[00:00:04] Hi, my name is Brendan Malone and you're listening to the dispatches, the podcast that strives to cut through all the noise in order to challenge the popular narratives of the day with some good old fashioned contrarian thinking. You might not always agree, but at least you'll be taking a deeper look at the world around you.
[00:00:22] Hi everybody. Welcome along to the Friday Freebie edition of the Dispatchers podcast. My name is Brendan Malone. It is great to be back with you again. And today I'm going to be critiquing a glaring piece of inhumane agit prop about the unsilenced gender event that happened last weekend in Wellington. Before I get there though, whatever platform you're listening on right now, if you're not already a subscriber to the Dispatchers podcast, then please subscribe. If you have been listening for a while and you haven't given us a review yet, some stars, or maybe a few words, if the platform you're listening on allows you to do that, then please do that. All of that really, really helps the show. Last but not least, if you want a daily episode of the Dispatches, then all you have to do is go to patreon.com leftfootmedia. The link is in today's show notes and become a five dollar monthly patron. And if you do that, then you'll get an episode of the dispatches every single day of the week, Monday through Friday. So that's a daily piece of commentary from me every single day of the week. That's patreon.com leftfootmedia. And the link, as I said, is in today's show notes. A huge thank you too to all of our patrons. You guys are awesome. And it's thanks to you that today's episode is made possible. Right, let's jump into today's critique of this piece of inhumane agit prop about the unsilenced gender event that happened last weekend in Wellington. A couple of quick explanations for those who are not quite sure what I'm talking about here. Last weekend in Wellington, a broad church coalition, a group of different individuals and organisations who, who all have concerns about the gender constructionist ideology and the way that it has been implemented in policy and the impact that that is having, particularly on young people, but on young people and women and on wider society in general. They all gathered together in Wellington for this event to share their concerns. Basically, it was a one day summit, a one day forum. There were different speakers, and it was quite a wide variety of people who came and were present and who actually spoke at that event. Now, I didn't attend the event myself, so I don't have firsthand knowledge of the event. I know people who did. And I've seen different bits of commentary online. I've seen people who had concerns about the event. I saw people who went along and who were generally supportive, but might have disagreed with speakers or aspects of it here and there. I have seen people who were staunchly in support of it and loved every minute of it. So there's a wide variety of views floating around out there, and today's not really about me trying to critique the content. Instead, I want to talk about a piece of reporting, quote unquote. And this is why I'm using the word agitprop. By the way, for those who don't know, Agitprop is shorthand for propaganda. It comes from the soviet communist era. And it was a particular style of writing or propaganda that was produced often by media to really endorse the, the ideological regime, to really defend and speak in support, and to tear down the enemies of the regime. And so when I say agitprop, that's what I'm talking about here. And I'm talking about this reporting that was published by the spin off. And the reporting is, I think, quite reprehensible in places. It's one thing to disagree with an event or to disagree with a viewpoint, and this is something I can't stress enough. We really need to make this about principles and philosophies, not about people. And that's exactly what this reporting gets wrong, and it gets it really badly wrong. And that's why I think it's worthy of critique, because it's not actually trying to seriously engage with the ideas, with the philosophies, with the various proposals that are being put forward. Instead, it is decided to simply assassinate the character, to denigrate. And in some quite inhumane ways, I think the people who actually came to that event to share their views. So what you've got here is a New Zealander who was writing an article about his fellow New Zealanders and treating them with absolute disdain. And so we're going to go through this. We're going to critique it, because there's misinformation in here. There is misleading statements. And in fact, I think at least one thing is blatantly untrue. There is selective quoting and selective reporting as well. And I think it's important for people to understand this. And, and as I said, I say all this as someone who I don't really have a strong opinion actually, about the unsilenced event. But I think that it's a good thing in general that people are actually gathering together to have this conversation, because this issue does matter. And so far we have had ideological one way traffic on this. And there has been no legitimate accountability or critique of whether or not this ideology does actually stand up to scrutiny. And therefore whether or not we should be wholesale implementing it as a policy position, and whether or not we should be just wholesale buying into it as a society. And so it's really good to have these kinds of events. Let me start with the reporting and we'll just work our way through it. And I'm going to break this down bit by bit. It's by a guy called Joel McManus, and it's called fear, hate and a putrid stench inside the unsilenced anti trans event. Now there's a note at the top of this, a trigger warning, saying that this article contains quotes that may offend. And I think it's always concerning to see that. Because if people are not even capable of handling like disagreement or comments from other people and processing that in a meaningful way where they're disagreeing about political ideas, then really I'm not sure where we can start as a society to even have dialogue. I actually think you've got to be willing to put up with a bit and be a bit more robust and a little less fragile. If you're actually going to live in a society and you're going to flourish, you have to be able to have the messiness of human conversation and all of its imperfections. And one of the problems I think with liberal ideology, and in particular its current very progressivist manifestation, is that it actually wants to sanitise and control language in some very extreme ways. And it's really not healthy. We need to have dialogue. And for dialogue to be genuine and for it to be meaningful, there has to be a certain freedom. And that means you just have to live with people and their imperfections. People can't be perfect. So let's not try and impose this very dangerous, I think, utopian ideal on them, that they have to be perfect in their speech. Otherwise they are somehow enemies of the people. The first thing I notice is the smell, a toxic, putrid stench. And remember, this is him describing the event. And he starts here and he ends here. And this is where I think you really get that sort of inhumane thing going on. The first thing I notice is the smell, a toxic, putrid stench. The kind that stays with you forever bury deep into the part of your brain that connects to your nostrils. On Saturday, Wellington's Taquina Convention Centre hosted unsilenced Middle New Zealand on Ideology, a conference organised by Inflection Point, a group for Middle New Zealand that has become the quote unquote oppressed majority. The event was met with a large counter protest which was supported by the mayor and several councillors. And even that in and of itself is extremely troubling. You can see that what's going on here is these people, the ordinary, everyday people, the normies have gathered together and they are clearly, it's certainly by this reporter in the way that this is covered and based on what actually happened last week, they are treated as being enemies of the regime. You have councillors and others who actually even tried to shut this event down, which is troubling in and of itself. Speakers at the inflection point event