Human Rights Review Tribunal - briefs of evidence
In 2021, Wellington Pride Festival decided not to accept an application for a stall at Out in the City from a group named Lesbian Action for Visability Aotearoa (LAVA). We made this decision after our community informed us of LAVA’s anti-trans activism, which does not fit with our kaupapa of inclusion.
After going through an extensive mediation process, we were sued by Margaret Curnow and Hilary Oxley, a representatives of LAVA. The case was heard by the Human Rights Review Tribunal (HRRT) in 2025. We are still waiting for the Tribunal to release a decisions - this could take a couple of years.
We never expected to go to court over our right to hold an event where trans*, non-binary, intersex, and all gender minority attendees would feel safe, accepted, and supported to be themselves by everyone at Out in the City. But we will always fight for the most vulnerable members of our community. Unfortunately similar battles are taking place elsewhere, and so with the permission of our expert witnesses, we are sharing their briefs of evidence as a community resource.
These short summaries are perhaps more legalese than Plain English, but this is necessary due to the ongoing nature of this case.
These documents contain statistics, language and stories you may find distressing.
Expert witnesses
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Talks about the rise of the ‘gender critical’ anti trans ideology in Aotearoa and its harmful impacts, especially in the context of education.
Speaks of rising hostility and hate: “The type of anti-trans rhetoric spread by organisations like LAVA is part of creating an environment that dehumanises trans people and normalises this type of harassment and discrimination so that it spreads further into mainstream society, which can compromise rainbow young people’s safety and wellbeing.”
Talks about the importance of safe and welcoming spaces and gives expert support for Wellington Pride’s decision to exclude LAVA from the Out in the City Fair.
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Talks about the ‘Paradox of Tolerance’; how to identify exclusionary ideologies and why LAVA can be identified as an ‘exclusionary’ group with rhetoric targeted at trans people.
Explains:
“Groups espousing exclusionary ideology do not concern themselves with what happens to that ‘othered’ group as a result of their actions, because their actions are justified in protecting their ‘in group’. We can see this in the ways in which immigrants/foreigners, non-Christian religions, and ethnic minorities are at times demonised under the guise of ‘protecting’ some ‘in-group’. You will note that these demonised groups are those with less power in society, which is a particular flag in this kind of exclusionary rhetoric and action. The advocacy of the exclusionary group then becomes to give even less power/equality to these groups, to marginalise them more.… [Discusses white pride groups in this context] …
So-called ‘Gender Critical’ organisations reflect this dynamic particularly, as while they will often frame themselves as being about the rights of women, and promoting women (by which they mean cis women), you will find them almost solely focusing on denying any recognition or validity of trans people, or any inclusion or equality efforts for the trans and gender non-conforming community.”Refers to such groups being willing to sacrifice wider women’s interests, or wider queer interests, in order to advance an anti-trans agenda, partnering with religious conservative groups and Far Right and nationalist organisations. Outlines other concerns with ‘gender critical’ ideology and the harms it causes to women and the LGBTQIA+ community.
Gives expert support for Wellington Pride’s decision to exclude LAVA from the Out in the City Fair.
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Presents information from the Counting Ourselves survey on the health and wellbeing of trans people in Aotearoa, including mental and physical health outcomes.
Talks to risk and protective factors linked to the social determinants of health, and concludes that trans and non-binary people in Aotearoa face significant inequality across multiple domains due to their gender identity and expression.
Note: this evidence was updated at the hearing with reference to the 2022 survey data.
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Talks about the impact of the ‘gender critical’ narratives that sex is always binary and “Women = Adult Human Female” on Intersex people / Ira Tangata.
Talks to the Wellington Pride decision to exclude LAVA from the Out in the City Fair:
“Wellington Pride’s decision is a bold but courageous move to call out bigotry and hate. … Intersex Aotearoa do not support any organisation that targets and discriminates against any part of the Rainbow community, and it is important for our most marginalised groups to know that the community stands by them and supports their right to belong. This is even more important when the attack comes from groups within the rainbow umbrella: if we expect to change hearts and minds in society, we need to also hold our own community to account.” -
Talks about the key theoretical frameworks for understanding oppression and inequality for young people and what is required for positive youth development.
