This is a departure from my usual business focus but I feel strongly that the rights of all women in New Zealand are in danger.
I've written the following submission to the Law Commission because it has recommended that the Human Rights Act be changed to include “gender identity” which would override the rights of biological – ie real – women.
My submission:
I was one of the group of women who set up the first feminist Halfway House for battered women in Auckland in the 1970s from which the current Women's Refuge organisation grew.
I was one of the three women who wrote/compiled a book about what we learnt from running the house which was called He Said He Loved Me Really and was published in 1979.
We had encouraged women residents to write their own stories and the book included many of these and it was from one of those stories that the book's title came.
Those of us who ran the house called ourselves roster women and we aimed to have two woman on duty at the house at all times. We were all volunteers.
Many of us had husbands, male partners and/or flatmates but we had made it a rule that no man should know exactly where the house was – when such men were giving us lifts, they had to stop a few streets from the house.
Those men did understand that the Halfway House had to be a refuge for women.
Inevitably, the police and taxi drivers soon discovered the house's location and a few angry men, husbands or partners of residents, did also.
Violence and men
One thing that is obvious is that while all men are capable of violence against women, not all men are actually violent, just as all men are capable of rape, but not all men do rape.
The trouble is, there's no way of telling by looking at them which men are violent and/or rapists.
We also have centuries of criminal history that tells us most violent crimes are committed by men and that it is very rare for women to commit crimes of violence.
Humans have a long history of knowing that women need private spaces in which they can be assured no man will be allowed and that the reason for such spaces comes down to basic safety.
Women who have been battered or raped are frightened of all men, not because they think all men will beat or rape them, but because there is no way of telling which ones are dangerous.
If I'm walking down a quiet street at night, if a man is walking behind me, I will be frightened in a way that I would never be frightened of a woman. That would be just as true if that man claimed to be a woman.
Tickle vs Giggle
Human beings are programmed to know the difference and very few men are able to “pass” as women.
Sometimes, women need spaces that do not include men.
On Friday, Aug 23, the Australian High Court ruled in the Tickle vs Giggle case that sex is changeable and that therefore any man who decides they are a woman is entitled to demand entrance into women's spaces.
The court decided that the wishes of a man who claims to be a woman overrides the wishes of women who want a space that is for women only.
This is in defiance of science which shows it is impossible for a human to change sex.
Giggle's founders, Sal Grover and her mother, intended the website Giggle for Girls to be a safe space online for women and the only criteria for membership was that you had to be a woman. Women who choose to live as men were as welcome as any other woman. But no man was welcome.
The Australian court's decision, if allowed to stand, means that women cannot count on being in any online space that is free from male harassment.
If allowed to stand, it is highly unlikely that many women will want to belong to such online spaces.
No place for a woman
There is plenty of evidence of lesbians, for example, being driven away from online dating sites for lesbians because so many men claiming to be both women and lesbians have joined and proceeded to behave like the worst of men.
It is also true that most men who are decent would not attempt to join an online space designated as being for women only.
The men who demand entrance are precisely the kind of men we want such spaces to be free of.
There is a growing body of evidence in Britain that predatory men often claim to be women, such as rapists who demand to be housed in women's prisons.
This is hideously dangerous to the actual women in those prisons because, by definition, they have no way to escape such predators.
With the advent of self-identification laws, such as the one in New Zealand that came into effect in 2023, it is possible for men who claim to be women to simply make a statutory declaration to that effect.
The international evidence available shows the vast majority of such men remain physically intact.
A growing body of evidence
The following websites are among those documenting the many cases of men who say they are women assaulting women.
There certainly are men who chose to live as women who are not predators, but, just as with all men, we can't readily tell which are the dangerous ones. For that very reason, all such men must be excluded from women-only spaces.
Otherwise, none of the women in such spaces are safe.
It comes down to your priorities: do you think men who claim to be women are more important and have more rights than actual women.
I am aware the commission has already received submissions from local groups and individuals who are concerned that women's rights are being subordinated to the rights of men claiming to be women, including Speak up For Women.
Like these women, I strongly object to the term “cis” woman being used to describe what are in fact real women. In fact, I regard this term as hate speech because of the anti-women and anti-gay ideology underlying it.