included a current MP and a recent former MP, a host of controversial activists and Destiny Church founder Brian Tummuke. That's by the way, after we finish this article, I'll actually talk to you about who was present because he's been very selective in his coverage here and hasn't really given readers the full gamut of who was present and what the various concerns were. The summit wasn't really a rally. It was a discussion of political tactics to influence legislative and social change in New Zealand. That's reported as if maybe there's somehow something wrong with that. That's quite normal. And in fact it is very, very common to find progressive and even very far left activists regularly gathering together to have these kinds of discussions. I think it's a good thing. It's a healthy thing in society. If you care about a society, you should propose good ideas and you should be willing to actually have that conversation about what that should look like politically. I paid the standard $20 for my ticket, which I booked under my middle name. I introduced myself to everyone I met as Jack, a public servant frustrated about wokeness. And this is kind of interesting for me. I understand him sneaking into the event and doing the whole quote unquote undercover thing. But in actual fact, when he wanders around telling people lies about who he is, I think you've got a bit of a problem there. It's one thing to go along to an event and to be undercover, quote unquote, but it's another thing to wander around the room actually lying to people about who you are. Probably done to try and coax salacious sort of comments out of people who are attending and why I don't think that's particularly good is because, a, it's dishonest, obviously, and b, it's also something that often doesn't actually reflect the true nature of the event itself. And one thing that's quite noticeable and quite telling is that by the end of this article, he's actually only presented to his readers two or three people who are audience members at this event. So according to his accounting, which you're about to hear about in a minute, there's about 240 people present in that room last weekend. And yet, despite that fact, he has only selectively quoted and reported on two or three. That's not even 1% of the people present. So he hasn't given you an appreciation, a true appreciation, for the nature of the crowd and where they actually do come from and what they do or do not believe. It's been very, very selective in that regard. I chose not to identify myself as a journalist, partly because it wasn't exactly a friendly environment in the media, and more importantly because I wanted to get an unfiltered view. Let's be honest, though, Joel, the reason you didn't present yourself as a journalist was because you were hoping you'd get salacious quotes out of it. And you knew the moment you told people that you were a journalist, they would actually clam up. They wouldn't speak to you because there is such low trust right now in the media. So I think we should be honest about what's really going on here. What do these people want and how did they plan to get it? And if some of these speakers had spouted vitriol on public platforms, what would they possibly say behind closed doors? As I arrive at the convention center, there are large brown stains on the pavement and streaks running down the windows, evidently the cause of the rancid odour. The door is guarded by a rugby team's worth of large men wearing caps blazoned with the logo for man up, the Destiny church affiliated rehabilitation program. And I don't know why, but he has put rehabilitation program in quotes. There's. This is so typical of a lot of reporting now, and it tells you where their particular ideological alliances lie, who they like and who they dislike. If they like you, they won't put your claims in quotation marks, but if they dislike you, then they will put basic statements like this, like rehabilitation program in quote marks, implying that it might not actually be a real rehabilitation program. A bored looking security guard slouching at the back fills me in on the smell. A few minutes earlier, two protesters tried to throw bottles of foul smelling liquid at Brian Tummucky. It's not clear what the liquid is. And so after telling us that it's not clear what the liquid is, he actually then goes on to say this. Probably some kind of garden fertilizer. But you can't actually know that, Joel. And so if you're going to be a factual reporter, you just report the facts. And it's one thing to say, we don't know what the liquid is, but it's another thing to say, well, I'm going to tell you what I think it probably is. He's got no way of knowing that, so he shouldn't have actually written that down and published it, because there's just no way of verifying that claim at all. But a rumour quickly spreads through the conference that it was a mixture of the protesters own shit and piss.
[00:12:03] Again, this is the sort of high quality reporting that we're getting now. Hey, look, I'm a modern reporter. I cuss in my reporting. I just don't understand this. It's not necessary. And all it does is really highlights the fact that there's a growing cadre of people in the media who just, I think, lack the basic ability to use the english language well. And so when you're resorting to cuss words and to f bombs and everything else in your articles, it might seem like you're cool and hip. But I think, realistically, it just actually shows a very narrow and lowered creative horizon when it comes to the use of the language itself. And we've got a lot of beautiful words that can be used in our creative writing, but this is where we're at nonetheless. It's also interesting to note here that these people have targeted one of the event speakers by throwing some sort of either animal feces or human feces at the speaker. And what he doesn't tell you here is they actually missed Brian Tummuki, and instead they covered one of the security guards. And I believe a police officer or two might have also been covered. I think at least one police officer was hitting and had this stuff thrown on them as well. So it shows you a lot, I think, about the character of the two different groups and what you're contending with. One group is inside having a robust conversation about controversial issues. There's another group outside that is throwing some kind of fecal matter over people who are attending the event. The smell is strongest outside the doors, but it quickly infests the entire building throughout the lobby. The first floor. Even inside the conference room itself, it lingers all day, never seeming to dissipate as the crowd finds their seats. I chat with Caleb and he's changed his name here, a 20 year old law student at Victoria University. He tells me his high school was, quote unquote indoctrinated by trans inclusive sex education. And then a year later, everyone in the class started transitioning, quote unquote. At his university hall, the dining room was adorned with LGBTQ flags, which made him feel uncomfortable. Other students shunned and ostracized, and the words shunned and ostracized again, they're in quotes here, him for his views. He now lives with his mum, who was attending the conference with him. And I think this is one of those little moments where the mask slips a little bit. And what Joel is doing here, I think, again, lacks basic dignity, decency and humanity and concern for the subjects that he's actually reporting about. This is not an honest attempt at unbalanced reporting. He is trying to paint these people in a very negative light. So the fact that Caleb, his name has obviously been changed, has felt ostracised and shunned by his university peers is treated as nothing more than a highly questionable claim. That's, again, why you were using quote marks around those words. And the fact that he's referred to him now living with his mum, I don't think that that particular detail is relevant, but it certainly has what you might call a bit of cultural currency to it. This idea of presenting this young man as being nothing more than a mummy's boy. He hasn't used the word mother, he's used the word mum, which is an interesting choice of words, and I suspect that might be deliberate. But more importantly, he could have