Council Rainbow Panel? “It still poses the question of “power and influence” she has at decision making levels, considering the racist, inappropriate and unforgiving statements Lexie has made, highlighting also the purpose of the Auckland City Council Rainbow Communities Advisory Panel is to; Provide strategic advice to Auckland Council on issues of significance to Auckland’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, Intersex and Takataapui or Rainbow communities and to help the council engage effectively with these communities, this is about the safety of our Rainbow community and I do not feel safe having someone at the helm in decision making who holds such hatred towards another.

Indeed, at the time Matheson was chair of an organization that receives Council funding, they were also on the Rainbow Communities Panel of the Council — surely a conflict of interest? Matheson doesn’t seem to have cared, voting on Pride business as a Advisory Panel at least once, as we can see in the minutes of the panels July 2017 meeting

“2 Declaration of Interest Members are reminded of the need to be vigilant to stand aside from decision making when a conflict arises between their role as a member and any private or other external interest they might have. There were no declarations of interest.”

Those are some fairly reasonable conflict of interest guidelinees. Let us look at item number eleven:

“11 Consideration of Extraordinary Items Pursuant to Standing Order 2.4.6, the Rainbow Communities Advisory Panel agreed to discuss its ability to formally support the Auckland Pride Festival Board. Lexie Matheson, panel member and Auckland Pride Festival Board member, led the discussion. The following points from the discussion were noted: · The support sought is non-monetary and could be in the form of a letter of support for the board and its activities. · The panel agreed that any formal support for the board should come from the Liaison Councillor with the panel’s endorsement.”

I would think that’s a clear conflict of interest no? Yet it was undeclared. Matheson was paid to attend these meetings and promoted the business of an organization they were a board member of, on a Council Advisory Panel. That’s dodgy at best.

Despite the accusations of racism and not declaring conflicts of interest while conducting Council business, Matheson ploughed on as Chair. At the 2018 Festival, Matheson criticized the police for creating a rainbow-themed police car for the Pride Festival, saying:

““I’m queer 52 weeks of the year, their car is queer for only two weeks of the year, they will take the rainbow off, but I can’t,” Matheson said.” The police should put its resources to better use like making a non-public donation to an organisation like Rainbow Youth, extend its school diversity programmes or contribute to the Pride Parade itself, she said.”

Even Emmy Rakete was consulted on the evil rainbow police car:

“People Against Prisons Aotearoa (PAPA) spokeswoman Emmy Rakete said the car was nothing more than a feeble PR exercise in an attempt to make the police look more progressive it was. “There is nothing easier than just chucking a coat of paint over something without addressing any of the fundamental problems with it,” Rakete said. In 2016 and 2015 PAPA, formerly No Pride in Prisons, staged a blockade of the Pride Parade over the Department of Corrections and police’s involvement in the event. PAPA had no plans to boycott the parade this year, she said.”

During their time as Chair of the Pride Board, Matheson was also subject of a glowing profile on the Auckland Pride website as a ‘change-maker’, which was included in the Pride Programme for 2017. Notably, Matheson says this:

“What achievement are you most proud of? The work done by the Rainbow Communities Advisory Panel, Auckland Pride returning to its activist roots, having my work (and that of others) acknowledged when I was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit.”

Activist roots, eh? Indeed, Matheson was involved with the No Pride In Prisons activist group. Matheson identified themselves as a No Pride In Prisons activist to the Herald in an interview. Oh, that’s behind the capitulation.

“11. You’re an activist with the group No Pride in Prisons. What’s that about? We protested at last year’s Pride parade because they allowed gay Corrections Department staff to march in uniform. That was like a slap in the face for the trans community who are still routinely mistreated by the prison system. We’ve had instances of rape just last year after trans women were put in shared bunkrooms in male prisons. I’ve been beaten up by cops and put in a male prison cell full of bikers with one toilet in the corner.”

