We would like to say a big thankyou to Sophie for nominating us, to the amazing communities of Wellington who support us, to our 2021 sponsors Wellington City Council, Tindall Foundation, and the A. W. Newton Bequest, to Wellington Airport and Wellington Community Trust, and most of all to trans folks; who inspire and motivate us to do what we do. Special thanks to the older generations who paved the way, and to the youth who push for change.
Gender Minorities Aotearoa is offering a free online course, designed to increase your knowledge of historic and contemporary issues regarding feminism and transgender people, and to improve your transgender inclusive intersectional feminist praxis. It is designed for people who are relatively fluent in feminism, and already have a 101 understanding of transgender issues.
It was developed through an intersectional feminist lens, by a transgender team that included transfeminine, transmasculine, non-binary, indigenous Māori, neurodiverse, disabled, and working class representation.
This course takes around 60 minutes to complete, and is broken into 5 sessions. You can stop at any time and continue later by logging in again. Some chapters have additional reading materials linked – these are not included in the time allocation.
By the end of chapter 1. you will be able to:
1. Differentiate between gender, sex characteristics, and sex assigned at birth.
2. Talk about impact of colonisation on understandings of sex and gender.
By the end of chapter 2. you will be able to:
1. Understand the impact of eurocentric heteropatriarchal sexology on transgender narratives.
2. Understand the history of enforced heteronormative sexuality in trans healthcare.
3. Recognise the sexualisation of transgender women through medicalisation and pathologisation.
4. Recognise the abusive nature of enforcing an arbitrary gender without an infants consent.
By the end of chapter 3. you will be able to:
1. Recognise the repression of transgender people in Nazi Germany.
2. Recognise similarities between historic fascism and contemporary repressive regimes.
3. Identify psudo-feminist and fundamentalist religious right alliances.
4. Understand the history of Radical Feminism and inclusivity in relation to transgender women.
5. Talk about why the term “Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism” or “TERF” was developed.
6. Identify impacts of TERF campaigns on public policy.
7. Discuss various online and offline tactics of TERF campaigners, and the impacts of these.
8. Identify reasoning behind the framing of anti-trans propaganda as “transgender debate”.
By the end of chapter 4. you will be able to:
1. Recognise key components of transmisogyny.
2. Talk about the transmisogynist double bind.
3. Identify the stereotypes behind transmisogynist prejudice.
4. Discuss why theories of “male socialisation” are inaccurate.
By the end of chapter 5. you will be able to:
1. Identify examples of transgender intersectional feminist praxis.
2. Recognise the exclusion of transgender narratives from contemporary feminist discourses.
3. Identify a Black lesbian feminist separatist position on biological essentialism.
4. Discuss key strategies for an intersectional feminist praxis of transgender inclusivity.
5. Identify areas of transgender marginalisation to address in gendered oppression discourse.
6. Identify key concepts in creating trans-inclusive gendered spaces.
7. Discuss core concepts in building safer spaces or diversity and inclusion policies.
Content Warning: this course discusses transgender histories, including forced surgeries, childhood sexual assault, concentration camps, the death penalty, and sexual violence.
Irawhiti is an umbrella word and an individual identity, which refers to all transgender people; including binary,non-binary, and some intersex people.
Takatāpui is an umbrella word and an individual identity, which refers to all rainbow people – including transgender, pansexual, lesbian, queer, gay, bisexual, and some asexual people.
When we speak te reo Māori, we may refer to all transgender people as irawhiti, or all rainbow people as takatāpui. However, usually only Māori people use ‘irawhiti’ or ‘takatāpui’ to name their personal identity.
Note: According to Stats NZ, just under half of all Māori people speak some te reo Māori. Almost 17% of Māori adults speak it fluently.
Māori people come in all shapes, sizes, and skin tones. While some of us are more quickly recognised as Māori, all Rainbow people who whakapapa Māori are equally part of the takatāpui whānau.
Many of us whakapapa Māori, and also whakapapa to other ethnicities and cultures, such as English, Irish, Chinese, and Indian. Having more ancestors from other cultures does not erase our Māori ancestors. We reject caste systems and measuring our blood quantum – we are not ”part Māori” or ”half caste”. We are Māori, and we carry the blood, histories, and wairua of all our ancestors.
To stand in our power as irawhiti takatāpui is to carry the mauri – the life force, and connection to all things. We are not separate or apart from our culture – we are part of our culture, we always have been, and we always will be.
Any one of these parts on their own can be transphobia.
Stereotypes
Stereotypes are widely held ideas about a certain group of people, which are oversimplified generalisations.
Prejudice
Prejudices are unjustified preconceived opinions, attitudes, thoughts, and feelings about a person, which often come from believing in stereotypes about the group they belong to.