easily said that Caleb now lives at home and that's where the matter could have rested. Right? That's a factual claim, but it doesn't have any of those other connotations. And so there's already this condescending tone and disdain, and I think disregard quite clearly in the way he's covering this event for the people who are simply attending this event. And there's no real concern to even understand the fact that they might have their own legitimate grievances and experiences of being victimised by this particular ideology. MC and organiser Reese Williams kicks things off. We are finally winning. This is the inflection point, he says triumphantly. This is the thesis behind the event. The group believes the tide of public opinion is shifting against policies that support trans and gender fluid identities. Well, I think it's fair to say that is the case. It's quite clearly the case because we know a couple of years ago when events like this were being organised, they were being shut down, they were being targeted, they were being cancelled. Well, that's not happening anymore. And in fact, the very fact that this event could happen in a public space in the heartland of the far left, which is what Wellington Central has now become, the fact that this event could actually go ahead, even though you've got councillors and others who tried to stop it, they tried to use bureaucratic mechanisms to shut it down and they failed. That tells you that definitely something has shifted here. And it's not just that. You can look beyond that and quite clearly see that what is sometimes called the silent majority, but I think more correctly might be called the silenced majority, they are a lot more willing now to actually tell you openly what they think is flawed and wrong with this particular ideology. Among the leading evidence they offer for this is the UK government's cast review and leaked files from the World Professional association of Transgender Health, two stories that have taken conservative media by storm but have been criticised as misleading by some experts. Now, when I read that quote, I just thought, man, you cannot be serious. That is a completely misleading and dishonest way to cover those events. Let's leave the World Professional association of Transgender Health files aside for a second and what they actually revealed, because that was troubling enough in and of itself. But the UK government's cast review, if you were describing that as being misleading and you are trying to present it as nothing more than a conservative media beat up, then you are just being blatantly dishonest and you are misinforming your readers. The CAss review was an independent scholarly review into the current state of gender related policy. So the gender constructionist ideology and how it's being outworked in policy and how it's being outworked at a practical level in the UK, and the findings are astounding, it is loaded with research and the findings are quite clear. Young people are being harmed by this. This particular ideology has led to some very bad policy outcomes and there needs to be change. So if you're not willing to engage with that, then clearly I'm not sure what can really convince you of the fact that there actually needs to be a proper critical examination of this ideology and the stranglehold. It seems certainly in the minds of some people that it should have and that it does have currently on public policy setting. And that's precisely why, as I said earlier, these kinds of events are so very, very important. On the whole, the mood is confident, bordering on cocky. They're convinced they have the silent majority behind them. And again, I really think that that's true. They really do. And the right government in place to push through the legislative changes they want. That confidence isn't exactly reflected in the turnout. The room has a capacity of 315 people and looks about three quarters full. So what he's claiming here is there's about 240 people in that room. Now, I'm not sure how accurate that is. I wasn't there. I've seen other coverage that indicates that it was somewhere around 250 to 300. So he might be within the right ballpark there, or he might be downplaying it. But the point is, the next claim that he makes is just totally untrue because he says this. The protesters outside outnumber them at least threefold. At least is what he said there, threefold. So what he's claiming is that there's about 240 people in that room, and therefore outside, there are at least, what, 710 people. If I've done my maths correctly. Or is it 720? I'm not sure if I've missed the point. Let me do a quick calculation in my head. This is what they say in class now, isn't it? Make sure you show your working team.
[00:19:58] So I think. Yeah. So 246.
[00:20:03] Yeah.
[00:20:04] This is terrible, isn't it? Yeah, it is. 720. So there's at least 720. You can take this to the bank. Maths was not my strong suit in high school, but, yeah, there was at least 720 people outside. That's what he's claiming. Well, there's some problems with that particular claim. Number one is the fact that even Radio New Zealand, who would lean to the left, even, they put the figure at around 500 protesters. So that is not even close to the 720 mark that he is claiming. And remember, he's claiming. That's the minimum. He's saying there is at least threefold that number outside. Well, that is clearly not true. But more importantly, I've actually seen video footage and photos of the event, the counter protest event. So I've seen photos that were taken, and they were actually posted in the Radio New Zealand article. You can go and read the article for yourself and look at those photos. And not once does any one of those. I think there's three photos. There might even be four in that particular article. And not once does any of those photos indicate that there's anything more than a couple of hundred people outside. So they probably had about equal numbers. It looks like there was somewhere in the vicinity of 150, maybe 200 people at the protest. But I've also seen another photo that was taken, an aerial shot that someone took from inside the venue of the protest group at their peak. And there's definitely not 700 people there. There's definitely not 500 people there. It's probably a couple of hundred people, but maybe not even that. It's hard to tell, actually, because there's an object obscuring the group. And so it's hard to get a grasp, a full grasp, on the exact size of the group. But if I had to guess, I'd say that it's somewhere around 150 people, maybe climbing up to 200, but it's definitely not 720 plus people. That is just blatantly untrue. So I'd love to know exactly how he did the working on that one. The audience is a motley coalition of different groups. There's the Destiny Church, faithful, white rural conservatives, some highly passionate, trans exclusionary, radical feminist terfs. And we know that feminists who actually oppose gender constructionist ideology don't like being called terfs. It is actually considered a derogatory statement to make about them. So the fact that he's using it, he probably knows that's the case. It does give a lot away about where his allegiances lie, though. A hodgepodge of conspiracy theorists and a couple of young men like Caleb, who would best be described as alt right. What we've got here is a dishonestly misleading claim about who attended this event. I know some of the people who attended this event and they don't fit into these particular categories. So he's really done a number here. This is, as I said, it's agitprop. This is propagandizing. This is ideological propaganda in defence of the cause, but it's not an honest reflection of what actually happened there. And please, can I state what I stated earlier? Don't do this. It doesn't matter where you side on this issue, doesn't matter where you fall on this issue, don't do this. Engage with people, have dialogue, but most of all, treat them first and foremost as persons with human dignity that should be respected. Don't treat them as props for you to denigrate in a political game. This is inhumane. It is not virtuous. It is not a good thing. Some attendees are intensely religious. Others have taken a more academic approach, reading deeply into fringe reports.
