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.
Oh, my name's Kelly. And, um, I've been sort of, um, work working for trans prisoners. Um, probably for 20 years. But, um, it would only be sort of the last, um, six or seven years since I sort of began my transition that I've really got my teeth stuck into it. And, um, it's it's been, uh, it's been sad and, uh and fascinating at the same time. It's great to see a bit of bit of progress. I'll [00:00:30] start start away, and I sort of wondered how I'd go about this, but I thought that probably the easiest thing might to give be to sort of give a little bit of a history of the work that I've been doing. Uh, because, um, it's not as if we can haul on a great deal of precedent in New Zealand about trans prisoners and the treatment of trans people. And as I think, uh, the current um, what do you call this two I see in America. Who's Obama's right hand man? Joe Biden. Joe Biden came [00:01:00] out, uh uh, shortly before the the the last election in America and said that, uh uh, transgender rights was the human rights issue of the time. And certainly if one looks at how quickly transgender law has developed overseas and even in New Zealand, Um, it's clear that sort of the the glacial progress of most legislation, uh, is certainly something not reflected in transgender legislation. Which isn't to say [00:01:30] that we haven't got a long way to go. But it is a far more dynamic area of the law than many others and speaking as a criminal lawyer who, of course, um, I don't know if you people know much about the, um the rise of the Bill of Rights Act and, uh, which probably had its high water mark in terms of, um, the Court of Appeals. Interpretations of it, um, in the early nineties where, you know, you could say, Look, the police officer didn't instantly give me a phone when he asked me my name on the side of the road after being pulled [00:02:00] over, uh, and the court of appeal would say, Oh, come here, you poor person. Give us a hug and bad policeman. Your drink drive ticket is tossed out. But of course, over the last, um, uh, two decades we've seen a very steady erosion of, um, of search and seizure rights. Um, and that came with, um, AAA nasty case called shaheed, which meant that the old rule of you cannot enjoy the fruit of the poison tree. So if something has been illegally obtained, [00:02:30] you know, a bad search warrant, it wouldn't matter how good the evidence was. Um uh, it was out. And of course, all that has changed. And the only reason III I mentioned that is because, uh, for a criminal lawyer, it's very depressing. And, uh, going down to the court of appeal. Uh, used to be fun in the nineties, but these days, you know, if you if, uh if you can't afford a spanking somewhere else, the court of appeal will do it for free and sort of various lawyers call it the the [00:03:00] House of Pain. Uh, some of the more cynical Call it the house of lies. Um, whereas, uh, yeah. So anyway, transgender law, on the other hand, floats my boat because, uh, as a lawyer, it's an area of law which can develop and has indeed developed. And, uh, just the the first case where I really got stuck in was uh, and I'll just put a little preface here. Remember, I'm gonna be talking about a lot of very naughty people. Well, not a lot. But some very naughty people who probably, um, uh, legitimately [00:03:30] have been put in jail. Uh, but there are so many people who do the, uh, do the crime, Do the time stop you complaining? Jail is a place where you don't go to be punished. Jail is the punishment in itself. So let's just sort of, you know, remember that. But I had a client called who, um, had, um attempted to rob a taxi driver, and the taxi driver got pretty badly injured in the course of it. And, uh, [00:04:00] she wanted to be sentenced in in Wellington, even though it was an Auckland case. Uh, legal aid doesn't pay for that kind of travel, but I thought, Hey, her family's down here. And this is the kind of gig I want to do with the trans advocates trust, which I'm involved in. So I came down to Wellington, did this case, and there's a case called Queen and Marco, which is a court of appeal case, which covers, uh, aggravated right and I put in very full written submissions, and the judge, as they often do, did not go out on a limb [00:04:30] and say Yes, I recognise that this person is transgender and is going to suffer terribly in a men's prison, and therefore I'm going to give an extra big discount. Uh, the judge whose name I forget didn't say that, but she ended up sentencing this person who should have been getting six or seven years under the Marco Tariff case, and she ended up getting 4.5 years and got a whole load of credit for sort of legitimate things, such as her guilty plea, which even though it was late, she got an [00:05:00] enormous credit for and so effectively it was recognised. And I cited the case there, which wasn't one of mine case called Queen and Warwick, which is an Auckland High Court decision. And buried in it is one paragraph which says, and because of the difficulties she will face in prison as a transgender woman and other psychological issues, I'm prepared to offer a 10 to 15% [00:05:30] discount, and so her sentence was discounted to reflect that, uh, but the submissions that were provided are no criticism of counsel who obviously has, You know, that's the only high court decision who obviously did a good job, but he barely scratched the surface on it, but obviously made an impact with the presiding judge. And so that case was something which, uh, obviously being high court, uh, was something which could be taken to the district court. And because this was, [00:06:00] um, II I saw the more the more I looked at it, the more heartbreaking it was. Um, I thought, Well, I'm going to really get stuck into the next case that comes along. And the next case that came along was, uh, case, which featured in the in the international press. And on one hand, I sort of feel, um I got some criticism about it that I was publicity seeking, but the reality is, uh, it was the press, [00:06:30] the press that pursue me all the time. Uh, and, um, I won't say that I didn't milk this to the greatest advantage that I possibly could, But when I say greatest advantage, it was of no advantage to me because I live in a very small little city and um, I. I like to keep my head down and just wander around the place and not be ID. Sorry. What is the circumstances of a, uh, transgender person? Absolutely. You know, present presented [00:07:00] very well. Quite androgynous. But undoubtedly femininely, uh, with a a, um, AAA very squeaky voice and flapped their hands a lot. A lot of very sort of feminine, uh, cues, but completely unrecognised by her family. Her family, as far as they were concerned, was, um, you know, he's a boy. He needs to toughen up, and, uh, and that we got that from everywhere and just denying this, You know, what was absolutely undeniable and perhaps not surprisingly, [00:07:30] to hit the turps and, um, and drugs and had a sort of a quite a, um, a tumultuous life and eventually got angry with the boyfriend and cracked him over the head with one of those good heavy, um, um, wine bottles, the ones, you know, pressure. I would say champagne bottle, because champagne's a trademark. But we know those, uh, those bottles designed for containing veno under pressure. Um, so, unfortunately, he wasn't too badly injured, but, uh, difficulties with, um with bail [00:08:00] and staying off the source and eventually ended up in jail. And that was about a week after I'd been turned down by two doctors who I'd approached in, um, asking them to, uh, help get onto hormones. Because once to prison the current, uh, regulations and policy, uh, state that, uh, one is allowed to continue. And that's the key word. Continue, [00:08:30] um, hormone treatment while in prison, and it adds in at their own cost. But the reality is most hormones, as I'm sure most of us know here are available through the state at a little cost. You know, prescription costs only. But that means that, um was unable to access, um, any kind of assistance. And so I advanced that as being a novel point and a noble point. So not only was provided an affidavit saying I lock myself in my cell 23 hours a day for [00:09:00] safety reasons, and that was prompted after I was attacked by three people. Um provided that affidavit to the court. And also I want to transition. But I cannot do this and went to the, um the District Court in obviously cited Queen and Warwick, saying, Look, this person is deserving of at least a 10 to 15% discount. And the judge said, No, no, no, no. Because that's other psychological issues as well. Only going to give you 10% for, for [00:09:30] for being, for being transgender and and in jail and the the risks of assaults. And I said, Well, you know, I want more and he goes, Well, why? And I said, because of this denial of medical treatment now, uh, it was quite a good judging using a cunning old lawyer's trick. Um, I worked out that the best way to go about things was to understate things, and by doing that, he had his nostrils flaring and came up with a lovely little quote, which was that Corrections [00:10:00] policy is appalling. And of course, that was You know, I could say that it was appalling, but, you know, they were just interested in what I say kind of thing. But having a judge say, that meant that, you know, the press picked up on it and and the thing got real legs. And of course, the idea was to give it as much legs as possible. Get it as much into the public eye as possible, and I can't remember if it was before or after, but certainly around. And at that same time, uh, Jan was, um, was asking difficult questions of Anne to in Parliament, and Mary [00:10:30] Ann Street woke up for 35 seconds and asked a few questions as well. Before, um, disappearing into obscurity. Haven't had an email back from her for over a year. Um, but Anne Toy was asking questions in parliament, and it became very clear that she didn't even know what a transgender prisoner was because her initial reaction was that there were three transgender prisoners in there. And I thought, Oh, my God, I must act for all of them because I But of course, her definition. And this is [00:11:00] the definition of corrections, uh, regulations. Well, effectively, they've got a very strict physical conformity test. So basically, if you if it doesn't matter if you have had your gender changed through the courts, have it recorded on your birth certificate. Uh, the first thing that they would do would be to do a genital inspection. And, uh, so, for example, somebody like me who's changed my gender through the course would be a genital inspection. And, um, if if I had had surgery, I'd be put in [00:11:30] a women's prison. If I hadn't had surgery, I'd be shuffled off to a men's prison on a completely arbitrary basis. Um, so, um, that was her reaction. And she obviously considered transgender prisoners those people who had had surgery and were now in the prison of their choice or not rather not of their choice, but that their genitals are accorded with, um next thing that