The Greens are defending the indefensible and that’s disgusting. This is a bloke who’s partner is female who’s calling himself “non-binary” to be cool or something because the reality that he’s heterosexual isn’t fashionable enough. And those posts are disgusting and should be condemned. And his poor child - no child is trans. It’s a child adults have lied to
Given the level of opprobrium from people like you, I doubt if too many people describe themselves as "non-binary" because it's fashionable. I suspect most of them – probably all of them – are in fact "non-binary".
I don't remember this level of disgust circulating about Jago and ACT. Maybe because he didn't describe himself a non-binary?
There's no such thing as "non-binary". There are only women and men and all humans are one or the other (and don't be tiresome about so-called intersex people - they are always either one or the other despite developmental abnormalities. No human has ever produced both big gametes (eggs) or small ones (sperm). It is always one or t'other). This trans ideology is so very stupid and based on nothing but "feelings" that can't be independently verified. Doyle is manifestly male. And his partner is female. He is heterosexual (possible bisexual) but absolutely male in every cell in his body
This is nonsense, both biologically and psychologically/sociologically.There are non-binary people, they have always been non-binary people, and there always will be non-binary people. There is also no such thing as "trans-ideology." All they want is to be allowed to live their lives without being characterised as perverts or paedophiles. Statistically, it's safer to leave your kids in the care of a number binary person that it is a priest or other religious.
These people were saying young men were only being gay because it was "fashionable" back in the day when young gay men were being harassed by the cops, beaten up with impunity, and sometimes even killed. As if anyone would put themselves through this simply to be fashionable. Bullshit! If anyone is disgusting it's them.
Gay is one thing. A real one. Some men are attracted to other men. Non-binary is not at all the same thing. No -binary is pretentious nonsense. No human is non-binary, no matter their feelings
Read some biology, pease. You can have all the genders you like, but not more than two sexes. This is because nature abhors a superfluity as much as a vacuum.
There is such a thing as “non binary” in the same way that there is such a thing as “cricket” and “opera”: socially constructed, only exists in specific cultures, and not a “natural kind” in the way that “male” and “female” are. Take away everything that’s socially constructed, men and women would still exist, but the concepts of opera, cricket, or being non binary would not.
Interesting that you should quote a blog that is blatantly political, while pretending it's not. As well as asserting that other blogs are putting ideology over science.
There have always been very unusual expressions of sexuality in human societies (deviance for the norm AKA deviants) but what is very interesting are the ones that are quoted and cited by current leftwing social and sexual activist and those that are never mentioned and just ignored.
The greatest example of this is how the alleged "2-spirit" people of the indigenous American nations are proclaimed as role models for and by the modern day Trans and non-binaries but the Imperial Eunuchs of Asia are never mentioned.
Those people existed for thousands of years across many societies, why aren't they a 3rd gender and the spiritual ancestors of the stunning and brave modern Trans? Is it because the whole social institution and process looks like an outrageous mutilation and violation.
And this trans-historical and trans-social phenomenon can't be put down to cruel oppression inflicted from the top down either.
The Skoptsies were a Russian religious cult that are best "known for practicing emasculation of men, the mastectomy and female genital mutilation of women."
So what was that? People living their authentic best lives or people mutilating themselves after being infected by the ideology of a self destructive cult?
Many members of Marshall Applewhite's cult Heaven's Gate were also self selecting Eunuchs, or at least they were until they all killed themselves in 1997.
So, Yes, there is a long thread of this sort of behavior running through human society, as far back as we can see, but that doesn't make it GOOD and worthy of promotion. It is still BAD and the cause of great human suffering.
Would it cool for a heterosexual male to post photos of his young daughter in his lap with the tag “pussy galore” and a geolocation to the town of “Cumming” and you’d be fine with that? No questions here?
The luvvies are backing Doyle simply because they don't like the people who've been speaking against him. They can't possibly see things similarly to Peters and Tamaki - cults have rules and that would be breaking them.
The fucking luvvies? Seriously? Is it all you RWJs have got? We're back to puerile insults?
You haven't got a fucking clue. Us "luvvies" sometimes agree with Winston Peters, he got me my gold card after all – maybe not so much with the good "bishop". But I suspect anyone who follows him does belong in a cult.
I love how the supporters of neolib Labour and Greens like to pretend they are virtuous left wing warriors. Lenin despised bourgeois reformists, and I don't blame him. And of course far too many of them are into misogynistic gender ideology.
Well that's sort of obvious isn't it? Although given the wide variety of attitudes I guarantee there are at least some people who don't mind their kids being under threat by perverts and paedophiles. In fact there are some people around who sell their kids to perverts and paedophiles – but it's hardly a popular position I would have thought
I think if Jago was a sitting MP there certainly would be, and probably greater to be fair. Our society is very strongly against heterosexual men sexualising children. A segment of NZ society appears to be confused about whether that extends to non-binary people presently.