[00:23:30] Oh, man. What do you say about this? So the two assumptions here. First of all, he's created a false dichotomy. So you're either religious or you're academic. Those two things are not opposed, they are not opposites. Religious people are also quite commonly academic people, so there is no polar opposite there. But you see what he's doing. And just when you think maybe he's passing off a comment to some of the attendees that is more complimentary or more favourable to them by describing them as having taken a more academic approach, he then follows it up quickly by saying that they're actually reading deeply into fringe reports. So, in other words, you can discount these people and what they've got to say. This is nothing more than a group of nutjobs and extremists. According to Joel McManus, this isn't balanced reporting. It isn't humane. There's nothing virtuous about this. There's no dialogue here. There's not even an attempt to try and understand or be honest here. Some are homophobic, some are gay. Again, those two things are not opposites. A homophobic person is not someone who's not gay. So that's the dichotomy he set up. You're either gay or you're homophobic. I don't know how he even got this past an editorial. Surely even a far left editor should have said to him, hey, Joel, those two things you've set up as a dichotomy, they're not actually opposites. So it's not you're either gay or you're homophobic. It's you're either gay or you're heterosexual. So you're either homosexual or heterosexual. You're either homophobic or not homophobic. That's the dichotomy. It's so weird the way this is written. Williams is well aware of how divided the crowd is. Over the course of the day, he and other speakers repeatedly remind them to focus on the one thing that unites them, opposition to gender ideology, as they put it, in brackets. Bob McCoskery, the director of socially conservative lobby group Family first, is among the first speakers. Gay marriage was the start of all this because it removed the gender requirements from the law, he says, according to his theory. And it's not his theory, by the way. There are other scholars overseas who have already posited this theory. So it's actually a theory that has a bit more broader support and has, I think, a growing support around it. Well, I'm not sure what particular merits there are in this particular thesis, but I do think that there is definitely something in what is being highlighted here? The way in which marriage and particular gender, and the differences, the complementary differences of male femaleness in marriage and the way that that was eroded in legislation and what that did in society. I think that's a very fascinating thesis that is absolutely worthy of being unpacked. According to his theory, the legislation of gay marriage started a slippery slope effect. He supports this with a handful of news clips. Schools allowing uniforms that aren't gender defined. A trans girl attending an all girls school. So that's a boy who believes that he's a girl attending an all girls school, and school libraries carrying the John Boyne novel. My brother's name is Jessica. The audience eats this up with gasps, boos and laughs at every revelation. For his main act, he mockingly reads song lyrics by totally nuts and that's spelt k u n t s. A small time California based children's musician who performs as a quote unquote non binary wizard. Totally nuts has fewer than 100 monthly streams on Spotify and has nothing to do with New Zealand school curriculums. But McCaskery doesn't feel the need to mention that. I'm not sure why that's relevant, because clearly what Bob is trying to do here, by using this as an example, is he's highlighting the nature of the people who are at the forefront of this particular ideology. So it's not a question of how many followers they've got at this present moment, but in actual fact, it's about what they represent and what this says about the actual ideology that is giving rise to these particular ideas that these people are proposing. That's the important point. And he seems to have missed that. As far as the crowd is concerned, this is a level of humour previously unknown to science. Two women at the table next to me are literally doubled over in their chairs, gasping with laughter. McCoskery basks in the adulation. I live with a wife and two daughters. This is the only time I get to speak uninterrupted, he quips, earning another eruption of laughs. And it's kind of weird, because what he's doing here is he's adopted this mocking stance towards these ordinary people just doing something very ordinary. Do him and his friends not actually get together and sit around and just laugh at stuff that other people might go, oh, that's not that funny. It's kind of weird, eh? It just, again, that condescending, inhumane approach to these people. There's no real attempt to dialogue or to understand. Remember, he started by claiming he wanted this unfiltered view. He wanted to understand more. That was the claim that he's really making there. He wants to sort of get his head around this, but quite clearly that's not the case here. The way he has reported this shows that he doesn't really have much regard for these people and for just the ordinary, everyday business of being a human with another group of human beings and just engaging in community in a way that's actually quite good and wholesome. In this case, family first has been paying courier to carry out polls on issues including gender neutral toilets, sex education in schools and puberty blockers. McCuskery says they show the public has moved towards a more socially conservative position on trans issues based on a comparison of results from 2018 and 2024. The poll questions are worded differently each year, which makes the comparison somewhat less reliable. Well, no, not really, because the questions that are being asked can still give you a sense of where people are at, even if they are not worded exactly the same. It doesn't have to be the same wording each time at all, in fact. And you can still get a good grasp of where society is moving. And quite clearly, you don't even need to trust these particular polls. You can look at society in general, you can move about the world, get outside the central Wellington bubble, if you like, and engage with people across the spectrum, and you will actually discover that there is a growing and a more vocal concern about the gender constructionist ideology in wider society. He is disciplined in his political strategy and is careful to avoid language that could appear bigoted, exempting his gay marriage remark. Well, again, it's not bigoted actually to speak about gay marriage legislation. Again, this is one of the failures of progressive liberalism. They don't actually understand the distinction between persons and philosophies. And the reason for this is because they have created a whole worldview where your very identity is crafted by ideology, and every individual crafts their own identity based on this ideology. And so what that means is for them, it's hard to separate the person from the ideology. The ideology is the person according to their ideology. And so they really struggle to understand how you can have a conversation and disagree about the policy, the legislation of gay marriage, but not actually have any disdain for people who might enter into one of those legal arrangements. It's. Yeah, basically it's a maturity of thought, I think, that we need to rediscover in society. We used to be able to do this, but we certainly are struggling a lot now, it seems. And by the way, what he's done here, you notice, is Bob has quite clearly been very conciliatory in his approach. And what Joel is doing here is he's trying to paint this as some sort of cunning and manipulative strategy. So he's not being honest. He's being disciplined in his political strategy and is careful to avoid language that could appear bigoted. But hey, we all know underneath that if you scratch a little bit, you find a bigot. That's the implication in the way he's crafted that sentence. We're not against people, we're against ideology, Bob reminds the crowd. And that's a great point. That's exactly the truth of it. That message is undermined. I don't think it is, but that's what Joel obviously thinks. Just a few minutes later by Kelly J. Keen Mitchell, also known as Posey Parker. In her video address, she