A recap on Act Party dogma

Content warning: transphobia, fascism, and American word salad

Hey all,

So yesterday I supported my Kaiāwhina pals with a media release about the Act Party’s fascist-of-the-month, James Lindsay, who was the keynote speaker at today’s rally in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland Central.

kaiawhina_tamaki

A post shared by @kaiawhina_tamaki

The statement was co-signed by Palestine Collective and Matika mō Paretinia – and echoes the statements put out by Poneke Antifascist Coalition earlier in the week. While I was pulling together all the information our collective smart people had contributed, I had to read a bunch of stuff, and then ended up listening to a bunch of Lindsay’s content.

So I also have some personal thoughts to add, as well as two pages of supporting research that I wrote to RNZ after their article this morning managed to omit mentioning the LGBTQIA+ safety issues addressed in our statements even once (even if this was done unintentionally, fine, but that still means we’ve got a fundamental problem with society that a bunch of people looked at that and didn’t think it was worth discussing).

First of all: the evidence

Now, if you’re reading this, I know you’re probably aware of all this stuff, but here it all is in examples in case you ever need to explain it to someone. I figure it’s better to host this stuff publicly, because we’re all very busy, and it’s better to not all do the same work twice.

First and foremost, James Lindsay came to fame for the “Grievance studies affair”, a project where he and two others submitted 20 hoax academic papers, primarily attacking gender, sexuality, fatness and race. I am not going to discuss this in detail as there is no point in debunking such offensive and thoroughly-debunked content any further, and focus more on recent content that is described in plain, non-academic language. However this should help to set the stage for the kind of ethics that this person the ACT party has selected as their speaker has.

Evidence: James Lindsay speaking to Sean Plunket on “The Platform”, March 14, 2025

In this video, Sean Plunket is speaking to James Lindsay about a since thoroughly debunked accusation that local governments in New Zealand paid half a million dollars to make some kink-focussed transgender sex education. In reality, they seem to have latched on to some gender-affirming sex education created by Gender Minorities Aotearoa, an independent transgender organisation that definitely does not get half a million dollars thrown at them. In response, Lindsay says this:

“American people are saying no more. We're fighting like hell for getting the boys out of women's sports, we're fighting like hell to protect our children. Donald Trump of course [is] assigning exec orders about these things to protect our children from puberty blockers, which are damaging medical interventions that can cause in once you combine them with with cross-sex hormones and and “super physiological doses” is the terminology – you'll sterilize a child. No child can consent to that.”

At this point, the video cuts off and is kept behind the Platform’s paywall.

What this represents to the transgender community

Framing gender affirming care as child abuse is a popular rhetoric that causes significant danger to transgender people and their families. It also normalises and minimises violence against transgender people by equating it to pedophilia, one of the most detestable crimes in society.

Supporting documents:

• In 2024 RNZ reported that violence against LGBTQ people had increased by 42%, and spiked ahead of Posie Parker (another international speaker who famously spreads anti-transgender rhetoric) visiting New Zealand.

• TGEU, an international trans rights organisation has been annually tracking the deaths of transgender people on Trans day of rememberance. These are reported into TGEU by transgender activists worldwide.

• In a statement, they said ‘This is no doubt a consequence of the concerted efforts of anti-gender and anti-rights movements that instrumentalise and vilify trans people to push wider anti-democratic political agendas. We have seen a consistent rise in the levels of online and offline hate speech and hate crimes, especially from political actors and religious and faith leaders, public figures. This rise is enabled by the lack of strong hate crime legislation that protects gender identity and expression, and the manipulative disinformation resulting from the lack of accountability for social media companies on ensuring information integrity,’

Evidence: “Drag Floyd” comments made by James Lindsay on Twitter and at Americafest event

The SPLC uses an example of one of Lindsay’s tweets as follows: “The goal is to have ‘Drag Floyd,’ and the goal is to get you to give in so they get their way or overreact... It’s so important to understand that they want a drag queen to get attacked, and they want to make a huge amount of hay of it…”

What this represents to the rainbow community: Here Lindsay is implying that violence against LGBTQIA+ people is something that we asked for and are instigating for political gain. This again normalises and makes violence against rainbow people seem more acceptable to his followers. Like many other right wing conspiracy theorists in the USA, he has been encouraging violence against drag performers in particular.

Here we see real world consequences in Aotearoa: Destiny Church storming the Te Atatu library’s drag story hour and assaulting some of the most vulnerable members of our community.

Evidence: analysis of 2023 David Seymour campaign speech on transgender people

A simple google search reveals the Act Party’s stance on transgender people.

In a campaign speech in 2023, David Seymour said the following (I have transcribed this from his video)

“You know, where does this debate come from around transgender rights? It’s just almost you know, you’re not allowed to even question. Because I’ve always been a person that says you should be inclusive and if someone’s not hurting you, then you should be as tolerant and accepting as possible of them. It’s a basic way forward that I think has served us well.

But how has this debate become so viciferous that someone who even dares to raise the question is suddenly accused of denying someone else’s right to exist. That even if you say well, hang on a minute. How will it work in prisons and are biological men and biological women really equal in all sports or just some and at what point should such ideas be introduced to children, and who should decide who introduces these ideas to children.