This is the second time ‘double-bunking of trans prisoners’ has been brought up by a No Pride in Prisons activist. While No Pride In Prisons insisted this was happening, a October 2016 Official Information Act Request that Rakete made on the website FYI.org , about double-bunking to Corrections revealed a comparatively mild truth. — transgender prisoners could only double bunk with each other, and there were 2 double-bunked transgender prisoners at the time Rakete was complaining. Despite Rakete’s grandstanding protest, I am guessing they felt like a deflated balloon when Corrections told them this:

“Transgender prisoners may continue to be considered for placement in a shared cell with another transgender prisoner (of the same identified gender transition), subject to their consent and in accordance with SACRA policy.”

Not so evil, after all.

Who is Emmy Rakete is another good question? The son of brown Wiggle Robert Rakete, Rakete was born Jackson Rakete and attended the prestigious and expensive Auckland high school ACG Senior College, where fees run into the tens of thousands of dollars, before attending the University of Auckland. Rakete also identifies as a ‘trans lesbian’ and as a prison activist as well as a communist, despite their origins.

Auckland Pride is not the only organization that No Pride in Prisons hijacked. During the 2015 Rainbow Youth AGM, NPIP attempted to get a majority on the Rainbow Youth board that consisted of its activists, as well as opposing a motion by RainbowYOUTH to declare itself formally apolitical. As you can see, in this set of minutes from July, they were partially successful, getting known NPIP activists Aayliah Zionov, Rakete themselves, and Justine Sachs onto the board. They proceeded to try and get RainbowYOUTH to focus on the corrections issue, as you can see in this screenshot of the agenda.

As you

What does NPIP/PAPA stand for? Why did they hijack the Parade? The entryism strategy towards RainbowYOUTH? That’s a good question.

Why are trans women prisoners denied access to women’s prisons if they apply? Well, I decided to look at the website for Corrections and their transgender policy. It’s fairly black and white on the issue:

“M.03.05.02 Criteria to apply for review of initial determination Prisoners are not eligible to apply for a review of the initial determination of their placement if they: are serving a sentence for serious sexual offence (refer POM M.03.05.Res.01 Schedule of serious sexual offences) against a person of the prisoner’s nominated sex, or are on remand for a serious sexual offence against a person of the prisoner’s nominated sex, or have previously served a sentence of imprisonment for a serious sexual offence: against a person of the prisoner’s nominated sex, and the sentence expiry date for that sentence was within 7 years ago or less. If the prisoner requests to review the initial determination and is ineligible, staff must:advise the prisoner the reason they are not eligible (e.g. disqualifying offences), and update IOMS with “Placement review declined” Alert, and record in the Alert’s comment Box the reason the prisoner is ineligible.

PAPA, and its activists, and Pride Chair Lexie Matheson, who identified themselves as a PAPA activist, did all that protesting and banning Corrections from the Parade for the rights of a dozen serious sex offenders.

More disturbing is that Corrections will place people based on the legal sex of their birth certificate, and with recent proposed changes to law allowing self-declared legal sex change , prisoners, regardless of offending, will be placed in the prisons of their legal sex, not their biological sex.

“ Note: If staff have a copy of the birth certificate that specifies the prisoner’s sex, the prisoner must be placed in a prison that manages prisoners of the sex specified on the birth certificate”.

People Against Prisons Aotearoa and Lexie Matheson want male rapists who identify as women in women’s prisons, and hijacked Auckland Pride to do so.

I repeated: these two ‘trans lesbians’ hijacked Auckland Pride, barred a Government department from marching, all in the service of serious sexual offenders getting to self-identify into women’s prisons.

Want to know some more facts about PAPA? Of course you do.

PAPA also insists that the rate of trans women being assaulted in prisons in very high — this supposedly justifies having biologically male, serious sex offenders in a women’s prison based on gender feelings.

I decided to go through PAPA’s manifesto in order to find out where they get that factoid from. The manifesto was published before their name change to PAPA and was published under the name ‘No Pride In Prisons’. Regardless, it’s on their website here.

In their manifesto, we are told

“For incarcerated trans women, a constant threat of violence haunts

their every step. As demonstrated by a 2007 study in California prisons,

trans women are thirteen times more likely to be sexually assaulted in a men’s prison than the general population.” This data is consistent with the experiences of the trans women No Pride in Prisons has spoken to.