came along was another one called, um, a case [00:12:00] called, um And, uh, she ended up featuring featuring on, um, on, uh, native affairs on Maori television. And, um, she Unfortunately, while I was doing the case, I wasn't her lawyer. At that point, she had somebody else, but she had just pleaded guilty to something burglary and as part of the, um process, which in those [00:12:30] days was actually not quite strictly speaking lawful, but is now there's a new thing called the Criminal Procedure Act, which enables the courts to impose bail terms which are conducive to the ends of justice. Used to be that it was just to stop you from offending and to ensure that you turned up so administering the conducive to the administration of justice in this case, Uh, well, they they they still did that meant go into custody, sign a new bail bond which requires you to go up and check in with probation for your probation report [00:13:00] this afternoon because the judges were sick of people turning out and going. I haven't got a probation report. Well, didn't I fucking tell you to go up to the bloody probation office? The Yeah, you know, I rang you outside, and, you know, we had a smoke, Your honour. So the judges started imposing this bail condition, and it ended up that put into a cell. Uh, not long afterwards, another guy was put into the cell very briefly, and he sexually violated her. And this was happening, Um, perhaps three metres underneath my feet while I was arguing. [00:13:30] And I have to say, um, it takes sort of quite a lot to squeeze a tear out of my, um, dry old wicked lawyer's eyes. But, um, I did have a bit of a sniffle in the car on the way home because I was I was just gutted. That here. I was arguing this kind of shit upstairs and And the judge next door, Um, negligently, I suppose you'd say negligently allowed this to happen, But not long after that, I got a call from [00:14:00] actually, she didn't get a call. Um, she she grabbed me in the, um in the court one day and said, Can you please be my lawyer? So I said, Yeah, OK, no trouble. And, um uh, again, the, um the the Rolls Royce job bearing in mind for a sentencing like that, I got her on legal aid. The sentencing fee would probably be about $300. I probably put you know, um, I don't know, 15, 20 hours worth of work. And I already had a pretty good precedent, [00:14:30] obviously with, um, uh, case and, um, but helped keep the ball rolling because, of course, they ended up on, um uh, Native affairs. And that meant that it remained in the public eye. And meanwhile, Jan was still stirring the pot pretty down at parliament, although Mary Anne Street was nowhere to be seen. Um and so that was you know, that was good. And then sort of, you know, I obviously went on [00:15:00] about, um, you know the radio and got quoted in the papers and that kind of thing, but ever conscious that regardless of how much merit I have and what I say, um, I'm a lawyer whose word should be taken with a grain of salt and that, um uh, Jan uh, despite the merit of what she was saying could easily be dismissed as just another looney Green opposition MP, which I think effectively what the Minister Ann Tolly was doing. So I thought to myself, how How am I going to How [00:15:30] am I going to keep this thing going? And my first thoughts were nobody who enacted the corrections act, uh, which is there to promote, uh, safety in the community and the rehabilitation of offenders nobody would have contemplated in their wildest dreams that would be used to deprive people of legitimate medical treatment or put them in such extreme danger. And I remember sort of isn't there some kind of thing called the Regulations Review Committee or something? [00:16:00] And so I did a little bit of reading around and then thought to myself, There's such a paucity of local law here the databases that I had access to up in are fairly limited. Um, and I've done a bit of work with the Equal Justice project, uh, in Auckland, which are Auckland law students who do pro bono work. Rather do research work for lawyers doing pro bono work. I gave them my submissions and said, Look, you know, I put at the bottom, added them all this stuff breach of the Human [00:16:30] Rights Act, breach of the Bill of Rights Act, breach of the United Nations Universal Declaration. Yoy Carter principles, et cetera. But none of this was researched was just the ad attacked on the end of 10 pages of submissions. So I gave them that and said, Can you please? You know, um uh, come away with some, uh, come back with some precedent to show that I'm right on this, Um, because I want to use your stuff as a basically as my as the submissions for going to the Regulations review [00:17:00] Committee. And I'll have you know, one or two of you along as as my juniors or supporters for this one. And so they're all very keen. The reports came out and, um, I think, uh first thing I think I forwarded one to you. I think I might have forward one to Marion Street as well. I can't remember. I might have got the pip with her by that stage. Um, you sent it on to the minister's office and there suddenly was something which was no longer the angry screeching of a deranged trans lawyer [00:17:30] in the provinces. Or, um or or some, uh uh, political opposition member trying to make political mileage out of it. Here was something which was so soundly searched and clearly neutral with in terms of political agenda. And the result was that an toy's office went very, very quiet for months. And I sort of made an approach and got told that it was an extremely difficult issue, which is always said, um to which [00:18:00] I said, sort of quite lengthy response, saying It's not a difficult issue. Um, and this is this is a bit of sun, so I don't know if any of you know So So the sixth century BC Chinese general who wrote a magnificent book about warfare, which, if you actually went through it and took out all the glories and victories, enemies and victors and vanquished and put in neutral terms like agreement and that kind of thing. It would just about be a good self help book. But one of the things is that, [00:18:30] uh, in many battles, one must leave the enemy an escape route. And, uh, the escape route, which she eventually realised, was that there is section 28 of births, deaths, marriage, relationships, registration act. So it's such a mouthful, which provides a all steps considered desirable by medical professionals test to change one's gender through the courts. And so I said, Here is a statutory test which has already been debated by [00:19:00] Parliament, which is already accepted and being used. Just use that, Uh, absolutely no response. But, you know, a couple of weeks ago, out came the indication that anybody who has got this, uh, got a change of gender through the courts, uh, and changed it on their birth certificate, which realistically, most trans prisoners haven't done. Uh, because of the cost involved, um, that will be respected. [00:19:30] And you will go into the prison, which accords with your birth certificate and for those who haven't been able to afford it or haven't done it, then they can make application and my understanding or my rather my expectation is that they're simply going to be using a test like that. They'll probably have a GP and or a psychologist to to sit down and make an assessment over whether the person has changed their gender and is stable in that presentation as a result of the desired [00:20:00] the medical steps considered desirable by medical professionals. So that's the wording of Section 28 subsection three subparagraph C. Um so, uh, so So that where we're at And there are still, you know, there are still some significant issues. Uh, one of them, uh, and and one of them is that there is still the denial of treatment for trans prisoners who want to initiate treatment [00:20:30] while in prison. And, you know, I, I, um the personally I totally object to the Pat Patho and the branding and dearing of trans people and in terms of gender identity disorder, um, piss off. Don't say that to me. Gender dysphoria. What are you unhappy about this? Because I'm actually quite happy. [00:21:00] Euphoric. Even so, the point is that while it might be utterly offensive to many of us. The reality is that being Trans is recognised as being a medical condition, as in the diagnostic and statistical manual. Volume four, it's going to be the new dot Volume five out yet Version five seems to have been coming out coming like Christmas. Um, and there are recognised medical, [00:21:30] uh, pathways. And so I have said that the same as if somebody went to prison, which is a stressful place. And the more stressed people are under, the more likely their mental health issues are likely to arise. They go to prison and they get deeply depressed. It'd be the same as saying, Well, look, you know, don't hang yourself. You shouldn't be depressed if you're going to be depressed. I here you should have fucking thought about that before you came into prison and initiate treatment thing. What? You exactly What? You're bipolar. [00:22:00] You should have thought about that before you came to prison as well. So I mean, it's, um you know, just so that has not changed. And there's been no indication yet, but one suspects that, um, this position is not sustainable on any level, be it legal or moral. And, um uh uh, Anne Tolley. Bless her heart. Bless her. [00:22:30] I am being recorded. No, no. Good honour for doing this. I mean, she has rapidly come up to speed. Um, and she's actually done something about it, and nobody, nobody. Nobody in the government has done anything about it ever before. And regardless of, you know, my my political persuasions, which perhaps might be a little bit more left and green, uh, than hers. Um, she's the minister we've had to work with. She's the minister that we've had to lobby [00:23:00] and persuade. And, um, and we've dumped. And it's not the end of the road. Uh, but, um, you know, with with with a sort of a concerted effort from the greens from the Equal Justice Project, I want to put my hand up here. You might want to remember this. DEWING has just done a magnificent thesis on, um, on on trans prisoners. And so I've worked quite closely with Sara. She came out and stayed at the farm and ate pork, and, [00:23:30] uh, and met up and stroked the cats and met up with who she actually knew. And so she's been a great supporter and shared ideas the equal Justice project. Um, you know, they just did a great job, Um, and very grateful for the support of Jan. Grateful for some support from Mary Anne Street. You know, let's not but, um I suppose at the end of it, you know, I mean, hugely, Um, you know, we can't forget the people [00:24:00] who are actually, um uh, uh living the life in prison. Uh, they are the ones I suppose that we owe the greatest debt of gratitude to in terms of, um, you know, they are the ones that are there and that have generated, uh, generated this. And, um, I'm very pleased to see that we're starting to get a result. And I think that, um we've got a little bit of momentum, and, uh, you need to keep kicking the ball along. Had it gone on too long. No, this