Transgender rights

New Zealand’s worrying battle over transgender rights

Last year, the equalities minister Liz Truss set aside laws which would have allowed people to self-identity as the legal gender of their choice. For those worried about the effect self-ID could have on women-only spaces, Truss’ move was a welcome relief. But campaigners for women’s rights should not be too complacent. As recent developments across the world in New Zealand show, it only takes a general election to trigger a massive move in policy in a matter of months. Two years ago, the New Zealand campaign group Speak Up for Women thought that self-ID had been taken off the table when Tracey Martin, the New Zealand minister for internal

No, the fight for trans rights has nothing to do with the Holocaust

For the last two-and-a-half years, I have been hounded, attacked and shut down for participating in discussions about sex and transgenderism. My offence? That I believe something that was once accepted as truth: women are women and men are men. As a law professor, I have used my expertise on human rights to advocate finding a way to ensure that women’s rights and transgender rights are upheld without one or the other group losing their rights. The attacks on me have been varied, from facing a barrage of constant abuse online, being called a Nazi and a ‘TERF’ (trans exclusionary radical feminist – a slur used against women in my

The minister who politely refused to play the trans language game

This is an article about the power of language in the transgender debate, about how the trans agenda has been advanced by the skilful capture of language, and about a government minister who has rejected that capture in favour of facts. It’s a bit complicated, so bear with me while I try to explain a slightly technical legal thing. It’s also based on a debate that happened in Parliament last week, but which I’ve only just had time to read in full. Sorry. Anyway, this is about what happens when a person who is married changes their gender in law. Let’s say that person – Alex – was born male,