Every single formerly or currently incarcerated trans woman we have

spoken to, bar one, has been raped by either a guard or a fellow prisoner

while in prison. “

Anecdotes are not data, but I digress. Where does that 13 times figure come from? I looked into that 2007 California study. You can find it here. I also looked into its follow up study in 2009, which you can find here.

That thirteen times more likely to be assaulted figure? If you read the 2009 study, that follow-up was done because the 39 transgender prisoners in the 2007 study were a convenience sample mostly taken from a single prison.

To get the figure that trans women are assaulted thirteen times more than the general population, that convenience sample was compared to a random sample. You can’t do that! And you definitely can’t use that figure in policy discussions or to hijack Pride Parades with! It’s indicative only that there needs to be further research. It is not indicative that you should start shoving biologically male rapists into women’s prisons because those rapists identify as women.

The 2009 study that followed up on the 2007 study focused on every ‘transgender’ inmate in the California men’s prison system. The authors even admit they have issues decided who is transgender and can be part of their survey. That’s credible data!

Essentially, they interviewed every transgender woman in the California men’s prison system.

Ultimately, the 2009 study winds up with this conclusion:

“The interview team traveled to 27 prisons for adult men in California, met face-to face with over 500 inmates, and completed interviews with over 300 transgender inmates.”

Great. We can make some actual judgement on this data. Except it probably doesn’t show what the activists want it to show. 20.5% of those inmates were in for sex offending, compared to the general sample in the study which had a rate of 14.6%. 55% had a mental health problem. 17.2% of the compared male sample in the study had a mental health problem.32.1% were in Custody Level 4 (max security), compared to 22.8% of the general male population in California.40% were ‘sex workers’.

For comparisons sake, 2.2% of female prisoners in the US federal system are in for sex offenses.

That’s not the only thing NPIP demands. It is an extreme anti-law enforcement group that in their manifesto, also called for the NZ Police to be defunded, for ‘LGBTQI-positive literature’ in prisons, the removal of police tasters, and for people under the age of eighteen to not be charged with a crime for any reason.

The UK is also having this debate about the presence of transgender-identifying inmates in women’s prisons, after rapist Karen White identified his way into a woman’s prison, then committed multiple sexual assaults while there. He was later convicted and moved to a men’s prison. Half of trans prisoners in the UK are in for sex offenses

“A government survey has counted 125 transgender prisoners in England and Wales, which is likely to be an underestimate. According to MoJ figures released in response to a freedom of information request by the BBC, 60 of them have been convicted of one or more sexual offences”

Making one vulnerable population become more vulnerable to serve the needs of another is not progress. It’s misogyny. Despite being ‘vulnerable’ in men’s prisons, these are men with higher rates of predating on females. The stats show us this.

And the gay and lesbians have not only been erased from their movement — their movement’s largest event was hijacked in service of sex offenders.

Yet this meets with no condemnation, particularly compared to the way feminist protesters at Auckland Pride 2018 were treated. When Renee Gerlich and Charlie Montague gatecrashed the Auckland Parade in 2018, they were met with universal condemnation from Rainbow community groups.

What were those ‘evil’ feminists saying? Here is their press release, issued to Scoop by Montague.

“Feminist activists Charlie Montague and Renée Gerlich dropped a banner at the front of the Auckland Pride Parade. The banner read:

