Child Murder in New Zealand 1978 - 2014

A week ago I wrote a blog called Child Murder about the homicide rates for children under 5 over the past decade. It was written in quite a hurry, just before I went away on holiday for Easter. When I wrote it I did not think that I would end up devoting much more time on this topic, but after a bit more reading and reflection I have found that I am dissatisfied with what I wrote and have a number of unanswered questions I have yet to resolve. Instead of editing the old piece, I have decided to let it stand and write a new blog.

The initial motivation for this was to highlight the extreme discrepancy between the murder rates for the trans identified demographic (a miniscule number) and that of Under 5s (a very big number, significantly larger than the national average). I also wanted to draw attention to the different political emphasis surrounding the two types of murder. In the case of Zena Campbell, the Wellington Town Hall is lit up with the blue and pink colours of the Trans Pride flag and Green MPs make righteous statements at candlelit vigils. In the case of the death of Moko Rangitoheriri, rallies around the entire country   demanding harsher sentences and ‘Justice for Moko’. For the liberal left in New Zealand, taking part in public spectacles highlighting the murder of trans people are an easy way to gain virtue credits from a Wellington centred, Spinoff reading, Green party voting middle class demographic. For the conservative right in New Zealand, taking part in public spectacles highlighting the murder of young children is an easy opportunity to push a number of Outrage Buttons: the offenders are typically Maori, unemployed, unmarried and drink alcohol. They get off on manslaughter charges, so we need to tighten up the justice system and make sure they get long sentences for murder.

As I demonstrated in my earlier blog  the sections of the regressive left who push the ‘trans people have higher murder rates’ narrative do not have facts on their side. This is true not just for New Zealand, but for many other countries including the UK, the US, and Canada. While I despise the racist, beneficiary bashing, drug and alcohol scapegoating politics of the conservative right, a statistical analysis of child murder rates over the past 20 – 30 years has led me to realise that they really do have the facts on their side: the murder rate for the Under 5 years old demographic increased markedly over the period, and now far exceeds the murder rate for the general population. In this piece I will focus mostly on the historical statistics comparing the murder rate of the general population to that of the under 5 years old demographic. I will conclude with some links to other studies and some broader remarks and speculations, but my main intention here is just to highlight and explore the most obviously relevant statistics. Without pretending to have the ‘answers’ that the left needs in order to articulate a strong and credible narrative around these deaths that would serve a progressive (rather than conservative) agenda, my hunch is that such a narrative would involve careful scrutiny of the historical record.

 

A photo from a Twitter post from Rotorua, June 2016 with the hashtag #sensiblesentencingtrust 

Wellington City Council building lit up with the pink and blue colours of the Trans Pride flag to commemorate the death of Zena Campbell, March 2018

As something of an amateur statistician, one thing I have learned is that searching for data on the internet is nowhere near as easy as you would assume. A very simple table of values showing the homicide rate per 100,000 people for New Zealand over the past 60 odd years does exist – but the data is not exactly the same as that found in other sources (for example here  or here here or  here ).There appear to be at least three different ways of measuring homicide: sometimes it includes only murder, sometimes it includes manslaughter, and for the even more broad ANZSOC (an Australian classification system) it includes attempts at murder. All three definitions arrive at distinct sets of data, and this makes comparison with rates of child murder quite difficult. The issue of ‘murder vs manslaughter’ is not just a political hot potato, it is also a statistically important question which potentially distorts and confuses the data. I have now looked at dozens of academic and government studies alongside several New Zealand media articles form the past decade, and there are clearly inconsistent standards being applied. For example, if you look at the figures for child homicide in this Stuff article from 2015 and compare it to those from a Police report   for the 2007 – 2014 period, the differences are quite notable. Even though the graph from the Stuff article is for the 0 -14 age bracket (which should give data points equal to or higher than the 0 – 5 age bracket), some of the numbers are higher (2009: 16 vs 12) and some of the numbers are lower (2007: 7 vs 10).

Despite considerable effort, I could not find a single data source for a long historical period (1978 – 2015) which I could use to compare the general population homicide rate with the Under 5s rate. In the graphs which follow, I have used a variety of different sources to cobble together the data needed for a long term view. If anyone out there reading this can point to data sources which would provide a more robust and consistent approach, please let me know. Till then I will simply note my sources and acknowledge the limitations of this data.

SOURCES:

·         For the overall homicide rate for the 1949 – 2014 period, I have used this data set provided by Statistics New Zealand and the Police Annual Report via the Te Ara Encyclopedia website

·         For the average rate of under 5 homicide for the 1978 – 1987 period (approximately 1.7 per 100,000) I have used ‘Homicide in New Zealand: an increasing public health problem’  , an academic paper by Janet L. Fanslow, David J. Chalmers and John D. Langley

·         For the period between 1986 and 2005, I have used the five yearly averages stated in this 2008 MSD report

·         For the period between 2007 and 2014, I have used the figures given in ‘Police Statistics on Homicide Victims in New Zealand 2007 – 2014’

 

GRAPHS:

This graph shows the general population murder rate for the entire period from 1949 to 2014. Through comparing the numbers with other sources, it seems that this data is based on a narrow (murder only, not manslaughter) definition of ‘homicide’. So it should be noted that the rates are lower than they appear in other sources. Also, I have supplemented the data for the years 2010 – 2014 from the Police report (using murder stats only). The overlapping years (2008, 2009) give close but not identical figures.

