It is high time that lesbians, gay men and bisexuals focused our attention on the primary issue that affects transgender New Zealanders- their continued exclusion from New Zealand’s antidiscrimination laws. Transphobic advertisements and newspaper articles should be legitimately criticised by transwomen, transmen and their supporters. I applaud Queer Avengers' recent protest against Rosemary Macleod's deplorable attack on transmale pregnancy within the Sunday Star-Times. However, let’s move on. In case we’ve forgotten, the New Zealand trans community is only covered by ‘reading into’ existing antidiscrimination laws- which means that gender identity is theoretically a subcategory of gender, which is directly covered within the Human Rights Act. To my knowledge, there has been no test case. Predictably, the Key administration isn’t willing to clarify the situation through concrete additions to the Human Rights Act to directly include ‘gender identity’ as a distinct category. Contrary to the situation related to same-sex marriage proper, when it comes to transgender legal equality, we are lagging well behind Australia and the United Kingdom. Across the Tasman, all Australian states and territories directly include gender identity within their antidiscrimination laws. The United Kingdom outlawed transphobic discrimination over a decade ago, in 1999. And Canada is getting close with the eventual passage of Bill C-389, intended for the same purpose. Why are we therefore alone amongst core Commonwealth nations? Added to which, it is almost nineteen years since the Human Rights Act was last reviewed and expanded. To add insult to injury, lesbian, gay and bisexual groups routinely press for marital and adoption equality without recognition that transgender legal equality is only half-won, if even that. The Human Rights Commission’s Transgender Inquiry suggested that many transwomen and transmen are dissatisfied with the current situation, and I don’t blame them at all. Sexual orientation has been covered by the Human Rights Act since 1993 and means that lesbians, gay men and bisexuals enjoy equal opportunities when it comes to employment, accommodation access and provision of goods and services. As for the trans community, reforms have been piecemeal and incremental, such as questions of document alteration to reflect one’s reassigned gender identity and the right to gender-appropriate prison incarceration after one has transitioned. However, the Department of Corrections is showing disregard for the premise that transitioning is a continuum and that male prisons are risky places for transwomen to be incarcerated within before they have undergone reassignment surgery, due to their feminising bodies. (There is no comparable information about transmen within the prison system). Would it do National Cabinet Ministers Judith Collins or Anne Tolley any harm at all to do something about the current situation through investigating how Australian corrections policy has changed in the context of transgender inclusive antidiscrimination laws? That said, I applaud Maryann Street's comments about this deeply unsatisfactory situation. I urge other LGBT community members to get involved on this issue. Write to the ministers involved, or to newspapers, and protest about it if Collins or Tolley visit your community. While these are important reforms, I am reminded of the prostitution law reform debate back in 2001-03. In that case, sex work was comprehensively decriminalised after the passage of legislation based on that of New South Wales. It’s time that we followed suit when it comes to gender identity inclusion within antidiscrimination laws. Any future calls for expanded LGBT rights should be just that. If we want to talk about inclusion, then let us recognise that gender identity discrimination is still tolerated within this country- and work to overturn that unsatisfactory transphobic state of affairs. Craig Young - 13th March 2012