STOP GIVING KIDS SEX HORMONES — PROTECT LESBIAN YOUTH “Organisations like RainbowYouth and InsideOut, as well as the Pride Parade, must stop endorsing medical experimentation, child abuse, sexist stereotyping, and the destruction of female-only and lesbian spaces,” says Gerlich, who reached out to RainbowYouth and InsideOut with an open letter in 2016. Montague adds that, “Lesbians around the world are trying to draw attention to the harm of gender identity on lesbians, and we are being silenced.” Between 2009–16, the number of women and girls in Wellington being referred to endocrinologists for medical gender transition increased twelvefold: from three to forty-one referrals. Sex hormone prescriptions are forecast to continue rising and are not leading to decreasing suicide statistics or increased wellbeing. Studies also show that globally, disproportionate numbers of young women being medicated are lesbian. Throughout the West, children as young as three are being encouraged to undergo gender transition. The prescription of puberty blockers to children as young as ten, followed by sex hormones in adolescence is sterilising children. Children as young as six are being given genital tuckers and prosthetic dildos, and RainbowYouth in New Zealand has been distributing free breast binders in schools. These apply pressure to women’s chests in order to damage tissue and inhibit breast growth, also causing lung damage. “The New Zealand Herald reported the impacts of a course of testosterone treatment on a Northland lesbian teen in 2017,” says Gerlich. “She now recognises that she is female. Testosterone, prescribed to put her on the path of gender transition, has left her potentially infertile with a permanently lowered voice, increased body hair and worsened depression that has led to suicide attempts. The promotion of this kind of medicalised abuse is what we are protesting at Pride.” “By distributing breast binders in schools, RainbowYouth promotes dysphoria and the mutilation of women’s bodies. It’s doublespeak for them to do this in the name of ‘Pride’.” The physician who leads the gender transition programme at Auckland’s District Health Board, Jeannie Oliphant, says that she herself does not know what gender is. “What makes people transgender?” she says. “I don’t think we know any more than we know why I was born left-handed and my sister was born right-handed.” Young people in New Zealand cannot be making informed decisions around gender transition when the appointed experts are in the dark themselves, and this means medical experimentation and breach of medical ethics. Montague says that “Gender is a system of “pink and blue” sex-based stereotyping. Without these gender stereotypes there are no “trans” children. We want to break down stereotypes so that youth can be whoever they want to be — without being medicalised for it.””

Two ‘trans lesbians’ can hijack the Pride Parade for the rights of serious sex offenders and be praised and given media coverage and have an entire organization and government departments capitulate to their desires.

Two feminists, one of them a lesbian and therefore a member of the community, raise issues with transgender ideology? Well, let’s look at what they get called. Here is the initial Pride Board response:

“At this year’s Auckland Pride Parade, two people encroached on the Parade route without permission to protest against access to hormone therapy for trans youth. Had these protesters submitted a Parade registration indicating what they were planning to do — and the transphobic message they were planning to communicate — their entry would have been declined by the Board of Auckland Pride.” “As well as disrupting the Auckland Pride Parade, the protestors have targeted LGBTIQ+ youth organisations, RainbowYOUTH and InsideOUT. The Board of Auckland Pride wishes to express solidarity with these two charitable organisations who provide vital services for queer and gender diverse young people.

The Pride Board response included RainbowYOUTH in their response:

“At RainbowYOUTH, it’s incredibly important to us to uplift and support the agency of all young people over their bodies, their identities and their lives,” says Executive Director Frances Arns. “In a society that defaults towards questioning and challenging anything that falls outside of gender and sexuality ‘norms’, queer and gender diverse young people need a safe space where they can explore and develop their identities.”

And from InsideOUT

“InsideOUT was disappointed to see the protestors in the Auckland Pride Parade spreading harmful and false messages about the vital work being done to support young trans and gender diverse New Zealanders,” says National Coordinator Tabby Besley. “The process for anyone to get on hormones in New Zealand tends to be a lengthy and strenuous one, and organisations such as ours are in no position to give out medical treatment.”

Besly is lying here — and we know that, because all it now takes to get hormones in Auckland is a referral and a signed consent form.

Montague was a Greens member, so of course, they stepped in to condemn the political views of a member of their political party.

“Rainbow Greens have also released a public statement regarding the protest in which the co-convenors of the Rainbow Greens say they are “aware one of the trans-exclusionary radical feminists who protested at pride against the availability of hormone therapy for trans youth is a Green Party member.” “Their actions do not align with the Green Party kaupapa of non-violence, or the Green Party kaupapa of responsible decision making by way of scientific accuracy,” they wrote. “The Green Party stands with the transgender community.”

Montague and Gerlich were then harassed on social media for weeks on end. They were not acknowledged as ‘having a point’. They were tarred and feathered as ‘trans exclusionary radical feminists’ for bringing up concerns that are perfectly reasonable and many are afraid to voice out of fear for being treated like they are.

