Will Trump's rollback of transgender rights have an impact in NZ?

Could the US president's 'two genders' executive order change attitudes or laws here too? By Emily Simpson

Within hours of resuming his role as the US President, Donald Trump had radically reduced the rights of transgender people in America.

“It will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female,” he said to audience applause in the US Capitol Rotunda on Monday.

An executive order entitled Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government outlined his stance in greater detail. Essentially, the existence of transgender people has been attributed to something called "gender ideology" which has been roundly rejected. Education guidelines are to be changed. Funding scrapped. There will be no transwomen in women's prisons. There's a strong emphasis on ensuring separate spaces for "biologically female" women.

According to data from 2022, approximately 1.6 million people aged 13 and older identify as transgender in the US. That's about 0.6% of the population, a minority reportedly pulling together in the wake of this not entirely unexpected news.

In Christchurch, Jennifer Shields, the president of PATHA (the professional association for transgender health Aotearoa) and a healthcare lead at Qtopia, describes Trump's executive order as "nonsense".

Shields says all the executive orders signed by President Trump on his first day (there were a record-breaking 26) ignored the real issues faced by Americans, focusing instead on those guaranteed to polarise and stir up a media reaction. “There was nothing about the cost of living, it was all about the culture wars,” she says.

Still, she's concerned about the very “tangible outcomes” that Trump’s law changes will have on the trans community. “Anyone who has updated their passport to reflect their gender, will need to update it,” she says. “That has practical concerns but there is also clear research on the mental health effects that kind of thing has on people. And just on a practical level, it makes it harder for people to leave the US.”

As for transwomen being banned from female prisons, Shields says: "We've got really clear evidence that transwomen are far more likely to be the victims of sexual violence than the perpetators of it.

"In men’s prisons, transwomen are almost guaranteed to be victims of sexual violence."

Shields describes the US as already being "a hotbed of prejudice” for transgender people. She points to bomb threats and other attacks on hospitals and clinics involved in gender care.

“I think that’s only going to get worse now that the president has sanctioned the prejudice," she says. "It will bolster these people who have been behind these attacks, knowing that the president is on the same page.”

Shields says the threat to the transgender community in New Zealand isn't on the scale of that in the US. "But we definitely have had threats to services and individuals," she says. "A number of us have had to take significant measures to protect our privacy.”

She believes there's a steady “stirring of the disinformation pot” in New Zealand and is concerned this could lead to the government (which takes a generally neutral and inclusive approach to trans rights) restricting services for trans people. Puberty blockers for teens and sexuality education guidelines are both areas where the government has recently introduced greater caution, something that appears to be driven by the NZ First Party and its leader, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters.

Shields says: “There was this idea that primary schools are teaching really inappropriate things about sexuality, but anyone can have a read through and see that what is taught is really sensible. They teach kids ways of describing themselves, of accessing support.”

1News wasn't able to find a National Party spokesperson on the issue yesterday, but a spokesperson for Winston Peters, responding to questions about whether Trump's moves could influence the stance of our government, said: "It is for the United States to determine its own policies. The New Zealand Government determines its own laws and policies."

He added: "It is New Zealand First’s long-standing position that the Government has no place in intruding into people’s bedrooms." And, "New Zealand First’s position on gender is as defined in the dictionary: Man: noun, Adult Human Male; Woman: noun, Adult Human Female."

That would be a definition shared by Trump and also by Auckland-based freelance writer Yvonne Van Dongen who posted a joyous response to Trump’s victory on Facebook this week, reading "All hail the orange man” and linking to her Substack column about the new president's dialing back of transgender rights, which she believes could have a knock-on effect to other countries.

Van Dongen is a former member of what she now terms “the MSM” (mainstream media). She was employed as a journalist at the NZ Herald and other high profile publications for more than 20 years, and in those days she was left-wing and liberal. Not anymore.

It was the transgender issue that "propelled me out of the left, out of the media," she says. "And I see things in a whole new light now and I’m not the only one."

That new light is unflattering to a lot of academics, politicians, members of the media and public servants. Van Dongen calls them "managerial elites" who she believes make decisions that aren't in accordance with the public's wishes. "The public are kind of ahead of them," she says. "That's why there's been a rise of these populous parties, because people don’t feel listened to."

Van Dongen says she's "not anti trans, I’m pro sex reality". And, echoing Trump: "I’m anti gender ideology." Trump's view that "biological" women require spaces, such as prisons and changing rooms, to exclude transwomen is shared by Van Dongen, who embraces the term "TERF", often used as a slur. "You have to defang these words. To me it stands for Tediously Explaining Reality to F***wits."

Van Dongen describes Winston Peters as "the only voice in parliament for reality".

Despite being a feminist who admits Trump is "no feminist icon... no shining light for women", Van Dongen feels "fragile optimism" about his presidency. "Because he does listen and he does give the people want they want."

That is, some of the people. When the Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde publicly pleaded with Trump this week to have mercy on “gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families,” across the country “who fear for their lives" she sparked a massive viral response, both supportive and not.

Van Dongen wasn't impressed. "She’s entitled to her view. I think she’s wrong and she’s not reading the room."

Jennifer Shields says she doesn't spend a lot of time trying to convince people who don't support trans rights to change their minds, likening the divide to the one that opened up over Covid vaccines. She says she prefers to focus her energies on helping those in the trans community lead fulfilling lives.

But that doesn't mean she turns a blind eye to the controversy. "I would just really encourage people here to watch what’s happening in the US and recognise that that’s kind of the path that New Zealand First are pushing us down," she says.

“I think New Zealand is much better than that.”