over to you [00:24:30] at this point. Um, I think we'll save questions to the end, if that's all right. Um, and that way we can kind of have a discussion. Um, yeah, I guess when, um well, people first kind of asked me to be on because I've been one of the organisers of this conference. But when I first got asked to be on a panel with these two people, I was like, Why? Because I kind of feel like, um yeah, I mean, obviously, both have had a lot [00:25:00] to do with what's just happened. And it's not very often that you can say that the National Party have actually done something that stopped me from going on a massive rant, and they have so kudos to them for that Kudos to and to think I mean, I don't think they've quite persuaded me yet, but yeah, um, just Yeah, you guys are awesome. So, yeah, just [00:25:30] a bit Feel a bit out of my depth. But that's fine. Um, so I think what I'm gonna say is gonna be quite different from these two. Just because my kind of area of expertise has come from doing criminology at, um and I am going to be talking about the prison abolition movement, which I'm quite passionate about. Um, I'm gonna see that in a New Zealand context as much as possible. And I think we'll be specifically also talking about the need to centre prison abolition [00:26:00] and queer and trans Liberation struggles more broadly. Uh, I also wanted to say, as an organiser, given what's happened in the last couple of days, it's also worth acknowledging that on a panel about prisons and an institution in New Zealand, which overwhelmingly targets Maori, there are none on the panel. And that's something I think we need to address. Um, I'm drawing heavily off this book, which is called Captive Genders. It's an edited collection from the United States, with writings from ex [00:26:30] prisoners, current prisoners and academics from a wide yeah, have a look range of backgrounds. Um, I begin here from the position that prisons are dehumanising places where we choose to house people we want to forget. So I want to start by kind of setting out just quickly what prisons look like in New Zealand. 50% of prisoners are Maori. Um, it's higher for, um, people in women's prisons, and this rose significantly during the 20th century. So in the [00:27:00] 19 thirties it was about 11%. Um, it's a result of a general pattern, which is systemic bias against ethnic minorities by the police, by the courts through the criminal justice system. Um, although this is something I don't really have time to get into um but it should be noted that it's similar to the pattern of all countries with a history of white colonisation in New Zealand. We like to imprison people a lot. Uh, a set of political campaigns have centred around zero tolerance in getting tough [00:27:30] on crime. And organisations like the Sensible Sentencing Trust have a really loud voice in the media. This is directly affect policies, including three strikes which we've borrowed from California. Although in a slightly reduced form. Um, this law was actually three strikes in California was eventually rolled back Not because it was an inhumane law that saw people receiving sentences of life imprisonment for stealing, but because the Californian state prison system didn't have enough money to deal with it. Uh, which I think is [00:28:00] kind of telling of the attitude in general, uh, we have the second highest rate of imprisonment in the OECD, with only the United States leading us in this state. And really, they need an entire graft in themselves. They don't even fit on the same one as everyone else. Um, prisons appear to be how we respond to problems in society, and this is a thing I'm kind of hoping to tackle. So the people we imprison in society are, by and large, the most marginalised. Already there is a whole set of depressing statisticss that doesn't bear repeating [00:28:30] here. Needless to say, we put people in prison who need help the most. And this goes to the heart of the problem with prisons. There are also a huge amount of people who do horrible things which never go near the criminal justice system and never will. The brutality of the raids on October the 15th, 2007 and the degradation of the environment by multinational corporations among a whole lot of other stuff, as some examples, um, we also spend a huge amount of money on imprisoning people in New Zealand [00:29:00] on any given day as well. I think it's important to note 70% of people in prison will be out within three months. Roughly speaking, we lock people away, and we feel that this somehow makes us safer. And this is another thing I'm gonna need to challenge here. Um, there's very little help as well available for people on the outside. Once they're released from prison. It's incredibly difficult to find a job. Adequate housing support networks access to a number of other resources on release. Much of the help that is available, [00:29:30] um, comes from organisations like the Salvation Army who are putting it lightly are not particularly supportive of queer and trans issues. Uh, the next thing, I briefly want to cover our substantive issues within prisons as they are. Um, at the moment, I'm going to be drawing heavily from a Human Rights Commission report that was written by my old supervisor, Lizzie Stanley. So just yeah, I can give you a reference after, if you'd like it. Um, the first issue I want to mention is the complete lack of suitable health care [00:30:00] within prisons. There's an incredibly high rate of unnatural death, including suicide. There's a statutory obligation on corrections for people within prisons to receive the same level of health care that they'd expect on the outside. But obviously that's not happening in that particular concerning for people who are trying to start hormones well in prison. Kelly's just talked about, um, there have been numerous reports of people on whether prisons going without adequate health care, including pain relief, dental care and even just medication. Um, I do [00:30:30] work for the Howard League, sometimes in Wellington, and they kind of we get letters from people in prison who have very serious medical problems and who have been given Panadol for pain relief. Um, so it happens a lot. Um, there have also been concerns raised about the standard of food in prisons. Um, despite high numbers of people, there are also very limited rehabilitation programmes. Although these have increased, um, people going to prison [00:31:00] on drugs charges for typically short sentences barely have the chance to access these. You can only really access them if you're in prison for a year, preferably much more than that. Uh, another particular concern for me is the use of at risk units. Um, lockdown. Segregation at risk units are intended for people who are at risk to themselves or others, and they're generally considered to be kind of protective environments that these people are subject to constant 24 hour surveillance [00:31:30] with light and noise at all times of the day and night limited of any access to fresh air. The outside world, um, no access to visitors, television books radios anything like that. There seems to be a focus here on, like managing people, managing risk rather than caring, which I think is really concerning. Um, there's also just from anecdotes that I've heard from people in prison, like 23 hour lockdowns going on a lot, Um, which [00:32:00] is, in my opinion, contrary to all the human rights stuff we signed up for. And I don't think that's just my opinion, I think, immediately that goes through as well. Um, the recent smoking ban, I think, is a further issue, and that's in the process of being challenged at the moment. Um, on entry to prison Now, uh, people are not allowed to smoke. Any smoking paraphernalia, as they call it, is considered to be contraband. For me, it kind of raises significant issues about governing other people's health in the prison environment. [00:32:30] And, um, I also think corrections did a very good job kind of doing this. This has gone amazingly. Look how well we've done blah, blah, blah. I mean, I went to a presentation in an academic conference last year, and the corrections person there said, Oh, you know, we were really worried about this we mobilised the army, and I sort of thought the fact that you've mobilised the army is this, um, something really bad about, You know, even the army couldn't stop [00:33:00] Arthur Taylor. Yeah, it's true. Um, and the final thing I want to briefly cover, which is particularly relevant to the topic of gender, is the utterly gendered nature of the prison system. So, um, this is something particularly interested me when I went to a lecture for a paper I tutor by a member of staff at A, which is the women's prison in Tower. The comment that struck me was, we want to make these prisoners into good women, not good people, good women. Um, the kind [00:33:30] of work and training for prisoners that's provided is also very gendered. So to give examples from Wellington and A they do a lot of sewing. And in Ramaa, they do brick laying, among other things. So while the recent national government announcement to which we have a lot to owe to these to people sitting on either side of me is vitally important for the safety of trans people in prisons, I think the way that gender is structured into the prison system is also problematic in and of itself. Prisons don't [00:34:00] provide for people who don't identify with binary gender or do but don't identify with the way that it's manifest in the prison environment. So this brings me to kind of the final part, which is on the prison abolition movement. When I first say this, people tend to look at me like I haven't really thought things through, like I'm planning to just open the doors and all the murderers and rapists who come running out, um, and things. However, what I want to emphasise here is that prison has become a place where we do see [00:34:30] people. We don't know what else to do with, um, it's my belief that the prison system works exactly as it is meant to, and according to its own logic. And in New Zealand, we've also started to see that growth in kind of prisons for profit, where the state no longer assumes responsibility for people's safety and has handed it over to private enterprise. So Mount Eden Prison, for example, is now run by Serco, who seemed to own pretty much everything in the world, including a nuclear weapons Arsenal. [00:35:00] Yeah, a number of companies profit off more and more people being sent to prison. And this growth of the corrections industry is also key to the expansion of prisons as a whole. So prison abolition as a movement is focused on transformation, not reform. This doesn't mean we give up all efforts to make prisons better for people, because I think it's important that we do. But rather we need to do our best to help make prison environments better while also discouraging [00:35:30] their expansion. So Angela Davis, who's kind of just my favourite person in the world all the time we actually invited her to this conference. But, uh, I think she's kind of busy then I would have felt really weird on this. Um, she's drawn parallels