What is the difference between Montague and Gerlich and Matheson and Rakete? They are both advocating for a particular political position, and using Pride to convey messages relevant to the LGBT community.

Well, Rakete and Matheson identify as ‘trans lesbians’. That’s mean they are biological males who are attracted to biological females. To use the scientific term for this sexual behaviour: they are heterosexual males. They identify as ‘women’ because ‘woman’ is a feeling under their ideology, then claim to be lesbians as a result of this. Matheson claimed to be the ‘lesbian’ Chair of the Board while the number of lesbian events at the Pride Festival dwindled into the single digits — there were five at the last festival. These two are biological males that are, to be necessarily crude, interested in sticking their penises into vaginas. They are heterosexual males by any definition. Allowing them to claim the word ‘lesbian’ and telling any lesbian in the community that if they disgaree, they are a hateful bigot, is erasure. Allowing what are heterosexual males to identify as lesbians erases lesbians as female homosexuals — biological females exclusively attracted to other biological females.

By ‘including’ them in ‘lesbian’ is to include heterosexuality into lesbianism. That’s offensive, homophobic pick-up line at best, extreme appropriation at worst. It’s erasure of the homosexual — again.

Why are we allowing two heterosexual males who identify as women to hijack the Auckland Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade in order to complain about the treatment of serious sex offenders?

Matheson resigned from the Pride Board in mid July 2018, Perhaps, that will give him more time to sexually harass Renee Gerlich on social media, like when he tweeted this ‘parody account’ that was harassing Gerlich.

That’s gross, Lexie.

Why does gay erasure matter?

While all this gay erasure is going on, life isn’t getting any better for the homosexual youth that these organizations are ignoring. These groups love citing the Youth’12 stats on transgender students.

I’ve decided to give you a tour of the Youth ’12 stats that these people don’t talk about. You never hear anyone talking about the stats from this study — Young People Attracted to the Same Sex or Both Sexes Findings from the Youth’12 national youth health and wellbeing survey.

This is important. Why? Well, we’ve all heard about the 19.1% attempted suicide rate reported by transgender young people. One in five, they say! This is why the homosexuals must capitulate to all their demands. Otherwise, trans youth might kill themselves. They won’t tell you that the rate for same-sex attracted youth in Youth’12 is extremely similar at 18.3% — one in five. Not very different from the 2000 survey. The suicide rate for young same-sex attracted youth hasn’t declined in twelve years.

I know I’ve mentioned this before but disproportionate number (41.1%) of transgender youth report being same-sex attracted — sexually attracted to other members of their natal sex. 54.6% report being attracted to the opposite sex. Due to the confusing question, and some transgender youth considering themselves ‘straight’ (and therefore ‘heterosexual’, even though they are actually homosexual in behavior), the number of bisexual or homosexual trans youth is probably higher. 7% of non-transgender young people identify as same-sex attracted, for compassion. Are we sure gender identity has nothing to do with sexuality, RainbowYOUTH? Are you sure???

Shall I keep going?

The Youth’12 says that 39% of transgender youth felt unable to access healthcare. The rate for same-sex attracted youth? 35%

Youth’12 says 53% of transgender students felt that someone at school would hurt or bother them. The rate for same-sex attracted students? 57.9%

I could go on. Plenty of stats for same-sex attracted youth are very similar or worse than transgender youth. Want some more?

17.6% of transgender youth were bullied at least weekly.

16.5% of same sex attracted youth were bullied at least weekly.

81.2% of transgender students felt safe in their neighbourhood.

45.3% of same sex attracted students felt safe in their neighbourhood.

45.5% of transgender students had self-harmed in the past 12 months.

