I have a small request. I'm keen to boost this on Substack, in addition to Facebook or Twitter, where sharing with those of a like mind is good, but beyond that, tends to attract trolls.
If you enjoyed today's newsletter, please consider re-stacking it with a few words explaining why you enjoyed it or why others might.
By the way, if you've not "restacked" something before, which is simply Substack terminology for sharing, you can find the button at the top of each article; it's the one on the right after the options to like or comment.
I don't think that NZ First cares about gender issues. What they care about is having their trotters in the trough after the next election, and they see this bill as one way to scrape up support.
Except, and I hope I'm correct, it might turn out to be counterproductive: "Er, I was thinking I'll vote NZF next time. I like no vaxes. I like freedom. But, er, I don't like someone telling me who I am, who my whanau members are. I like the freedom to choose if I want to. Like, our feelings, eh? Yeah, Nah, not voting for them."
I wonder what you think about this as an approach to likes of NZ First supporters?
One way to challenge their thinking is to ask: 'When did you decide your gender?'. The inevitable answer is 'I've always been...', then you ask, 'What if society said you couldn't live the gender you feel you are, what would you do?'
There has been a lot of coverage of Pope Francis and his essential goodness - I was relieved that Winston (MeFirst) didn’t deride him for being woke, you know all that stuff about caring, the environment etc. I’m not religious but recognise ‘saintliness’, and on that bell curve Francis would not be at the same end as Winston (or Trump, or Luxon, or Seymour or…)
I was really pissed off when I saw WP's media on this yesterday. But I've calmed down a bit reminding myself that it's only a member's bill, that has to go in the biscuit tin and be drawn among all the others that are in there. There's no doubt he is using this as a cynical ploy to get more votes from the fearful. It is the lowest of the low. I know what you mean about friends who are part of the gender critical movement and I too have stopped engaging with a couple for the same reason. I thought Julie Fairey on FB said it well : "There is no way to determine biologically who is a woman that doesn’t exclude folks who are women. Chromosomes, body parts and processes; women’s bodies, like all human bodies, are incredibly diverse. Intersex people exist, non-binary and trans people exist - they always have, they just had to hide it, to deny and harm themselves. Trans women are women. Theres no threat or danger in that. There are so many challenges we face why are we inventing ones that don’t exist? " And wow 900 newsletters. Congratulations Nick. I will be sure to share. I hope you are collating them into some kind of book?
That letter of chris's is very good. It's about as succinct and level headed as you can get.
I've been musing for while now about how online media and content (e.g. misinformation & manipulative agendas) used to be discussed as a danger primarily to young people, but the irony is it seems like older people like Winston and his voters have turned out to be the most succeptible to manufactured outrage.
That is the generous analysis. The less generous one is as you say, he cares for his own position of power more than he does already marginalised people's wellbeing. What a fucking slimebag, pardon my french.
Chloe, as ever, nails it. As for the transgender thing - some of the people I know who have found their authentic selves have moved from female to male. Is this a problem for anyone? In toilets, sport or anywhere else? They are just people, ffs!
I know he's an old codger and for old people it's hard to move with the times and accept that life is no longer the way it may have been when they grew up. I certainly know it's not the same since I grew up. Sometimes I wish I could be a child again, but in all seriousness, this is so bloody ridiculous, I'm not sure Winston is sure about his own Member's Bill.
If you will allow me (that was a stupid thing to say, you don't have a choice) I would like to congratulate you on 900 editions of Nick's Korero.
That's awesome. I may not have been around when you started, but I'm glad I'm around now and I ain't going anywhere.
Thank you for your well written and well considered newsletters. You are appreciated.
Would have preferred to see you write SOME old people: we are not all the same and don't all think the same - or maybe I'm not old yet(at 78) and the thinking the same bit is yet to come?
I agree with you Helen I’m even older yet feel I have moved with the times. Winston needs to do the same and stop his continual vote gathering in all the murky corners. Agree too Josephine finding Nick’s writing has been the best thing I’ve done on Substack. Congratulations Nick it must take a certain determined mindset to daily find the subject and the words to write as you do.
I agree, it’s a frustrating generalisation, and we all fall into making them about all sorts of things don’t we.
