We are delighted to announce the launch of Genspect New Zealand. Here you will find all the latest news and updates from our New Zealand team.

We focus on promoting high-quality, evidence-based care for gender-questioning individuals in New Zealand. We also work with local support groups to support families and individuals navigating questions of sex and gender.

For New Zealand-related inquiries, contact nz@genspect.org

Latest News from New Zealand

Jan Rivers, NZ Spokesperson

Jan Rivers is a former public servant whose roles were in information management, library services and information policy. She is also a lesbian, an activist on public issues and works part-time as a meditation teacher. Passionate about the quality of public services and democracy in New Zealand she was involved with others working on issues of the public good such as open government, trade agreements, media policy and the use of big data and algorithms in government.  In 2018 she recognised gender ideology as a threat to the public sector, to social cohesion and to women, children and same-sex attracted people. She helped found some of New Zealand’s gender-critical organisations and is the author of articles on the impact of gender ideology on government and the dangers to children and young people of gender medicine.

Country Profile

Government

The NZ government is a representative democracy. NZ has a Mixed Member Proportional system (MMP).  A political party needs at least 61 seats in an outright majority to govern, or a coalition of parties can make up the final number. Each registered voter gets two votes: a party vote and an electorate vote. MMP is a proportional system so the number of votes a political party gets reflects the number of seats they get in Parliament. Parliament is elected for a period of three years. The last general election was in October 2023 and the Labour Government were voted out. Parliament currently has a coalition government with 123 seats making it the largest NZ Parliament in history. The coalition consists of the National Party – centre right (48 seats) ACT- libertarian (11 seats) and New Zealand First – nationalist (8 seats).

Te Tiriti o Waitangi

A unique feature of NZ politics is its relationship with indigenous citizens. A focus of this relationship is the foundational treaty between Māori and the Crown – Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Treaty of Waitangi). This is not a legal document but some Treaty principles have been developed in legislation. Learn more about this here and here.

Laws Affecting Sex and Gender

The Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Bill was introduced under the previous government – Labour. This Bill was passed unanimously in Parliament with support from all parties.

MP Jan Tinetti, Minister of Internal Affairs presented and progressed the Bill. On the Second Reading in Parliament, Tinetti said:

Today, we are proud to be the most rainbow Parliament in the world, and yet, for many of our rainbow community, basic life events where a birth certificate is often used, such as enrolling a child at school or opening a new bank account, become a moment of stress, forced outing, and discrimination. And as Minister of Internal Affairs, I think it’s unacceptable for us to continue using a government-issued birth certificate that causes pain and discrimination for some New Zealanders. Under this bill, transgender, non-binary, and intersex New Zealanders will no longer require proof of medical treatment or to show a court that they physically conform to the deeply held and lived knowledge of who they know themselves to be.

Jan Tinetti also said,

I don’t believe that these changes will impact, impinge, or threaten the rights of any other New Zealanders, but they will increase the rights of some vulnerable members of our community who deserve the dignity and right to be able to self-identify their gender on their birth certificate without financial, medical, or legal barriers.

Unfortunately, this is not the case – women’s and girl’s rights and dignity continue to be eroded in NZ. For example, the Christchurch City Council has developed a new Equity and Inclusion Policy which fails to include sex. The committee has the word gender but not sex. Read more about this here.

Here is a summary of the issues with Sex Self ID by Speak Up For Women.

The Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Act (2021)

This Bill was also passed under a Labour Government. The left-wing parties (Labour, Green, and Te Pāti Māori) voted for the bill, along with 25 National Party MPs. Eight National MPs voted against it, and 23 of National’s MPs exercised their conscience votes and abstained. The Bill references gender identity and gender expression as characteristics that fall within its remit.

The Public Service Act (2020)

This new law replaced the State Sector Act, and Section 75 requires the head of each government agency to “promote diversity and inclusiveness”.  This requirement has seen the Public Service Commission write policies for the whole of government advocating the use of pronouns, the adoption of gender-neutral language, and the calculation of equal pay by gender, not sex. It has seen the widespread provision of diversity, equity, and inclusion training by transactivist organisations.

Policy Affecting Sex and Gender

Even before these laws were passed there was widespread adoption of gender ideology thinking, and policy across government, which was led principally by the New Zealand Human Rights Commission. Sexual orientation and women were redefined without any public consultation.

This has continued since, with the latest census using self-identified gender and not sex as the primary data source for who is male and female.

While the manifesto of the new government will see the “removal and replacement of the gender, sexuality, and relationship-based education guidelines’ and ‘publicly funded sporting bodies supporting fair competition that is not compromised by rules relating to gender” there is no widespread addressing of other policy issues.

Women’s Prisons

In New Zealand men identifying as women (transwomen) may be allowed to serve their sentences in a women’s prison estate. Find out more here:

Department of Corrections information – Guidance on “transgender and intersex prisoners.”

Community Law – On Transgender and Non-Binary People

Women’s Sports

National and New Zealand First are aiming to remove men identifying as women from women’s sports. In 2023 a poll found 60% of New Zealanders oppose biological males who identify as female competing in female sports.

There is confusion in New Zealand about sex and gender which is unfortunately perpetuated by the Human Rights Commission and Sport New Zealand which actively undermine the law by conflating sex and gender identity and providing information to organisations suggesting they cannot exclude males who identify as transgender from female only sports and spaces.