59.4% of same sex attracted youth had self harmed in the past 12 months. (heterosexual, non-transgender youth reported a rate of 23%)

41.3% of transgender youth reported significant depressive symptoms. The stats for same-sex attracted youth on that one? Identical. 41.3%

40% of same-sex attracted youth reported binge alcohol drinking. 20% reported at least weekly drinking of alcohol (compared to 17.6% of transgender youth)

How much of those transgender stats comes from their massively disproportionate number of same-sex attracted youth identifying as transgender? Why do I never, ever see prominent LGBTQI+ groups talk about these statistics? Ever? It’s always ‘1 in 5 trans youth’. It’s like they forgot the LGB have a 1 in 5 rate for our youth. Almost like they’ve erased the homosexual from their remit in their laser-like focus on trans issues. Gay youth are being bullied in our schools, are being bullied , are self-harming at a rate of nearly 2 in 3, and, as a demographic, have issues with alcohol far worse than heterosexual youth and transgender youth. Maybe it’s time we talk about them too.

Because they actually have it worse. And the organizations that are supposed to help these young people are telling them they can ‘change gender’ and depriving them of the language to discuss their experiences.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

What has happened?

In essence, the Government over the past five years or so, during which both major parties were in power, decided to subsidize and fund a certain kind of politics in the gay and lesbian movement — queer politics. This is despite the representatives of queer politics having numerous conflicts of interest issues, and the way they have erased gay and lesbian people from their remits.

It is also clear that there is a ‘political class’ in the New Zealand LGBT community that represents itself as speaking for the broader community when it does not. The large swathe of the LGBT community in New Zealand is completely disengaged from these people. Yet the same people run organizations and sit on panels, boards, and run the Rainbow section of political parties. They then advise the government on decisions, while not representing any view outside of their small and incestuous social circles. They have built substantial careers out of this, moving between charities and the public sector, always promoting their views on transgenderism. This has led to the Government funding education materials produced by ‘Rainbow Organizations’ that don’t even discuss what ‘homosexuality’ means. This political class has queer politics at it’s core — and it is the ideology they wield against members of the community who dissent, or who believe lesbians aren’t interested in penises. Queer politics is dangerous.

Why?

Queer politics seeks to erase the homosexual and the distinct homosexual experience and replace the concept of ‘biological sex’ with ‘gender’. As I write enshrining this nonsense into law become closer, with the Second Reading of the Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Bill soon to be on the cards at Parliament. This bill would allow people to change their legal sex by self-declaration, thus obliterating the legal concept of ‘biological sex’.

Many feminists have discussed why this is dangerous. Few gay and lesbian activists have. Let me put it this way: with this legislation, we would be completely unable to exclude heterosexuals from our spaces. We would no longer be able to discuss ourselves as ‘same-sex attracted’, because that would include heterosexual attractions. We would have to describe ourselves as ‘attracted exclusively to other people with penises’, or ‘other people with vaginas’, and even then, we would be attacked and called ‘trans-exclusionary radical feminists’. Lesbians who defend their boundaries receive relentless attacks, as you can see here. The transgender movement has also moved onto gay men, with Grindr now being open to heterosexual women identifying as gay men, and users threatened with being removed from the dating platform if they make it clear that they are not into heterosexual sex.

If we can’t discuss our issues, then nothing can be done. The statistics for same-sex attracted young people are as bad, if not worse than transgender youth, yet over the past few years, the gay and lesbian community in New Zealand has been hijacked to service this tiny minority of people, along with their homophobic ideology and homophobic desires. Homosexuals are being erased from their own movement. Even the Gay Auckland Business Association changed its name to ‘Rainbow Auckland’, in order to be more ‘inclusive’. At what point are homosexuals allowed to carve out our own spaces, to say that yes, we are gays and lesbians, and that this is just for us? Where can we say ‘homosexuals only’ and not be called ‘exclusionary’ for desiring even a small amount of linguistic space to be able to describe our experiences?

Entire organizations that represent themselves to the government as representing ‘gay and lesbian’ issues erase gay and lesbian people from the very pictures they paint — on their websites, in their education resources, even in the very events they run that were founded for and by gays and lesbians.

At what point do we stay stop? Because if we don’t, we are going to be erased as a class of people. Our hard-won rights will be washed away. The children that will grow up to be gay will be left with broken bodies and a DHB that told them that they signed an ‘informed consent’ form. It is time that gays, lesbians and bisexuals in New Zealand took back our movement.

Before we get eaten alive.

This material was adapted from a series of Twitter threads originally posted at @gckiwi, and includes additional research and material.