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We're at the out in the park. Uh, pride festival. Um, I've only just arrived. Um, so just catching up with friends and so on at the stores, bumping into people I haven't seen for a while. Um, it's a lovely Wellington day. There's a little bit of a breeze. Yeah, that's lovely. There's lots of people here. It's huge. So just arriving. So what is your kind of initial impression? I don't know everybody anymore. Um, so many people, so many people. This is awesome. [00:00:30] Like I think back to, um What was it called back then? It was out in the square before that. So back at Newtown School, the Newtown School fair? Because I grew up in Newtown and I went to Newtown School and I went to South Wellington Intermediate and, um yeah, so I was going to the fair before I was well before I knew I was queer. Even if other people knew that I was, Um, yeah, it's just it's grown so much. It's so awesome. There's so many different people here and everybody looks happy. It's cool [00:01:00] now. I was talking to some politicians earlier on today, and they were talking about the, um, James Shaw census change to include both gender and identity questions. And then I thought, Maddie, you've done some stuff in the you've done stuff in the past and you were responsible for the two ticks. Yeah, Yeah, I was, um, I. I was one of the people involved for the two ticks campaign to jam the census in 2011. Um, so that was born out of [00:01:30] about 10 years of, of engaging, um, through every channel available, um, with government departments, Um, particularly with statistics New Zealand. Um, obviously the Human Rights Commission. Um, but we got to the point where we've been engaging and engaging and engaging and they weren't changing, and they weren't listening that, you know, they might even agree with us. Um, but then they'd say, it's too difficult we can't do it. Um, so how how I got into it was, um I went to Victoria University and I was at the library [00:02:00] one day, and they had a survey like, you know, just a little survey, just a little user survey. And the first question was, Are you male or female? And I was like, This is stupid. They've got Trans students. They've got Trans staff. They should be more inclusive. But also, what are they gonna do with it? If, um if they find that 100% of the people who are filling out their survey are female, are they finally gonna put more toilets in? Because the only ones that have queues are women's ones? And that would actually be useful. But they wouldn't. They would just go. Oh, that's interesting. Maybe [00:02:30] I wonder why only women filled out the survey and not change anything. So what's the value of the information? What's the point in collecting it and alienating people and then not using it? So I I said this to a staff member and they said, Oh, that's a very good point. And, you know, I talked to a manager and oh, that's a very good point. And, um, they took my details. They came, went away, they came back, um, in a few weeks and they said, Oh, we collected that way because the university collects it that way. [00:03:00] And I'm so kicked off that that years of of engaging so you know, long story short the university collected that that way because the Ministry of Education collected it that way. And the Ministry of Education collected it that way because the government needed it that way because Statistics New Zealand collected it that way. And so, yeah, started engaging with stats N and, um with with the two Ticks campaign. What we realised was that if you get the question wrong, they impute the data, which means [00:03:30] they make it up for you, and they've got a method for how they make it up. Um, and it's, firstly, they try to guess it from your name, and then they try and guess it from your relationships to other people in the house. Like, Have you said that you're a mother, for example? Then they'll they'll guess that you're female. There's a whole methodology for making up. Finally, if they can't guess from any of that, then they flip a coin like they they they actually flip a coin that's in the standard. That's in their sex standard. Um, but there was something at the bottom [00:04:00] there, if I remember rightly, which said that if, um, more than point, uh, point 1% of people got the question wrong. Um, it made the data invalid. And we were like, Here's our end. And so we started this 26 for six campaign. You gotta remember, this is, at the time of, like, the Bill and Ben party like, there's gonna be all our community who are gonna do it to be supportive. And then there's gonna be all these people who are gonna be, like, two ticks for sex. I like sex. I like it twice. [00:04:30] Um, um yeah, it was in the media. Um, we were all set, and then the Christchurch earthquake happened, and the census was cancelled. And, um, yeah, my heart goes out to the people in Christchurch. But I was annoyed that the census was cancelled because we were all set for this. We were totally gonna ruin their data because the data have been wrong all along. And what value is [00:05:00] it if it had been wrong? Because they they had kept saying, we need to be able to compare, and it's like, but the data is wrong and you're using it to develop health services, and you're using it to justify political and policy decisions. And it's wrong. It's wrong because there are. There are people who are not male and female or or female. So there are in six people, and there are people in between. And trans people, and you're excluding them. And what's the point? So how long has that conversation been going on? [00:05:30] Uh oh, I. I mean, I. I only came out when I was 18, and it will have been going a long time before that. Like, I'm sure there are people around who would know, Um, more than me, like, Yeah, I just got involved through through uni and and two ticks and so on. Um but yeah. If you go and have a look when they when stats NZ did start looking at changing their gender standards. Um, for the 2013 census, they actually, they cite [00:06:00] the two ticks campaign as as one of the drivers for that, like, yes, recognised by the government. Finally. So what? What are your thoughts on, um, Minister James Shaw coming out and saying yes, they are going to put gender and sexuality, um, questions in the census. It's not going to be in this census. Do you have any thoughts on that? I think there's There's no value in doing the census. If the information that you're collecting is wrong because you're using, [00:06:30] um, methodology that is seriously, seriously outdated. They're asking the same question that they've asked since they started doing it. As far as I know, maybe, but, you know, for for a long time that's how they've asked the question. Are you male or female? And that's it. And that's not useful. And that hasn't been useful for a long time. Um, why would you not delay the census and get the get the information? Correct. Um, so I've I've tried requesting a paper form so that I can still tick both boxes [00:07:00] and, um, you call the 080, 800 number. You push one to request paper forms. You push one to request them in English. You push one to request it for your household and you enter the code that's on the letter that's been mailed to you and you push hash and and then it cuts you off. And so you ring and say, Did that work? And they're like, Oh, we don't know what happened there. Oh, we can't. We can't do it because your code's already been used. And you're like Ah, yeah. Did they know? Did they put my number in the system [00:07:30] so that were they deeply suspicious of me? No, I think it's just the system is overloaded or broken or something. But surely that also points to the the the how flawed that is. If, for instance, you don't have Internet connections and and then they suddenly saying that your number is invalid because you've tried once, and it didn't work. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like hello. Uh, bring on the next one and bring on the engagement because [00:08:00] there was a long engagement process, um, around the 2013 1, and they ended up going with a a question for the gender standard. That was really rubbish. Um, it was kind of like they'd taken consensus, uh, but not got not understood. Consensus. They just taken bits of what everybody had said and kind of mashed it together. Um, so, uh, the evidence internationally, this kind of agreement around this now is that a two step question is the best way to go. That's the most inclusive, um, [00:08:30] and the most useful in terms of the data that you can get out of that as well. So for health service and social service provision that collects really rich data like that's the stuff that we need. Yeah, Yeah, just, uh, bringing us back to where we are today, which is out in the park. Why do you think these kind of events are important? Um, because there's still there's still a lot of bigotry, and, um, it's It's not just it's not just for the queer community, [00:09:00] but for any kind of minorities. You need to be able to find people who you can relate with, um, in order to be well in the world. Um, so finding finding your niche is really important. And hopefully people are making connections here, and they can find their niche.
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