between, um slavery in the United States and what she calls the prison industrial complex now, and similar parallels can be drawn in New Zealand between the ongoing colonisation [00:36:00] and commodification of Maori people and practises and the detention of disproportionately large numbers of them in prison. Um, we see efforts in making prison programmes more culturally appropriate that end up tokens. These practises we're not as bad in disrespect as Australia, who their way of being culturally appropriate is naming their prisons indigenous names. Um, just being like Look, guys, they're really culturally appropriate. Since you're all here, we're just gonna, um [00:36:30] uh three authors in Australia Baldry, Carlton and Coin have recently written about the need for the centrality of movements for indigenous self determination as part of the wider move to abolish prisons. And I think it's important to keep in mind, uh, prison abolition movement also recognises the way in which criminal behaviour, which is a term I think is open to many criticisms anyway, is influenced by a society which doesn't care about people. So this is why people who end up in prison come from [00:37:00] backgrounds of being poor, having no housing, low levels of education, et cetera. Prison is a place which makes it easy for us to ignore these problems by literally locking them away. I also think it's important to acknowledge the ways in which different groups are affected by the prison. It is noted in a brilliant chapter of this book, which I'm just gonna advertise. Um, there is no way that transgender people can ever be safe in prisons as long as prisons exist. Um, and I believe that to be the case, [00:37:30] no matter how many reforms we managed to get that made that environment easier. Um, the writers in this book emphasise the importance of making prison abolition the centre of radical queer movements as well. Uh, prisons are oppressive institutions, and the kind of radical politics I stand for is in total opposition to them as a whole. They reinforce dynamics of power, racism, classism, ab, et cetera. Um, this is as true as somewhere like the United States is in New Zealand. I think we often get [00:38:00] into the pattern of comparing ourselves to Australia. You know, we're really nice to Maori people. We didn't We never hunted them for sport. It's like we have a lot of problems here. We really need to address them. Um, the amount spent on prisons also takes away from measures such as housing, health care and education. Also, you know, just community movements in general is continually being cut and cut and cut and cut and cut. Um, and [00:38:30] the prison only seems to increase. So there are alternatives, as I guess what I want to emphasise There are different ways we can do things, and there are different ways to deal with these problems. Community based solutions go a lot of the way towards this. But if we continue as we are to cut these, just keep cutting, cutting, cutting, cutting. It's difficult to consider what they would look like when people are already so stretched for time and resources. So critical resistance, which is the [00:39:00] group in the United States. They made kind of a lot of toolkits and things which are really useful to think about. But there hasn't really been any build up of a kind of movement that I've seen in New Zealand along those lines. So yeah, could be toads. But I did, um, right. But as I said before, despite what Kara said, Um, like I, I'm really grateful for lawyers and academics and people [00:39:30] who are able or willing to share their experience because politicians aren't experts, and I'm definitely not, um, I can share some of the work that I've done in this, and Kelly's kind of talked about most of that already. Um, and I've done a bit of looking into this, but it's kind of, um it's that I think as an MP, you kind of got a once over lightly on a whole lot of things. So I'm [00:40:00] not going to be able to add a whole lot more depth because, actually, really, that's about the people who have got the experiences and the people who have had the opportunity to really reflect on the issues that you're going to get the depth from. But I will throw. I do have some things to be able to throw into this. Um, and I would also like to I think it is useful to look at, um, the success that we've had so far in getting the policy changed. And, um, that's been a result of, I think, a confluence [00:40:30] of things. So Kelly's work and that, um, visible or audible advocacy it being picked up by, um, Native Affairs as well. The Equal Justice Project Research. The Human Rights Commission work, though, um, in some ways started, they started to be who I am pro um, research report around, um, transgender rights in New Zealand, and this was identified [00:41:00] as an issue in that report and the government was challenged on it. Nothing happened. They've raised that again and nothing happened. Then there was the ombudsman's report in 2011 on the status of prisoners health in general. And they identified, um, transgender prisoners that particularly at risk in that report and that provided another, um, I guess opportunity to have that voice [00:41:30] or that experience go into the media for other people to be able to listen to it. So I think it's kind of useful to think about in terms of getting change, about the opportunity to bring lawyers to bring academics, to bring students to bring politicians, particularly for the most vulnerable people where we know the public have, um, maybe issues and being able to listen to their experiences. [00:42:00] And I know you know, when I asked the question in the House of Anne Tolley in response to the ombudsman's report, there was a national party MP. When I was saying, you know, raising the issue of people being raped in prison, he was saying, Well, they shouldn't have committed the crime in the first place should they? And and we know that that is a reflection of of a public view, that there is the sensible sentencing trust There's quite a deep seated cultural [00:42:30] theme in this country of punishment, and that's not just about prison being, you know, the loss of liberty being the the punishment it is about putting people in stocks and bounds of. I think that is part of our culture that we are grappling with, and we see it in terms of family violence as well. I think there's a connection between those things, and I always have to get family violence into every conversation to get that in there. Um, so [00:43:00] But it's good to think of because there is still a lot more work to be done. Um, both Kelly and Kara talked about health services and, um, being able to continue hormones. Um, even if they haven't been prescribed by a health treatment, um, specialist, and also that reassignment surgery, any surgery is not able to be considered while somebody's in prison. So that is again, contrary to what the actual legislation indicates. Um, [00:43:30] so I also just wanted to, um, that I was interested in that just in this whole kind of space and doing some research and, um so that we know and it's been touched on around the social conditions that lead to people being more likely to end up in prison. And we don't have much research. And this is another issue, actually, is, um, for the [00:44:00] that in the Human Rights Commission inquiries, um, that they did. The correction said that at any one time there might be 10 to 20 inmates who identify as Trans, um, and that there's an estimate, kind of through anecdote that maybe the numbers about double that. But the point is, and then the ombudsman report and kind of I'll quote it that their investigation They said that quote The department doesn't keep records regarding the numbers of [00:44:30] trans prisoners in New Zealand prisons unquote, so we don't know. And when those records aren't kept, there's not able to be the research. And, you know, the ombudsman managed to get a section around trans prisoners. We've no idea about other queer prisoners or queer prisoners because we you know, there has been no resource and no focus. So in terms of issues for gay queer [00:45:00] men, women, lesbians and our prisons in New Zealand, we don't know. I've never actually heard people talking about it very much. No research and I was looking at, um I found a quite disturbing report from Australia about lesbians in prison written by a, um, prison manager and talking about the problems in this increasing number of lesbians having relation [00:45:30] or having lesbianism relationships in prisons and the problem that that created for the running of the prison. Um, have you seen orange? Is the new black? No, I. I heard everyone talk about it. Right, OK, Yeah. And and it's always been fetishized in the media and made great kind of movies. Really? It's just like, yeah, we bad girls Exactly [00:46:00] right? Yeah, but you know, the and she the this prison manager was raising issues in terms of, um, health issues and spread of hepatitis because, um, access to safe sex wasn't wasn't available within the prisons. Um, in terms of, uh, jealousy between prisoners in terms of predatory behaviour in terms of so it it really [00:46:30] was just seen as a problem. And yeah, and we have no idea other research that I saw in the US where they were talking about issues of visiting rights, um, which in the change of our human rights legislation, I'd imagine isn't a problem. Unless you've got several partners where I'd imagine that may be a problem. Um, access to reading materials if [00:47:00] they're deemed. I don't know. Here. Yeah, that is a problem. So to be able to actually, um, you know, read gay lesbian queer literature that there's in the states. At least there's a ban on those materials because they're deemed, I think it changes from prison to prison here from what I've heard, but yeah, kind of depends on the mood of whoever's deciding which is not ideal. No, um, in terms of prison [00:47:30] guards and their homophobia and transphobia that, um, we don't know here, but we know internationally that there is a problem, um, around homophobic rape that we know, um, that there's a lot of, um, data around the targeting of, um, non gender conforming, non macho male prisoners. Um, but also, the Amnesty International [00:48:00] has found that, um, perceived or actual sexual orientation is found to be one of four categories that made women prisoners more likely to be a target of sexual abuse within prisons. I never I've never heard anyone talking about that. I You know, I'm clearly not an expert, and I and I don't live in this world. Um, but I think all of this when I read this and I do think Wow, you know, there is so much work to be done around the prisons [00:48:30] and I agree with Kara around. We know people are more likely, and in New Zealand, we don't know in terms of sexual orientation or gender identity. But we at the research we have is around being Maori, and that tells us very clearly that, um, Maori are more likely to be arrested and are more likely to be convicted than non Maori who commit the same crimes [00:49:00] sort of Pacific. I got the sense that, um that the Pacific