I suspect literally no one is confused about that. I imagine, apart from the extreme right who seem to think that children and wives are property, pretty much everyone believes in the idea of informed consent.
As I have repeatedly said on this site and others, I'd sooner leave my kids in charge of a trans person than a priest.
You did not look far. Stephen A Ireland is a good start. Stephen Ireland, 41, was convicted of raping the child in the Addlestone flat he shared with David Sutton, 27, on 19 April 2024.
Ireland, who co-founded Pride in Surrey in 2018, was also found guilty of three counts of causing a child under the age of 13 to engage in sexual activity, one count of sexual assault of a child under 13 and six counts of making indecent images of children.
Sutton, who also volunteered with the organisation, was found guilty of three counts of making indecent photographs of children and one count of possession of an extreme pornographic image.
He perhaps should have said trans community, but even so – for every pride member that has assaulted a kid I can find you probably a thousand cases of priests.
if you think only the extreme right think of their children and wives as their property then you are very naive. Rapists come in all political persuasions. Just as they CAN come in any (but only in) male body, whether dressed in kitten heels and lippy or a hassock
I can't answer how many clergy have abused children; but raising it is adeflection. What I can tell you is the proportion of violent sexual offenders who identify as trans is many times greater than the proportion of males, which in turn is many times greater than the ratio of females:
" How prevalent is crime among the transgender population?...
They compare this with stats from New Zealand.
1155 males from a 2.4 million population = 1 in 2018 men
5 females from a 2.5 million population = 1 in 500,000 women
15 trans identifying males/transwomen in 4,900 = 1 in 326 transwomen
Getting push-back, or "opprobrium" if you prefer is a very large part of why people defining themselves as non-binary are actually following a fashion trend.
They now have an identity, bold warriors fighting the progressive cause against the evil reactionaries. They are being defined by people's attention, and negative attention from those outside the clique works just as well as positive attention from people inside.
A very similar thing could be said about earlier sub-cultural cliques such as beatniks, hippies, punks, goths and emos.
If they actually had a real identity based on an intrinsic immutable characteristic such as ancestry and biology they wouldn't have to publicly display themselves for affirmation.
You obviously don't know much about your so-called "pushback". It's more than that. It can result in kids being kicked out of home and living on the street, being forced to undergo so-called treatment that is actually torture, and all sorts of assaults including being killed.
And it does exist regardless. People have existed like this for thousands of years in various societies, some of which did not approve of them displaying themselves – so they didn't.
Christ what is it with you people every time this subject comes up you appear from under your rocks and try to flood the zone with shit. Trans people, non-binary people, are no threat to you. The world would be a lot better off if you people learn to mind your own damn business.
Homophobia and transphobia are treatable illnesses. Please consult with a licensed mental health care professional for more information and help. You don't have to suffer.
I agree re homophobia. Fearing and/or discriminating against someone because they’re same-sex attracted is silly and wrong. And adult relationships are nobody else’s business other than the consenting adults involved. But you’re labelling opposition to biology-defying nonsense, and opposition to the sexualisation of children as a “phobia.” It’s actually disgust.
Please don’t turn Substack into a Twitter/X cesspool. Disagree with me, fine. I respect that. But calling people insulting names is puerile and degrades any discussion
Do you not realise attacking a person rather than their arguments never wins anything. You certainly won’t succeed in silencing me. You’re just demonstrating to anyone reading this thread that you have no actual answer to offer, just abuse. And we have centuries of history of men abusing women. Not nice. Definitely not kind.
Chris, I have just subscribed to your blog because with age you have made some sensible and perceptive comments on serious issues of the day not blinded by youthful ideology. The first two emails unfortunately travail matters of little interest to ordinary kiwis or me. I guess it does highlight the folly of letting political parties appoint list MP's particularly in apparently unelectable low ranking spots. Graeme
Chris, I hope you listened to the interview with AC Grayling on radio NZ this morning. I doubt if it will change anyone's mind, but he talked a lot of sense about trans people among other things. Sense that's sadly lacking in many people today.
I’m quite happy to seen somewhat of a turnaround from you Chris.
Perhaps you might review Elisabeth Cave’s substack on identity disruption through the mental health curriculum in schools and start asking questions about how Matt Doocey of the now defunct Tavistock Institute is allowed to be promoted as minister for mental health.
As you correctly state the Benjamin Doyle Bussygate presents an insolvable dilemma for the Greens, they can't talk about it and they can't NOT talk about it.
It isn't just the link between the Greens and pedophilia either, that's just a subset of a larger problem. It's a function of leftist institutions and probably explains their famous tendency to split into smaller and smaller factions over time, just like the various Protestant denominations.