We need no qualifier
Real women need no qualifier of the word woman and the use of the term “cis” implies real women are only one category of women. This is obscene.
The commission's wide usage of this term suggests it is already biased against those of us who believe sex is real and immutable and know that our view is backed by science.
Science shows us that sex is far more than just genitals. We can tell what sex somebody is from a mouth swab or blood test; we are either male or female in every cell of our bodies.
That cannot be changed.
The only people who are “assigned” sex at birth are those unfortunate people known as intersex. However, science tells us even these people are either male or female. No human has ever produced both male and female gametes.
We are often exhorted to “be kind” and to pretend that men who claim to be female are actually female, but this is not at all being kind to real women.
It is obnoxious to the belief in free speech that we should be compelled to pretend to live in somebody else's fantasy.
As a life-long feminist, I have lived my life believing that women can do and be anything they choose, within the usual limitations of ability and talent that affect us all.
Toss out stereotypes
I have wanted to rid our society of stereotypes all my life – I loathe the “pink for girls, blue for boys” convention, for example.
It appears to me that trans ideology is firmly based on reinforcing such stereotypes – but being a woman isn't a matter of putting on a costume with fake breasts, wearing dresses and makeup.
Many women, including me, choose not to wear makeup and many women choose to always wear trousers. I happen to like dresses.
All the commission's concern appears to be for what it regards as a persecuted minority, those who believe they were “born in the wrong body,” but nobody is actually born in the “wrong” body.
In so doing, you are ignoring the interests and safety of the half the population who are women.
I absolutely agree that “trans rights are human rights” and believe such people should be able to live their lives as they choose, without discrimination against them.
But a line needs to be drawn where their rights negate women's rights, especially in matters relating to women's safety.
The law will be putting all women at risk if the Human Rights Act is amended to allow “gender identity” to override the rights of biological – ie real – women, and Australia's Tickle vs Giggle decision amply demonstrates this.
For anyone who wishes to make a submission on this matter:
Submissions close on Sept 5.
For anyone who wants to contribute to the costs of Sal Grover's appeal of the Tickle vs Giggle decision:
For anyone interested in the local NZ group Speak Up For Women:
Jenny Ruth has been a financial journalist for more than 37 years and publishes commentary on New Zealand companies, stock exchange matters and on banking in NZ, the Reserve Bank and the economy. This piece was sourced from Jenny Ruth's substack
Let us not forget that a lot of women approve of transgender women in women’s spaces.
I was shocked by the number of women who supported Kheleif being in women’s Olympic boxing.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I note the number of comments herein that deplore "feminism" / feminist movement. They are invariably good men I am sure, quite overlooking the centuries of oppression of women. THAT was what the movement wanted... freedom the learn to read [at all], to express themselves in arts, political voices, and laterly to have a career. Just think how many painters, composers, writers, professionals in medicine, law, teaching, science .... were denied society. Some hitched a name in the 19th century - Clara Schumann, Marie Curie, Fanny Mendelssohn, George Sand.... and some like Hildegard of Bingen took a thousand years to be acknowledged. That modern madness via marketing mafia has overtaken the world is the fault of Soros, Schwab, Gates, W…
From a movie I sent the link upon last night.
" There is no fate but what we make".
All to true.
Aaron 👍
I'm appalled, as much as anybody else that the rights that women have fought for have been so deviously eroded by especially the trans community, but not surprised by it.
With the feminist movement being largely liberal in thought, coupled with the liberalization of goodness knows how many genders , come on. What the hell were they thinking and what did they think would inevitably eventuate?
The feminist movement has a lot to answer for on this issue , because they attacked and vilified the very people that did indeed stand up for them and did fully support them. These strange creatures are known as " men" or " male"
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely despise men identifying as…
My understanding of what appears to be a crazy decision (thanks Judge Bromwich-no idea if he is an activist judge but they're here, believe me!!) is the way the law is written and Sal Grover acknowledges this. She has said publicly that she expected to lose and will now appeal to the High Court of Oz and is crowd funding currently for $A1M. It gets crazier, a Sydney women's soccer team called The Flying Bats won their grand final last Sat. The lunatic part is the said team contained 5 women who are really blokes AND the soccer authorities allowed this putrid arrangement all year. To their great credit, the losers (all real women) from Pennant Hills (Northern suburbs) went…