This page features computer generated text of the source audio. It may contain errors or omissions, so always listen back to the original media to confirm content. You can search the text using Ctrl-F, and you can also play the audio by clicking on a desired timestamp.
Mr Speaker. Um, firstly, Mr Speaker, I need to acknowledge the passing of a of the Wellington LGBT Q I community Dana Demilo. In recent days, she was one of our torch holders who created space for so many of us to walk into. And she will be sorely missed by many, Dana. But speaking of great queens, it is pride [00:00:30] season, Mr Speaker, Um, pride is a time of celebration and affirmation for people who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex, gender, [00:01:00] fluid, gender, queer, pansexual, asexuals, queer and questioning. And while we have come a long way as a country from when homosexuality and trans people were criminalised, we are still a long way from fully realising our human rights. For many of us, our moments of peace and our moments of celebration have been hard fought for So [00:01:30] our celebrations, in fact, are often acts of defiance as well as an expression of joy. And at times, they are also all too often an act of mourning. My ability to stand here open and proud of my lesbian identity comes from the bravery and political advocacy of my elders like Dana. Um, so I'm proud to stand as a green party MP to ensure that [00:02:00] this house and our political platform enables all the members of my community to find a strong place to stand. It's all too often that I hear about the premature death of queer and trans people, sadly, mostly trans people within my community, because they could not find that place to stand. We [00:02:30] all grieve for them and ourselves that we still live in a world where some lives seem to matter more so in the spirit of pride. I would like to draw the house's attention today to some of the work that we need to do to help provide a strong place for my community to stand. And I do want to acknowledge the minister, James Shaw, the minister for statistics for [00:03:00] the leadership and support. He is offering Statistics New Zealand to make sure that the data is collected to enable us to make our case to government for funding. I also want to acknowledge pharmac for their decision to fund prep as a um HIV, the prevention tool and the toolkit to end HIV by 2025 and I also want to celebrate the opportunity in select committee at the moment in [00:03:30] government administration, that gives us the opportunity to create a system that ensures that changes to gender markers on official documents are easy to use, consistent across passports, driver's licence and birth certificates and based on a principle of self identification. So there are rooms and progress is being made, but there is still outstanding issues that we need to turn our [00:04:00] focus to. We need to ensure that access to gender in affirmation, surgery and services are available in all DH BS. A survey in 2014 of DH B showed that nine of them provided a said that they provided no healthcare services at all to trans people in this country. Now that is unacceptable. And when we [00:04:30] know that Trans people can be waiting between 40 70 years to access surgery, we really do have to think that maybe this appalling failure and the gulf between need and supply could only be a result of an attitude that is prejudiced and trivialised, and we need to take action on this. We also need to do more work to ensure our schools are safe and inclusive for our young people. They are unsafe [00:05:00] at the moment and lead and contribute to high rates of suicide. There is much that we need to do to unleash the fabulous of my community, and I hope this House will help.
This page features computer generated text of the source audio. It may contain errors or omissions, so always listen back to the original media to confirm content.
Tags