Cycling New Zealand has made some positive changes and has now stopped transgender males from competing in the women’s category.

Check out Save Women’s Sport to stay up to date on this issue.

Gender Dysphoria & Puberty Blockers

Puberty blockers are available in NZ and described on the Ministry of Health website as being available for those who need them: “Puberty blockers continue to be available through prescribing clinicians for those who need them. Decisions on the use of puberty blockers are best made by patients and their families in consultation with appropriate clinicians.”

New Zealand has a highly medicalised approach to gender and treatment of gender dysphoria or distress. There is pressure to move gender medicine out of specialist hospital-based clinics which are part of the funded specialist care settings, and which have substantial waiting lists, into general practice.

Gender-affirming genital surgery service

The Service has been funded with $2.99 million approved in Budget 2019 over four years for the delivery of up to 14 surgeries per year.

The Service is provided through a contractual agreement between Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora, and a private provider of gender-affirming genital surgery in Aotearoa New Zealand. 

The scope of the Service is “gender-affirming” genital surgery for transgender people. 

The Service is able to provide the following surgical techniques:

• Vaginoplasty 
• Minimal Depth Vaginoplasty 
• Metoidioplasty with or without urethral lengthening 
• Phalloplasty with or without urethral lengthening  

Referrals for other “gender-affirming” surgeries and referrals for people with an intersex variation should be sent to the person’s local hospital network, in accordance with locally agreed pathways.

There are also private clinics offering these interventions in New Zealand.

PHARMAC

In New Zealand, there is an independent government agency called PHARMAC which funds large numbers of medicines for the public. Other medicines are available, but the patient or private medical insurance (uncommon in NZ) must pay the full cost. PHARMAC is meant to be an independent decision maker, making decisions based on evidence of a “clear health benefit for New Zealanders”, and taking into consideration the advice of clinical experts from across New Zealand’s health care sector.

PHARMAC announced the free availability of testosterone gel in 2024 – Testogel

This is Health New Zealand’s website on the topic of gender identity and medicine.

Emeritus Professor Charlotte Paul, epidemiologist, writing about the NZ situation in a NZ magazine North and South:

New Zealand is becoming more of an outlier in our increasing use of puberty blocking hormones. In 2022, 416 young people aged 12-17 were taking puberty blocking hormones, compared to 48 in 2011, the first year of use for gender dysphoria. We have 11 times the rate of use as England: 110 per 100,000 versus 9 per 100,000. We also have no minimum age for prescribing. If puberty starts at 10 or 11, these children are eligible for blockers.

Genspect New Zealand Webinar – November 2023

New Zealand’s Transgender Health Guidelines with Jan Rivers

Puberty Blocker Use in NZ: Overmedicalization or Unmet Need? with Simon Tegg

Relevant Articles and Other Information

Fully Informed – Puberty blockers: GP obligations and Psychosocial Treatment Alternatives

Public Good – Jan Rivers – Why the Ministry of Health had to act on children and gender medicine

Accident Compensation Commission (ACC)

New Zealand has a unique accident compensation scheme which provides insurance cover for accidental injuries to New Zealand citizens and residents, and to temporary visitors to New Zealand. ACC takes away the right to sue in the courts for injuries covered by the scheme. This scheme potentially has implications for people who have been harmed by medical transition and wish to pursue a legal case in New Zealand.

Costs covered under the ACC scheme include:

• medical and other treatment
• loss of income (weekly compensation)
• social rehabilitation (aimed at restoring your everyday independence outside the workplace)
• vocational rehabilitation (aimed at restoring your independence in your working life)
• lump sums for permanent disabilities (permanent impairment).

Education in schools

Some schools actively promote gender identity ideology. Click here to learn more.

Parent groups/organisations

Aotearoa Support

Our Duty NZ

Parents against gender education NZ

Gender-Critical Groups

Resist Gender Education

Speak Up for Women

Fully Informed

Save Women’s Sport Australasia

LGB Alliance NZ

Lesbian Action for Visibility NZ

Arguments with Friends

The Ministry has Fallen

The Professional Association for Transgender Health Aotearoa (PATHA)

PATHA was founded in 2019 and describes itself as “an interdisciplinary professional organisation” – “working to promote the health, wellbeing, and rights of transgender people.” PATHA produce guidelines for “gender affirmative care” and information fact sheets. Health New Zealand have adopted the PATHA Guidelines for transgender health although they have not been reviewed or assessed, and their adoption has been used to make the case for barrier-free access to gender-based interventions.

The Cass Report 2024 assessment of guideline quality put the PATHA guidelines second to last – a concerning low score of 149/600.

Genspect NZ spokesperson Jan Rivers assessed the PATHA guidelines. As described by Jan – “The impact of the PATHA Guideline being adopted is that many hundreds of New Zealand children and young people have been put onto a path of lifelong medicalisation.” Jan presented her in-depth assessment of the PATHA guidelines at the Genspect Australia New Zealand Best Practice in Gender Care webinar in November 2023. This article is also a good resource to learn more about this issue.

PATHA philosophy is behind a move to ensure children’s homes and foster carers provide rapid access to gender medicine for children in care.