Rally cry sounded in push for trans protection

Posted in: New Zealand Daily News
By GayNZ.com Daily News staff - 20th July 2011

The glbti community is being asked to help with a renewed push for the Human Rights Act to be clarified to ensure it includes protection from discrimination on the grounds of gender identity.

A move by then-Labour MP Georgina Beyer for legislative change fell by the wayside in 2006, when Crown Law opinion was issued claiming transpeople were covered under the 'sex discrimination' provision of the Human Rights Act.

However the wide-ranging Transgender Inquiry the Human Rights Commission released in 2008 called for priority action to clarify the situation, through the specific inclusion of the words 'gender identity' in the Act, under the sex discrimination category.

No action has been taken since and transgender lobby group TransAdvocates is calling on the community to help it push for change.

The charge is being led by TransAdvocates member Allyson Hamblett, who says the inclusion of gender identity in the Act is important because of its symbolic value: "It gives trans people validity and legitimacy. It gives us recognition, so that wider society may learn to understand that we are not just a subset of gay. I think it will lay the foundation for more social awareness of who we are," she says.

"It's been argued that a test case is needed to see whether the current Human Rights Act would work to protect trans people from discrimination. But having the term, 'gender identity' specifically mentioned somewhere in the Human Rights Act would be far more empowering for the trans community."

Hamblett says to succeed there needs to be a strong lobbying engine, which can't be achieved by a small group of people.

"It needs the wider rainbow community to help, not only support the concept, but to push gender identity into the Human Rights Act. We need groups to write to local Members of Parliament expressing the importance of this small, simple, but very important legislative change. We need a community based strategic meeting just to focus in on this issue," she says.

Hamblett says anyone who wants to help can do so my writing to their local MP and the Minister of Justice.

"Currently the Minister of Justice does not think this is needed because of the Crown Law opinion sought by Georgina Beyer, just before she left Parliament. The interesting point is that the Human Rights Commission still recommended that clarification was still needed, despite the Crown Law opinion," she says.

"I am hoping that the new Aotearoa Rainbow Alliance might be the catalyst that this campaign needs."

TransAdvocates has template letters that can be sent to MPs and the Justice Minister on its website