rails against trans women. So these are men who believe that they are women. These men are fetishists, perverts, manipulators. They are horrible people. They are dangerous, predatory men. And describes protesters from her let woman speak event in Auckland last year as vile trans rights activists who want to put their penises into women's only spaces. What's interesting here is all of a sudden, again, you see the complete hypocrisy of the progressive liberal. So they regularly talk about how we must consider people's lived experiences. But all of a sudden, when Kelly J. Keene Mitchell tries to share her lived experience, that is considered verboten. Why? Because it challenges the ideology. So they don't actually want lived experiences. They only want some lived experiences, the lived experiences which conform to and which reinforce their particular ideological worldview. Back at the podium, Williams says he invited every political party to attend the event and only one mp showed up, New Zealand firsts Tania Junkovic. She is an emerging star of this crowd for her recently introduced bill that would ban people from using public bathrooms that don't match their designated sexual for a politician to come to these contentious, hateful types of events, it really takes some courage, William says sarcastically. And that is a growing problem, right? The political classes are not actually engaging across the spectrum, and what that means is they are actually becoming more and more out of touch. And one thing that I think the left has done very well is that it's tried to stay connected to its particular base, whereas the conservative side of politics in New Zealand has largely abandoned its base. And it doesn't really understand, I don't think fully, the crisis, culturally speaking, that it's actually embroiled in, and I don't know how you can lead effectively unless you really do seek to understand and engage in a much broader way. Junkovic wasn't originally on the speaker's list, but takes the stage with some notes scribbled on the back of a boarding pass. My journey into politics was very quick, she says. I saw the country going in a different direction that I found really distressing, and I said to God, if you want me in politics, you will show me and you will open the doors and the doors flung open for me. Now that I am here every day, I say, now you show me why today. Hearing these stories is why. I truly believe we will be taken care of on this path. I have no doubt in my mind about that. As a weight loss coach and the author of a book titled F the food the lady's guide to letting Go, Junkovic says she relates to trans kids because she had problems with her weight and body dysmorphia. I too was like those little girls who didn't want to have boobs or show their arms. Now I see why God put me through that journey, because I'm standing here today to do what I believe has to be done. And Joel might not appreciate that comparison, but in actual fact it's a very apt one because in both cases what you've got is a body dysmorphia, a person who is confused about their body, who believes that they are in the wrong body and is trying to work against their own body. It's a serious mental health crisis. It's a state of psychological confusion and it needs our caring help. Before breaking for afternoon tea, Williams spends a few minutes berating Wellington City Council and Tarkina. His chief concern is that Zephyr cafe in the lobby is closed. This is horrible treatment and an absolute disgrace, he says. A council spokesperson says the cafe operator decided not to open on Sunday and the council was comfortable with the decision. And we know that they did that out of protest of this event. Now what's interesting is that, again, this is the hypocrisy of the progressive liberalism on display, again, because they will rail against in the strongest terms anyone who says, look, I would prefer not to give of my services or my venue for a gay marriage. They would claim that that is bigotry. They would claim that that's intolerance. They would claim that that's socially destructive and immoral, et cetera, et cetera. But when they want to, it's ok for them to do the exact same thing to people they deem to be political opponents again. None of this is helping dialogue. None of this is helping to build our society. The doors open and everyone spills outside. It still stinks. In the 2 hours since the conference began, most of the protesters have dissipated. One is still standing, silently waving a trans flag. I follow the crowd to the McDonald's next door. On the way back I meet Martin, a middle aged man from Whanganui wearing a pair of glasses and a sensible shirt. He's heard most of the speeches before, but makes a point of travelling around the country to these events to show his support. We stand together in the foyer. It smells like a blocked up toilet that has been left to fester for two weeks. And the reason why, of course, for those who might have forgotten, is because the counter protest is on the other side of this issue through fecal matter at that venue. And that's why that smell is the way that it is. There's only one side throwing fecal matter in all of this and it's not the people at this event. I struggle through a sad looking McChicken. He nibbles some nuggets. It's disgusting. It's disgusting. He mutters. No, he's not talking about the smell. He's still offended about the cafe being closed. I ask what he thought of McCoskery's speech. I don't like his gay marriage stuff. He says Martin doesn't have a problem with gay marriage and doesn't think it's useful to tie it to the trans issues. That's their christian perspective, but I don't buy that. And what's interesting here is what he's actually getting here is a bit of enlightenment and hopefully his readers will as well and realize that in actual fact this is not simply, as he's presented it, a group of ragtag extremists from the religious far right. It is a broad group of people. There is a growing concern about the way in which gender constructionist ideology is impacting society. Peter, a tall, scruffy man and a pair of stubbies, joins us. He disagrees slightly with Martin's take on gay marriage. I think they are related, he says. They quickly pivot to avoid an argument. What a very humane thing to do. It's great to see people actually doing that. Remember that when we used to do stuff like that. Peter starts complaining about the Green party. He wants his wife to switch allegiances. She agrees with him on gender ideology issues but is concerned about climate change. Now that is a very revealing statement. He is talking to a man here, listen to what you've just heard. He's talking to a man here whose wife votes for the Green party but also opposes gender ideology. So Joel and all of his disdain is failing to read the room here. He's failing to understand where New Zealand is really heading on this issue. Martin snorts dismissively he's not a climate change believer. You've got to get her to watch cold truth. It proves it's all nonsense. Peter sucks his teeth, hesitant to go down this path. Well, they were a bit naughty with the facts in that one. Again, this is great. This is two people just doing what ordinary people do. They have disagreements and discussion and dialogue. It's robust, it's humane, it's not fragile, it doesn't come with trigger warnings. It's beautiful. I love it. We need more of this in our society. As we return to the conference room, the two do find some common ground, discussing their mutual distaste for Winston Peters, despite his own proclamations against trans women. So that's men who identify as women. So that's interesting, isn't it? Again, this shows where these people are on the political spectrum. They're all over the place. After the 30 minutes break, the smell hasn't aired out of the room at all. If anything, it's worse. It is tracked back and on the soles of people's shoes. It's time for the big show. Brian Tummucky Reese Williams has been hyping this moment up all day. We were told if you have Brian speak, you'll get cancelled. I said that's the point. I expect his speech to be inflammatory but magnetic, purely on a performance basis. I'm disappointed. Tummukhy doesn't seem particularly well prepared. Now, this is interesting too, because what the progressive liberals like to do is they like to present Brian Tummukhe as this sort of uber strongman, this far right