The most notable feature is the gradual increase over the 1970s and early 1980s, followed by the sharp increase during the peak years between 1985 and 1992. These years exactly coincide with the neoliberal economic reforms of the fourth Labour government and the subsequent effects of Ruth Richardson’s “Mother of all Budgets” in 1991. This correspondence between economic policy and the rise in crime is given detailed and rigorous attention in the academic paper ‘Unemployment and crime: New evidence for an old question’   (Papps & Winkelmann 1999). The authors show that “there is some evidence of significant effects of unemployment on crime, both for total crime and for some subcategories of crime.”

Now for the comparison between the general rate and the murder rate for under 5s. This graph uses the same data from the time series above from 1978 onwards, and average rates for different periods (visible as straight lines) for the under 5 subpopulation:

I was unable to find detailed data for child homicide rates for all of the period except 2007 – 2014. The numbers are small and very volatile, so it is worth graphing the murder rates for individual years to get a sense of the variability of the data:

(According to this UNICEF report  , the trend continued in 2015 with 11 murders of under 5 year olds)

REMARKS

The first thing which I found notable is the fact that high rates of child murder have a long history, predating the murders of Chris and Cru Kahui in 2006 by decades. In the Fanslow, Chalmers and Langley study of the 1978 – 1987 period noted above, the overall murder rate for the period is calculated to be 1.6 per 100,000, little different from the under 5 rate of about 1.7 per 100,000. My graph does not properly reflect this very close match between the general rate and the child rate, probably because of the data integrity issues described above. The similarity between the overall murder rate and that of the under 5 demographic is also commented on in the paper ‘Death and serious injury from assault of children aged under 5 years in Aotearoa New Zealand: A review of international literature and recent findings’ ,  a 2009 publication commissioned by the Office of Children’s Commissioner:

Lawrence cites Christoffel, Lui and Stamler (1981) who suggest that rates of death from assault for children aged 1-4 years closely correlate with deaths at all ages. Similarly, Fiala and LaFree (1988) argue that rates of violence for children and adults are similar.

The references given refer to both local and international studies: this is a worldwide phenomenon, not an issue unique to New Zealand. A 2006 report by the Child Poverty Action Group   draws attention to the similarities between New Zealand and other colonial states with marginalised indigenous populations:

If child abuse were a “Maori” problem, we would expect to see it only within Maori families. However, it occurs in communities the world over. Family violence, sexual abuse of women and children, high levels of drug and alcohol abuse, poverty and high levels of crime occur in other highly stressed communities. Aboriginal communities, Native American communities in Canada and the US, and African-American communities in the US are all grappling with these problems. At present Australia is going through the same soul-searching as New Zealand in respect of its Aboriginal people. The same arguments for and against government intervention in Aboriginal families and communities are being aired, and the same lack of consensus is evident. Child abuse is not, therefore, a function of race or genetics, but rather a function of whatever those communities have in common.

Yet something drastic, seismic and horrendous happens in the period between the late 80s and early 90s. The following table, also from the 2006 CPAG report, shows that this transformation particularly affected the Maori community:

This very clear historical shift is notably absent from all of the sensationalistic media attention devoted to cases such as the Kahui twins and Moko. It is also largely absent from most of the government reports on the issue, which tend to focus on data from narrow time periods (for example, this MSD study  which limits itself to 2002 – 2006).

The second, and most staggeringly awful thing about these graphs is the change that happens over the first decade and a half of this century: while the general murder rate slowly falls back to around 1 per 100,000, the rate for under fives increases. The average rate for the period between 2007 and 2014 is around 2.6 per 100,000, more than double the rate for the general population. To be sure, there are statistical reasons we need to keep in mind when looking at data sets this small and volatile. A rigorous statistical study would need to address these issues, and this sort of thing is way beyond the scope of this blog. The thing that strikes me is that wretched and small minded conclusions insinuated by sensationalistic media reports and conservative groups like the Sensible Sentencing Trust are very clearly not the only viable forms of analysis. A politically conscious and historical study of the data which related the tragic increases in child murder to the devastation wrought by the neoliberal reforms of the ’84 – ’92 period would serve the interests of the left, not the right.