Leftism is a corrosive acid that eats away at social institutions, because it's actually a vector of travel not an actual position in itself. But once the rules are all melted away what are you going to do?
To get anything done there have to be rules, maybe these rules maybe those rules but regardless SOME rules, and once you have them you have to stick to them, encourage and reward the followers, discourage and punish the defectors.
Didn't the NZ Greens once have a system of one male and one female co-leader? ( a waggish friend of mine called it "Father Sun and Mother Moon") It wasn't totally brilliant but it wasn't the dumbest system in the world either. But that had to be dissolved once the trans and non-binary came along. Is there any rule that the Greens can impose today that won't be dissolved in ten years once the next wave of social progressivism comes along?
On a slightly related note, how radically progressive is the Chinese Communist Party now? They had their political and cultural revolutions and then spent the following 50 years getting some massive amounts of serious work done.
I’ll explain: they have a kid. This means, when mummies and daddies love each other very much, sometimes they have a “special hug” and that’s where babies come from. So that’s how I know.
It's called the rainbow community because it has many "colours". Maybe it's time some of you people actually talked to members of the rainbow community and found out a little bit more about them – from them, rather than your own prejudices?
Sure have. Most of the senior members of the LGB community are horrified about the stupidity of the TQ brigade, and tend to believe the women in the old “a man says he’s a woman and a woman says he’s not”. They are genuinely concerned that their rights are under threat because of principles and ideas they don’t believe in, and never signed up to.
Lesbian friends of ours are VERY upset and I'm certainly not going to name them here. Multiply this 4 by however many others might also be a tad bothered about Chloe Swarbrick's conflation and I think there'll be more than a few. Many LGB people just quietly live their lives in obscurity and that's the way they like it, so they're not likely to burst out into the twittersphere over this.
Funny, I know at least a couple of gay men who are older than I am I think. None of them are particularly horrified. All of them support transgender people not that that has much to do with the topic we are supposed to be discussing.
What is the real point behind this post Chris? The bench mark is between consenting adults isn't it? If there is impropriety this is a matter for the police, not innuendo, moral outrage, or fanning the flames of an embedded intolerant society. The persistent Muck raking of all things Green is a most interesting phenomenon. Scant copy is ever written about their aspirations for a safer, more egalitarian society where those of means are expected to pay a higher proportion in taxes and where industry is expected to protect our environment not endanger it. What is the driver within you seeking to expose or display? Are you really concerned about what biblebeltbussy means or are you just content to add more fuel to burn The New Zealand Green Party?
To give practical expression to their policies, Mike, the Greens must first attract the mass support of New Zealanders. This will not happen while the party embraces causes and behaviours from which most voters recoil in anger and/or disgust.
Jim Anderton used to say of political parties that, in order to succeed, they had to "build footpaths where the people walk". The Greens have disdained to follow this advice - seemingly as a matter of principle - preferring instead to lay their tracks in the direction of a phantasmagoric wilderness, to which only the already convinced are ever likely to travel.
The 10 percent of New Zealanders who are happy to sojourn in this wild territory are too few to secure the realisation of the Greens' dreams. That the party is unwilling to do what is required to become the mass party that is needed, tends towards the conclusion that until the Greens either change themselves, or are driven from the electoral field, the urgent challenges posed by a deteriorating global environment will never be addressed.
Coddling the Greens means condemning the planet - or, at lest, that little chunk of it for which we New Zealanders are responsible.
Given that the Greens have embedded a decision making culture that avoids recognizing the difficulty of tough decisions, there is no chance of the Greens ever replacing Labour as the major party on the Left.
Luckily, this means that Labour can maximize its vote by ignoring Green issues as much as possible.
What your thesis seems to seek Chris is that the Greens pander to neoliberalism as Labour has chosen to do since David Lange, or the chase of populism that NZF has demonstrated time and again. That is never going to happen. Strangely I find myself with more respect for ACT in that they like the Greens have a clear alternative to the main protagonists on the political stage. Interesting that the pluralism that the Greens espouse should be a cause of fear, since it is the bedrock that even the most regimented of societies embrace, or often choose to stifle as we are currently witness to with Costello, Seymour, and Peters. Conflating ACT with the Jago incident was, and remains, a distraction that has no bearing whatsoever on the libertarian, sociopathic, rejection of a fairgo for all that ACT espouses. What political venom I and others may hurl at ACT and its members, their individual sexual preferences are of no import. Yet many writers seem not to exhibit the same standard. It should matter not a jot to anyone else how or to whom we express love and affection, so long as it is consensual and legal. To speak of 'a phantasmagoric wilderness' is a negative characterization bearing no sensible examination. This narrative is a situated construct not of the Greens but by individuals and groups seemingly beguiled by the promise of personal wealth or aggrandisement. In the current political discourse this has always been at the expense of social justice, egalitarianism and equity. I hope whatever political end game Seymour or Van Velden seek to achieve for New Zealand they trampled beneath a growing tide of Greenies who seek to share the wealth of this country in a more equitable manner. Let us all learn to play by the same rules.
