Trans rights festival a ‘queer picnic party’
A TRANS rights festival billed as a queer picnic party will be staged to compete with Saturday’s Speak Up For Women event in Dunedin on Saturday.
‘‘We’re having this party to push the message that our young people are loved and cared for, and we’ll continue fighting for our rights,’’ Scout BarbourEvans, of Environmental Justice Otepoti, said.
Messages promoted by Speak Up For Women had a negative impact on the mental health of people within the trans and nonbinary community, the activist said.
The event in the Octagon is at 1.30pm, before a 2pm talk by Speak Up For Women about sex selfidentification is due to begin at Conference Room 2 of the Dunedin Centre.
Speak Up For Women spokeswoman Beth Johnson said the group respected ‘‘protesters’ rights to freedom of assembly, association and speech — we are acutely aware of this, having had to go to the
High Court to secure our own rights’’.
The women’s group, formed to oppose the Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Bill, won a case against council officials in Palmerston North.
In Dunedin, the city council allowed, and then cancelled, the group’s event at the library, then approved it at another venue.
The proposed law change would allow people to change the sex, as mentioned on their birth certificate, by statutory declaration, which would be a much less onerous process than getting changes cleared by the Family Court.
The Bill sought to replace biological sex in law with the concept of gender identity, Ms Johnson said.
It will have its second reading in Parliament next month.