Regarding NZF supporters being conflated with older people, I blame the media, they have defined and promoted the idea that we’re a conservative bunch stuck in the past, and Winston likes to stoke up the notion that he’s the mouthpiece for seniors, after all he brought us the Gold Card, so obviously we support him. 🙄🙄🙄
I agree with you Helen, SOME old people. I am 80 (same age as Winston, we almost share a birthday!) and though my body is failing, my brain is functioning as adequately as it always has. No one needs to stop learning just because they are getting old.
Thanks Nick for the opportunity to reply. Wonderful words from you....and sadly as always we are commenting on the willful ignorance of many. Hormones and genes do not get it right always. As a nurse I have known that since 1960 when I began my training. Babies are born with out clear differentiation as to what sex they are. A good news story of over 40 years ago. A male nurse student getting married. When born he was not accurately identified and registered because the technology of the time could not do so. (I am not sure that they can now???) Registered as female but definitely male. A supportive family. As an adult student trained as a nurse. Was in a group of people who at the time were supporting Gay Rights and Gender Diversity. He/She met a fellow supporter who was registered as male but defintely female. Fell in love and were able to marry before Civil Unions were lawful. A male was marrying a woman!!!! The Minister who did the deed knew as did all of us audience!!!!
I should add I am now 83....so not all oldies are intolerant of difference.
While I agree with Helen, Mac and Judith to some degree, I think there’s a lot of truth in the saying “the older I get, the better I was”. Even at the tender age of 72, I can feel the inevitable creep of Father Time. I’m not complaining, it sure as hell beats the alternative.😀
This man has hit rock bottom IMO, using a marginalized group to ensure further employment where he has no business being any longer. Here is my take, for what it is worth.....female/male are applied birth descriptions based on observable biology. Woman/man are the gender identities that an individual chooses based on non observable factors. How does ANY of that cause harm to anyone else?! It just bloody doesn't.
Congratulations on your 900th newsletter Nick🎉. That’s quite an achievement in a world where not much seems to last long. Looking forward to the next 900 days of reason, sanity and great music to hold the world at bay. Keep up the good work🙂
Chloe right on the money again! 👍
Winston hit rock bottom some years ago. When I read “rock bottom” I immediately thought of slime mold, a one cell organism that feasts on the detritus and rotten leaves and wood on the forest floor. A genuine bottom feeder. Slime mold has no brain, therefore no consciousness or conscience. It’s sometimes referred to as a growing bag oozing its way in the world and spreading rubbish wherever it goes. Seems about right for me as a description of what Winston has become. His apprentice Shane possibly wants to dig up the country to give his leader more space to expand himself.
I wonder what gender these two would align themselves to? Neutral, I suspect as neither of them could give a fuck. About anything but themselves anyway.
Nick thank you. What primarily decides our sex are the sex chromosomes that we have when the egg and sperm meet. So if we have xx we are likely to develop female sex organs. If we have x we likely to develop male sex organs. The y is a funny little chromosme the smallest of them all. Genetic recombination through sex gives variation that enables survival of species. From then on like all biology it is complex. The wonderful thing about DNA is that it mutates otherwise we would not have the diversity of life on earth. As you have mentoned there are other of variations in chromosomes but also the hormone production and environmental factors that determine the child that is born and adult that child grows up to be. We do not understand really what life is (let alone its meaning). Living systems are extraodinary! So as you say Nick, Winnie & Co thinking they can define an aspect of it in law is just unscientific and mad.
Congratulations Nick on your 900th Newsletter. So glad I found my way here. Chloe is spot on again about this being a distraction to the important issues the government would rather not draw attention to, and of course Winston is desperate for attention as usual, he always kicks up a ruckus somehow around the mid-term point.
This despicable Bill he’s pushing should never see the light of day. It’s offensive in the extreme and amplifies his ignorance and contempt for others.
Well said. I dislike intensely the lack of focus on what really matters. I dislike the importation of these awful ideological ideas that feed prejudice. Peter's just seems like a grumpy old man who needs to retire. Meanwhile he's destroying tolerance.
Nick, you at 900 newsletters are a hero, you have kept me sane with critical analysis, heart and humour. Thank you.
What makes me mad about this story and NZ First and ACT in general is that they happily play the culture war in step with the idiots in the US, and it is waste of time and energy and a disgusting shit show, manufactured and perpetuated by ignorami who pick on people living a courageous life just being who they authentically are. Kia kaha to the rainbow community.
