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So, New
Zealand has it's first transsexual cop on the beat, a Christchurch bobby who
has after many years transitioned into womanhood. And who is now, we hear,
back out on the road catching villians, issuing speeding tickets and saving
folks in distress. Am I the only one caught somewhere between a yawn, concern
and smugness?
The yawn comes from knowing that this is all as it should be. That regardless
of a person's sexuality, gender or what have you, it is their ability to do
the job that counts. And it seems that most of this officer's colleagues in
the Christchurch police force feel the same way. Welcome to the new
millenium.
Concern because the bottom feeders of the media must already be sniffing a
story ripe for prurience and sensation. Heaven only knows what the headline
writers in the trash media will do with her story once they manage to get
more than second or third hand interviews. Come to think of it, they probably
won't wait that long! And the amount of spluttering bigotry and misinformed
innuendo which will doubtless saturate talkback radio in the next few days
doesn't even bear thinking about.
Speaking of the barren wastelands of talkback radio, am I the only one who
feels a certain smugness remembering back a decade or so to when the then
Minister of Police John Banks and his fundamentalist Commissioner of Police
John Jamieson were stomping throughout the country decrying the possibility
of gays and lesbians (let alone trannys!) in the police force? Well John and
John, your worst nightmare has come to pass and the world is still spinning
on its axis, villains are continuing to be caught, blah, blah, blah.
GayNZ.com congratulates Christchurch's tranny police officer for having the
courage of her convictions and of her gender, for being true to herself and
for - intentionally or otherwise - setting yet another positive example that
diversity is nothing to fear.
Go Girrrrl!
- Jay Bennie
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