27 Comments

Thank you for this information. I make 2 ancillary points:

Firstly: the use of hormone blockers to prevent the onset of puberty is not an approved use in this country. PHARMAC records overall figures for the drug but does not distinguish approved from unapproved use. This disguises the extent of uses of Blockers. While requiring recording the unapproved use of medicines may be difficult it should be required; not least because in a system of tax based funding we all pay for, or at least subsidise use.

Second: MOH, as you say, provides an extensive list of transition surgeries provided by the our publicly funded health service, but in practice funds very few surgeries. The young person, as you say, may embark on transition possibly believing they will get surgery for free. There is however only one practice providing these surgeries. These young people go onto the long public waiting list, but find themselves stuck waiting in limbo. They then have to option of paying for the same service from the same provider privately. Hence the numbers of youngsters pleading for money to fund transition on the internet, and enormous pressure on parents to pay the significant costs involved.

IN EFFECT THE PUBLIC SYSTEM HAS ORGANISED THE CLIENT LIST FOR THE PRIVATE BUSINESS. JUST LIKE IVF THIS BARNCH OF MEDICINE BECOMES HUGLY PROFITABLE FOR PRIVATE HEALTH PROVIDERS. I AM SURE YOU KNOW COUPLES MORTGAGE THE HOUSE FOR IVF. NOW THE SAME PRESSURES WILL BE PRESSED INTO SERVICE TO PAY FOR TRANSITION.

Expand full comment

Holy smoke, Laura - a smoking gun indeed! Thanks for your detailed investigation, it will be most useful.

Expand full comment

It's amazing isn't it!

Expand full comment

Laura Lopez thank you so much for this work. I have been wanting to know the answers to a lot of these questions and you have done the work for us all.

Expand full comment

I left the Green Party because of this, and I told them. Exactly these points. I told them. I mean: multiple emails with MPs who I was in direct communication with on other matters. Quite some time ago. And then of course there was Jill Abigail.

Expand full comment

Who is Jill Abigail?

Expand full comment

With Jan Rivers, Jill Abigail is the author of the 2020 report, "Another Unfortunate Experiment? New Zealand’s transgender health policy and its impact on children". It's well worth reading if you're interested in this topic.

https://www.publicgood.org.nz/2020/12/02/another-unfortunate-experiment/

Biographical information:

"Jill Abigail has worked on gender issues for over 40 years in both the public service and NGOs. Originally a librarian and researcher, she was the first director of information in the Ministry of Women’s Affairs."

Source: https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/pq/article/view/7316

Expand full comment

Thanks so much for this comprehensive overview of the situation in NZ. There is no other mental health issue that is 'fixed' by mutilating healthy bodies: https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/sticks-and-stone-can-break-my-bones

Expand full comment

I'm the same. It was because of this issue that I left the Green Party. It pains me to see how MP's have become enraptured in this virulent gender ideology. Jeanette and Rod would be rolling in their graves. I believe there is room for an "anti-woke" green/red party that campaigns on traditional left wing values - free speech, anti-war/anti-intervention, anti-corporatist and globalist, for the environment and for the working class!

Expand full comment

I couldn’t read all of this, because it is so depressing. We are living in an Orwellian world, relies, lies, and more lies are being a swallowed by so many people. This is an authoritarianism and no democracy can thrive under such authoritarian rule. the transport must be stopped, and sooner rather than later.

Expand full comment

Oh so you're a man? A man insisting on forcing his way into women's toilets (gave yourself away there mate, even you know they're not for you and it's not okay to force your way in) and encouraging children to sterilise themselves in the hope they can have their breasts or penises removed as soon as they turn 18? That kind of helping the children?

Expand full comment

“Social influences of some kind are also the only plausible explanation for the dramatic increase in people seeking medical transition, other than unlikely theories about microplastics in the water.”

We’re social influences also responsible for the dramatic increases of people identifying as homosexual in the past?

There were very few homosexuals in the 70s and 80s compared to the 90s and 00s.

Expand full comment

Hi CoRvA,

Thanks for reading my report and for taking the time to comment. You raise an interesting question, one that would take a full article to really address properly. I’ve posted a few brief thoughts in response to your question as a separate post, so that I could more easily include links to sources, and because I thought this question might be of general interest to my readers.

https://argumentswithfriends.substack.com/p/trans-is-not-the-new-gay

Kind regards,

Laura

Expand full comment

You’re conflating social acceptance with ‘social contagion’ (a catchphrase of your ilk).

Also you are neither gay nor transgender, so kindly stop speaking for us, and over us.

Expand full comment

Hi CoRvA,

The words I used were "social influence". Evidence suggests that it's not just social acceptance:

https://argumentswithfriends.substack.com/p/the-trans-wave-was-caused-by-social

I speak for myself, not for you. No-one is 'speaking over you' or stopping you from starting your own Substack and writing whatever you believe. And this is an issue that can potentially affect anyone, especially parents, so everyone has the right to speak about it.

Kind regards,

Laura

Expand full comment

Trans is not 'gay'. It was *illegal* to be a homosexual in the 70s and 80s, which is why you remember that there weren't any. People don't 'identify' as homosexual. They are or they aren't, like man or woman, Māori or Pakeha, gay or straight. 'Trans' is a mental illness, that has been promoted to children and young people and all of us as a 'sexuality' by people who are homophobic and want to be something they're not. That's where the social contagion comes from. They covered their mental illness in a rainbow that didn't belong to them and then changed it to their own (horrible) colours. These people need therapy. Not power.

Expand full comment

You answered my question wonderfully; thank you for demonstrating such rank, ugly prejudice.

Expand full comment

Where is the prejudice, sorry? I was there in the 1980s homosexual law reform years. My mother helped bring it about. Thank God. I'm currently standing up for her right not to be forced to accept that being a lesbian is the same as being a man who believes he is a woman. I'm also advocating for mental health treatment and support for people who believe that they have been born in the wrong body. I do not believe that PATHA, the New Zealand Branch of WPATH, the 'World Professional Association for Transgender Health', is an organisation that should be given power beyond the usual right to advocate for ones own needs, or allowed to dictate to our academics and children and families what is and isn't reality or that 'eunuch' is a sexuality, or that children should be given dangerous puberty blockers on the basis of any of these ideas. Which bit was the bigoted bit?

Expand full comment

All of it.

Expand full comment

Oh? How so?

Expand full comment

Why explain the obvious? I think you’re painfully aware of your bigotry.

Expand full comment