Three trans activist groups in New Zealand are raising funds after filing a judicial review seeking to prevent British women’s rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen from entering the country.
Gender Minorities Aotearoa, InsideOUT Kōaro, and Auckland Pride explain on a crowdfunding page titled "Transphobia is not welcome in Aotearoa" that they believe Keen’s presence in New Zealand poses a significant threat to public order and a risk to public interest.
“Our case follows the Immigration Minister's decision to allow Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, a known anti-transgender activist, to enter Aotearoa New Zealand. In addition to the judicial review, we are seeking an interim order to prevent Keen-Minshull from entering the country until the judicial review can take place,” explains Auckland Pride’s website.
Keen, who hosts Let Women Speak events giving ordinary women the opportunity to speak about the detrimental impact of gender identity ideology on the rights of women and girls, is currently touring Australia. The New Zealand leg of her tour is set to begin on March 25 in Auckland.
The trans activist groups believe the “facts in this case are clear,” and claim that the Minister’s failure to act is putting their communities in danger.
“We are not opposing freedom of speech, we are opposing the measurable threat to public order and the safety of transgender people,” explains the fundraising page.
“We firmly believe that hate speech and discrimination against transgender people should not be tolerated, and we reject any attempts to divide the LGBTTQIA+ communities that have stood in solidarity with one another in our collective struggle for rights, recognition, love and acceptance on our own terms.”
Keen’s core belief, and that of her supports, is that the meaning of the word woman is adult human female.
“Throughout the legal framework of women's sex based rights and protections we use the word ‘woman’. It is essential that this word is retained to mean ‘adult human female’ only. Without this word all of our rights and protections are lost. Our rights were never created for our "gender" but our sex,” reads Keen’s Standing for Women website.
“Our sex is female. The sex that bears children. The sex that requires maternity rights, privacy rights, equality with the male sex in the work place, specific health care issues, reproductive rights, and so on. If our rights become dependent upon ‘gender’ then they are no longer women's rights, they are ‘feminine’ rights,” explains Keen.
These are the opinions that are considered so hateful and so discriminatory that Keen should be blocked from entering New Zealand.
“There is no place for transphobia in Aotearoa, and there is no public interest in the abhorrent views espoused by Keen-Minshull,” said Managing Director of InsideOUT Kōaro, Tabby Besley.
The Melbourne event of Keen’s Australia tour sparked enormous controversy after a neo-Nazi group showed up in opposition to an Antifa counter-protest. The neo-Nazi’s somehow made it past the police barrier and marched up to the steps of the Victoria parliament doing the Nazi salute. Despite Keen and her supporters voicing strenuous opposition to their presence, in the hours and days following the protest, several left-wing politicians made accusations that the two groups were connected.
Auckland Pride made the same connection in a Facebook post announcing the judicial review had been filed.
“Keen-Minshull (also known as Posie Parker) has a long history of organising and participating in anti-transgender rallies in close connection with neo-Nazi organisations, including rallies in Australia last week which broke out in violence,” reads the post.
Gender Minorities Aotearoa is a “nationwide transgender organisation” that supports “transgender people of all ages, cultures, and backgrounds, and provide one-to-one peer support and information nationwide.” This includes providing information to adolescent girls on how to bind their breasts and where to purchase dangerous chest compression devices called binders.
InsideOUT is a “national charity working to make Aotearoa safer for all rainbow young people.” Their website contains plentiful information about how schools can be supportive and affirming of “rainbow students.”
One video produced by the group using the sweet voices of innocent children to instruct elementary and middle schools on how to be inclusive of “rainbow children.” One child said a dream school would have “lots and lots of Pride flags everywhere,” and another says the perfect school would be one where there are no girl and boy bathrooms, just unisex ones.
A child talks about their best school experience being winning a speech competition.
“I won because I came out to my entire school as trans, and lots of people were happy for me, and all the teachers are really supporting. When they get my pronouns right it makes me feel happy,” said the child.