National are pretty quiet on the culture wars (but I would put money on Penk et al following some disgusting culture war antagonists). If only Luxon had a scrap of humanity he would put a stop to this bs, then again I wonder why I keep expecting to find leadership in this man. Luxon is not a leader, he is not fit to be a Prime Minister, he pales big time in comparison to Mark Carney, Zelenskyy, Jacinda Ardern. Luxon is at best our Crime Minister allowing the neoliberal playbook to play out - defund, destabilise and privatise. To defund and then sell our public assets and services off, without the support of the voter is a crime - certainly defunding health programmes that knowingly lead to early death of Maori and Pacifica eg Bowel Screening must be akin to manslaughter…anyway WHY are we trying to emulate the US and the tRump administration? Can our government not see that the US ruled by incompetent clowns, owned by billionaires is a raging shit show on so many levels! When did we the people of Aotearoa vote to be like the US? Can we put up a Private Members Bill to stop selling public assets and services?
Congrats Nick. I'm glad you're here. Great piece - anything which includes Chloe telling truth to power gets my vote - and thanks to Chris for an excellent refute of Winston's disingenuous fuckery. Appealing to people's ignorance and prejudice might get a few extra votes, but as you say, it's no great legacy. He'd have been better off quitting after a good run as foreign minister in the first Ardern government. Yet here he still is, committing political suicide by a thousand cuts while throwing thousands of Kiwis under the wheels of his campaign bus.
I have a small request. I'm keen to boost this on Substack, in addition to Facebook or Twitter, where sharing with those of a like mind is good, but beyond that, tends to attract trolls.
If you enjoyed today's newsletter, please consider re-stacking it with a few words explaining why you enjoyed it or why others might.
By the way, if you've not "restacked" something before, which is simply Substack terminology for sharing, you can find the button at the top of each article; it's the one on the right after the options to like or comment.
Thanks very much,
Nick.
Done!
I don't think that NZ First cares about gender issues. What they care about is having their trotters in the trough after the next election, and they see this bill as one way to scrape up support.
Absolutely 💯
Except, and I hope I'm correct, it might turn out to be counterproductive: "Er, I was thinking I'll vote NZF next time. I like no vaxes. I like freedom. But, er, I don't like someone telling me who I am, who my whanau members are. I like the freedom to choose if I want to. Like, our feelings, eh? Yeah, Nah, not voting for them."
I wonder what you think about this as an approach to likes of NZ First supporters?
One way to challenge their thinking is to ask: 'When did you decide your gender?'. The inevitable answer is 'I've always been...', then you ask, 'What if society said you couldn't live the gender you feel you are, what would you do?'
Perfect 👌
There has been a lot of coverage of Pope Francis and his essential goodness - I was relieved that Winston (MeFirst) didn’t deride him for being woke, you know all that stuff about caring, the environment etc. I’m not religious but recognise ‘saintliness’, and on that bell curve Francis would not be at the same end as Winston (or Trump, or Luxon, or Seymour or…)
I was really pissed off when I saw WP's media on this yesterday. But I've calmed down a bit reminding myself that it's only a member's bill, that has to go in the biscuit tin and be drawn among all the others that are in there. There's no doubt he is using this as a cynical ploy to get more votes from the fearful. It is the lowest of the low. I know what you mean about friends who are part of the gender critical movement and I too have stopped engaging with a couple for the same reason. I thought Julie Fairey on FB said it well : "There is no way to determine biologically who is a woman that doesn’t exclude folks who are women. Chromosomes, body parts and processes; women’s bodies, like all human bodies, are incredibly diverse. Intersex people exist, non-binary and trans people exist - they always have, they just had to hide it, to deny and harm themselves. Trans women are women. Theres no threat or danger in that. There are so many challenges we face why are we inventing ones that don’t exist? " And wow 900 newsletters. Congratulations Nick. I will be sure to share. I hope you are collating them into some kind of book?
What I am and who I am cannot be defined so concretely as 'a gender"!
I am.... so much more than that!
I have NO RIGHT to define anyone else, in the same way that no-one can define me simply by my "gender"!
To nullify all the Other Things I am, is inappropriate and unacceptable!
Life is too complex to contract a human being by a set of chromosomes or hormones!
Let's get off that "train of thought " and De-rail Winnie-ther-loser's Bill.
Disembark the Categorisation of people by their genetics/chromosomes/ hormones and EMBRACE their diversity and personhood!
Thanks Nick <3
That letter of chris's is very good. It's about as succinct and level headed as you can get.
