The mother of marriage equality has condemned the Lesbian Rights Alliance Aotearoa for their opposition to the proposed changes to the new Birth, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Act.
Louisa Wall has come out publicly against the Lesbian Alliance Aotearoa’s opposition to the government’s proposed changes to the new Birth, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration.
The government’s proposed changes would make it possible for a person to change the sex on their birth certificate by self-declaration, rather than the current process of going to Family Court on the advice of a medical professional.
The Lesbian Alliance say the ability to change legal sex through statutory declaration could be open to abuse, saying the current Family Court process acts as a safeguard against abuses of the system.
The group describes itself on its website (lesbian-rights-nz.org) as ‘a group of lesbian women advocating for lesbian rights and wellbeing in Aotearoa’.
A spokeswoman for the group that express contacted via e-mail said that ‘We are concerned about the bill’s effects on the ability for women to have spaces that don’t include biological males, especially lesbians, who are being pressured to include biological males in our sexuality, when we are only attracted to biological females by definition’.
Wall dismisses those claims however, taking to Facebook to say “Many lesbians in Aotearoa New Zealand are very disturbed at the recent publicity given to a group calling itself Lesbian Rights Alliance Aotearoa, and in particular that group’s opposition to moves to make it easier for people to change the gender on their birth certificates.”
“We believe this “alliance” is using the myth of “endangering women” to hide an agenda of hatred towards transgender people.” The Manurewa MP says.
“This group does not speak for all lesbian women in our country. As far as we can tell, it does not even speak for a majority of lesbian women.”
Wall says the Alliance represent a minority within the lesbian community. “Many lesbian women support our transgender sisters and brothers. The lesbian community is as diverse as any other but overwhelmingly those that are part of it support the move to allow people to identify as the gender they are, whether that be the same or different from their biological sex at birth.” Wall says.
Condemning the group in the strongest terms possible, Wall concludes her Facebook post by saying “HATE is HATE. It is ugly and intolerable!”