Statistics if they're available, and she suggested that there's not that much difference between Maori and Pacific so that I mean that something on the radio about sentencing drink driving that would have been good. Yeah, I was thinking about [00:49:30] I mean, it's one of the few times I've heard the question of interweaving um, our heritage with with sentencing, for instance, which breaks some interesting ground. It's a pity it's like drink driving, but it's bad. And, um, I suppose one can always use these sorts of things as a flag or a signal for what one might expect anyway, instead of just saying, Well, what's it like in the rest [00:50:00] of the society or in prison? It's going to be two or three times worse. So usually common sense, as opposed to hard research. I guess a lot of hard research would actually turn off the detail and be convincing, I guess as well. Um, sorry. Throw something in before I forget I met one non P I or Maori Trans Prisoner ever. And that's in 22 years of, [00:50:30] uh, of doing hard out criminal law. And I think that, you know, we really need to be talking about the intersection between race and gender and sexual orientation. That's those things. Can I just also Sorry I don't want to dominate things. I want to just pick up on what you're talking about about imprisonment. We've got this current regime with the Court of Appeal, which has been running for many decades now, and it goes along the lines of when you turn up to court [00:51:00] for your having sold cannabis to a, um uh to an undercover agent and you talk about the fact that you're, um you know, you've got your wife's dying, and, um and and your kids, uh, you know, need special needs and all that kind of kind of thing, and perhaps that a community based sentence might be appropriate. The Court of Appeal. And this is why we don't like going to the court of appeal. Is it all? No personal circumstances always take a back seat when it comes to any sentencing for [00:51:30] drug dealing. And they matter very, very little because denunciation and deterrence of the paramount considerations and only imprisonment can achieve this. I just want to throw a little number in. 30 years ago, we used to pay 20 bucks for a tinny and 30 years ago I could fill my Holden for $20. And 30 years ago, wages were about, I don't know, probably no better than me, approximately 1/5 [00:52:00] of what they are now. So So we've had we've had, uh, I say roughly a fivefold increase in in in number terms of wages. The price of petrol has gone up, um, by by 10 fold, if not more. And yet a cannabis tinny is still 20 bucks. That is not the same tinny that it used to be because the, uh, tiny that you buy now is available year round. Because, um, the Court of [00:52:30] Appeals, uh, policies in terms of imprisonment has driven driven cannabis underground or into, uh, indoor growing areas. So whereas it used to be a seasonal seasonal crop with seasonal shortages and gluts, now it's year round Because of the better growing conditions, The cannabis is now superior quality to the bush wheat that, um, that, uh, is grown outdoors. And so, in actual fact, what if you look at you and I'm not an economist, but when supply, uh uh, drops, [00:53:00] Then prices go up. And when demand increases, prices go up for something to have plunged in real terms, uh, and and value over the years, it would tend to indicate that, rather than being encouraged, discouraged and deterred, cannabis growers are thoroughly encouraged to do this. And that is reflected by what can only be, you know, even sort of, you know, an economic dummy like me. Uh, realises [00:53:30] it can only be because there is more cannabis around than ever before. So the current policies of jailing people that we have in actual fact have created an even bigger market. And I had a a weeping drug dealer. They usually cry, um, up in. They seem to be a bit more softhearted up there. I'm very harsh on it and say Look, you're supposed to go to jail. This is the economic model, man, you know? You know, if if you didn't go to jail, if you know they suddenly said OK, all the wife bashers have to go to jail instead [00:54:00] of getting some hand wringing anger management course, which they don't need. If we stuck them all in jail and got all the drug dealers out, you'd all be drinking, digging up your big buckets of cannabis, coming round the lawyer's tea room and saying, You know, do you want to buy a tin and we'll be saying, Fuck off. You don't even go to jail for this shit anymore. It's growing wild all around the court. That would be that would be what would decriminalise it would totally pull the value out of it. But the sad thing is that it would mean that the discretionary income from Auckland, which flows [00:54:30] north to largely subsistence level. Very poor people growing cannabis. Mostly that money would probably end up growing the cramp on the Canterbury plains and the province going offshore. So on a social level, I'm not really sure where I stand on it. That's just that one of the other things I was going to mention was around, um, which I thought was quite interesting at one of the pieces. Um, I read in looking at US history [00:55:00] and, um and I don't know, for New Zealand, but they were saying in terms of there was one time when, um, prison activism or anti prison activism and queer politics, queer gender identity politics were the same, like the the Stonewall riots started and the imprisonment of a drag queen. And that it was it was the same movement and as kind of mainstream [00:55:30] gay lesbian cultures have become, you know, have gained kind of respectability and rights that that we've shifted away from Yeah, and remembering that history and the fact that at one time we knew that the people in those prisons were there for, you know, because of the morals of the state that had a vested interests at heart rather [00:56:00] than actually any real purpose. And I'm not quite as, um, hardcore is the stonewall rights. But is there a parallel there with the 86 law reform? It's not as hardcore as the stonewall rights, obviously, because that was just wow. But, um, the 86 law reform we sudden like, you know, it was illegal prior to that. So there is maybe a small parallel there. I think it is the same on one level, you know, and and it's And I think, [00:56:30] you know, while lesbians weren't being locked up at that time, there was still that kind of understanding of being I think that connection and seeing the injustice of it and the constant threat of violence because, in my opinion, a lot of arrests And you know how we treat people in the criminal justice system as violence. Yeah, I feel that the criminal justice system in here is very similar to the [00:57:00] UK. I mean, it it it is the sort of neoliberal privatisation of prisons. Um, he's still doing it. Still privatising it from in the British colonial British had colonial direction. Um, if I was going to say anything, I mean the the the history of law reform in the UK does feel [00:57:30] like the history of, um, history of law reform here in terms of the component of who's doing it had a pretty bad record on running prisons in the UK Something in here about a year ago. An American judge got sprung. I can't remember what got sprung because he's getting a kickback from the private prison. [00:58:00] He's getting over. It got over a million dollars. And so, you know, he was sending people to jail. He was sending people to jail so that the, um so that the prison running company could profit and he could get his retirement fund. And I mean, that's profiting the whole concept of profiting from prisoners. It's just sort of, um, so fundamentally wrong and flawed and, uh, you know, immoral. Um, that I. I just think it you know, it it it's just unconscionable. [00:58:30] It's just bound to end up with abuses when there's a problem. Solution seems to run through much more strongly in America and prison history done in, yeah, English or British? Um, New Zealand prison histories, I think I would have said I mean, I think it's what we could look forward to. I mean, wherever, um, unregulated capitalist enterprise is touched. [00:59:00] Um, the island has touched, you know, regulated, um, state based operations that then it it has corrupted them. But I think seems to be more holding the state based run enterprises in place in Britain and in New Zealand. But Britain is also pointing the way to through the current government so far, great opportunities [00:59:30] for corruption. I think. I think one of the things is I look at it and I look at Serco. Now, of course, you end up with, uh, prisoners are, um they keep a database on every every every time you get into a squabble every time you, um, call call a prison guard and name or that kind of it all gets put into a database. And I couldn't help but think when Serco came and oh, my God, there's going to be a huge financial incentive for Serco to be saying to their guards Tolerate nothing. You know, somebody [01:00:00] spits, somebody does something because all this comes out parole hearings. And so if you wanted to keep make maximise your profit in the prison, you'd want to keep your residents in for as long as possible. Uh, having them check out early on parole is the kind of thing which any hotel manager would be saying. That's very bad. If you can keep the door locked and keep the credit cards taken over, uh, it should be done. So I think that the, um just [01:00:30] the there is a financial incentive for even the prison guards to, uh, ride prisoners hard. Write up everything because in the end, it increases the prison population. It increases the need for prison guards and increases the profit for Serco. And of course, the money goes offshore. And that's the fundamental problem. They stop being people and they become stocks, you know? And we have a bad enough history in New Zealand with animals [01:01:00] even, you know, school approach to service provision. Um, sorry. I do really want to hear the rest of what you have to say, but I just the point. What we have been discussing here is that in the US they actually have. The private prisons have contracts with the states that say that they will have minimum occupancy, and if the levels of the prison occupancy drop below a certain point, the state has to pay the prison companies just just [01:01:30] to keep their prison selling. Um, so and that's that's a that I understand. So my brother here have been trying to get the policy, even though we have the second highest in the O CD, even though the numbers of prisoners have doubled since 1992 in New Zealand, Um, I also with relation to that I I find the increase of the emphasis on law and order and being tough on law [01:02:00] and order and politics really difficult to deal with, because I feel like even, I mean, even prior to M MP when the Green Party rose up as the I guess what's becoming increasingly like the actual left wing party now? Because I feel like labour is leading itself down by not standing up against this like pressure [01:02:30] to be the tough party, because it seems to me it's, you know, there's this vicious cycle in kind of politics, where