I've been musing for while now about how online media and content (e.g. misinformation & manipulative agendas) used to be discussed as a danger primarily to young people, but the irony is it seems like older people like Winston and his voters have turned out to be the most succeptible to manufactured outrage.
That is the generous analysis. The less generous one is as you say, he cares for his own position of power more than he does already marginalised people's wellbeing. What a fucking slimebag, pardon my french.
Your French is welcome. 🙂 Chris has written some really good words; I'm glad she was happy for them to be included.
Chloe, as ever, nails it. As for the transgender thing - some of the people I know who have found their authentic selves have moved from female to male. Is this a problem for anyone? In toilets, sport or anywhere else? They are just people, ffs!
Morena Nick.
This is the perfect song choice for this.
As you say, Winston is only doing this for votes.
I know he's an old codger and for old people it's hard to move with the times and accept that life is no longer the way it may have been when they grew up. I certainly know it's not the same since I grew up. Sometimes I wish I could be a child again, but in all seriousness, this is so bloody ridiculous, I'm not sure Winston is sure about his own Member's Bill.
If you will allow me (that was a stupid thing to say, you don't have a choice) I would like to congratulate you on 900 editions of Nick's Korero.
That's awesome. I may not have been around when you started, but I'm glad I'm around now and I ain't going anywhere.
Thank you for your well written and well considered newsletters. You are appreciated.
Would have preferred to see you write SOME old people: we are not all the same and don't all think the same - or maybe I'm not old yet(at 78) and the thinking the same bit is yet to come?
I agree with you Helen I’m even older yet feel I have moved with the times. Winston needs to do the same and stop his continual vote gathering in all the murky corners. Agree too Josephine finding Nick’s writing has been the best thing I’ve done on Substack. Congratulations Nick it must take a certain determined mindset to daily find the subject and the words to write as you do.
I agree, it’s a frustrating generalisation, and we all fall into making them about all sorts of things don’t we.
Regarding NZF supporters being conflated with older people, I blame the media, they have defined and promoted the idea that we’re a conservative bunch stuck in the past, and Winston likes to stoke up the notion that he’s the mouthpiece for seniors, after all he brought us the Gold Card, so obviously we support him. 🙄🙄🙄
Ha! He wishes.
I agree with you Helen, SOME old people. I am 80 (same age as Winston, we almost share a birthday!) and though my body is failing, my brain is functioning as adequately as it always has. No one needs to stop learning just because they are getting old.
Sorry Helen. No offense was intended towards anyone.
Thanks Josephine. And others who chômée in.
Me too lol 83 and not hidebound. Winston cultivates "the margins" each election.
Brilliant korero Nick.
Agree I've always been called a radical & I'm 69.
Thank you. 🙂
Thanks Nick for the opportunity to reply. Wonderful words from you....and sadly as always we are commenting on the willful ignorance of many. Hormones and genes do not get it right always. As a nurse I have known that since 1960 when I began my training. Babies are born with out clear differentiation as to what sex they are. A good news story of over 40 years ago. A male nurse student getting married. When born he was not accurately identified and registered because the technology of the time could not do so. (I am not sure that they can now???) Registered as female but definitely male. A supportive family. As an adult student trained as a nurse. Was in a group of people who at the time were supporting Gay Rights and Gender Diversity. He/She met a fellow supporter who was registered as male but defintely female. Fell in love and were able to marry before Civil Unions were lawful. A male was marrying a woman!!!! The Minister who did the deed knew as did all of us audience!!!!
I should add I am now 83....so not all oldies are intolerant of difference.
While I agree with Helen, Mac and Judith to some degree, I think there’s a lot of truth in the saying “the older I get, the better I was”. Even at the tender age of 72, I can feel the inevitable creep of Father Time. I’m not complaining, it sure as hell beats the alternative.😀
All of our families have rainbow people and to anyone who thinks they haven't- that's only because you're not being told.
Exactly!
This man has hit rock bottom IMO, using a marginalized group to ensure further employment where he has no business being any longer. Here is my take, for what it is worth.....female/male are applied birth descriptions based on observable biology. Woman/man are the gender identities that an individual chooses based on non observable factors. How does ANY of that cause harm to anyone else?! It just bloody doesn't.