I’ll conclude this sketch of a possible project with an hypothesis. The continuing high levels of child murder throughout the period between 2005 and 2016 have another thing in common: the perpetrators – almost always family members, and often mothers or fathers – are typically young. These perpetrators would have been born sometime in the period, say, between 1985 and 1997 or so. I haven’t looked at the stats yet but I’m guessing the families they came from had all the frequently remarked upon signs of deprivation and domestic violence. There’s a story to be told about drugs and alcohol and single parent families for sure, but there is another story too which recognises history: these little children probably never watched the 6 O’Clock news when they were toddlers, but if they had done so they would have heard the arrogant tones of Roger Douglas and the harsh metallic voice of Ruth Richardson. Those voices never told them what to do or controlled their actions directly, but the social shockwaves generated by their decisions continue to kill.

Child Murder

Thinking about the dubious and misleading claims and assumptions surrounding the murder of trans people in New Zealand, and the extremely underwhelming statistics in the background, made me wonder: are there demographics which genuinely are more at risk of murder in New Zealand? There are many ways you could look at this: sex, ethnicity, income level and so on. I chose to look at age: specifically, the murder rate for under five children. High profile cases over the past ten or so years include Nia Glassie,  Cris and Cru Kahui and  Moko Rangitoheriri. Numerous media articles have drawn attention to the fact that New Zealand has one of the  highest rates of child homicide in the world with  sixty one children murdered over the past ten years.

The politics surrounding the media attention on these tragic deaths is murky. Lobby groups such as the Sensible Sentencing Trust and Family First skew the narrative in a conservative direction. There is a definite undercurrent of racism in the focus on the Maori families of the most high profile victims. Like many others on the left, I stayed away from the  March for Moko in 2016. I am uneasy, uncomfortable and unsure about the political motivations of many of the people who focus on these deaths. If I have learned anything over the past year or so in highlighting the problematic nature of gender ideology, it is this: we need to look carefully and honestly at exactly these issues. The ones that make us uneasy, unsure and uncomfortable.

So what do the stats look like for this group? I used the same police data for the 2007 – 2014 period, alongside Statistics New Zealand data and census data from 2006 and 2013. Carefully reading the tables revealed something I did not notice before: there is a distinction between ‘murder’ and ‘manslaughter’, and the statistics which describe age demographics are drawn from totals of these two categories. In what follows I will refer to “murder rates” when what I really mean is “murder and manslaughter rates”. There is of course a discussion to be had about how these two acts are distinguished, and the heated debate about whether the death of Moko Rangitoheriri was a case of murder or manslaughter is a clear example of the importance of this debate. Conflating the murder and manslaughter statistics is debatable and problematic, but I will not discuss this here for the sake of brevity.

A consequence of joining the murder and manslaughter statistics together is that the rates per 100,000 people are higher. My previous calculation using the same data (but just the murders) gave a homicide rate of 1.17. In what follows, I have calculated a combined murder/manslaughter rate for each year between 2007 and 2014. The rates look much higher than those I have seen quoted in sources such as Wikipedia (0.91): the median rate for the eight year period is 1.53, the mean is 1.60. In  this recent Stuff article, the homicide rate for the 0 – 19 age bracket is quoted as 0.75 per 100,000 people. My calculations for the murder rates for the under 5 age bracket are much higher, which makes me wonder about how many of the deaths were classified as ‘manslaughter’ rather than ‘murder’. (The police data does not show this breakdown).

The following table summarises my findings:

Anyone familiar with the pitfalls of statistical reasoning will look with some degree of wariness at this – samples of n=8 are basically useless, and calculating standard deviation for these tiny sets is a very rough and ready measure of the unpredictable nature of this data. We don’t know for sure that this data represents a clear trend – yet the fact that the murder rate for Under 5s is significantly greater than the general rate for four out of the eight years covered is fairly strong reason to suspect that there is. Caveats noted, here are my key findings:

• In six of the eight years covered, the murder/manslaughter rate was higher for the under five subpopulation

• The overall median rate for the period is 1.53. The child rate median is 2.59. The child rate median is 69% higher than the overall rate

• The mean rate for the period is 1.60 per 100,000. The mean rate for under fives is 2.61. The child mean rate is 63% more than the overall rate.

• 90% confidence interval for child rate is between 1.97 and 3.25

• 90% confidence interval for overall rate is between 1.45 and 1.7

• Taking into account the variability with 90% confidence intervals there is still a difference between the highest overall rate (1.75) and the lowest child rate (1.97). This difference is 12.6% of the highest overall rate.

There are very solid reasons for identifying the under 5 age demographic as more at risk of murder than the general population. Even if the rate for under 5s appeared to be consistent with the general rate of murder, this would be a shocking statistical fact: children this young simply should not get murdered, there is no morally acceptable rate except 0.00 per 100,000. 

Are trans people living in New Zealand more likely to be murdered?

The recent murder of Zena Campbell, a 21 year old trans identified male in Wellington, has led to a series of media articles which highlight the unique vulnerability of trans people to violence and murder.

National Council of  Women (NCWNZ) Gender Equal spokesperson Dr Gill Greer says  “the murder is an example of the kind of transphobic violence directed towards trans people and particularly trans women.” [….] Speaking globally,she noted  trans women in particular appeared to be a target of violence.