religious character who is leading this dangerous movement. He's this charismatic leader who is drawing vulnerable minds to himself. But in actual fact, as you see here, he's just an ordinary bloke. And quite often he struggles to actually present well in public. It turns out that he might not be the great evil, dark one that they have often presented him to be. He starts out with a similar line to McCoskery, except in his telling it's the 2004 civil unions act that's to blame for trans rights, but keeps getting distracted. In no apparent order, he jumps from civil unions to vaccines to Helen Clark to a self aggrandising story about his rugby days, then a plug for his man up program. Some more about vaccines Jacinda Ardern and Helen Clark. Again, his sermon is centred around an extended metaphor about David and Goliath, where David represents the various anti trans groups present at the conference. Goliath, he says, is a ten foot tall trans distortion. Tamaki inaccurately describes Goliath as a palestinian before correcting himself he was actually a philistine. Perhaps sensing his speech is falling flat, Tamaki falls back on some good old fashioned shock value. Transgenderism is a serious satanic sickness, he says. Let's get rid of transgenderism, let's cut its head off. He says he means this figuratively. Well, of course he does. I don't think anybody who is honest about this, even people who might disagree with Brian Tamaki, as I often do on various issues, is seriously thinking that he is up there on the stage saying, let's actually go and decapitate people who experience gender confusion, who are confused about their bodies and their biological sex. That is clearly not what he is saying here at all. And this is, I think, where it would be important for more reporters to a get out of their bubble and b actually spend time with lots of different rhetorical styles and they would suddenly realise that, in actual fact, people often use metaphor in this way and in fact, particularly in political circles. And I suspect Joel should know this because you might remember earlier this year there was a controversy about a progressive mp who was talking about raising his guns and pointing it at his enemies, and there was a lot of media coverage of that at the time. And it seems that those on the progressive liberal side of politics understood that that was actually a metaphor and that's how they defended it. But here we are with another man using metaphors. But those metaphors are not in favour of their particular ideology. And so all of a sudden, metaphors must be treated as if they are, or maybe could be actually literal. So he's claiming it's not literal, but how do we really know that? His big idea for social change is the same idea he always has, a series of rallies in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, followed by a bigger protest at parliament. His theory is if 3.5% of the population, that's about 180,000 people, show up to the protests, it will trigger a tipping point in the wider society. Well, there's no doubt if 180,000 people turn up to any protest, it's going to actually have a big impact. There's sort of no doubt about that at all. I think this is a time where we should take extreme measures, he tells the crowd. It's going to take drastic action. You have to do something big now, something that changes the course of history in this country. A couple of minutes later he gets more direct. Like it says in ecclesiastes, first you've got to kill, then you've got to heal. Again, he insists this is figurative. And again I would say, Joel, you need to actually get outside your bubble and spend a little bit more time in the sort of rhetorical speech making space of people who are in the business of political oratory or people who present sermons regularly. And you will realise that in actual fact it is quite normal for this sort of rhetoric to be used. And again, it is purely metaphorical. The security guards from the entrance are now patrolling the back of the room. One of them sits next to me, despite plenty of other empty chairs around. He doesnt say anything but keeps glancing at my notes suspiciously. Luckily my handwriting is unintelligible. Well, thats Joel's take on the events, but I wouldnt be surprised to discover if the security guard just had sore feet and he sat down at the closest available seat where another human being was and he maybe looked over curious at what he was up to here. But Joel felt the need to embellish the whole scene with a bit more menace. It's hard to know whether that was even the case. Former New Zealand Herald columnist Rachel Stewart uses her speech to relitigate the time she got cancelled. She reads word for word a tweet she posted about a trans rights supporter and this is the tweet. Is it wrong that the country girl in me wants to invite my gun toting sisters over, strip the wee ephah naked, let him loose in my back paddock, jump on the tray of the ute and hunt him down with spotlights while hooping and hollering and drinking. This gets huge laughs from the crowd. I thought it was pretty funny, Rachel says, raising arms to another, even louder eruption. Now what's interesting is that he doesn't tell you there, he doesn't tell his audience, the readers, that Rachel Stewart is actually a lesbian. She's in a relationship, she's not part of this clique. So he's been very selective in how he has presented her here, I think Jan Rivers, a self described independent researcher, gives the most technical presentation critiquing the policies of various transgender health agencies and research groups. I want to give New Zealand's rainbow organisations a bit of a bash, she says. A voice from the crowd yells, they're scum like many of the speakers, she complains she has been silenced. There's an accompanying strategy of suppressing voices that are seen as transphobic or anti trans, expressing an informed view as being identified as a hostile act. In a way, I believe this is a knowing attempt to shut down a range of points of view. Well, that's clearly what is going on. I think anyone with half an ounce of common sense knows that that is exactly what is going on. Rivers has lodged a number of media council and BSA complaints against a variety of outlets, including the spin off regarding opinion articles in support of trans people and trans inclusive language and news items that acknowledge trans people's right to healthcare. So he's using euphemisms and political speak there. So in other words, using the political language of the gender constructionist ideology is what he's actually referring to there. And when he says trans people's right to healthcare, of course he's almost certainly referring to amputation surgeries where healthy bodies have parts amputated like genitals or breasts, et cetera, to conform to this particular gender constructionist ideology. And often that can also include young children. Former National MP Simon O'Connor calls the idea that trans people exist and have a right to exist an infection and cultural Marxism. Now I would love to know more about this because I am pretty confident that he has blatantly and very dishonestly misreported Simon here. And I say that because he's only quoted the words or the phrases an infection and cultural Marxism. He hasn't given us the full context. I'm willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that if he gave us the full quote, we'd all look at that and realise that he is actually misrepresenting Simon O'Connor here, because I know already in my mind what Simon would have been saying. He's not saying. And again, this is because the progressive liberals struggle to disconnect the person from the ideology. They are one in the same in their mind. They really struggle with that and it's not a healthy thing. And so when they hear someone challenging the ideology and calling the ideology an infection, they just wrongly assume that you are referring to the person in that way because they don't have that capability of thought that's absolutely essential for good dialogue and for a healthy, flourishing human intellect to be able to separate people from their ideas. It's a cultural revolution that revolts against all we hold dear and all we know. And the revolution ends in violence, he says. Well, that's generally how most revolutions tend to end throughout history. And if you're a student of history, you'll know that another speaker, Dailandi