Prejudice function in 3 main ways:
– Maintaining an exploitation/domination relationship (keeping people down). – Enforcing social norms (keeping people in). – ‘Disease avoidance’ (keeping people away).
Discrimination
Discrimination is the actions (including failure to act) based on prejudice.
This can include interpersonal discrimination in one’s private life, e.g. social exclusion, bullying and harassment, physical and sexual violence.
It can also include discrimination in public areas of life, e.g. exclusion from human rights protections, exclusion from other legal rights, exclusion from or discrimination in housing, healthcare, the justice system, accessing goods and services, recreation and sport, education, employment, etc.
Examples include: requiring medical interventions in order to gain an accurate birth certificate, landlords refusing to rent to trans tenants, inadequate access to appropriate healthcare services, schools or employers not taking action to keep students or employees safe.
67% of trans people report experiencing high levels of discrimination in NZ, 44% experienced this in the past 12 months (vs 17% of the general population).
Item.
Function.
Connection.
Example.
Stereotype.
Cognitive; thoughts about people.
Overgeneralised beliefs about people may lead to prejudice.
”Being trans is a sexual fetish”, ”They are dangerous”.
Prejudice.
Affective; feelings about people, both positive and negative.
Feelings may influence treatment of others, leading to discrimination.
”I am genuinely afraid of sexual violence from trans women”.
Discrimination.
Behavior; positive or negative treatment of others.
Holding stereotypes and harboring prejudice may lead to excluding, avoiding, and biased treatment of group members.
”I want to stop trans women from using women’s bathrooms” ”Trans people should be sterilized to change their birth certificate”.
Effects
It is very common for trans people to be stereotyped in a variety of ways, and to experience stigma and discrimination across all areas of life. The impact of widespread transphobia is the key factor in the disparities faced by transgender people.
These disparities include: being bullied in school (21% vs 5% general population), being forced to have sex against their will (32%, vs 11% of women in the general population*), poverty (trans people’s median income is half the median income of the general population), going without fresh fruit and vegetables (51%) and putting up with feeling cold (64%) – 3 times the rate of the general population, being asked invasive questions during a medical visit (13% in the last year), reparative [conversion] therapy (17%), avoiding healthcare visits to avoid being disrespected (36%), high levels of psychological distress (71%, vs 8% general population), suicidal ideation (56% in the last year), suicide attempts (37%).
Gender Minorities Aotearoa Auckland marched today, with local trans folks and friends and whanau marching in the Auckland Pride March.
Photo credit: Henry Laws
Over 7,000 people turned up to Albert Park, with banners and signs, dress ups and rainbows.
The trans float sported an enormous transgender flag, lots of placards, and an abundance of energy celebrating our wins and calling for housing, healthcare, and human rights to be enacted.
Photo credit: Henry Laws
Messages included calls to prioritise trans housing, to stop surgeries on intersex infants, to give trans people equitible access to health care including surgeries, respect Indigenous genders, fund trans led services, pass the BDMRR, decolonise the health and legal system.
Suicide prevention was on the list, alongside increasing regional services for trans people, and allowing legal gender recognition for trans asylum seekers.
Photo credit: Peter Jennings
”The highlight for me was just seeing so many trans kids and their friends in the front holding up trans flags and non-binary flags, and they were so excited, and their parents were with them supporting them and wearing t-shirts like ”I love my trans child”
– Annalucia Stasis, GMA Auckland . .
Photo credit: Henry Laws
“After starting up a chant calling for Trans Rights I could hear it echoing down the march as more people joined in, even after putting the megaphone down. I felt connected to everyone and strong in my community, and it’s so important to be able to feel like that”
– Molly Black, GMA Wellington . .
Photo credit: Henry Laws
“Who’s streets? Our streets”
– Chanting Rainbow Crowd . .
Photo credit: Henry Laws
”Trans communities have always formed themselves, as trans folks come together to awhi each other. We fight isolation with community spirit, and that’s what we saw at Our March today; people coming together out of empathy for each other’s struggles, and out of fierce love and passion. Queer solidarity is a beautiful thing.
– Ahi Wi-Hongi, National Coordinator, Gender Minorities Aotearoa . .
Photo credit: Henry Laws
Thank you to Auckland Pride Board and supporters for organising #OurMarch 2020, special thanks to val smith, Molly Black, Annalucia Stasis, Jack Byrne, and everyone else who helped to organise the transgender float with GMA, and huge thanks to everyone who came along and walked together! What an incredible turn out.
This year we have a float in #OurMarch in Auckland (not the Rainbow Parade) and one in the community run Pride Parade in Wellington (not WIPP). We may also have one in WIPP, depending on the outcome of the current discussions between community orgs and WIPP organisers. Follow our blog in the footer or watch our Facebook page for updates and to get involved in our upcoming PRIDE events!
