NZ media regulators say it's perfectly valid to describe Posie Parker as an anti-trans rights activist who is often surrounded by Nazis
Regulators have dismissed 16 of 16 complaints about media reporting of the visit of anti-trans activist Posie Parker who is often surrounded by Nazis
When anti trans activist Posie Parker, also known as Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, who famously has Nazis turn up to some of her Let Women Speak anti-trans rallies, went to Auckland there was considerable backlash from “gender critical” activists about the way that media reported on her visit.
Crucially, there was quibbling about the accuracy of the terms used to describe her, and the media’s dogged insistence on reporting on the Nazis of it all.
Posie Parker’s visit to Auckland was the climactic end to an already pretty disastrous tour of the Southern Hemisphere, defined by small gatherings of anti-trans supporters who were routinely outnumbered by protesters who took issue at her anti trans views. In Auckland, she was doused in tomato juice and fled before the rally could really start, cancelling the rest of the proposed NZ events.
According to Newsroom in New Zealand, The Media Council and Broadcasting Standards Authority ruled out or did not uphold all published complaints made against coverage of the visit and protests over activist Posie Parker.
The complaints alleged journalists failed to adhere to standards on a variety of principles, including but not limited to “principles of accuracy, fairness and balance, comment and fact, subterfuge, corrections, discrimination and diversity, headlines and captions, conflict of interest, and columns, blogs, opinion and letters”. One accused the New Zealand Herald of whipping up hate and inciting violence.
Journalists and publications were cleared for all 16 of the 16 complaints by the media standards organisations.
It was ruled that it was not unfair to call Posie Parker "anti trans gender", and "anti-trans right activist" or a "trans-exclusionary speaker", and that media were free to use descriptors that they chose so long as they did not breach the bodies' rules.
The Media Council also crucially found it was accurate to report on Nazis supporting her at a rally in Melbourne before the Auckland visit, and to note Nazi salutes, and the Broadcasting Standards Authority ruled it did not breach standards to say neo-Nazis “supported” her at a previous rally.
Since KJK’s visit to Aus and NZ, the gender critical activist set have been desperately trying to shift the conversation away from the Nazis that turned up in Melbourne, with legal threats from KJK herself, to disgraced anti-trans politician Moira Deeming’s legal and political battle with Vic Lib leader John Pesutto, when Deeming threatened to sue Pesutto for defamation after he linked her to Nazis at the rally (which she attended and spoke at) during a move to expel her from the parliamentary Liberal team.
All this noise from anti-trans activists is designed to obscure the issue at hand - by quibbling around where the Nazis stood, who did or didn’t invite them, denying and deflecting by trying to focus on pro-trans crowd behaviour, they are trying to overshadow the (bad) optics of Nazis turning up and saluting on the steps of Victorian parliament with them.
British journalist Patrick Strudwick was recently forced to apologise and retract an iNews article, quibbling about the specific location and endorsement of the Nazis. This retraction was gloated over by disgraced billionaire JK Rowling.
Ultimately, making as much noise and confusion and quibbling around this event is the only way that anti-trans extremists are able to deflect from the damning optics of KJK’s recent Nazi-filled rallies. For the average Australian and NZ citizen, who is perhaps less engaged in the current anti-trans culture craze, the optics of seeing these extremists next to Nazis is most likely the defining point of the issue for them. They probably don’t know much about trans rights, but they sure as hell know that they don’t like Nazis, the bad guys from most films.
And the optics of this tableau illuminate a more pertinent issue - it’s not that the Nazis turned up, or did salutes - it’s that they felt emboldened to because Nazis share the same views as gender critical people on trans people.
From referring to all trans people and their supporters as pedophiles and groomers, to believing in outrageous qanon type conspiracies about organised trans elite influencing governments, it must be difficult for gender critical activists who try to present a moral basis for their transphobia to justify that same stance being shared by Nazis.
Which is why it’s so important that media is allowed to refer to these people by what they’re doing - anti trans extremism - rather than the ways they’re trying to justify their bigotry. As the recent Fuelling Hate report shows, violence and anti-trans hate has only increased since KJK’s visit.