April 27, 2023
Marama Davidson – No Apology Necessary
Marama Davidson, the Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, attended last month’s counter-rally at Mt Albert Park against TERF (Trans-phobic exclusionary female) Posie Parker (real name Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull).
There were several heated exchanges. At one point a Destiny Church Man-Up motorcyclist rammed Davidson near Aotea Square. Afterwards, a confrontational Hannah Spierer, from Counterspin Media, attempted to entrap Davidson with questions about gender identity and violence. Davidson responded saying “I know who causes violence in the world. It is white cis-men.”
Davidson later stated she was cautious with Spierer due to upset after the motorcycle incident. She also clarified that “violence happens in every community and women are overwhelmingly more likely to be victims of family and sexual violence at the hands of men.”
Apologise or Resign
National Party Opposition Leader, Chris Luxon excoriated Davidson’s explanation as “making excuses” and demanded a public apology for making an “incredibly harmful generalisation of an entire group of people.” More pointedly, ACT Leader David Seymour insisted she resign for “accusing white straight men of causing violence.” NZ First Leader, Winston Peters, demanded same saying Davidson’s comment was “offensive, racist, and sexist.”
No Apology Necessary
Davidson made the right call. Her report to Police about the motorcycle strike and clips showing another Man-Up rider ramming three people suggests a deliberate assault, the trauma of which can last for some time. Parker for instance continues to juice lyrical about the event.
Further, any politician is rightly on guard with Spierer and her husband Kelvyn Alp, whose Counterspin network is notorious for white supremacist, Islamophobic and racist content. It is common knowledge that both face charges of distributing objectional material thought to be related to claims the Christchurch shootings were a government hoax. No apology is necessary.
Peters and Seymour
Peters and Seymour also laid responsibility for the violence on Davidson. The accusation is ridiculous. An examination of the now widely available online video evidence suggests that Destiny Church Man-Up members and Posie Parker supporters were responsible for most of the violence.
In addition to the two motorcycle strikes, another Man-Up member threw a counter-protestor to the ground and up to 30 Man-Up and Destiny Church members appear to manhandle several members of the counter-rally. One man in the Posie Parker group has probably assaulted two people, another may have assaulted three, and three men slap three different people. Davidson was not present at those incidents, therefore did not incite them and consequently owes no apology.
Apologise to White Women
Former Deputy Leader of the National Party, Paula Bennett called on Davidson to apologise not “just to white cis-men” but also “to their mothers and sisters and friends who are offended on their behalf” because “our boys and men have higher suicide rates than females and are less likely to seek help for mental health.”
True, men are less forthcoming in seeking mental health support. However, Davidson does not owe a specific apology to white women for the stunningly unfathomable reason that Bennett, a former Minister of Social Development, does not know that Māori men rather than white men have the highest rate of suicide of any demographic in Aotearoa.
Over the last 100 years, there has been a steady increase in Māori suicide related to periods of intense economic stress, resulting in higher deprivation, systemic racism stereotyping Māori males as dangerous, and identity alienation caused by the suppression of language and separation from culture during Māori urbanisation.
Before World War 2, Māori suicide was one-third that of non-Māori. As Māori urbanised, the suicide rate increased to about half that of the general population. With the impact of Rogernomics and Ruthanasia, the Māori suicide rate passed that of the general population in 1996.
Ministry of Health data (2008-2021) shows that Māori men and women have higher rates of suicide than non-Māori with more Māori males taking their lives than any other group.
In 2021, the overall suicide rate for Māori males was 40% higher than that of non-Māori males, including 54.5% higher for Māori men in the 15–24 age group and a staggering 140% higher in the 25–44 age group. A quarter of Māori male suicides occur in prison.
Freedom of Speech
Luxon, Peters and Seymour defended Poise Parker’s right to free speech, the National leader saying “As much as you may like or dislike her views, you have to defend the right for people to have free speech in a liberal democracy. The way to deal with that is to have other speech and debate counter the view you do not like.”
Parker is on record imploring armed men to eject transwomen from female toilets. She has threatened to “annihilate” all women who oppose her and has made numerous Facebook posts attacking Muslim communities. She has given interviews with known neo-Nazi white supremacists in Canada and the United States.
Black-clad members of the National Socialist Movement supported Parker’s rally in Melbourne with nazi salutes, chants of “white power” and a banner saying “Destroy Paedo Freaks.”
Researchers have identified several far-right actors at the Auckland rally associated with Action Zealandia and a more recent fundamentalist Christian offshoot called SSPX. One was Sam Brittenden, previously convicted of disorderly behaviour for making anti-Muslim slurs in Dunedin, and for refusing to supply a laptop password after a photo of him appeared online in relation to a threat made against the Al Noor Mosque. Brittenden also attended Drag Story Time at Christchurch Library carrying a banner “Drag Pedos Groom Kids.”
The Disinformation Project has reported a huge surge in online transphobia since the Parker rally. Parker abuses the spirit of every international declaration and convention on the freedom of expression by inciting hatred against vulnerable others. The politicians who support her right to free speech while condemning Davidson’s right to reply contribute null but sanctimonious double-standard sophistry. Davidson owes no apology to freedom of speech.
Rainbow Myths
Davidson’s views on transwomen are factually correct. Trans rights are human rights and transgender people experience unwarranted hatred and violence. Hyperbolic transphobia demonises transwomen as a sexual threat to cis-women and stranger-danger predators of children. Neither is true.
Heterosexual men commit the most sexual offences against women and children. Most are known to their victims and most offences occur in the home. Heterosexual men also commit the most sexual assaults against women in public spaces like bathrooms. Most often these are in unsafe facilities in deprived neighbourhoods where poor sanitation situates them on the periphery of communities. Others are ambush, date, or drug rapes as in the recent convictions in Christchurch for assaults against more than 20 women.
Where sexual assaults in toilets do involve transwomen, most occur where regulatory mechanisms ban them from using female facilities and heterosexual men assault them in male toilets. Equally disturbing, the rise of the transphobic movement ten years ago in the United States has seen an increase in violent assaults in women’s toilets by cisgender men and women on cis-women they mistake for men.
In a paradox spun by fear and loathing, transphobic men and women protest much less about more frequent cis-male sexual assaults against women.
European Men
Davidson has been vilified on social media including by some of her political colleagues. European men are the worst harmful digital communications offenders. Police data shows a 20% increase in complaints over the past five years. Men are 83% of those charged, including 12% non-European men and a huge 71% European male offenders. A Netsafe spokesperson has said that their main targets are Māori women. Davidson owes none an apology.
Dr Rawiri Taonui