"The Human Rights Commission highlighted some of these issues in a report back in 2008 but we've not made enough progress in the past 10 years," she said.

"We know trans people experience high levels of violence of all kinds; trans young people are more likely to be bullied at school, and more likely to attempt self-harm and suicide. We want to see a more inclusive New Zealand society where all genders are treated equally."”

Green MP Jan Logie echoed these ideas at a candlelight vigil for Zena Campbell, stating that “a lot more work needs to be done about violence towards New Zealand’s gender minorities.”.

A quick scan of transgender advocacy internet sites in New Zealand reveals similar types of claims. In a speech for the November 20^th New Zealand version of the ‘Trans day of Remembrance’, an annual ceremony marked all over the world to remember the trans victims of transphobic violence, Judy Virago had this to say

 last year:

Trans women around the world are slaughtered weekly, just for being who they are. It’s scary. And it’s not our fault. I refuse to accept this.

By the 30th of October this year, 24 trans women, most of them women of colour, had been killed in the US alone. Rates of violence against trans people are so offensively high that there is even a wikipedia page that records reported unlawful deaths of transgender people by year and location. There are 52 people currently listed on this page for 2017.

In a Salient (Victoria University student magazine) article from 2015, transactivist Charlie Prout claims  that “transgender people experience violence, sexual assault, murder, and verbal assaults at much higher rates than the general population.”

Are these claims of unique vulnerability to violence, murder and other forms of assault true? In what follows I will restrict my attention to murder rates for transgender people. I will not attempt to discuss or question the various forms of oppression, discrimination and prejudice faced by transgender people which do not involve murder. In looking at this issue critically, it is not my intention to minimise or dismiss the various forms of harms done to transgender people by a variety of means. I think that murder of Zena Campbell was a reprehensible act against a vulnerable person, and ought to be condemned. The question is whether this death served the interests of a broader narrative around murder rates, and if the assumptions behind this narrative are true.

So what is the rate of murder for trans identifying people in New Zealand? The most authoritative source for international statistics appears to be the Trans Murder Monitoring Project, a research project sponsored and run by the charitable organisation Transgender Europe. According to the data shown on their site  , there has been just one murder of a trans identifying person in the ten year period between 2008 and September 2017, and just five other such murders in the entire region of Oceania (Australia, Fiji, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea):

The research methodology section of the site contains the following disclaimer   about the nature of the data provided:

When using the data presented by the Trans Murder Monitoring project, please note that the data presented is not comprehensive, for the reasons outlined below, and can only provide a glimpse into a reality which is undoubtedly much worse than the numbers suggest:

1. The collected data show only those cases which have been reported. There is no data and no estimates available for unreported cases.

2. The data presented here does not include all reported cases worldwide, but only those which can be found on the Internet, along with those murders that reported to us by local activists or our partner organizations.

3. Due to the dozens of languages used in the Internet, the variety of terms used to denote trans and gender-diverse people, and the myriad numbers of web pages to search through, it is simply not possible to find all reports shown on the Internet.

4. Finding reports of murdered trans and gender-diverse persons in particular is also problematic, as not all trans and gender-diverse people who are murdered are identified as trans or gender-diverse.

As I will go on to note when I turn to look briefly at the case of Brazil, there are many solid reasons for thinking that murders of transgender people in regions of the world where there is widespread institutional corruption and lack of recognition of transgender people would be under-reported and frequently unrecognised. Given the social prominence of transgender activism in New Zealand over the past ten years, and the amount of coverage and institutional support surrounding the recent death of Zena Campbell, I strongly doubt that these concerns apply to the New Zealand context. I think it highly unlikely that a trans identified person other than the two documented instances (Richard Milton ‘Diksy’ Jones   in 2009, and Zena Campbell in 2018) has been murdered in the past ten years.

How does this compare to the national rate of murder for the country as a whole? New Zealand is a relatively safe country with a low homicide rate. Using police data  from the period between 2007 and 2014, alongside census figures from 2006 and 2013 for overall population statistics, I worked out that New Zealand has a murder rate of 1.17 murders per 100,000 people each year. (Wikipedia  quotes a rate of 0.91, apparently based on just the year 2014 – I believe my estimate for the period in question to be more accurate).

The hard part is to figure out what the trans identified population of New Zealand is. The census does not record this sort of data, and there are numerous issues and questions which surround the definition of ‘transgender’ which complicate the picture further. The best I could think to come up with is three estimates:

1. 16,000: Roughly the number of people in NZ who report living with a same sex partner

2. 28,000: Based on the US figure of 0.6% of total population

3. 56,000: Based on an NZ school survey where 1.2% of high school students identify as trans

Here are the results based on my three trans population estimates for the ten year period up to 2018:

Trans population estimate	Expected deaths per year	Ten year period
16,000	0.117 * 1.6 = 0.1872	1.872
28,000	0.117 * 2.8 = 0.3276	3.276
56,000	0.117 * 5.6 = 0.6552	6.552

Of course there are big sources of possible variation and error here because we are dealing with such small numbers, if we went to the trouble of calculating confidence intervals there would be fairly wide margins of error for all of these estimates. Having said that the empirical data of 2 trans murders over a ten year period fits in fairly well with the overall average murder rate. If the larger population estimates are true, the the trans murder rate appears significantly smaller than the overall rate.

