Summarised by Centrist
“Humans cannot change sex,” stated Fern Hickson from Resist Gender Education during the Human Rights Review Tribunal’s ongoing examination in Wellington of whether saying men cannot become women constitutes hate speech.
The tribunal is also considering whether this belief is protected under the Human Rights Act or crosses into hateful, harmful speech unworthy of protection.
This follows a high-profile dispute over Lesbian Action for Visibility Aotearoa (LAVA) being excluded from a 2021 Wellington Pride event for holding the belief that sex is immutable.
Hickson told the tribunal, “I do not need to be an expert on gender dysphoria to know it is wrong to teach children that hating their bodies is normal.” Hickson also argued that teachers can treat children with respect and kindness without agreeing with every belief the child holds.
Hickson also questioned the impact of preferred pronouns in schools, saying they are “unworkable” and that requiring children to use pronouns inconsistent with biological sex “is extremely confusing and destabilising”.
Resist Gender Education states that a school policy requiring the use of standard English pronouns may conflict with some parents’ wishes for their children to be addressed by wrong-sex pronouns. However, they argue it is a rational approach that treats everyone equally and keeps schools focused on teaching scientific facts rather than ideology.