Having been the butt of your ire over my replies in the past I find it amusing that when you have no real rebuttal argument regarding policies that advance the many over the few you're not averse to ephitets that are designed to denigrate not celebrate. You ignore the central thesis I present which is for the focus of debate to rest on Green policies and not the vagueries of people's private lives.
BTW I'm far from being a radical Greenie, but given only they and TPM have economic policies that favour the leveling of the spirit level, as a life long committed socialist one really has no other voting choice. I am somewhat surprised at the extent to which someone with your past political credentials appears to have entertained such a right hand turn. I do hope this hasn't stepped outside your substack boundaries Chris.
Your "argument", however, consists almost exclusively of praise for the Greens' policies and condemnation of every other party's (except, apparently, TPM's).
It does not, however, offer any estimation of the political difficulties likely to be associated with the Greens' programme. The obstacles placed in the path of such a radical social, economic and cultural agenda would be huge, surmountable only by a determined mass movement of citizens.
The problem (and this is where my critique began) is that the Greens, as currently positioned ideologically, cannot hope to build such a movement - no matter how passionately Chloe Swarbrick declares her intention to do so.
In their 1968 song "Revolution", the Beatles warn: "But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you're not going to make it with anyone anyhow."
The question is are you happy with the glow of a kind of performative purity, or actually achieving something of substance about the things you claim to care about.
The reality is every scandal that has enveloped the Greens in the last few years has been self inflicted. You can complain about the media all you like, but it comes across as a childish “it’s not faiiiiir’ to much of the public who just see behaviour worth of condemnation and a party who seem increasingly self righteous and uninterested in actually engaging with the public in good faith. Coupled with an increasing reliance on cheap forms of gesture politics, they regularly come across as more a group of student activists than potential government ministers.
It might not quite be on the level of unserious buffoonery you witness from TPM, but whilst it doesn’t seem to effect their core support, it is likely to act as a drag on Labour and the possibility of a centre left coalition defeating the current National lead one.
And before you have a go, I say this as someone who once voted Green without hesitation.
All you reveal by this comment is how completely immersed you have allowed yourself to become by a situated partial media generated narrative. The Greens and TPM are no more extreme nor wracked by incompetence or fecklessness than either ACT or NZF. The difference is the latter two are deemed 'acceptable' extremism by a complicit media. Lloyd Burrs recent writing regarding TPM are illustration of unwarranted, erronious reportage which he either committed unknowingly or willfully. Either way he should be out of a job. Since when was wanting to share our cake more equitable (the core position of both Greens & TPM) such an extremist position. Why is it that dismissing pay equity, Fair Pay Agreements and minimum work safe practices not attracting the same venom for extremism in action?????
The Greens are defending the indefensible and that’s disgusting. This is a bloke who’s partner is female who’s calling himself “non-binary” to be cool or something because the reality that he’s heterosexual isn’t fashionable enough. And those posts are disgusting and should be condemned. And his poor child - no child is trans. It’s a child adults have lied to
Given the level of opprobrium from people like you, I doubt if too many people describe themselves as "non-binary" because it's fashionable. I suspect most of them – probably all of them – are in fact "non-binary".
I don't remember this level of disgust circulating about Jago and ACT. Maybe because he didn't describe himself a non-binary?
There's no such thing as "non-binary". There are only women and men and all humans are one or the other (and don't be tiresome about so-called intersex people - they are always either one or the other despite developmental abnormalities. No human has ever produced both big gametes (eggs) or small ones (sperm). It is always one or t'other). This trans ideology is so very stupid and based on nothing but "feelings" that can't be independently verified. Doyle is manifestly male. And his partner is female. He is heterosexual (possible bisexual) but absolutely male in every cell in his body
This is nonsense, both biologically and psychologically/sociologically.There are non-binary people, they have always been non-binary people, and there always will be non-binary people. There is also no such thing as "trans-ideology." All they want is to be allowed to live their lives without being characterised as perverts or paedophiles. Statistically, it's safer to leave your kids in the care of a number binary person that it is a priest or other religious.
These people were saying young men were only being gay because it was "fashionable" back in the day when young gay men were being harassed by the cops, beaten up with impunity, and sometimes even killed. As if anyone would put themselves through this simply to be fashionable. Bullshit! If anyone is disgusting it's them.
Gay is one thing. A real one. Some men are attracted to other men. Non-binary is not at all the same thing. No -binary is pretentious nonsense. No human is non-binary, no matter their feelings
https://www.apadivisions.org/division-44/resources/nonbinary-fact-sheet.pdf
So you know better than people who have studied this stuff all their lives? Not surprised.