How does this analysis compare with other western countries with similarly low overall murder rates? Is New Zealand a strange and unusual outlier, or is it quite typical in its low trans murder rate? The answer is a definitive ‘very typical’:

From the UK:

“There is no evidence within the recorded data from the last 9 years that transgender people are murdered at significantly higher rates than average.”

 From the US:

“Applying the FBI's 4.7 homicides per 100,000 means we'd expect to see ~38 trans murders a year if the rates were identical to that of the general population (4.7 * 8). That's three times as many trans deaths as were actually recorded in 2014. Keep in mind that if you use a higher trans prevalence rate, you'd expect even more murders. Doubling the prevalence rate from .3% to .6% means you'd expect there to be ~76 trans murders per year.

If you adjust those numbers for race and gender it becomes obvious how some trans women are obviously at higher risk. Blacks and Hispanics are about 29% of the general population, and women are about half the US population, which means ~15% of the trans population should be TWOC - and those black and Hispanic trans women account for more than 90% of all trans murder victims.

Notably, white trans women were killed less often per capita than cis white women. Yes, there are issues with applying one white trans death per year against the white trans population, and yes, there are other forms of violence (in addition to murder), but the point is that transphobic murder appears to be an issue almost exclusively affecting trans women of color.”

From Canada:

“Meanwhile, back in the real world, the latest stats we had from police in Canada regarding hate crimes (in a nation of 35 million) showed an annual total of 186 “hate crimes” based on sexual orientation, with 120 of those involving violence, and with 40 or so involving “serious violence.” To put this “epidemic of hatred” in perspective, environment Canada reports an average of 174 people struck by lightning each year in Canada, with almost all of those being very serious in nature. Thus, it would seem those worried about hate crimes in Langley should also regard this threat from above just as seriously, maybe even more so. By Dirks’ admittedly very, very liberal standards, we must also conclude that we are having an epidemic of lightning assaults on Canadians too, although admittedly it is not clear how many lightning strikes specifically target LGBTQ people — but we can be sure that queen of all bigots, Mother Nature, whom stubbornly refuses to recognize men as women, is no doubt specifically targeting trans people and other members of the LGBTQ community.”

What if we look at the single biggest trans – killing country in the entire world, Brazil? In the ten years up to September 2017 the TMMP records 1071 trans deaths from Brazil. The South American region as a whole is by far the most deadly for trans identifying people:

The first thing that needs to be recognised and noted is that the caveats mentioned by TGEU surely do apply to Brazil. The very reputable and solid looking Brazilian LGBT advocacy group Grupo Gay da Bahia makes similar and consistent observations:

“For the database coordinator of this research, systems analyst Eduardo Michels of Rio de Janeiro, "the underreporting of these crimes is evident, indicating that those numbers represent only the tip of an iceberg of bloody violence, since our databank is based on articles published in newspapers and over the internet. Unfortunately, this type of information is seldom provided by the more than 300 active Brazilian LGBT nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The real numbers of deaths of LGBT people in the country must certainly exceed the estimates herewith provided; this is especially true in more recent years since police officers and police inspectors have been increasingly and blatantly ruling out the possibility of homophobia being a factor in many of these killings of homosexuals."

With this caveat duly noted, the problem for the statistics on trans murders is that they still appear too small for us to be in any way certain that the trans murder rates are higher than the general rate for the whole population. Brazil is a huge country with many regional and demographic complexities I have not studied in any depth. But doing the math on the gross totals does not help the case for the idea that trans people are uniquely vulnerable to murder. Here are my calculations for what it’s worth:

The Trans Murder Monitoring Project contains this data for the 2008 – 2017 period:

The hard part is estimating the size of the trans population. Failing to find any solid estimates online, I will use the 0.6% of total population figure from a recent US survey. Census data for the population of Brazil over the 2008 – 2017 period gives a rough and ready population estimate of 200 million. This lets us guess the number of Trans Brazilians as 1,200,000.

Now for the homicide rate. Wikipedia says  :

The 26.74 means homicides per 100,000 people, taken from 2015 data.

It also says:

So the 26.74 per 100,000 is a conservative estimate.

If we use these figures, the expected number of trans murders in one year in Brazil should be 26.74 * 12 = 320. That is using the conservative homicide rate. Using the TGEU data above, we get an average of 106 trans murders per year. This means that even if there were two unreported or unrecognised murders of trans people for every reported instance, the actual murder rate for trans people would be about the same as the rate for the population as a whole.