Congratulations on your 900th newsletter Nick🎉. That’s quite an achievement in a world where not much seems to last long. Looking forward to the next 900 days of reason, sanity and great music to hold the world at bay. Keep up the good work🙂
Chloe right on the money again! 👍
Winston hit rock bottom some years ago. When I read “rock bottom” I immediately thought of slime mold, a one cell organism that feasts on the detritus and rotten leaves and wood on the forest floor. A genuine bottom feeder. Slime mold has no brain, therefore no consciousness or conscience. It’s sometimes referred to as a growing bag oozing its way in the world and spreading rubbish wherever it goes. Seems about right for me as a description of what Winston has become. His apprentice Shane possibly wants to dig up the country to give his leader more space to expand himself.
I wonder what gender these two would align themselves to? Neutral, I suspect as neither of them could give a fuck. About anything but themselves anyway.
Every time I think Winston has hit rock bottom he and Shane consult with their mining cronies and then keep on dig dig digging
Ain't that the truth!
Nick thank you. What primarily decides our sex are the sex chromosomes that we have when the egg and sperm meet. So if we have xx we are likely to develop female sex organs. If we have x we likely to develop male sex organs. The y is a funny little chromosme the smallest of them all. Genetic recombination through sex gives variation that enables survival of species. From then on like all biology it is complex. The wonderful thing about DNA is that it mutates otherwise we would not have the diversity of life on earth. As you have mentoned there are other of variations in chromosomes but also the hormone production and environmental factors that determine the child that is born and adult that child grows up to be. We do not understand really what life is (let alone its meaning). Living systems are extraodinary! So as you say Nick, Winnie & Co thinking they can define an aspect of it in law is just unscientific and mad.
Congratulations Nick on your 900th Newsletter. So glad I found my way here. Chloe is spot on again about this being a distraction to the important issues the government would rather not draw attention to, and of course Winston is desperate for attention as usual, he always kicks up a ruckus somehow around the mid-term point.
This despicable Bill he’s pushing should never see the light of day. It’s offensive in the extreme and amplifies his ignorance and contempt for others.
Well said. I dislike intensely the lack of focus on what really matters. I dislike the importation of these awful ideological ideas that feed prejudice. Peter's just seems like a grumpy old man who needs to retire. Meanwhile he's destroying tolerance.
WP has no mana. End of story.
Nick, you at 900 newsletters are a hero, you have kept me sane with critical analysis, heart and humour. Thank you.
What makes me mad about this story and NZ First and ACT in general is that they happily play the culture war in step with the idiots in the US, and it is waste of time and energy and a disgusting shit show, manufactured and perpetuated by ignorami who pick on people living a courageous life just being who they authentically are. Kia kaha to the rainbow community.
National are pretty quiet on the culture wars (but I would put money on Penk et al following some disgusting culture war antagonists). If only Luxon had a scrap of humanity he would put a stop to this bs, then again I wonder why I keep expecting to find leadership in this man. Luxon is not a leader, he is not fit to be a Prime Minister, he pales big time in comparison to Mark Carney, Zelenskyy, Jacinda Ardern. Luxon is at best our Crime Minister allowing the neoliberal playbook to play out - defund, destabilise and privatise. To defund and then sell our public assets and services off, without the support of the voter is a crime - certainly defunding health programmes that knowingly lead to early death of Maori and Pacifica eg Bowel Screening must be akin to manslaughter…anyway WHY are we trying to emulate the US and the tRump administration? Can our government not see that the US ruled by incompetent clowns, owned by billionaires is a raging shit show on so many levels! When did we the people of Aotearoa vote to be like the US? Can we put up a Private Members Bill to stop selling public assets and services?
Thanks again Nick.
Thanks for the lovely words. 🙂
Penk is seriously weird. When I go on Twitter, the most repugnant troll accounts are all followed by him. Like really deranged stuff.
Congrats Nick. I'm glad you're here. Great piece - anything which includes Chloe telling truth to power gets my vote - and thanks to Chris for an excellent refute of Winston's disingenuous fuckery. Appealing to people's ignorance and prejudice might get a few extra votes, but as you say, it's no great legacy. He'd have been better off quitting after a good run as foreign minister in the first Ardern government. Yet here he still is, committing political suicide by a thousand cuts while throwing thousands of Kiwis under the wheels of his campaign bus.
Thanks Anna. 🙂
Just quietly, every time I hear Chloe speak, I find it hard to believe that anyone wouldn't want to vote for her. Every time.
I’m with you Nick