Read some biology, pease. You can have all the genders you like, but not more than two sexes. This is because nature abhors a superfluity as much as a vacuum.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the-idea-of-2-sexes-is-overly-simplistic1/
Maybe you should read some biology. This might be simple enough for you.
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/05/08/unscientific-american/ Read this debunk
I'd love to see how you calculate those statistics. Are you taking into consideration sample size?
Then get god over here to tell us its bronze age ignorance in person.. WAITING IMPATIENTLY, goddyoy.
Do you enjoy shaming yourself so publicly? Is it some weird link of yours?
There is such a thing as “non binary” in the same way that there is such a thing as “cricket” and “opera”: socially constructed, only exists in specific cultures, and not a “natural kind” in the way that “male” and “female” are. Take away everything that’s socially constructed, men and women would still exist, but the concepts of opera, cricket, or being non binary would not.
Funny, pretty much every culture has or has had non-binary people.
a little reading in biology should clear up yoyr misconception here: https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2025/04/03/colin-wright-gives-a-history-of-the-gametic-definition-of-biological-sex/
Interesting that you should quote a blog that is blatantly political, while pretending it's not. As well as asserting that other blogs are putting ideology over science.
There have always been very unusual expressions of sexuality in human societies (deviance for the norm AKA deviants) but what is very interesting are the ones that are quoted and cited by current leftwing social and sexual activist and those that are never mentioned and just ignored.
The greatest example of this is how the alleged "2-spirit" people of the indigenous American nations are proclaimed as role models for and by the modern day Trans and non-binaries but the Imperial Eunuchs of Asia are never mentioned.
Those people existed for thousands of years across many societies, why aren't they a 3rd gender and the spiritual ancestors of the stunning and brave modern Trans? Is it because the whole social institution and process looks like an outrageous mutilation and violation.
And this trans-historical and trans-social phenomenon can't be put down to cruel oppression inflicted from the top down either.
The Skoptsies were a Russian religious cult that are best "known for practicing emasculation of men, the mastectomy and female genital mutilation of women."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skoptsy
So what was that? People living their authentic best lives or people mutilating themselves after being infected by the ideology of a self destructive cult?
Many members of Marshall Applewhite's cult Heaven's Gate were also self selecting Eunuchs, or at least they were until they all killed themselves in 1997.
So, Yes, there is a long thread of this sort of behavior running through human society, as far back as we can see, but that doesn't make it GOOD and worthy of promotion. It is still BAD and the cause of great human suffering.
Look at you, showing off your ignorance and bigotry!
Offer him pudding.
Do you think he's earned pudding?
Would it cool for a heterosexual male to post photos of his young daughter in his lap with the tag “pussy galore” and a geolocation to the town of “Cumming” and you’d be fine with that? No questions here?
Agreed. Of course that would be unacceptable. I’m astonished so many “lefties” see nothing alarming in Doyle’s gross postings and photos
The luvvies are backing Doyle simply because they don't like the people who've been speaking against him. They can't possibly see things similarly to Peters and Tamaki - cults have rules and that would be breaking them.
The fucking luvvies? Seriously? Is it all you RWJs have got? We're back to puerile insults?
You haven't got a fucking clue. Us "luvvies" sometimes agree with Winston Peters, he got me my gold card after all – maybe not so much with the good "bishop". But I suspect anyone who follows him does belong in a cult.
I love how the supporters of neolib Labour and Greens like to pretend they are virtuous left wing warriors. Lenin despised bourgeois reformists, and I don't blame him. And of course far too many of them are into misogynistic gender ideology.
what is a RWJ? Would it be a puerile insult? Just asking for a friend
I dont think NZers want their children to be under threat from perverts and pedophiles.
Well that's sort of obvious isn't it? Although given the wide variety of attitudes I guarantee there are at least some people who don't mind their kids being under threat by perverts and paedophiles. In fact there are some people around who sell their kids to perverts and paedophiles – but it's hardly a popular position I would have thought
I think if Jago was a sitting MP there certainly would be, and probably greater to be fair. Our society is very strongly against heterosexual men sexualising children. A segment of NZ society appears to be confused about whether that extends to non-binary people presently.
I suspect literally no one is confused about that. I imagine, apart from the extreme right who seem to think that children and wives are property, pretty much everyone believes in the idea of informed consent.
As I have repeatedly said on this site and others, I'd sooner leave my kids in charge of a trans person than a priest.
Agreed. A quick google search returns zero cases of 'members of the rainbow community' abusing kids. Priests? Thousands.
https://www.bishop-accountability.org/category/news-archive/abusetracker/
You did not look far. Stephen A Ireland is a good start. Stephen Ireland, 41, was convicted of raping the child in the Addlestone flat he shared with David Sutton, 27, on 19 April 2024.