also, politicians know that security is a fundamental need and that it's a way to beat up an easy vote, you know, So then they actually create this increased unrealistic sense of fear in the population that then feeds that need to kind of get tough because, you know, the main [01:03:00] source of violent crime in this country is family violence. I know, but I do, because there are the two things where our system isn't addressing it. I don't think prison is the answer for either of those things, actually, And the international evidence around, um, very, you know, lifetime offending sexual offenders of you know who be deemed to be, um, severe offenders [01:03:30] is for them to be in the community, surrounded by people who are attached to them so that they remain connected and, um, are reinforced to be acting positively not. And where we actually have danger is when people are isolated and and our whole system is built on this isolation and it and it's counted to all of the evidence of the things that [01:04:00] that, um, the international that suit should do is connect people via Facebook with family, which is interesting. I wasn't sure what what necessarily would happen in that respect, but, um, but it's possible, um, it's possible to reconnect through Facebook very rapidly with family, many of whom are on Facebook. Um, and [01:04:30] it was sort of slightly startling to see somebody plug in on on one day and come back, you know, a day or two later with a bunch of requests from people like you before going inside, um, to to to reconnect, um, which is not external virtues of Facebook, just like finish. It does reflect the the such a bad reflector of what? [01:05:00] What society is like. People are doing social relations through things like Facebook, so it would be such a I could just go. It would be a good idea to sort of campaign for Internet access, for instance, as a way of increasing improving things in prison, for instance, because communications are finished. Now, just going to say with the with the of course, the poster girl for for [01:05:30] trans case law, she had, um, AAA botched, um, gender reassignment surgery, where she was effectively left without genitals and, uh, was placed, uh, as part of her sentence for murder in a men's prison. And, um, she was left in a V position, got brutally raped, uh, was released from prison. Uh, sorry was released [01:06:00] from hospital and then very promptly paroled because that got her off the book and it ceased to be the prison's problem. And, uh, she went out into the community with zero support. Um, stole the car at knife point, uh, so that she could go off and drive it into something big and solid and end her life, but got pulled over by the cops and ended up, and that's her case. She was an aggravated robbery and a kidnapping. I think she detained the poor chap who she took the car off. But, [01:06:30] um, again, and that's that's, you know, throwing people out into the community. In fact, it was a law student, too. A terrible, terrible, um, fright that he got law student, got his car taken. But throwing these people throwing any people out into the community without decent support. It's just, you know, hey, you might as if if you might as well get real as a prison, a prison warden and say No, no, no, no. We just won't let them go because almost inevitably, uh, they're going to end end up coming back. And if there are no, there's no support. [01:07:00] And for trans prisoners, well, for trans people who struggle for support at the best of times. You know, once you've got a murder conviction under your belt, well, then probably find that you know what few friends you had might be difficult to find. I was just gonna this kind of going off a little bit, but just talk a little bit about maybe some of the intersections between, um our other bits of, um, policy and legislation and what happens in prison and the point around. Interesting. [01:07:30] I've and I've got copies of the UK. Ministry of Justice. So if we're looking at are not the issue of the whole around prisons, but just around how? Um, things could be better in the prisons at the moment for trans prisoners. And the UK. Example was actually pretty good. And part of the reason that I think it's good is if I can find it. Yes, it's because they've got an equality act, [01:08:00] and I've recognised the anti discrimination in itself. Doesn't, um, enable doesn't protect people's human rights. It just protects against discrimination. Um, and so that this is one of the sections, um, in their policy that they're saying when a prisoner proposes to undergo is undergoing or has undergone a process or part of a process for the purpose of reassigning their sex [01:08:30] by changing physiological or other attribute of sex. The prisoner is considered to have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment for the purposes of the Equality Act and must not be discriminated against or harassed because of this. So the whole policy is based on kind of the sup premise of that that's recognised. And our Human Rights Act doesn't recognise gender identity yet. Um, [01:09:00] that's you know, we've still got money and you know, we do need to do that work and it will have an impact, um, in terms of people's alienation and how far people are perceived to be out on the margins, which we know influences arresting and sentencing as well as the experience within prisons. The other thing, um, we've seen in the new um policy that's come out from the government is So it's, um, if [01:09:30] they've amended their birth certificate, um, as well. But even if they haven't, they can apply to the chief executive, but that we do need that and reference the cost of going to court to get the birth certificate amended. Um, as well as there's been a change in the courts, their interpretation of what the legislation means to be able to get that change previously, basically, the courts were requiring for reassignment [01:10:00] surgery before they would. That was the act changed, right? Because the act used to the birth deaths and Marriages Relationship Registration Act Section 28 used to have the test was has taken all steps necessary. And then it was amended to all steps desirable. But just as an interesting side for those who are interested in a sort of if you start looking at where do where do trans people feature in New Zealand case law, there's a rather unfortunate judgement by a dead uncle of [01:10:30] mine called the Attorney General High Court Auckland to, uh 1994 or something like that. And the question that came before the court then was, uh, what is required. Uh um can can a transsexual marry in their new gender? And, uh, unfortunately, a physical conformity test was put on. So that meant that, [01:11:00] you know, basically the, uh, the fact that the, uh, somebody has changed their gender and has not had surgery, um, and has got a birth certificate which now reflects that, uh, reflects the change of gender that is not, um, uh, going to be, um uh, that doesn't apply everywhere. And in terms of transsexual men, they are required to have had a mastectomy. And in terms of transsexual women, [01:11:30] they are required to have had genital surgery. And this is the ugly bit. And if the registrar general of births, deaths and marriages is in doubt, he should order a medical examination. Now the the the the the most amazing part of this is until the until the until the what I call the Marriage Equality Act. Um, until that there was there were a large number, Well, a significant portion of trans people who are forbidden from any kind of marriage at [01:12:00] all. So, for example, I was married, changed my gender through the courts. Before I could get that gender change turned into a birth certificate, I had to lose my wife. And so I sort of contemplated becoming a widow. Um, divorced. I thought there was a cute little argument about annulment, but thought no bug went off and had a grudgingly had a civil union. But the point is at that point, I would not be have been allowed to marry a woman because obviously that was illegal. [01:12:30] But if I had wanted to marry a man, God forbid these guys, Then, uh, then the registrar General, Um, if if he was in any doubt, would have ordered the medical test. And, of course, if I'd had surgery, Yes, I could have gone off and married a man if I hadn't had surgery. Couldn't have married a man. So in other words, no surgery, but have changed gender until the act the Marriage Equality Act, came in. Uh, people in that situation were [01:13:00] not allowed to marry anybody at all, which is just sort of I know it's not exactly trans prisoners, but it's sort of trans people being prisoners to legislation and I. I just looked at that and I thought to myself, You know, I just just gobsmacked gobsmacked. I thought, What have I done wrong? How did I just written by? There was a beautiful point, though, that I was still married to my partner. I [01:13:30] had a a declaration from the court that I was female. And so there I was, uh, in a in a strange transit transit lounge of gay marriage, which was sort of quite good to sort of have. But I wanted that birth certificate changed, which, you know, I had a question for you. Kelly. Um, when the original parole changes that you talked about that wound up negatively [01:14:00] affecting trans people in a way that hadn't quite been anticipated changes, was it? Bail changes the ones that wound up putting people in prison for longer when that law change was originally enacted. Do you have any idea whether a section seven report was done to see whether that change was compliant with the Bill of Rights Act? I'm not sure, but I do know that the bail [01:14:30] act was used in a variety of ways. Or rather, it was used in a variety of ways and the, um uh, which which probably shouldn't have been used. So, for example, it used to be that, uh, for any court order, um, for any to receive a court order, they can. You can you can wait for up to two hours for it, and it just was a sort of cart blanche that judges would remand people in custody in a bail cell while they waited for this. And, um, you know, [01:15:00] sort of the arbitrary detention of people who might have no prospect ever of going to jail because they're on a charge which is never going to see them going there. But they end up in these bail cells waiting for some bureaucrat to to fill out the paperwork. And sometimes, um, sometimes, you know the court. It is very variable practise. So I mean, I can remember one day a gangster saying to me, Oh, can you get my curfew changed? And I said, Yeah, but you're probably going to go into custody while your bail bond is done. They could [01:15:30] search me and said, Yeah, they usually don't, But they can. Thanks for that. Disappeared came back, and, uh, and it was the last case of the day. And the judge said, Oh, well, look, you know, the the the prison prison escort staff have gone. You think you could take your client down to the front counter? His bail bonds changed and I said, Yeah, sure. So it came out through the double doors, and as I went out to this enormous ugly gangster, looked down at me and said I