Presents data from the Identify and Youth19 Rangitahi Smart surveys. Outlines the systemic challenges faced by transgender young people compared to their cisgender peers, across multiple contexts including education, home, community and health and wellbeing.
Gives expert support for Wellington Pride’s decision to exclude LAVA from the Out in the City Fair.
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Talks to the te ao Māori perspectives to LAVA’s claim, the concept of takatāpui and the impact of colonisation.
Presents insights and data from the Honour Project Aotearoa. Demonstrates through a pūrākau the powerful impact of tikanga.
Confirms that the narratives of ‘gender critical’ groups such as LAVA deny the right of takatāpui transgender people to exist and belong, and are not based in tikanga Māori.
“These views seek to reimpose and enforce the narrow gender norms of colonisation … The harms they cause are reflected in the grim realities recorded in the Honour Report Aotearoa.” -
Talks to the gender diversity in young children and the importance of gender affirming education environments.
Critiques the ‘gender critical’ narratives in this context, concluding:
“…it is nonsense to suggest we don’t or shouldn’t teach children about gender, we do it from before they are born. … What this is about is whether we teach through only the historical and entrenched heteronormative view, or whether we teach about how gender is actually happening in the modern world, including its full diversity. This is not a theoretical question, given the damage we know to be causes when gender diversity and divergent gender identities are denied or ignored.” -
Talks about the history of trans people and queer activism in Wellington and Aotearoa.
Discusses the context of colonisation, class and ethnicity; the lived history from kamp to gay liberation to human rights; the beginnings of Pride in Aotearoa – visibility rather than shame, communities of acceptance and safe spaces; the first ‘Fair for a fair law’.
Affirms that trans people, and Māori trans women in particular, have central and foundational to queer liberation from the very start, and that
“there has always been a small number of cis people in those communities, who – for strategic, tactical or ideological reasons – believe that trans people should be excluded … these divisions often reflect the intersection of class and ethnicity with gender identity and sexual preference, and the impacts of our colonial history.” -
Explains the biology of sex is ‘anything but binary’, and that “a small, but not insignificant, number of babies will turn out to be not the sex they were assigned at birth.”
Talks to the increasing evidence of a biological explanation for gender identity and gender incongruence. Affirms that sex and gender ‘are inextricably linked’ and that “science and medicine now clearly understand … there is a spectrum of sex from female to male, with most people’s bodies and gender experience falling at one end or the other , with a small number of people somewhere between the two. These people are real, have always been part of human society and will always be.”
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Explains how long-standing and established women’s rights organisations such as NCW acknowledge and celebrate the diversity of women, including trans women.
Affirms:
“The ‘gender critical’ efforts to exclude trans women from daily activities they wish to be involved in is … a distraction from the real systemic issues that women face. We consider targeting trans women is more about reinforcing gender stereotypes and enforcing a particular type of womenhood, and therefore is not advocacy for women’s rights but against them.” -
Speaks of the growing calls from people and interests largely outside sports for the total ban of trans women from all sporting categories, and explains
“There are many serious safety and fairness issues facing women in sport in New Zealand. That trans athletes are allowed to play – especially in community sports – is not one of them.”Explains how sporting bodies are in fact dealing with gender diversity at both the community and elite level, and briefly outlines the actual science in this area. Talks to the harm the growing ‘gender critical’ ideology is causing, not only to trans people but to women more generally.
In her supplementary brief addresses the political direction to withdraw the Sport NZ Guidelines on the principles of inclusion in community sport, and the growing ‘policing’ of what is an acceptable female body.
Concludes:
“The point is that gender diversity, like many other types of diversity, can pose complexity for sporting bodies, although … the complexities on the grounds are more theoretical than real. Genuine complexities need to be worked through without prejudice or pre-judging, and the way that these challenges are met will vary hugely between sporting codes, levels of competition, clubs and teams. What is important for sport and for us as a society is that we do the work to accommodate diversity, of every kind.” -
Speaks to the reality of gender diversity as a normal variety of the human condition and not a ‘fad’ or mental illness as the ‘gender critical’ narratives claim, and specifically addresses the claims of so called ‘rapid onset gender dysphoria’.