Ireland, who co-founded Pride in Surrey in 2018, was also found guilty of three counts of causing a child under the age of 13 to engage in sexual activity, one count of sexual assault of a child under 13 and six counts of making indecent images of children.
Sutton, who also volunteered with the organisation, was found guilty of three counts of making indecent photographs of children and one count of possession of an extreme pornographic image.
He perhaps should have said trans community, but even so – for every pride member that has assaulted a kid I can find you probably a thousand cases of priests.
if you think only the extreme right think of their children and wives as their property then you are very naive. Rapists come in all political persuasions. Just as they CAN come in any (but only in) male body, whether dressed in kitten heels and lippy or a hassock
Take a look at cases of abuse in the US. I suspect – well I know – that the vast majority of the people accused are republican.
I can't answer how many clergy have abused children; but raising it is adeflection. What I can tell you is the proportion of violent sexual offenders who identify as trans is many times greater than the proportion of males, which in turn is many times greater than the ratio of females:
" How prevalent is crime among the transgender population?...
They compare this with stats from New Zealand.
1155 males from a 2.4 million population = 1 in 2018 men
5 females from a 2.5 million population = 1 in 500,000 women
15 trans identifying males/transwomen in 4,900 = 1 in 326 transwomen
Those statistics have been debunked for years.
https://glaad.org/debunking-trans-terrorism/
https://kentuckylantern.com/2023/06/06/baseless-anti-trans-claims-fuel-adoption-of-harmful-laws-two-criminologists-explain/
https://time.com/4314896/transgender-bathroom-bill-male-predators-argument/
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2022-01-06/98878 Source for UK statistics I didn't quote; source for NZ stats I did: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lumnCTIcCQEWLhIBrm6kNRz75xPw7e4b/view
Both the result of OIAs
I don't believe Jago posted pictures of his child using termiology and emojis that attract the attention of paedophiles.
No, he just abused young boys. I worked with someone who did that – to everyone's surprise. He got 14 years. Jago got 2 1/2.
Getting push-back, or "opprobrium" if you prefer is a very large part of why people defining themselves as non-binary are actually following a fashion trend.
They now have an identity, bold warriors fighting the progressive cause against the evil reactionaries. They are being defined by people's attention, and negative attention from those outside the clique works just as well as positive attention from people inside.
A very similar thing could be said about earlier sub-cultural cliques such as beatniks, hippies, punks, goths and emos.
If they actually had a real identity based on an intrinsic immutable characteristic such as ancestry and biology they wouldn't have to publicly display themselves for affirmation.
It would still exist regardless.
You obviously don't know much about your so-called "pushback". It's more than that. It can result in kids being kicked out of home and living on the street, being forced to undergo so-called treatment that is actually torture, and all sorts of assaults including being killed.
And it does exist regardless. People have existed like this for thousands of years in various societies, some of which did not approve of them displaying themselves – so they didn't.
Christ what is it with you people every time this subject comes up you appear from under your rocks and try to flood the zone with shit. Trans people, non-binary people, are no threat to you. The world would be a lot better off if you people learn to mind your own damn business.
Homophobia and transphobia are treatable illnesses. Please consult with a licensed mental health care professional for more information and help. You don't have to suffer.
Either learn to respond courteously, or go somewhere else, Regular Joe. Your constant vituperation is not welcome here.
Perhaps then you could mention this to Hugh of "luvvies" fame? Why is it that on your blog, conservatives always seem to get a free pass from abuse?
Here, have some pudding: 🍮
I agree re homophobia. Fearing and/or discriminating against someone because they’re same-sex attracted is silly and wrong. And adult relationships are nobody else’s business other than the consenting adults involved. But you’re labelling opposition to biology-defying nonsense, and opposition to the sexualisation of children as a “phobia.” It’s actually disgust.
Please don’t turn Substack into a Twitter/X cesspool. Disagree with me, fine. I respect that. But calling people insulting names is puerile and degrades any discussion
Do you not realise attacking a person rather than their arguments never wins anything. You certainly won’t succeed in silencing me. You’re just demonstrating to anyone reading this thread that you have no actual answer to offer, just abuse. And we have centuries of history of men abusing women. Not nice. Definitely not kind.
Chris, I have just subscribed to your blog because with age you have made some sensible and perceptive comments on serious issues of the day not blinded by youthful ideology. The first two emails unfortunately travail matters of little interest to ordinary kiwis or me. I guess it does highlight the folly of letting political parties appoint list MP's particularly in apparently unelectable low ranking spots. Graeme
Chris, I hope you listened to the interview with AC Grayling on radio NZ this morning. I doubt if it will change anyone's mind, but he talked a lot of sense about trans people among other things. Sense that's sadly lacking in many people today.
I’m quite happy to seen somewhat of a turnaround from you Chris.