says Mori culture never had a concept of gender fluidity until Mori elites sold us out for rainbow blankets and 30 pieces of silver. She claims Tepati Mori support for trans rights issues is creating a genocide by severing the gene pool. It's interesting, isn't it, how he has presented this in a negative light, but I'm quite sure that he'd be okay with people very liberally using the word genocide in other contexts where he is supportive of their politics. And again, it's also interesting to note how the Mori voice here is not being given the proper respect that it really should be given. I think he's sort of treating this as if somehow she's not actually part or her lived experience and her experience of the Mori ethos and the moricultural approach to all of this, as if somehow it should just be ignored because it's not saying the things that he actually agrees with. Eventually, someone with some lived experience of gender struggle gets up to speak. Mel Jeffreys begins by ripping off her shirt, revealing she had her breasts removed. This is stunning and brave, yells Landy Australian Jeffreys is a D transitioner. Born female, she lived as a man named Mason from age 18. At age 26, she had a double mastectomy, which she later regretted. In hindsight, she says she was experiencing body dysmorphia, which was misdiagnosed as gender dysphoria. Her story was the subject of a seven news spotlight documentary and has been well covered in australian media. She sobs as she speaks. I will never be normal. My pursuit to be normal has driven me further to the outskirts of abnormality. She still has the surgery scars, but says my emotional scars remain the deepest. It is a genuinely heart wrenching moment from someone who has been through more turmoil than likely anyone in the room, and she is clearly still experiencing it. And just when you think that Joel is about to be fair and not go the next step and sort of go back into the ideological adjut prop, he adds this sentence to finish. I can't help but wonder if speaking to rooms full of angry conspiracy theorists is helping. He just can't help himself. He just can't help himself. Here is the very evidence of the destructive and diabolical nature of this ideology and the harm that it is doing to people. Here is a young woman who has been harmed in a very serious way by this ideology, and he can't help but condescend her story. He can't just respect it. He can't even follow where this would obviously lead. If you are a rational person seeking truth, he has to denigrate, he has to disdain, he has to go back into the political agitprop. He's not being humane here. He's not dealing with her as a person. When she finishes speaking, Brian Tummucky and Bob McCoskry both jump up on stage with a hand on each of her shoulders. They say a public prayer. A few people join in, standing with arms raised, the man up. Security guards congregate in the centre of the room and perform a haka. And if you know anything about New Zealand culture, for those of you who are my overseas listeners who might not, to do that, to perform a haka for someone is a great show of respect in Mori culture. So that's an interesting little moment of honesty here where he's actually shown you the true character of these people. Outside are a group of people who throw fecal matter at people that's one side. And on the other side are a group of people who will pray for a victim of this ideology and then will perform a haka to show respect for her and the bravery that she has shown in speaking in this room. I get up to snap a picture on my phone. When I turn around, two of the events security guards are blocking my path back to my seat. Are you a reporter? Why are you taking so many notes? I insist, I'm just learning a lot. Once the event finally ends, I grab my bag and beat a hasty exit. Another security guard looks me up and down. Watch out is all he says. He's probably actually warning you, Joel, about what might be outside because the other side again have thrown fecal matter at people and they might be thinking, we need to let people know. Just be aware of, you know, once you leave this building, you're on your own again. After 5 hours inside a dark room listening to intense, fearful and hateful speakers. Now think about what he's saying there, and think about the fact that he has just a paragraph or two before that described to you the harrowing testimony that was shared by one of those speakers of how this ideology resulted in the scarification and this irreversible amputation of a healthy, functioning body part from her body. And he is now describing her as intense, fearful and hateful. As one of those intense, fearful and hateful speakers. This is inhumane. It completely lacks virtue. Like I said earlier, it's ideological ajit prop and it's agitprop of the worst kind. He has crafted this article in such a way as to dehumanize and demonize those he disagrees with. After 5 hours inside a dark room, listening to intense, fearful and hateful speakers, my eyes and brain need a moment to adjust to the outside world. As I walk away, the smell fades into the distance. Do you see what he's doing here? This is yet more of the unvirtuous and inhumane conduct on his part. What he's doing, and he's done it all through this article, is he has contrasted these people. He's used the metaphor of fecal matter to describe and contrast this event with. It's about the smell that never goes away as long as he's at the event. So you see what he's doing there. He's contrasting this to the smell of fecal matter. In other words, what these people are espousing is fecal matter. He's making this metaphorical comparison. And then when he leaves, he goes back into the outside world where it's all real and alive and there's sunshine. It's not fearful and hateful, and it's certainly not darkness. And I need a moment. My eyes and my brain need to adjust because I'm out of the clutches of this cult like evil darkness. So you see what he's doing here. There's no real humanity, there's no real balance here. As I said, he's just demonising the people that he dislikes. The protesters have moved on in their place as a procession of Wellington Phoenix fans making their way to Sky Stadium. And they're about to have their hearts broken by the way they're waving yellow flags and singing songs. They seem happy. So there you go, folks. On one side of this issue, you've got people who are willing to throw fecal matter at other human beings, and other people who are willing to compare and contrast human beings who disagree with them to fecal matter, all the way through the articles that they write about these kinds of issues. And then on the other side, you've got this diverse and pretty brave coalition of people at the grassroots level who are willing to take a stand and to say, hey, hold on, we need to have a public conversation because this ideology is actually doing a lot of harm to people, particularly our young people. And we actually need to have this conversation. Now, in response to this, there were a couple of tweets that I think are noteworthy. First of all, Mel Jeffries, you remember she was mentioned in this article. She's the young lady who had the double mastectomy, and then got up and shared her story rather courageously on stage. And she responded to Joel, actually, with a tweet. And she said this in response to his article, I like how you avoided the most crucial message from my speech. I will live with the impact of gender ideology for the rest of my life, which is why I showed off my mastectomy and spoke at the conference, because I believe sunlight is the best disinfectant. These are bad ideas. So that's a pretty charitable response on her part, I think. And it's very fair. And I noticed that Mal Jeffrey's story, he doesn't lead with that in journalism. This is what you might call burying the lead, where you actually bury the most important details right down at the bottom of the page. And that's, I think, exactly what he's done here. Now, I know he's told a story chronologically, but he's also missed speakers out here. And the reason I came to realise this was because another person responded to this article with a tweet that says this. Joel also fails to mention that investigative journalist Jennifer Billick also spoke. She has worked tirelessly to uncover the medical industrial transhumanism aspect of this story by following the money, actual journalism.
