Erasure of Women in Language
EXAMPLE OF WHAT THIS MEANS IN PUBLIC LIFE:
This paid promotion by Speak Up for Women was removed after complaints to the billboard company, Go Media. General Manager, Simon Teagle made vague references to breaching the "Advertising Standards Authority's codes."
The billboard included the website address for the group: www.speakupforwomen.nz
Go Media's partner - the Wellington Phoenix football club also felt the need to respond:
Club general manager David Dome tweeted this morning that he has contacted Go Media for its position on the advertisement, which would be reviewed accordingly.
He said the billboard was at "complete odds with the club's position on diversity and inclusion and specifically LGBTQI+".
The billboard displays a definition of the word "woman" as being "adult human female" along with the website address speakupforwomen.nz."
Lower Hutt Mayor Campbell Barry posted on Facebook last week saying: "If this group needs a venue in the Hutt, I've got some nice new waste bins they can use?"
He later apologised extremely reservedly after being reminded of his responsibilities as an elected official:
Today Barry apologised if Speak Up For Women felt offended by his comment.
He said the right to meet, speak and debate was important and his comment was in response to some supporters of the group making "derogatory and harmful comments" towards transgender people.
"In terms of my beliefs, I do not support the views of this group and the harm that members within it promulgate."
Barry said while this was his personal view, he has no decision-making authority about the use of council venues, which was ultimately a matter for staff.
​
Speak Up For Women won a ruling from the High Court when Palmerston North Council cancelled one of its venue bookings. The judge said the group "cannot rationally be described as a hate group".
Events booked with Dunedin and Christchurch Councils were cancelled, but after the ruling an event at the Auckland Town Hall.
Wellington Council followed Auckland Council's lead after the High Court ruling, but ensured the event did not pass without directed commentary:
But from tonight Wellington Mayor Andy Foster and councillors Fleur Fitzsimons and Teri O'Neill have organised for the sails of the Centre to be lit in the colours of the transgender flag.
"The conversation which is being had around the country has caused angst for the trans community in particular," Foster said.
"This is a vulnerable part of our community so we are trying to say to them that we're standing beside them and we support them.""
We lost the right to refer to female people as women or girls, and to define women or girls as female. The right to talk about female biology without being compelled to change terminology to include male-bodied people, or women identifying as males wanting biological realities like pregnancy or menstruation to be disassociated from the female sex. With the trans lobbies diversity & inclusion audits in government departments, ministries, funding guidelines at national and local level we are losing the right to refuse the erasure of female specific language in media and all public discourse.
LGBQTIA+ policies are pushing for women to be called 'cis women' a subset of our own class or reduced to functions or body part owners. i.e. menstruators, cervix-havers, birthing people etc.
​
The NZ Government has a set of guidelines regarding language, that remove any reference to sex in favour of gender identity.
​
The Public Service - Te Kawa Makaaho - also provides specific language guidance for the Public Service sector of government: Rainbow Inclusive Language Guide
Several NZ government departments and/or ministries have paid for accreditation with a Rainbow Tick.
​
The Ministry of Health is providing a $180,000 research fund specifically to overhaul language within the Ministry of Health in pregnancy care so that it is more "inclusive." In practical terms, this means the words women/woman/mother are erased and clarity is replaced with obscurity.
​
There is little regard given to the consequences of such language change and a Health sector that cannot refer to sex.
There is a spill over effect to all corporations and organisations influenced or funded by national and local government. The consequences this aspect of gender ideology is being embedded into New Zealand public life