Perhaps you might review Elisabeth Cave’s substack on identity disruption through the mental health curriculum in schools and start asking questions about how Matt Doocey of the now defunct Tavistock Institute is allowed to be promoted as minister for mental health.
As you correctly state the Benjamin Doyle Bussygate presents an insolvable dilemma for the Greens, they can't talk about it and they can't NOT talk about it.
It isn't just the link between the Greens and pedophilia either, that's just a subset of a larger problem. It's a function of leftist institutions and probably explains their famous tendency to split into smaller and smaller factions over time, just like the various Protestant denominations.
Leftism is a corrosive acid that eats away at social institutions, because it's actually a vector of travel not an actual position in itself. But once the rules are all melted away what are you going to do?
To get anything done there have to be rules, maybe these rules maybe those rules but regardless SOME rules, and once you have them you have to stick to them, encourage and reward the followers, discourage and punish the defectors.
Didn't the NZ Greens once have a system of one male and one female co-leader? ( a waggish friend of mine called it "Father Sun and Mother Moon") It wasn't totally brilliant but it wasn't the dumbest system in the world either. But that had to be dissolved once the trans and non-binary came along. Is there any rule that the Greens can impose today that won't be dissolved in ten years once the next wave of social progressivism comes along?
On a slightly related note, how radically progressive is the Chinese Communist Party now? They had their political and cultural revolutions and then spent the following 50 years getting some massive amounts of serious work done.
Leftism is a path to nowhere but the graveyard.
So interesting to read of the German example, reminds me of PIE in the UK and how far they found acceptance in high political circles.
What subset of the LGBTQIAWTF+++++ community?
The straight tourist subset.
Doyle is a male who is in a normal relationship with a heterosexual female.
You've been in his bedroom? How do you define normal anyway? :)
What consenting adults do in bedrooms is their business. What they post publicly on the internet is a bit different.
I’ll explain: they have a kid. This means, when mummies and daddies love each other very much, sometimes they have a “special hug” and that’s where babies come from. So that’s how I know.
Why is Mr Doyle described as a member of the rainbow communty? He appears to live with a woman who described herself to reporters as his wife.
For the very simple reason, Rosemary, that he was included in that category by the Co-Leader of the Greens, Chloe Swarbrick.
It's called the rainbow community because it has many "colours". Maybe it's time some of you people actually talked to members of the rainbow community and found out a little bit more about them – from them, rather than your own prejudices?
Sure have. Most of the senior members of the LGB community are horrified about the stupidity of the TQ brigade, and tend to believe the women in the old “a man says he’s a woman and a woman says he’s not”. They are genuinely concerned that their rights are under threat because of principles and ideas they don’t believe in, and never signed up to.
Senior members? There is a hierarchy I didn't know about? I somehow doubt that too many are worried. Unless you can come up with some actual evidence
Lesbian friends of ours are VERY upset and I'm certainly not going to name them here. Multiply this 4 by however many others might also be a tad bothered about Chloe Swarbrick's conflation and I think there'll be more than a few. Many LGB people just quietly live their lives in obscurity and that's the way they like it, so they're not likely to burst out into the twittersphere over this.
age, dude, happens to us all. It’s an obscure opinion blog. it’s my opinion.
Funny, I know at least a couple of gay men who are older than I am I think. None of them are particularly horrified. All of them support transgender people not that that has much to do with the topic we are supposed to be discussing.
See – I can make bald assertions too.
Beside the point, Irrelevant. Deflection. And snide. Why do you suppose I'm not part of the outraged-by-Chloe's-smear rainbow community?
So – are you?
The pervert is still in Parliament.
Why?
What is the real point behind this post Chris? The bench mark is between consenting adults isn't it? If there is impropriety this is a matter for the police, not innuendo, moral outrage, or fanning the flames of an embedded intolerant society. The persistent Muck raking of all things Green is a most interesting phenomenon. Scant copy is ever written about their aspirations for a safer, more egalitarian society where those of means are expected to pay a higher proportion in taxes and where industry is expected to protect our environment not endanger it. What is the driver within you seeking to expose or display? Are you really concerned about what biblebeltbussy means or are you just content to add more fuel to burn The New Zealand Green Party?
To give practical expression to their policies, Mike, the Greens must first attract the mass support of New Zealanders. This will not happen while the party embraces causes and behaviours from which most voters recoil in anger and/or disgust.
Jim Anderton used to say of political parties that, in order to succeed, they had to "build footpaths where the people walk". The Greens have disdained to follow this advice - seemingly as a matter of principle - preferring instead to lay their tracks in the direction of a phantasmagoric wilderness, to which only the already convinced are ever likely to travel.
The 10 percent of New Zealanders who are happy to sojourn in this wild territory are too few to secure the realisation of the Greens' dreams. That the party is unwilling to do what is required to become the mass party that is needed, tends towards the conclusion that until the Greens either change themselves, or are driven from the electoral field, the urgent challenges posed by a deteriorating global environment will never be addressed.