Another way of going about this is to use the aggregate LGBT population figures and make a similar comparison. This Al Jazeera article from 2015 states: that “the number of homophobic and transphobic killings in Brazil increased from 1,023 in 1995, to 1,243 in 2003, according to Brazil’s first gay rights group Grupo Gay da Bahia.”

There are stats  on LGBT population as a whole for Brazil, which are probably a lot more reliable than my rough and ready estimate of the trans population.

20,000,000 LGBT people at a murder rate of 26.74 per 100,000 gives 200*26.74 = 5348 expected deaths. Again, this is using a conservative death rate estimate.

In this case for the LGBT murders to equal the national average rate, there would have to be around four unreported or unrecognised murders for every recorded instance. Brazil is a country riven by corruption, violence and prejudice. So it is surely conceivable, even likely, that there is a such a vast iceberg of unreported LGBT / trans murders. But the available reported data just does not support the thesis that trans or LGBT people are more susceptible to homicide. The number of murdered trans people in Brazil is high because Brazil has a large population and an extremely high homicide rate. There may be hundreds of unreported cases, and it could be that transphobia is a motive in many of these killings. But the data as reported simply does not support this speculation.

Open Letter to the Green Party regarding Feminist protest action at Pride 2018

Renee Gerlich and Charlie Montague at Pride Parade, Auckland 2018 (Photo by Arthur Francisco)

There was a similar post put up on the 'Young Greens' facebook page, which also also accused both Renee Gerlich and Charlie Montague of advocating funding cuts to LGBT youth groups 'Inside Out' and 'Rainbow Youth'. It has now been removed. Here is a screenshot:

 In response to these accusations I wrote a letter to several Green party leaders. The following is a copy of that letter, with hyperlinks to articles backing up my claims:

To Whom It May Concern:

As a Green party supporter with many friends and family members who have actively participated in the party, I am very concerned and saddened by the Green party response to the actions of Charlie Montague and Renee Gerlich at the recent Pride parade. On both the ‘Young Greens’ and ‘Rainbow Greens’ facebook pages there are posts which claim that Montague and Gerlich advocate funding cuts to Inside Out and Rainbow Youth, and that the protest banner they carried amounts to an attack on trans identifying people. Both of these claims are false, and act to prohibit democratic and critical debate about an important issue. Emotions often run high in these debates, but that is all the more reason not to condone lies and smear tactics.

The protest banner carried by Montague and Gerlich read “Stop Giving Kids Sex Hormones – Protect Lesbian Youth”. There is a real and substantive issue here about the physical side effects of synthetic hormones and puberty blocking drugs such as Lupron. Worldwide the numbers of children and youth who identify as transgender has skyrocketed only very recently. There are therefore no long term scientific studies on the potential side effects of these drugs. Yet existing studies on Hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women, and the numerous severe side effects on many people who have used puberty suppressants, are cause to take concerns about this issue very seriously.

There are also numerous studies which indicate that the vast majority of young people who experience gender dysphoria during their youth go on to identify as gay or lesbian adults. In countries such as the US and the UK, where the medicalised approach towards gender non-conformity is well entrenched, there is a growing movement of ‘de-transitioners’ who have come to the realisation that the medical approach did not work for them. The majority of these people are young women who now identify as lesbian.

Clearly there are complex and contentious political issues around these questions. The perspective held by many trans-identifying people is very different from the feminist analysis of Charlie Montague and Renee Gerlich. So by all means encourage and support members who wish to debate this important issue, clearly it deserves considered and careful attention. What it does not need is lies and smear tactics.

Yours Sincerely,

Tim Leadbeater

Open Letter to the PPTA: Why is discussion about the medicalisation of gender off-limits?

I recently read an opinion piece  in the PPTA magazine by Lizzie Marvelly about the so called ‘bathroom battle’ over transgender students and their access to toilets and facilities which match their gender identities. Because I strongly disagreed with Marvelly’s perspective on and framing of the issues involved in this discussion, I was motivated to write a reply. Unfortunately the PPTA News editor did not accept my piece, so I am reprinting it here because I doubt that any attempt to revise my argument would satisfy the stringent conditions the PPTA places on debate about transgender issues. I believe that the PPTA News editor has refused to publish my piece for ideological reasons. I will also argue that this refusal to allow debate amounts to a violation of one of the key stipulations in the PPTA's Code of Ethics.

Here is the article I submitted:

In a recent article published through the PPTA, Lizzie Marvelly called the gender “bathroom battle” a “front for intolerance”.

Marvelly is right to say that schools should support and respect their LGBTQ+ students. Bigotry, intolerance and bullying behaviour needs to be challenged and does not have any place in our schools. I’m proud to work at a school that has a thriving ‘Rainbow Youth’ club, where many students take part in events such as the ‘pink shirt’ day supporting tolerance and respect for gender non conforming people.

I also agree with Marvelly’s contention that the bathroom battle is ‘proxy war’ with much deeper issues in the background.

Marvelly’s portrayal of these issues is problematic, though, for a number of reasons.