[00:55:50] And so I thought to myself, I wonder what other speakers were actually present that he didn't mention. So he's kind of misled his audience here by presenting this as if these were the only speakers. But in actual fact, I went to the website to see and I realized there's actually several speakers here that are missing. So, first of all, there's Mia Hughes. She was the author of the Wpath files. Let me read to you her bio. In March 2024, leaked files out of the World Professional association of Transgender Health. The WPATH reveals widespread medical malpractice on children and vulnerable adults at the Global Transgender Healthcare Authority. The leaked files, which consisted of emails, videos and a variety of other documentation, demonstrated a lack of consideration by WPATH for long term patient outcomes, despite being aware of the debilitating and potentially fatal side effects of cross sex hormones and other treatments. And so she was one of the speakers. He didn't mention her at all. He didn't mention Ro Edge, who's from Save Women's sport Australasia. Let's have a listen to the bio about her. Save Women's Sport Australasia is part of an international coalition of women's organisations, athletes and supporters of women in sport, advocating for the preservation of the female sports category. Save Women's Sport Australasia was established in response to flawed transgender guidelines issued by the International Olympic Committee, which has resulted in more and more females being displaced from their teams, representative selections and podium positions by males who identify as transgender. He didn't cover her part of the contribution to the conference at all. He didn't mention, as you've heard, Jennifer Bullock. Jennifer Billick is an investigative journalist, writer and artist. Her work has been featured in several publications, including Tablet magazine, First Things and the Post millennial. So what's interesting is she is actually someone whose writings are of such a standard, like, I'm a subscriber to first things. That is a journal, an old school journal that actually still comes in the mail. It's a paper journal magazine that you get once a month. And the calibre of writing in first things is of the highest order. So the fact that she's being published in these places says a lot about her credentials. He didn't mention her at all in the investigative journalist work that she has done. The bio talks about this work in this way, Jennifer has delved into the world of gender identity and has written extensively on the topic. Her research has led her to uncover the financial backing of the transgender movement by billionaires and the role of biotech and transhumanists in shaping the narrative. That would have been something, I think that would have been very interesting to hear more about. Now, we heard him talking about Jan Rivers, but what he didn't actually mention, he's called her a self styled researcher, but what he didn't mention was that she was actually a public servant in Wellington for 20 years. He also failed to mention that Jan Rivers is actually a lesbian who describes herself as a member of the Rainbow community.
[00:58:41] That's quite a telling detail. A very important fact that he chose to leave out, like he did with Rachel Stewart, another lesbian. He didn't mention that fact at all. And I think the reason why, we probably all know the reason why was because the story here is not actually proper journalism. It's agitprop. It's propagandising. You don't include details that challenge the ideological narrative, you just hide those from the public view. He's also failed to mention that Catherine Chewer spoke. She's an Auckland homemaker and mother of five who has actively worked to inform parents at her local school and in the community about gender ideology in the new relationship and sexuality education guidelines. Catherine has been a voice for parents and women through blogs and various media. Didn't mention her involvement and he mentioned Die Landi. But the bio in the program actually talks about the Landi sisters and it says this Manawhini Krero is a national and international ropu of Wahini, Mori and Whananga, formed in opposition to the appropriation of Mori culture by critical social justice ideologues. MWK is the only indigenous gender critical organization in Australasia and is dedicated to the safety of women, children and Mori culture, language and history. So there's kind of important details here that have been left out in the article that he has written here. And like I said, this is not a good thing. And if I could encourage you of one thing today, aside from sharing this podcast with others so they might actually get better informed about what they might have been misinformed about, I would encourage you to actually not imitate this kind of behavior. What we actually need more of in our society is dialogue, and dialogue can only happen if we actually go where people are and we begin by respecting them as persons, listening to them and engaging with a genuine friendship, a genuine desire to hear what they have to say, and to actually speak truthfully and honestly. Honestly, even through disagreements and even through strong disagreements. Quite clearly, this idea is anathema to a lot of progressive liberals. They really struggle with this. As I said, they struggle to disconnect the person from the ideology. It is an ideological flaw that they have, and it's not a good one. And I would encourage people who might be listening, who are on the progressive liberal side of this is to actually push back against this. The mere fact that you are listening here to this podcast episode probably indicates that you're someone who is a bit more willing to have that rational, truth seeking discourse with others. And I would say it's important that you challenge those around you who might share your ideological sympathies to actually do the same thing. It is really, really important for our society and for us as individuals that we can have humane dialogue and that we are willing to treat every person as friend and to respect their human dignity. Thanks for tuning in. Don't forget, live by goodness, truth and beauty, not by lies. And I'll see you next time on the Dispatchers.
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