Is the Human Rights Commission Fit for Purpose?
Or are its staff going rogue?
Stephen Rainbow’s appointment as Human Rights Commissioner in August last year was widely regarded as contentious by trans activists who accused him of anti-trans views.
Despite the fact that close scrutiny of his social media posts failed to unearth any damning evidence to support this claim, the selection panel did not recommend him for the role. It was Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith who advocated for his appointment.
They need not have worried. The Human Rights Commission (HRC) submission to the Ministry of Health consultation on safety measures for the use of puberty blockers for gender dysphoric young people is a model of obesiance to trans ideology. The submission was publicly released earlier this month on their website.
The submission contains the predictable genuflection to the Treaty, Te Ao Maori values and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child but mostly it echoes the views of gender-affirming organisations such as the Professional Association of Transgender Health Aotearoa, the Endocrine Society, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association.
The HRC’s conclusions and reasoning stand in stark contrast to international trends and research. For instance, despite the fact that jurisdictions all around the world are limiting or banning the use of puberty blockers for children, the HRC submission maintains that puberty blockers are safe and reversible. Indeed this is the position on its website on resources.
They acknowledge that there is “limited quality evidence for both the risks and benefits of puberty blockers for children experiencing gender incongruence” but say this is “unlikely to be unique to puberty blockers treatment – for example studies suggest only a minority of outcomes for health care interventions are supported by high quality evidence.”
They are less concerned with the high risks of sterilisation and mutilation inherent in gender-affirming care given that almost all children given puberty blockers will go on to cross-sex hormones and possibly surgery, than they are concerned that ‘the risks of not providing gender affirming care can be significant with life-long consequences.’
The submission raises the widely discounted fear that research shows concerning levels of mental distress for transgender and non-binary people, including high rates of suicidal thoughts and attempts. Recent research contradicts this, with evidence showing that Individuals who underwent gender-affirming surgery had a 12.12-fold higher suicide attempt risk than those who did not.
Even the highly regarded Cass Review which resulted in the immediate restriction of puberty blockers to minors outside of clinical research trials in the UK, is pasted for failing to be peer reviewed.
Throughout the submission the language and concepts of gender ideology are adopted unquestioningly. For instance, individuals are described as cisgender or non-binary and the HRC is in no doubt that transgender children exist. It claims that transgender children are a gender minority, estimated to be around 1% of New Zealand children.
Nowhere in their submission does the HRC raise objections and concerns made by sex realist groups, research or individuals. Nor does it explain that gender ideology is not founded in science. It is a faith-based system of thought relying on the unverifiable concept of a gender identity which gender ideologues argue may differ from an individual's biological sex.
In practice this may mean that a gender non-conforming child is led to believe they are the opposite sex. Recent research shows these gender distressed young people are likely to be autistic or same sex attracted while others may have suffered sexual trauma. Most, if left alone, will cease to identify as transgender as they move through puberty.
Astonishingly, instead of urging caution despite the poor quality evidence and obvious harms of medicalising gender distressed children, the submission states that since the risk of physiological harm is low, puberty blockers can continue to be prescribed, independent of any ongoing research. The HRC actually states that ‘it is essential to recognise the positive effects of puberty blockers on children’s mental health and the potential risks of not providing this care.’
The document was signed by Prudence Walker, the HRC’s disability right’s commissioner. A 2023 Stuff article described her as queer, in other words, a member of the church of gender. She’s got the pink hair to prove it.
Given the unscientific language and questionable findings of the HRC submission, it is not unreasonable to ask whether the body charged with “promoting and protecting human rights, ensuring dignity, equality, and respect for all, through addressing complaints, mediating disputes, and advocating for justice” is, indeed, fit for purpose.
Its submission on the safety of puberty blockers indicates that the HRC endorses the wholly unscientific ideology of gender. How can it then be taken seriously as an authoritative body?
While the new Human Rights Commissioner Stephen Rainbow did not write or sign off the submission, it was submitted following his appointment to the role. Instead of defending his reputation as ‘anti-trans’, he now needs to explain why he leads an organisation that supports these dangerous cultish views.
F*ck the Rainbow. We've been set up - again! I doubt he was ever actually 'anti-trans'. NZ is the West's petri dish, pushed around by the big boys in headoffice elsewhere. We went first and hardest for neo-liberal politics, and under a Labour govt, despite having been the first country to set up a welfare state. We appointed the first 'trans' MP and I think I am right in saying if we had passed sex self-ID when they wanted it passed we would have been first there too. We were one of the first. First to win the vote for women, yes, and that was a rare win for actual progress. But it didn't ultimately deliver progress for women when you look at the female PMs and MPs and how they have helped to get us to this all time low for women's rights and feminist politics, a politics that is supposed to centre the rights of the oppressed and vulnerable, women and children especially. Rainbow politics could not be worse for women and children nor better for the sickest and most sexist of men. Also, if 'trans' kids are 1% of our country's kids, that's more than 100,000 kids being used as pawns in this sick child mutilation, men's rights cause. Depressing.
I've read the HRC submission on the MoH Pubery Blocker consultation too. There is zero engagement with the MoH findings that there is little evidence of benefit or that puberty blockers cement in a cross-sex identity. Prudence also does not consider whether children have human rights as children- for example children who should not have their developing sexuality suppressed; or who should grow to adulthood in bodies not scarred by years of extreme hormones; or who have a right to a normal puberty and its associated mental development. Buried in the ideology of gender identity she has seen only "trans" kids who are collateral damage of the affirmation of transgender adults.