thought you said I was going to have to go into fucking custody. And I said, Well, that's normally the case, and you go fuck. I shoved them out to dack up [01:16:00] my arse, and I laughed and he gave me that, that, you know, that the Jake the muzz turned on me In a way, it was terrifying. He said, Don't laugh. It was Don't laugh. It was stalky. So, um, yeah, uh, you know, you you see a lot of funny things. You see a lot of funny things, but yeah, but that was that was the practise. And, you know, that was, you know, there was no way that she was seen as a flight [01:16:30] risk. However, she was seen as being a, um you know, she had a history of, um of drug abuse and probably couldn't be trusted to go off and to seek probation. But she ended up in a cell and and, you know, ended up getting sexually violated as a result, which, um, you know, it's it's it's bizarre, because I mean what I guess I'm interested in as as a human rights law academic, the Section seven reports [01:17:00] are often supposed to be, You know, the big thing that you that come out to show Oh well, this law is compliant with human rights. It'll be fine. There's no act the Bill of Rights and that that for anyone who's not aware of that, it's a requirement from the Bill of Rights Act that the attorney general reports on any inconsistencies with the new act before it gets passed into legislation. But the Section seven reports obviously don't pick up on every nuance of [01:17:30] inconsistency. And I think that's such a major example, and especially because people in the Ministry of Justice are the ones who in practise research for the Section seven reports, If there's no one there who has trans issues at the forefront of their mind, when you're doing that research, it's very easy for the Section seven report to completely disregard how trans rights will be infringed. And I think that's such a such [01:18:00] a big example of that. Maybe we need a rainbow desk. I was I do think that having a person or a team of people in the Ministry of Justice who have gender and sexual minorities as the main area of focus would be really beneficial. But obviously the ministry, like every other ministry, is doing [01:18:30] the whole, uh, human rights thing or being anything better than a rubber stamp. But, I mean, even where it's in the UK, where it's actually further up the hierarchy in terms of the way the judicial system works, it's still, um, it's still frequent to buy the thing and then you have to do the work. Basically, I think it [01:19:00] sounds like putting you any aspect of human rights on the agenda or otherwise compliance with the very I mean Britain. It's been incorporated. The whole human rights European human rights thing has been incorporated into the practise of Parliament. So you don't even have to go out out of Britain now. Um, but still it's treated as a rubber stamp and no question, seriously get. I mean, it's not [01:19:30] uncommon for it just to be an online sentence. We don't see it. The UK You see a lot of cases now where the United Kingdom have not respected prisoners' rights. Then it has gone to the European Court of Human Rights and they have strongly criticised the United Kingdom as a state for not respecting prisoners rights. And a lot of people criticise that because prisoners rights aren't exactly [01:20:00] sexy, you know? Yeah, exactly. We don't want to grant murder as human rights, because what does that say? You know, what does that say about us as a society? No. It certainly is not the kind of thing which is going to sort of make anybody popular, I think. Campaigning for for for unpopular people. Um, yeah. It's, uh I totally see what you I agree with you there and, you know, and obviously, as you can imagine, had a wee bit of crap. Um, mostly [01:20:30] from the transgender community. Um, hilariously, while I was doing case. And, of course, I advanced there that being transgender is a recognised medical condition. Unattractive thing. The judge said, No, it's not. And I said, Oh, yes, it is. And and and show it to you know, your Honour might think that a gender being transgender is just, you know, we're just part of the the the the the great diversity of humankind. And he nodding, And you [01:21:00] might think that I might think that, but we're wrong. And, um, there was a point to this. There was a talk about how you got criticism from the Yes. So next thing I know, I've got a complaint to the law society from a Auckland Auckland Trans woman who said that No, it was only real transsexuals who who could consider their condition [01:21:30] call one, and that I had misled the court and quote duped a gullible judge. Now, fortunately, the Law Society didn't take a great deal of notice of it. But, you know, it's the kind of thing which you know, here I am sort of, you know, getting getting, getting a bit of shit while I'm sort of poking my hand into hot water fishing, trying to fish somebody out. And I've got, you know, people in the Trans community trying to ankle tap me. But you [01:22:00] know, I, I don't want to sound, you know, well as me. But so the allegation that one has misled a court, of course, would be absolutely if it would probably be fatal to any lawyer's career. And one thing is for sure is, um, you know, as a lawyer well, as as as anybody who's involved in public advocacy, um, once your credibility is taken a hit. That's probably the kind of thing which, you know will never heal. So, um, you know, that was sort of, uh, you know, the immense amount of crap [01:22:30] that that that came from it. Um oh, I'd say immense, but I I was even even I was surprised. And it takes, you know, after sort of I don't really sound like, uh, criminal law is, um it's all that tough because there are tougher jobs at it. But it's, uh you get sort of you have You have to have a pretty thick height, as I'm sure Jan would appreciate. But the thicker hide in politics kind of thing, too. Um, you know, there's always somebody there trying to wank or tap you just for the sport of whether they agree [01:23:00] with you or not. It's, um make sure they did say that it was only right. It's The thing is there's the hierarchy. I mean, this happens within the wider GSM community, the gender and sexual minority community. And it happens within the small nations as well, Everybody wanting to legitimise themselves and doing that. I mean, it's a general kind of human attribute where you treat on other people to push yourself up higher and unfortunately, because, like, it seems like there's been [01:23:30] so much effort within, um, trans communities to legitimise being Trans and to bring it into the mainstream that as soon as anybody does anything which could reflect negative, it's this idea that everyone who is trans is therefore an ambassador for the trans community, or even if they don't want to be. So they if you do something negative, if you try to defend somebody who's done something negative, you're seen as bringing everybody else down. You know, that is a very interesting thing about from a guy in [01:24:00] the Guardian who is a Muslim. And he said that I refuse to, um, I refuse to be interviewed as a Muslim because what they want is the good, Actually, but just in terms of I mentioned it yesterday, um, in the Trans and the media, um, and Trans people do come under the microscope, and as I said to my son, as we're driving up, I was talking about a pot case with him and he said to me, Hook me up, hook me up [01:24:30] with your grow up there up There are so much cheaper than they are down, out west. And I said to him, No, mate. You know, if you got busted, you'd be front page of the paper. He goes, and you remember the case of a drink driving woman down here, whose parents who were lawyers got mentioned in the paper. And so I said to me, he goes, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I said you'd be front page of here he goes, Yes, yes, it would be, uh, lawyers, Son Busted. I said, Nah, mate. It'd be transsexual lawyers, son busted. And, uh, maybe I'll [01:25:00] think of something else. Did you have other stuff you wanted to cover? There were two other things that I just want to touch on briefly, but it's kind of different. And that's the intersection stuff as well. And, um, access to surgery. And New Zealand is a really big problem. And that's my understanding is that one person a year will get paid by the government roughly speaking. Well, we did that. No, no, we did. Well, it's actually and it's really unclear. We asked questions about that, and we're given [01:25:30] that as a policy that it could be up to, I think, over three years, 23, every two years, supposedly. But then in Auckland, DH B has been doing surgeries. And so yeah, and that hasn't been under that national policy. But the DH B just it's been an express recently. Have just come back and said, um, there's an increased demand for, um, breast reconstructive surgeries. Um, so we're not [01:26:00] gonna be able to do more. So it was That was only breast surgery that was being done by the a DH P, uh, and which they've now they've now stopped. But just sorry, I don't mean in terms of prisoners. Um hey, and in terms of access to surgery in New Zealand, just forget it. I mean, there's a waiting list which sort of arguably is 30 years long, and I think they've only done Amy now about it. They've only done 11 surgeries here in the last decade or so, and a lot of people are having to try [01:26:30] and save money or to go off shore. We know someone who's $50,000 in debt because they want to go to Thailand and get proper surgery done really by one of the top surgeons. And if you look at drivers for crime, I think you've got one right there. I mean, in terms of being able to actually follow your own identity. So especially if it's complicated when it, you know, it used to be that surgery. It was the demarcation line of legit. You want a legitimate person [01:27:00] and also, I guess, like people expect that all Trans people want to get, like, demanding that you have to be one or the other and that you can't confuse people, but because confuse people when it's confusing, we're OK as long as we still have the binaries in place. Yeah, yeah. Um, and [01:27:30] the other thing I wanted to mention briefly was the work and income policies and that, um, the connection to prison and, um, well, poverty as a driver for crime, particularly for marginalised people who experience discrimination in the workplace. And we know now as well that the 90 day rule in terms of people being able to stay in employment, the anecdotal evidence is that's affecting, um, queer and gender. Queer communities more [01:28:00] than others, which is what makes sense is similarly for Maori Pacific Um, but so there's that. So we more, probably more marginalised groups are going to be more likely to need income support. And while people are transitioning, um, now there's We have asked for clarification on the policy because it's not clear whether people will be allowed to be exempt from work testing during the transition period, because [01:28:30] that's pretty important, actually to be if you're going through that transition and if you are transitioning