When reading Philip Matthews’ report of his interview with Helen Joyce in the Press on 15 November, what stands out is his blindness to his own bias and hypocrisy.

Let us count the ways:

1. Matthews criticises new media outlets for not challenging Joyce’s views, while admitting he was the only journalist from legacy media who bothered to interview her. What could be more biased than media completely ignoring a best-selling author and co-director of the charity Sex Matters, thus rendering her point of view invisible to the general public? That Joyce’s book and NZ speaking tour was on a topic that will stay politically controversial into the next election makes the failure of legacy media to talk to her even more arrogant.

2. Describing the violence perpetrated against women at Albert Park in 2023 as being the result of a “poorly managed” event is pure historic revisionism. The media and politicians whipped up a frenzy against Posie Parker’s visit and the Police failed in its duty of care and stood aside to let the mob do its will.

   

3. Matthews quotes the Qtopia activist Jennifer Shields as dismissive of Joyce’s views because she “has no qualifications relating to gender diversity or medicine” but fails to report that Shields also has no medical qualifications. Shields is the president of PATHA (the Professional Association for Transgender Health Aotearoa) but that is an advocacy group, not a medical association. PATHA endorses the “Standards of Care” from its parent organisation, WPATH, which have been internationally discredited for including a chapter that asserts being a eunuch is a valid ‘gender identity’ that should be medically affirmed. Another relevant fact that Matthews forgot to mention is that Shields is transgender - a man who claims to be a woman.

4. Shields states that ‘gender exploratory therapy’ is illegal in NZ under our Conversion Practices Prohibition Act but that is not true and Matthews is remiss for repeating this misinformation. A quick search brings up the Human Rights Commission guidance that confirms therapy can be carried out if “a medical practitioner acting within the legal, professional, and ethical standards to which they are subject considers in their reasonable professional judgement that it is appropriate to take that action.”

5. It is odd that Matthews implies Joyce’s “strictly science-based approach” to transgender beliefs is a flaw, when these unscientific beliefs are leading young teenagers to make lifelong alterations to their physical bodies. There is no other field of medicine where a patient’s feelings are given precedence over medical ethics and scientific evidence of the treatment’s efficacy.

6. When Joyce says “gender ideology harms all children”, Mathews corrects her - she should have said “sexism harms all children,” he opines. Being partial to gender identity beliefs means Matthews won’t accept they are entirely predicated on sexist stereotypes. The two are inextricably linked and are being pushed incessantly at our children from toddlerhood. How does a boy know he is really a girl? Because he likes ribbons and nail polish, of course! And a girl who likes climbing and playing with trains must be in the wrong body! Ask Matthews to point to a single way that a person can know they are ‘trans’ without relying on sexist stereotypes, and he will be unable to do so.

7. The tired old argument that trans people are only 0.7% of the population and there is no reliable data about assaults by trans women is rolled out yet again. Everyone knows full well that some men are violent and for that reason all men need to be kept out of women-only spaces. Speak Up For Women sent Matthews information about recorded cases of violence by transgender males but he chose not to refer to it. There are many other anecdotal accounts of males invading women’s changing rooms and complaints being dismissed so that the women are forced to self-exclude from their own spaces. The solution to violence directed at transgender people is not to be found in depriving women and girls of their dignity and safety.

   Women are 51% of the population - why don’t our ‘lived experiences’ count?

8. In a brazen attempt to discredit Joyce by association, Matthews finishes his article with a reference to Brian Tamaki’s appearance at the same event, although he knows perfectly well that they were speaking independently and that Joyce is an atheist who is unlikely to agree with Tamaki on very much.

Systemic bias in NZ media

Last week the BBC was in the news for its “systemic bias” in reporting unfairly on trans issues as well as other topics. Its use of activist language, one-sided reporting, and the routine censorship of gender-critical stories was described in detail in a damning dossier and in a subsequent letter to the BBC from Sex Matters.

The legacy media in NZ has been playing the same game for years, and its relegation of Joyce to the black hole of silence during her more than two weeks in the country is just the latest iteration of its biased coverage.

Although Matthews’ article in the Press is badly flawed, at least it has broken that silence. If NZ’s legacy media wants to save itself from the huge embarrassment currently swirling around the BBC, it will start addressing both sides of the transgender issue, honestly and even-handedly.

Here are some good places it could start:

• How about a story about the lengths women have to go to when meeting, to protect themselves from out of control trans activists?

• Or a properly critical look at the practices recommended by PATHA - does anyone really believe it is healthy to affirm a eunuch identity and castrate a man if that is what he wants?

• Try asking women how they feel about being subjected to male voyeurism, exhibitionism, and assault in spaces that were supposed to be safe. Opening up access to spaces where women are unclothed simply gives the men who want to abuse women (however they identify) even more opportunities to do so.

• What about seeking an informed legal opinion about the actual effects of the Conversion Practices Prohibition Act on psychotherapy?

• Or a look into the propaganda that is pushed onto our youngest children via cartoons and picture books that tell them they can change their sex, just by saying some magic words.

• It would be eye-opening to interview the woman who was censured at work for “misgendering” a corpse - yes that really did happen - or any of the dozens of other women and men who have lost jobs or faced ostracism at work, in unions, and in political parties for simply expressing sex realist views.

The ball is now in the court of the legacy media - report accurately and fairly on transgender issues or watch your audience numbers continue to decline.

By Fern Hickson

PS. Don’t miss this excellent interview of Helen Joyce by Penny Marie, founder of Let Kids Be Kids.