Thu 12 May 2016 In: New Zealand Daily News View at Wayback View at NDHA
Auckland Pride, the Department of Corrections and politicians have been roundly slammed for their disengagement with the needs, rights and safety of transgender people in New Zealand. At a forum held last night Corrections' reassurances that they have improved systems and policies in place for the treatment of trans prisoners and are actively working on better ways to address the needs of such prisoners were described as a sham, "rubbish" and "weasel words." Speakers included Ti Lamusse of No Pride In Prisons, lawyer Kelly Ellis and arts lecturer and administrator Lexie Matheson. "The country's prisons are clearly unsafe for transgender prisoners and this was to some degree acknowledged in the transgender sentencing reduction policy first used in 2008 which allowed sentences to be scaled back a little," said Lamusse, adding that prisons are so unsafe for transgender prisoners they should never be incarcerated in the first place... other options are available." "All Corrections is trying to do is to improve its public image... the daily reality is constant harassment of transgender prisoners, said Lamusse. "Whatever training they say say their staff go through is clearly completely inadequate," added Ellis. Two politicians from both ends of the political spectrum were also criticised for standing in the way of specifically enshrining equal rights for trans people in New Zealand's human rights and anti-discrimination legislation. "Georgina Beyer MP had a private member's bill prepared to fix this but Helen Clark withdrew it because she believed redneck voters would have been put off voting for Labour," said Matheson. "Louisa Wall MP also tried to get change," she said," but in 2014 Justice Minister Judith Collins refused... she said it was unnecessary and too controversial." And Auckland Pride came under fire for not including anyone from the transgender rights advocacy groups who have been critical of Corrections' presence in the Auckland Pride Parade in the process which evaluated the department's appropriateness to appear in this year's parade. "Whatever Pride may think, Corrections are not our friends," said Matheson. "They are not making progress. Pride took it on themselves to negotiate on our issue but they do not and cannot speak for us." "It is written into the Auckland Pride kaupapa that they have to look after people like us," said Matheson, reminding the almost 100 people who attended the forum that the 't' in glbti stands for transgender. "We need support from Pride, from the gay communities and others because we cannot do this on our own."
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 12th May 2016 - 2:03pm