Gender Identity/expression
New Zealand does not have specific transgender anti-discrimination laws, although New Zealand's anti-discrimination laws are now thought to cover members of the transgender communities. The Human Rights Commission in New Zealand said in 2005 that it considered transgender people to fall within the definition of sex discrimination, and would accept complaints from transgender people. Transsexual Member of Parliament Georgina Beyer had the Human Rights (Gender Identity) Amendment Bill ready for debate in Parliament as a member's bill in 2004. However, on 16 August 2006, New Zealand's Solicitor-General issued an opinion (reference below) to the effect that transgender people were covered under the 'sex discrimination' provision of the Human Rights Act 1993. Georgina Beyer said when withdrawing her Bill "that's good enough for me".
In 2007/2008 the Human Rights Commission published "To Be Who I Am", a report that came from the Human Rights Transgender Inquiry. In this publication, the Human Rights Commission recommended the clarification of the Human Rights Act in terms of gender identity, by specifically including "gender identity" under the Sex category of the Human Rights Act.
In 1994, the New Zealand High Court ruled that post-operative transsexuals could marry as their new sex.
Read more about this topic: LGBT Rights In New Zealand
Famous quotes containing the words gender, identity and/or expression:
“... lynching was ... a woman’s issue: it had as much to do with ideas of gender as it had with race.”
—Paula Giddings (b. 1948)
“Though your views are in straight antagonism to theirs, assume an identity of sentiment, assume that you are saying precisely that which all think, and in the flow of wit and love roll out your paradoxes in solid column, with not the infirmity of a doubt.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Realism should only be the means of expression of religious genius ... or, at the other extreme, the artistic expressions of monkeys which are quite satisfied with mere imitation. In fact, art is never realistic though sometimes it is tempted to be. To be really realistic a description would have to be endless.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)