Talks to the particular vulnerability of gender diverse people and the harm caused to gender minorities by anti-trans rhetoric.
Provides expert endorsement of Wellington Pride’s decision to exclude LAVA from the Out in the City Fair.
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Talks to the increasing anti-transgender advocacy and its impacts on the rights of trans and non-binary people to equal participation in society, the right to safety and the right to access healthcare.
“In the last four years, the amount of hateful, anti-transgender rhetoric, disinformation and lobbying has increased significantly – noting that some have described the nature of the gender critical movement’s ideology and practices as ‘genocidal’.”
Affirms the importance of safe and welcoming spaces and provides expert support for Wellington Pride’s decision.
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Affirms that gender diversity is part of the diversity of human life. Talks about the disadvantages faced in society by people who are transgender and non-binary, and the adverse effects of trans-exclusionary rhetoric on this community.
Gives expert support for Wellington Pride’s decision to exclude LAVA from the Out in the City Fair.
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Gives expert evidence in response to the claims made by trans-exclusionary, anti-gender, ‘gender critical’ groups that purport to be based on scientific fact, the most significant being that ‘biological sex is binary and immutable’ and that ‘gender identity denies the reality of biological sex’.
Confirms that
“Sex diversity and variability is a fact of life, and humans are no exception. Trans, intersex, nonbinary, and queer humans are natural outcomes of biological complexity. And perhaps trans bodies, trans people, are the best examples of the multipotentiality that exists within all of us.” -
Confirms Women’s Refuge’s recognition of trans women as clients; gives expert evidence on the particular vulnerability of gender minorities to family violence:
“It is abundantly clear … that trans women are a group put at risk by both oppressive societal attitudes and behaviours and by perpetrators of violence, and that this is reflected in rates of victimisation which are significantly higher than rates of victimisation amongst the general public”.Sets out Women’s Refuge’s views and factual evidence refuting the claims made by ‘gender critical’ groups that trans women pose a threat to cis women in women’s shelters; talks to the harms caused by this kind of trans exclusionary rhetoric.
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Talks to the well established anthropological approaches to sex and gender, gender and sexuality from a cross-cultural perspective, different ideologies of gender, and current research on multiple genders:
“how we enact gender, including how we view and shape our bodies to be gendered, is culturally specific and involves much more diversity than is captured by the Western gender binary.” -
Talks to the terminology of ‘trans-gender’ and ‘gender non-conforming’, that this is a real state of being and not a mental illness; speaks of the mental health challenges that trans and gender non-confirming people face as marginalised groups in society, and the impact of trans exclusionary dehumanising and devaluing rhetoric of groups like LAVA.
Gives expert support for Wellington Pride’s decision.
Outlines gender affirming healthcare and responds to some of the current trans-exclusionary disinformation.
Addresses the claims that young people are being ‘pressured’ to ‘turn trans’:
“To come to the realisation that one is trans or gender non-conforming puts one at risk of losing family, friends, jobs, stable medical care and housing. Additionally it puts one at much higher risk of violence. Despite these risks, every single person with whom I have worked (this is also backed up by research) has been happier with decreased to no more levels of depression and/or anxiety once they have begun living as their authentic self.” -
Talks to the history of gender recognition and trans rights and acceptance in the EU and UK, and the more recent emergence and impact of the anti-trans ‘sex realist’ and ‘gender critical’ narratives in the UK.
“They deliberately stir up fear, for example of trans women in women’s toilets or hospital wards, arguing (among other claims) that trans women are predators threatening women’s safety in women only spaces, and that trans people threaten the safety of children through grooming, paedophilia and indoctrination. They claim that the very existence of trans women poses an existential threat to cis women, and that any social acceptance of trans identity ‘erases women’. That easily facilitates a form of hatred of trans people in other people who have almost certainly never experienced victimisation by a trans women and are highly unlikely to ever find themselves in such a situation."
Talks to the devastating impact of the TERF movement on the trans community in the UK.
“I personally know of 13 suicides of young people in our community over the last two years. In 50 years of working with trans people I have never before seen anything like this.”
In his supplementary statement talks to the increasing marginalisation and further negative changes for this community following the Supreme Court decision in For Women Scotland.
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