LAVA needs your support to take our case to the New Zealand Human Rights Review Tribunal.
In March 2021 LAVA (Lesbian Action for Visibility in Aotearoa) booked a stall at the annual Out in the City (OITC) fair in Wellington, to display a map of Wellington sites of historical, political, and social significance to lesbians.
Initially the booking was accepted, but four days before the event the organisers, Wellington Pride, emailed to say that because of the “nature” of LAVA, the booking did not fit with OITC kaupapa (principles), and there would not be a space for LAVA.
Pride claimed that LAVA was “trans-exclusionary”. The Pride Board Chair stated in an email that OITC participants should be standing side by side with “the most marginalised of the marginalised including our transgender whanau [family] and the marginalisation they face on the daily” (sic).
LAVA requested a meeting to discuss the issue but received no reply - despite a stated commitment on Wellington Pride’s website to having ‘hard conversations” and to “give voice and representation to all". On the day of the event LAVA members displayed the map at a demonstration outside the council-owned venue. A noisy counter protest formed, and surrounded us, chanting “pack your shit and go” in our faces and displayed signs bearing slogans such as “Fuck TERF Cunts”.
LAVA members, Hilary Oxley and Margaret Curnow, have brought a claim in the New Zealand Human Rights Review Tribunal, claiming that in inviting applications for stalls, Pride was offering a service, and that they unlawfully discriminated against LAVA on the basis of LAVA’s political opinions about trans issues and women’s rights, and because of LAVA’s views that sex and sexual orientation exclude trans women from being women, and lesbians. Pride denies that LAVA’s opinions are “political opinions”, and claims that LAVA’s support for known “anti-trans activists” such as J K Rowling and Julie Bindel is evidence of “transphobia”. Pride suggests that LAVA’s presence with our map would have made the OITC event “unsafe” for trans people, and that the map was based on an idea developed by LGB Alliance Australia, “a known anti-trans group”.
LAVA is represented by senior legal counsel Nicolette Levy KC. Ms. Levy, instructed by Franks Ogilvie lawyers of Wellington, acted for Speak Up for Women (SUFW) in 2021, securing a judgment requiring Palmerston North City Council to allow SUFW to hold a meeting to discuss the proposed self-ID amendments to the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act.
Political philosopher Ramon Das of Victoria University of Wellington, has provided an expert opinion that LAVA’s views on trans issues are political opinions.
This case is important for everyone with gender critical or sex realist beliefs, because it has not been confirmed by a New Zealand Court that such opinions are a political belief protected under the Human Rights Act 1993. The debate over whether gender critical views such as LAVA's are "worthy of respect in a democratic society" has not been had yet in New Zealand.
Legal costs of more than $5,000 have been met by LAVA. Another $23,000 is owing to date, and the estimate is a further $57,500 for the two week hearing either late this year, or early next year. All contributions are welcome.
Read more about the case and LAVA’s origins here and follow us on X (formerly Twitter) here.
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The Plaintiffs
Hilary Oxley and Marg Curnow
I grew up in the Hutt, in a secure upper-middleclass, liberal family. We had an independent, fun aunt (with no kids) who influenced my work against apartheid, racism, war, class privilege, and for Women’s Liberation and saving the planet.
At 20, in the mid-70s, I finally Came Out as lesbian when I realised that the only thing stopping me from being lovers with women was that I would then be ‘queer’, i.e. I would be all wrong. I then met lesbians, feminists, gay people and heterosexual men and women who were disapproved of by polite society. I decided to not be so involved in political causes within the straight world but to deal with these issues as they affected my worldwide lesbian community.
Being blocked from the Pride Fair highlights the fact that lesbians and gay men have little in common except our awareness of the homophobic world we live in… which is why, I believe, despite our differences, we need to unite at times.
Hilary Oxley
I grew up in Greymouth the eldest child in a working class mostly Irish Catholic family of five girls and one boy. Our key family values were fairness and justice, loyalty, hard work and the importance of education as a way to create a better life. My grandfather was a founding member of the NZ Labour Party and I grew up understanding power and privilege and structures of oppression.
I have always been on the Left politically. Many hours of my childhood and adolescence were spent working with my family for left wing and social justice causes and that work continued into my adulthood.
I see the LAVA case against Wellington Pride as standing up against injustice and bigotry which is something I have tried to do all my life.