Flawed Approach to New Zealand’s Kids in Care
By Jan Rivers
In New Zealand, the Children’s Ministry/Oranga Tamariki (OT) has refreshed its policy on child well-being. As part of this renewal, a research project and a literature review have set the scene for a preference for transition amongst “rainbow” and “takatāpui’ children and young people in the care and fostering systems. Takatāpui is a historic term meaning ‘significant person of the same sex’ that has been commandeered by transgender ideology to mean anyone Māori with a rainbow identity. So these two terms relate, respectively, to the non-Māori and Māori populations of same-sex attracted, non-gender conforming, transgender non-binary and intersex populations of children and young people in care. The research paper, Making Ourselves Visible was commissioned by the Ministry. Its recommendations are being adopted and will see gender-confused children and young people directed towards affirmative medical gender change services. Foster carers and children’s homes will be in breach of OT policies if they do not do this. The research published on the OT website in June 2023 was outsourced to three organisations that advocate for social transition, and endocrine intervention for children and young people.
Faulty Research
The research on which the new recommendations are based not only conflated the whole rainbow / takatāpui population into a single category, divided by race, it then interviewed 9 young people of whom 8 said that they were transgender or non-binary. This happened despite Oranga Tamariki’s own data showing that the vast majority of ‘‘rainbow” and “takatāpui” young people in care are same-sex attracted, and not transgender. This approach has resulted in recommendations that conflate all rainbow children in care as if their needs were the same. Because most interviewees were transgender or non-binary the resulting recommendations are largely directed at the ‘needs’ of transgender and non-binary children in care.
Gay and lesbian young people are often gender-non-conforming and subject to homophobic bullying which places them at risk of being pressured to think they are ‘transgender’. Many children who would have otherwise become same-sex attracted adults will end up undergoing medical transition procedures. The majority, of course, are Māori and many have already faced severe trauma and disadvantage in their lives. It is well known that children who have faced trauma have high levels of body disassociation and are many times more likely to identify as transgender.
A Faulty Literature Review
A second piece of research, published in May 2023, is a literature review that was intended to support the research. It is a poor-quality document with misinformation and inaccuracies about gender medicine, assessment of relevant case law, and more. Amongst the ‘advice’ in the review is:
- It tells carers that rainbow young people must not be encouraged to feel at home in their bodies.
- It claims, contrary to the evidence, that children as young as two understand their gender.
- It claims that pre-pubescent children sometimes have a sexuality.
- It claims that western science is a serious problem to appropriate treatment of ‘rainbow’ children.
The transgender author did not have a background in child development. The poor quality extends to dozens of missing references where the in-text referencing of the writer’s claims is not supported by any details in the bibliography.
This policy is being implemented when there is an acknowledged high risk to medical and care professionals speaking about their concerns about these issues as a North and South article by Emeritus Professor of Epidemiology, Dr Charlotte Paul has outlined. The ideological stance of the recommendations in Making Ourselves Visible will further silence scepticism within the childcare sector. Meanwhile, the recently published Cass Report found New Zealand’s gender medicine guidelines to be very poor quality.
Genspect calls on Oranga Tamariki to withdraw this dangerous policy and prevent the rush to gender medicine for New Zealand’s most vulnerable children.1
1 A more detailed analysis of the research and literature review is available here.