It may well be that Family First, her target for criticism,  is a conservative organisation with values opposed to LGBTQ+ rights. Yet whatever the background motivations of Family First, I struggle to understand how the concerns of female students can be so flippantly thrown out with the bathwater as ‘bigotry’.

The recent case of a male transgender student gaining access to female facilities at Marlborough Girl’s College is a case in point. Laura, the student who spoke out last year against the granting of this access, does not speak the language of bigotry. Laura’s mother referred to the ‘vulnerability’ of teenage girls, and insisted that males and females are ‘built differently’ and therefore need private spaces. Laura said that she and her peers were not consulted, and talked about the ‘stressful and embarrassing’ time girls can go through during puberty, and their increased need for privacy from boys. She said that younger girls with a history of abuse or trauma would be particularly sensitive and ‘triggered’ by the presence of males inside their toilet facilities. In the AUT youtube video Marvelly mentions, many of the women who spoke out against the wholesale replacement of female only facilities voiced concerns based on their cultural values. None of these were motivated by bigotry.

Another important background issue is the debate surrounding the identification of transgender children. Many feminists are critical of the medicalised approach towards gender non-conforming youth. They point to the gender stereotypes implicit in much of this identification, and question the appropriateness and effectiveness of physical transition. Lupron, the puberty blocking drug sometimes prescribed to transgender identified children, has a number of very serious potential side effects. Taken in conjunction with synthetic hormones, Lupron causes permanent sterilisation. Other potential effects include higher risks for chronic pain, osteoporosis, depression and anxiety. There are unanswered questions about the magnitude and extent of these risks because few scientific studies have been carried out, and the fact that the population of medically transitioned people has only very recently begun to increase dramatically. The long term effects of drugs such as Lupron and the ongoing use of synthetic hormones are still largely unknown - and this spells medical experimentation.

This medicalised approach towards gender non-conformity goes hand-in-glove with the concept of a free-floating ‘gender identity’ which sometimes gets mixed up in the ‘wrong body’. Young boys, for example, who like to play with dolls and wear pink are encouraged by this ideology to identify as girls trapped in a boys’ body.

How does this ideology connect to the bathroom battle? I am worried that promoting access to previously sex-segregated spaces such as toilets based on ‘gender identity’ will effectively normalise and validate this contentious ideology.

Do we really need to add to all the pain and turmoil teenagers experience during puberty by suggesting the possibility that their troubles are due to them being born in the ‘wrong’ body? Is this even possible?

It seems clear that gender identity ideology, not ‘bigotry’, is the bogeyman lurking in the shadows of this debate.

*           *

The reply explaining why my piece was refused I found deeply disturbing. Clearly my views on this issue are at odds with the PPTA News editor, but I am certain that I am not the only PPTA member out there with similar questions and concerns. Shutting down debate and discussion about an issue which directly affects the wellbeing of some our most vulnerable students seems to me clearly at odds with the PPTA Code of Ethics, which demands that teachers “help all pupils to develop their potentialities for personal growth”. How can we do that if we cannot even have a debate when the views about how that growth can best be fostered are so hotly contested?

The really depressing reason behind this is that the PPTA News editor is completely convinced that my views are based on prejudice and intolerance:

A piece that questions whether such a thing as being transgender is ‘even possible’ and refers to gender diversity as ideology is not something we would run given we have members who fit into these groups and work with these students. We have democratically agreed guidelines affirming students with diverse genders and sexualities and we don’t want to negate our work supporting all of our members.  

I wonder what exactly ‘gender diversity’ is, and why it is wrong to call it an ‘ideology’? I never used the phrase in my piece, and I’m not sure of the answer to either of these questions. What I am very clear about is what I object to and why. ‘Gender identity ideology’ as I understand it involves the idea that people can be born into the “wrong” body. There is typically some kind of appeal to the notion of gendered brains or ‘essences’ which somehow get misplaced inside a body which does not match up. The medicalised model of ‘gender affirmation’ via things like synthetic hormones and surgery is the practical consequence of this idea, together with the assumption that the body is more ‘plastic’ than the mind.

I don’t believe in gendered brains, gender essences or the assumption that the body is more plastic than the mind. I reject these ideas not out of ‘bigotry’ but because I believe that they do not withstand scientific scrutiny, and also because I believe that these ideas seriously undermine and negate critical feminist perspectives on gender.

I strongly believe that gay, lesbian and gender non conforming youth should be supported and validated. I also believe that there is absolutely nothing ‘wrong’ about the bodies of any of these young people. I don’t believe that their bodies benefit from breast binders, puberty blockers or synthetic hormones. I don’t believe that they should be sterilised.

