Russell DeborahDr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): It is an honour to speak on this bill this afternoon. I want to address some of the issues that were raised during the recent Governance and Administration Committee inquiry into the bill and in particular into the Supplementary Order Paper which enabled gender self-ID.I want to address first of all the concerns around the science. We had many submitters who came and told us that male and female gender was a matter of science—XX or XY—and that that was all there was to it. One submitter who was of that view had a quote from Distinguished Professor of genetics Jenny Graves who is at La Trobe University and has spent her academic career researching how sex develops. I went digging around in the science too to find out exactly what was going on and I found some of what Professor Jenny Graves has written about the development of sex in human beings. I want to quote something from The Conversation site—so she's put it into language that ordinary everyday people can understand. She says Mismatch between biological sex and gender identity culminating in its severest form as gender dysphoria has been ascribed to mental disease family dysfunction and childhood trauma. But accumulating evidence now implies biological factors in establishing gender identity and a role for particular genes. Variants—subtly different versions—of genes linked with gender identity might simply be part of a spectrum of gender and sexuality maintained through … history." Her research shows that there is no simple XX and XY but that development of gender identity in human beings seems to be part of a complex web of about 30 genes that affect the development and so on it goes.She carries on to say "Some young boys show an early preference for dressing and behaving as girls; some young girls are convinced they should be boys. This apparent mismatch of biological sex and gender identity can lead to severe gender dysphoria. Coupled with school bullying and family rejection it can make lives a torment for young people and the rate of suicide is frighteningly high. As they move into adulthood nearly half of these children"—the children who express different genders as children—"continue to feel strongly that they were born in the wrong body." Trans identity is real and the scientific evidence shows that it is real. The scientific evidence goes to show that despite the protestations of those who've done school certificate science that it's all about XX and XY when we look to what the real experts say trans identity is real.The second thing I wish to address is some of the concerns that people came to us with during the bill and in particular people who were opposed to the bill. We listened very carefully and in particular I listened very carefully to people like the Māori Women's Welfare League and the National Council of Women who've had a long long history of working for women in this country and they supported this bill. But I also listened carefully to the Feminist Older Women Lobbyists collective or FOWL as they call themselves. These were a group of women who were opposed to the bill but have a long history of being involved in women's concerns in New Zealand. Some of the concerns that were raised by FOWL and by other people were things like whether or not allowing gender self-ID would promote men getting involved in women's sports. It is a canard that is an issue for sports federations to deal with. In fact the big issue around trans people being involved in sports is getting enough of them involved so that they feel sufficiently comfortable to be involved in community sports and when it comes to elite sports that's for the elite sporting federations to sort out not a bill on gender self-ID.Some were very concerned about men in women's spaces such as men going into women's refuges. But Women's Refuge has been coping with trans women in women's refuges for decades and Ang Jury who heads up Women's Refuge New Zealand has said in the past that they've had processes in place and it simply is not an issue for them.The biggest issue that some of the people opposed to the bill suggested was a problem was that men would take on a female gender identity and use it in order to go into women's toilets and attack women. This frankly is absurd. First of all men who wish to do that—predatory men and there are predatory men who wish to do that—can already do it and they already do do it. It is not a matter of using gender self-ID as a vehicle to do that.But it made me curious and I sort of went hunting. I said "Well is there a law on who may use which toilets in New Zealand?" and there are laws around toilets. There are the laws around toilets that employers must provide but there is no law that says that only women may go into toilets marked "Women" and that only men may go into toilets marked "Men". In fact the way that we go into public toilets in this country is simply a matter of convention and if we are uncomfortable with someone who is using a space that we don't think they should be in then perhaps we can ask them about it. But even then we must be careful. There are many stories from butch lesbians or butch heterosexuals even who have been challenged in toilets when they are in the toilet that is entirely appropriate for their gender so we must be careful about that convention as well.The third thing I wish to address from what happened during the hearings was what I would simply call the language of hate and it was a language of hate that came through from people opposed to this bill. Some people were worried about autogynephilia. I'd never heard the word. I had to go and look it up. It turns out that autogynephilia is used to describe men who get sexually turned on by imagining themselves to be in a woman's body or to have women's body parts. I actually thought we were over shaming people for their sexual preferences.But actually a lot of the language we heard directed at trans people was language that we've heard directed against gay people. It is the language that treats people as non-people—as people who shouldn't be allowed to exist—and we were required to listen to it. But I do not think we are required to listen politely to it. As MPs of course we must listen to people who come to our select committees but I will not listen politely to hate and I think it's important that we don't listen politely to hate. There were young trans people watching those hearings and if we sat there and listened politely to hate it would seem we were endorsing that hate. So I say congratulations to the committee members who expressed their disapproval of the language of hate that came through so loudly.To finish off I wish to thank my fellow committee members. I noted that many submitters thanked Nicola Grigg for encouraging them to submit. I wish to thank Ian McKelvie for his very gentle chairing of the sessions. It was a master lesson in how to chair a select committee. I wish to thank Minister Jan Tinetti for her courage and her steadfastness in the face of hate mail and hate directed at her for bringing this bill back to the House and for ensuring its passage through the House. Thank you Minister Jan Tinetti.Finally I give this speech today and I give my support for this bill because of Cushla's boy for Fleur's boy for Anna's boy and for Emma's boy for Roy for Melissa for Sarah for Kate—trans people all; parents of trans people—and we love them. I commend this bill to the House."