Coffey TamatiTĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. I'm going to jump straight into it. Thank you to our Minister Jan Tinetti for bringing this to the House. Thank you to the other parties of this Parliament for also putting in your support behind it. Also thank you of course to the people that submitted that took that time three years ago to front up to the select committee and put their thoughts to it. I'm going to focus on the self-identification of birth certificates because for me this is the game-changer. This is going to be the thing that allows our trans community across the country to breathe a sigh of relief tonight and hopefully reverse some of the negative outcomes that we know plague our trans community. Tonight we're talking business. So let me get into it.First of all I want to start with a submitter who took a cultural lens to this whole debate. They said In Aotearoa traditionally Māori allowed a space for a wide range of gender definitions. It has been through a process of colonisation and cultural genocide that these were reduced to two—and that gender is biologically determined. Within Aotearoa—that same characteristic of gender fluidity is now linked to disproportionately high rates of assault [of] murder [of] suicide particularly for Māori and Pacific Island transgender youth. The inability to have your gender identity publicly acknowledged has been linked to all kinds of fatal outcomes in multiple studies." The submitter said "It is … my submission that any move to reduce gender to biological determination places Māori and Pacific Island youth at continued (and increased) risk of suicide." That's from Tina Ngata and I thank her for bringing that kaupapa kōrero to the fore.Another submission talked about the great lengths that trans people go through under the status quo the discrimination that they face. They talked about applying for a job; using a birth certificate which might be the only form of ID that you have; the potential discrimination in the hiring process; and the trauma. That said also enrolling in things like study which for many of us is just a very easy process to go through. But when the gender doesn't match the person that's sitting in front of the administrator the registrar actually that creates quite an incredibly intimidating and off-putting situation. It can make things quite overwhelming. Copy that same situation over to access to healthcare access to Government services Government support. Especially when you're travelling and living overseas if your birth certificate is that thing that you have to use again it traumatises and re-traumatises our trans community. And that was a submission that was put forward by the Intersex Trust Aotearoa New Zealand. So thank you to Mani and to Aych for bringing that submission. The other submission that I wanted to talk about was from Sharyn Forsyth and Tommy Hamilton both champions within the community and they put in their submission on behalf of Parents and Caregivers of Transgender and Gender Diverse Children in New Zealand. The group has approximately 180 parent and caregiver members from across New Zealand. If nothing else if there is a family out there that didn't know that this group exists now you do. But what they took lengths to point out was that the protection of our children through this whole process has got to be something that we think about front of centre. They said "We're interested in this Bill as gender identity and the social and legal recognition of that gender identity as expressed by an individual is considered to be a key factor in positive mental health outcomes for our children and other gender diverse individuals. When our children live their lives as one gender and then are forced through legal documents to be referred to as a gender that isn't their own it hurts them." They go on to say "We have experience of our children being singled out (… [say] on domestic flights) because they are 'in the system' as their biological sex as opposed to their gender—and this leads to scrutiny and questioning and embarrassment." They have seen that in their own children's lives that being mis-gendered makes that far far worse. So to all of the rainbow community that are out there listening tonight and to all of our allies that are swinging into support we want to say to our trans community: "Your lives matter your stories matter your struggles matter. We see you we hear you and tonight we stand beside you." Kia ora Madam Speaker."