Clearly my beliefs at are at odds with the PPTA News editor, and many others who embrace the medicalised gender identity model. There is a debate to be had. Lots of people and organisations have interests and agendas here – the drug companies and medical institutions who profit from medicalising gender, parents of GNC children, feminist critics and of course the children and youth who experience the real and acute pain of gender dysphoria. I’m a parent of two young children and a teacher of teenagers. I have an interest in this debate too as a human being and as a teacher who takes seriously the stipulation in the PPTA Code of Ethics – let’s repeat it again:

Teachers should help all pupils to develop their potentialities for personal growth

This is what the PPTA News editor says about this important debate:

‘We also feel it would be irresponsible to publish comments on side effects of specific medications as we are not medical professionals.’

Well I’m not a medical professional either. All I can do is read books and internet articles on this topic. I’m sure there are many science teachers out there who read the PPTA News and also know a huge amount more than I do about endocrinology, human biology and the effects of puberty blockers. But of course we cannot even begin to discuss any of this, because the people in charge of the PPTA News are not medical professionals.

We can talk about toilets and the conservative bigotry of Family First, but we can’t talk about the physical effects of breast binding. (I bring this up because the ‘Rainbow Youth’ facebook page recently featured an advertisement which celebrated these devices - see also Renee Gerlich's piece for more on this topic). This is what a ‘top surgery’ specialist has to say about breast binders:

If you are considering long-term chest binding, then there are some important things to keep in mind. This following are the three biggest health consequences of chest binding that you need to be aware of before you do begin.

Compressed Ribs

One of the biggest health consequence of chest binding is compressed or broken ribs, which can lead to further health problems. Unfortunately, you can fracture the ribs fairy easily so you should avoid binding your chest using bandages or tapes, as these can be unsafe.

Compressing your chest too tightly or incorrectly can permanently damage small blood vessels. This can cause blood flow problems and increase the risk of developing blood clots. Over time, this can lead to inflamed ribs (costochondritis) and even a heart attack due to decreased blood flow to the heart.

The following are some symptoms you should look out for:

·         Loss of breath

·         Back pain throughout the back or shoulders

·         Increased pain or pressure with deep breaths

Collapsed Lungs

Since chest binding can lead to fractured ribs, this can increase the risk of puncturing or collapsing a lung. This happens when a broken rib punctures the lung, causing serious health issues.

Once the lung is punctured, it has a higher risk of collapsing because air can fill the spaces around the lungs and chest.

Back Problems

If you bind your chest too tightly then it can cause serious back issues by compressing the spine, which is part of your central nervous system. The spine controls many functions, and you need to be very careful when doing anything that may cause damage.

Back pain from chest binding can also be an indication that a lung has been injured. If the pain is coming from the upper back or shoulder, consult with a doctor for further examination to ensure proper lung health.

Fractured ribs, damaged blood vessels, or punctured lungs can cause difficulties down the line and may stop you from being able to move forward with surgery. Keeping these issues in mind will allow you get the most out of using chest binding.

Discuss chest binding with an expert to ensure that you get the best results, reduce the risk of complications, and create optimal health for you.

If you are a PPTA member, please don’t talk about any of this. We can’t debate this because we are not medical professionals. It’s much nicer and easier to just get Lizzie Marvelly in to talk about toilets. That way we don’t have to deal with any of the hard questions. Please don’t worry too much about the stipulation in the PPTA Code of Ethics – let’s repeat it again just for good measure:

Teachers should help all pupils to develop their potentialities for personal growth

Don’t worry about Lupron either. You’re probably not a ‘medical professional’, so you shouldn’t even be trying to read or understand the scientific literature on this topic. Please ignore and do not dare to discuss with the PPTA facts such as:

Unproven: Lupron Depot is unproven and not medically necessary for puberty suppression in patients with gender identity disorder due to the lack of long-term safety data. Statistically robust randomized controlled trials are needed to address the issue of whether the benefits outweigh the substantial inherent clinical risk in its use. 

Of course it could be true that for some gender dysphoric teens, the medical treatment model might be the only thing that works for them. This is complex and difficult territory, and I am sure that the PPTA News Editor would not encourage any debate around the issues involved. We should not consider, talk about or debate the surveys which indicate that about 80% of gender dysphoric youth desist from transgender identification by the time they become adults. You should not read this article which scrutinises the debate around this statistical claim, and concludes:

Every study that has been conducted on this has found the same thing. At the moment there is strong evidence that even many children with rather severe gender dysphoria will, in the long run, shed it and come to feel comfortable with the bodies they were born with. The critiques of the desistance literature presented by Tannehill, Serano, Olson and Durwood, and others don’t come close to debunking what is a small but rather solid, strikingly consistent body of research.

Well, I see that I have gone way over the 250 word limit for letters to the PPTA News, and for obvious reasons I know you will not even consider publishing this anyway. It’s a shame that this discussion has to be limited to blogs. If any PPTA members are actually reading this, I would encourage them to read some of the recent pieces by Renee Gerlich on this issue. I would also encourage them to contemplate the meaning and moral force of the stipulation in the PPTA Code of Ethics, which I will repeat once again in conclusion:

Teachers should help all pupils to develop their potentialities for personal growth