Coddling the Greens means condemning the planet - or, at lest, that little chunk of it for which we New Zealanders are responsible.
Given that the Greens have embedded a decision making culture that avoids recognizing the difficulty of tough decisions, there is no chance of the Greens ever replacing Labour as the major party on the Left.
Luckily, this means that Labour can maximize its vote by ignoring Green issues as much as possible.
Courage!
What your thesis seems to seek Chris is that the Greens pander to neoliberalism as Labour has chosen to do since David Lange, or the chase of populism that NZF has demonstrated time and again. That is never going to happen. Strangely I find myself with more respect for ACT in that they like the Greens have a clear alternative to the main protagonists on the political stage. Interesting that the pluralism that the Greens espouse should be a cause of fear, since it is the bedrock that even the most regimented of societies embrace, or often choose to stifle as we are currently witness to with Costello, Seymour, and Peters. Conflating ACT with the Jago incident was, and remains, a distraction that has no bearing whatsoever on the libertarian, sociopathic, rejection of a fairgo for all that ACT espouses. What political venom I and others may hurl at ACT and its members, their individual sexual preferences are of no import. Yet many writers seem not to exhibit the same standard. It should matter not a jot to anyone else how or to whom we express love and affection, so long as it is consensual and legal. To speak of 'a phantasmagoric wilderness' is a negative characterization bearing no sensible examination. This narrative is a situated construct not of the Greens but by individuals and groups seemingly beguiled by the promise of personal wealth or aggrandisement. In the current political discourse this has always been at the expense of social justice, egalitarianism and equity. I hope whatever political end game Seymour or Van Velden seek to achieve for New Zealand they trampled beneath a growing tide of Greenies who seek to share the wealth of this country in a more equitable manner. Let us all learn to play by the same rules.
Why are all you radical Greens so adept at the art of political deflection?
Could it be that allowing the voters to gaze steadily at the Greens' policy offerings would not enhance the party's electability in the slightest?
Having been the butt of your ire over my replies in the past I find it amusing that when you have no real rebuttal argument regarding policies that advance the many over the few you're not averse to ephitets that are designed to denigrate not celebrate. You ignore the central thesis I present which is for the focus of debate to rest on Green policies and not the vagueries of people's private lives.
BTW I'm far from being a radical Greenie, but given only they and TPM have economic policies that favour the leveling of the spirit level, as a life long committed socialist one really has no other voting choice. I am somewhat surprised at the extent to which someone with your past political credentials appears to have entertained such a right hand turn. I do hope this hasn't stepped outside your substack boundaries Chris.
Not at all, Mike. I enjoy robust debate.
Your "argument", however, consists almost exclusively of praise for the Greens' policies and condemnation of every other party's (except, apparently, TPM's).
It does not, however, offer any estimation of the political difficulties likely to be associated with the Greens' programme. The obstacles placed in the path of such a radical social, economic and cultural agenda would be huge, surmountable only by a determined mass movement of citizens.
The problem (and this is where my critique began) is that the Greens, as currently positioned ideologically, cannot hope to build such a movement - no matter how passionately Chloe Swarbrick declares her intention to do so.
In their 1968 song "Revolution", the Beatles warn: "But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you're not going to make it with anyone anyhow."
The same applies, in 2025, to wearing keffiyehs!
The question is are you happy with the glow of a kind of performative purity, or actually achieving something of substance about the things you claim to care about.
The reality is every scandal that has enveloped the Greens in the last few years has been self inflicted. You can complain about the media all you like, but it comes across as a childish “it’s not faiiiiir’ to much of the public who just see behaviour worth of condemnation and a party who seem increasingly self righteous and uninterested in actually engaging with the public in good faith. Coupled with an increasing reliance on cheap forms of gesture politics, they regularly come across as more a group of student activists than potential government ministers.
It might not quite be on the level of unserious buffoonery you witness from TPM, but whilst it doesn’t seem to effect their core support, it is likely to act as a drag on Labour and the possibility of a centre left coalition defeating the current National lead one.
And before you have a go, I say this as someone who once voted Green without hesitation.
All you reveal by this comment is how completely immersed you have allowed yourself to become by a situated partial media generated narrative. The Greens and TPM are no more extreme nor wracked by incompetence or fecklessness than either ACT or NZF. The difference is the latter two are deemed 'acceptable' extremism by a complicit media. Lloyd Burrs recent writing regarding TPM are illustration of unwarranted, erronious reportage which he either committed unknowingly or willfully. Either way he should be out of a job. Since when was wanting to share our cake more equitable (the core position of both Greens & TPM) such an extremist position. Why is it that dismissing pay equity, Fair Pay Agreements and minimum work safe practices not attracting the same venom for extremism in action?????
He's bisexual