and are being forced to go into the job market and present yourself when your identification details don't match your presentation, that's really dangerous. Um, and we haven't had clarification back on that. And when people leave prison, there's, uh there's a $350 [01:29:00] that people can get, But it's discretionary. So and you know, the, um, discretion. Like what? They what criteria they join? Well, I've been told it's based on if they're deserving. It kind of. From what I know, which isn't like, this is all anecdotal. It's kind of, um yeah, based on the kind of deserving, undeserving like, Well, you've tried to do this and you've tried to do that, and you've made these important connections. But [01:29:30] if you haven't done that, then you don't deserve it. So you just sat in yourself fighting your time until you can get out again. Too bad and fear. Yeah. Yeah, like you don't qualify for any of the programmes because you're only in there for three months. And that's $350 to last for 2.5 weeks for if you have if you have the identity documents in the first place to be able to get the benefit But it will take 2.5 weeks if you are able [01:30:00] to establish that straight or apply as soon as you're out of prison. Good luck. And a lot of people don't have identity documents, so that's a real issue. And that's just to get a poverty income, you know? So talking about drivers a crime and setting people up to be revictimized and to, you know, commit crimes like that policy is a complete no brainer that needs to change, [01:30:30] and there needs to be better support. Thank you, everybody. I wanted to compliment you on your shirt, Jack. It's awesome. I think you could make one. I wanted to talk about something that has kind of been touched in 100 different ways. Is the concept of of the inter relationship between drugs and race and and imprisonment and kind of the way that in the US. So there's this book in the US called the new Jim Crow, [01:31:00] which is scripted about the idea that the war on drugs has led directly to this mass incarceration of primarily banks in the US, um, to use their own terms, Um, and how we see very similar analogies here, um, and that the core of that is that you can use drugs as a way to harass and arrest anybody. Um, and was this like, the search? The stop and search were laws in New York and all around [01:31:30] the US. But like, last night, we were talking about, um, the way that the stereotypes of trans women and trans guys as well involve, um, drug use tools to a large extent. Which means that the police, um, in New Zealand feel perfectly entitled to say, Oh, that's a trans person. I was searching for drugs. Um, and you know, we've got statistics here in New Zealand, and, um, this is actually a magazine I produce. If you look at the statistics we've got here, um, feel [01:32:00] free. Um, but basically, once you've been once you've been arrested, you're also sort of going through to to prosecution and actually being charged with something and pretty much flat. Like once you're in the system, you're in the system, Um and you know, it doesn't matter why you were stopped and searched, given that the number of people in New Zealand that have tried drugs that in possession of drugs are, you know, ridiculous because it's ridiculous that they're criminalised the way that they are. Um, [01:32:30] it's so easy to go from. This is a stereotype of a person that I associate with drugs as a police officer, Um, and therefore I'm going to search for them. This is a group of people that I don't stereotype each other, so I'm not going to bother to search. So you get these inequalities and these inconsistencies and representation within our prison system that do not match the reality because of these stereotypes and because of these biases within our S A. That leads to ridiculous levels of incarceration which lead to ridiculous levels of abuse of that [01:33:00] and within that system, Um, yeah, I was just gonna say I had this really interesting experience a few weeks ago when I was taking a second year criminology tutorial. Uh, and we were talking the topic. Was the police kind of talking about the police targeting minorities? And it was one of those awesome times where the actual experiences within the tutorial, um, taught them more than I [01:33:30] ever could, because there was There's one, Pacifica woman and a guy, uh, a black Caribbean guy. And they both just came up with one of them. She was like, If a police officer comes up to me and says, You know, um, what are you doing? Do I have to answer him? And I was like, I don't think so. But if you don't, it's probably gonna lead to further suspicion. Um, and she said, Oh, because it happened to me the other day and I was just walking back to my apartment on [01:34:00] the terrace and that happened. And then this guy puts up and goes, Oh, the other day I was I was, you know, walking up Taranaki Street and these cops came up to me and started asking me all these questions and all the white people in the room were like, Whoa, that's not allowed. You should protest that blah, blah, blah. And they're like, Oh, but it's happened heaps of times and they're just all so shocked, like this shouldn't be happening. You should challenge this, and it's like if it becomes a better part of your everyday life, why [01:34:30] would you? What's the point and the risk associated like the difference between me as a white person? Like if I am stopped in search for drugs, I'll get, like, a tap on the head and be like, Tell me to fuck off! But you know, if I was a different person, you know, and it's so easy, it was just really shocked because they were like, That's so unfair. That can't happen. But it was just like the discussion you have in in Britain in [01:35:00] the eighties. Really, The urban areas, places like Liverpool, London, Bristol, Manchester. All had there was a major outbreak of of protest, um, by black people in leading to riots and stuff like that. Uh, the eight. A stop and search figures hugely. Um, I mean, it was also a very much a thing about whether or not you're going to remove the head gear. Because [01:35:30] the police believe that, um, if you were a raster, then it would be, um it's where you store your pot basically, and so that there was a Noel series of, um I mean, looking at that period of history in the eighties. Really? Um, in Britain is a I think it really reflects probably quite a lot of what's happening here. It continues to happen here. I think the system is very similar in their roots. Um, even if one can look to America [01:36:00] for the outcome of corruption, of the whole system as to where it's going to lead to Yeah, yeah, um, I mean, that's with regard to that. That's why I kind of I see often white. Um, you know, young, white liberal people online will propagate and share. You know, cards of this is these are what your rights are when you're pulled over by the police. This is what you [01:36:30] must tell them. This is what you don't have to say. This is what you can ask for. And I think, Well, this is what you can do when you're white. This is what you can do when you're middle class. As soon as you try to apply those rights as someone who is less privileged, you are being seen as obstructive. And so people who don't understand that you know, my understanding of the search and seizure thing in New York, especially, I think it's made the news a couple of times is that the statistics [01:37:00] show that of all of the, um, the search and seizure of, um, search and stuff stop and search or whatever it's called in New York of black, young black men. They've done it to more young black men than there are young black men in New York, more than one within sort of a years time or something. A lot of times, they they they've studied that. And so there is a It's a definitive statistic that shows the racism inherent in such a policy, like the [01:37:30] reverse onus drug laws in New Zealand. To that you're you're tripling down on the kinds of oppression that are being Yeah, I think one of the the difficult questions which, um, very difficult questions is why are there so many uh, or so few white trans prisoners. Why are they almost universally brown? And I know that Jan has done some work [01:38:00] on, uh, on this. Uh, I don't know if you people know that, Bill, um, and some of incredible stuff has come out, uh, some incredibly transphobic stuff, including the Auckland Auckland City Council. Uh, but also came up with, um, uh, Pacific Island community leaders talking about how, um, these people there were were a danger to the community, and the community needed to be protected [01:38:30] from them. And I'm sitting there listening to this just about self combusting, going for Christ's sake. These are your fucking Children. These are these are these aren't a problem for the community. This is the community. And I came to this perhaps rather dangerous conclusion. The conclusion was that despite what we say, Pacific Island and Maori communities are not, um, universally accepting of trans kids. And indeed, uh, many of them [01:39:00] get kicked out. And if you perhaps live in a low income family, the social stigma attached to going out and being a prostitute is perhaps not very high. Whereas, of course, if you've got a family who I'm not saying are necessarily more accepting, but there is probably huge social stigma attached to having a middle class kid going off and being a prostitute versus, uh, the social stigma of having a child would is Trans. And I think that generally speaking, pakeha [01:39:30] families are probably so fearful of the stigma attached to sex work that they're more inclined to assist uh, their, uh, Children and, uh, not toss them out on the streets. But perhaps, you know, assist them going through the process, assist them to transition and I. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, and this is totally anecdotal. But the kids that are out there on the street in Hunter's corner, some of them are as as young as 10. Um, most of them are sort of, you know, 14 to 16. [01:40:00] Um, no, they're not under age that have the, um, the community based organisations And they've been and they're not. It's not over 16 18. I think they're [01:40:30] talking about that last night because there's been a lot of spin in in that that simply and then the people that do all the outreach work are telling us that that's not the case. but regardless of the age that it's predominantly brown and because middle class kids get into the brothels and that that's the distinction is that if you have alcohol and drug issues, you more likely to be Trans [01:41:00] or Maori Pacifica. It's harder to get the job in the brothels. And if you don't present in the way that's fixed the social marketing of the brothel, you know you're gonna be And you know you want to make money, it's going to be on the streets. Um, I do feel like I should point out, um, no, it's good that it is lunchtime now, Um, so we should probably close up, but, um, this has been really awesome a discussion, so thank you [01:41:30] to everyone for participating.
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