Now I’m not saying that there’s an absolute view on any of those. I think the Kiwi way is for people to work together carefully and work through their problems so that everyone can basically be happy but that’s not what’s happening right now.

This debate is just so viciferous that people aren’t allowed to have a different opinion. You saw that with the Posie Parker rally where in the land of Kate Sheppard, you can’t have a group of women meet in a public park to discuss women’s rights and women’s politics. How on earth did that happen?

What seems to have occurred is that we have a tyranny of the minority where the majority tremor and fear that if they even ask basic questions, they will be ostracised, pillarised, canceled, and doxxed to the point that they can’t have any kind of role in their own life. It is completely wrong.

On that particular issue of transgenderism, I absolutely think we should do our best to accommodate people but I also think we need a bit of a rebalancing where we say yes, in every way possible, you will be accommodated but you can’t tell people that black is white and white is black.

You can’t tell people that they’re not allowed to ask the question and there may be some facilities and some sports where actually people want to make a law and it’s allowed under the Human Rights Act that actually you can’t participate or you can’t use this changing room or whatever if your birth sex is the opposite of that that it’s reserved for.

I think those are the kinds of debates and changes that New Zealand’s going to need on that issue. However, it’s not clear that in the current environment, people are prepared to allow those kinds of discussions without jumping down each other’s throats.

I think what we need is to restore the values of New Zealand that got us to where we’ve been for most of our history. A place where each person has equal citizenship, equal rights, and equal dignity to speak freely, to think freely and to be heard. Not to be shouted down, cancelled or made to feel bad for having the wrong opinion.”

What this represents to the transgender community:

In the latest Counting Ourselves survey, the largest regular survey of transgender health in Aotearoa, researchers note that 77% of participants reported high or very high psychological distress, compared to only 12% of the general population.

In the previous 12 months before the survey, 50% had deliberately injured themselves, and 53% had seriously considered suicide at least once. One in ten had attempted suicide in the past year.

This is the backdrop we are looking at when David Seymour is saying that transgender people aren’t allowing everyday New Zealanders to have opinions on them and whether or not they should be included. This rhetoric of “we’re all wanting to work together carefully” and “being accused of denying someone else’s right to exist” frames the Act Party, “free speech” speakers like James Lindsay, and their voter base as reasonable victims being oppressed by some kind of violent and radical group of people.

Our dehumanisation not only leads to the significant mental health impacts described above, but once again, normalises violence against transgender people by framing them as unreasonable, violent, and above the rules of a respectable society, which we are not.

Internationally, oppression of a very small minority (transgender people) has been wildly politically successful and that is what we are trying to prevent here.

The bottom line is that it is not acceptable in New Zealand to oppress a small group of people for political gain, and that tactic must not be allowed to spread here, for the sake of our most vulnerable community members.

Some more opinions

And well, if you need any content that helps explain why you shouldn’t debate fascists, this is it (20 minutes of letting this man say incoherent word salad).

The problem is that this is, once again, the economic free market dogma of the Atlas Network. The point isn’t to win the “debate” about the rainbow community, pro-Palestine activists or critical race theory. It’s to continue relentlessly having the debate so that these groups can continually be scapegoated and blamed for everything in society, because that has proved to be the most effective political tool in recent history.

Lindsay’s rhetoric suggesting that certain types of people are working towards some agenda and perhaps deserve to be punished for it helps to mainstream the idea that violence against marginalized groups of people is fine.

We do not need to have the debate with this man. He is a greedy man who pivoted to far-right conspiracy theories for profit. He does not care about making coherent arguments. His arguments are nonsense. That’s what makes them such effective arguments – because it is much more difficult to argue against nonsense.

There’s no point in arguing in the details. There’s only one valid argument to make – that it’s not aligned with our values to cause harm to our most vulnerable communities for the sake of political gain.

That is it. That’s the debate.

If you want to know why the argument is happening for real, there are many smarter people in the trick or treaty documentary who can tell you about it:

I also love “Who’s afraid of gender?” by Judith Butler, and their description of the scapegoating of marginalized groups as phantasms. An analogy you might be familiar with, if you’re one of my cycling followers, is how cars get mad at you when you’re on a bicycle.

They don’t actually hate you. They just hate driving, but they don’t want to admit that to themselves. So, it’s easiest to hate the bicycle, a slower target that “seems” to be in the way.

And this is what the Act Party’s base is.

No, you don’t hate transgender people, you hate that you have no meaning in your life because all you do is amass pointless wealth and everyone hates you and says you’re a racist icky transphobe.

Do not let anyone tell you that the oppression of queer and trans people, Palestinians and Māori is in alignment with a respectable society.

Final thoughts

You know, every time I have to trawl through the internet reading and listening to vile comments people say about me and my community, or I have to explain to a visitor to my flat, or a random stranger, that no, there is no transgender conspiracy, I take a little psychological damage.

After this, I will rest a little bit today, have a little snack and work on my bike. Even though I’ve had quite a bit of practice with mentally taxing situations, it’s still not nothing. I just hyperfocussed intensively until this was done, because sometimes it’s my turn to do the mahi lol

It shouldn’t be any mystery to anyone that over three quarters of us experience high levels of mental stress.

Bye for now x

Robbie