Local Government Elections 2025

How do you feel about the Rainbow Community in New Plymouth?
As a Healer and Buddhist Chaplain, empathy and compassion are at the heart of everything I do. I really try to listen, understand, and meet people where they are, whether they’re going through grief, uncertainty, or big life changes. I’m someone who genuinely cares about people feeling seen, heard and supported. I’d say I’m pretty liberal and progressive on most issues. I tend to lean towards fairness, inclusion, and giving people the freedom to live their lives authentically. I do my best to approach things with an open heart, curiosity, and a willingness to learn from every perspective. Ultimately, I want to create spaces, both in my work and in the community, where people feel safe, respected, and able to thrive as themselves. If given the opportunity to work with the Rainbow Community as a Councillor I will bring the same compassion and care as I do in all my work. I believe that love shouldn’t have limits or barriers – everyone deserves to love and be loved for who they are.

What do you think are the biggest issues for the Rainbow Community?
I have noticed a significant increase in the number of female-born adolescents identifying as male over the past decade in Western countries including New Zealand. Why now? Have there always been so many girls that identified as boys, but they just didn’t have the social conditions or medical interventions to enable them to express themselves? I was a real tom-boy when I was younger, I was the first girl to play rugby in Taranaki back in the 80’s, possibly in New Zealand. I wanted to be one of the boys. If I had of been given the opportunity to opt out of puberty as young woman and become a boy I may have taken it with not much thought about the long term consequences, because puberty is universally traumatic, isn’t it? Now I’m in my late 40’s, I’m a mother and I fully embrace being a woman, I’m glad I wasn’t given the opportunity to opt out of becoming a woman, no matter how traumatic becoming one was. In today’s age of hardcore porn and hyper-sexuality I imagine it’s a real shit show for teenagers, particularly for young women, who I’m guessing feel grossed out from the constant sexualisation and porn influenced expectations of their male peers. A lot of the sexual standards and values of our youth are coming from porn, and most of it is degrading and violent towards women these days. I often wonder if the sharp increase in girls choosing to be male or non-binary is linked to how sexually toxic our society is towards women? More and more cis women of all ages are reporting that they are giving up on dating, why wouldn’t more girls be opting out too, but in a more radical way. I’m assuming sensitive and more effeminate boys feel similar but different pressures on them, which may be contributing to the significant increase of late onset gender dysphoria, a relatively new phenomena. Many studies show that most children begin expressing gender incongruence around 2–4 years old, but we now have a significant increase in this generation presenting at puberty. I think we need to be asking why. Is the nearly 50% increase in autism amongst boys and the 150% increase in autism amongst girls in the past decade also part of the picture? I personally don’t have any issues with anyone wanting to be trans or non-binary or identify in any other way. I have no religious, moral or idealogical objections. For me it does become an issue when, out of compassion, we give adolescents the power to make life altering decisions that will affect their physical and reproductive wellbeing for the rest of their lives. It’s compassionate, but is it wise? In an attempt to understand everything I can about the transgender phenomena I’ve listened to a number of young detransitioners over the past few years. While they are a minority, I think their stories are one of the reasons there is growing concern about medical transition. Detransitioners are often left feeling like there weren’t given fully informed consent for their medical interventions and many are left with debilitating medical complications. 

I’m really big on informed consent and I do have concerns about medical transition for minors. I’m not sure it’s the best outcome for all transgender youth, I think we have along way to go in this medical field and I think this generation are the pioneers. For instance we haven’t being giving adolescents puberty blockers long enough to know what the long term health effects are. Research suggests that most cases of paediatric gender dysphoria resolve without intervention, yet medical professionals continue to proceed with irreversible treatments. Because I have been listening to discourse about this subject for sometime now, I realise that my input may be viewed as harmful and ignorant to some, and certainly politically incorrect. I want to assure anyone reading this that my views, which are mostly questions, come from a place of concern and compassion. I’m a big advocate for informed consent and the principle ‘Primum non nocere – First, do no harm,’ the oath that doctors take on graduating medical school. My personal feeling is that the medical transition of youth is a concern in the wider community and is one of the reasons the Rainbow Community has experienced pushback in recent years. From my own research and understanding I think some of these concerns are valid. Another contentious issue that does sit within the realms of local government is trans-inclusive public spaces such as toilets and changing rooms. There is no credible evidence to support claims or perceptions that transgender women pose a threat to women in public spaces such as restrooms or changing rooms. The data indicates that trans-inclusive policies do not increase risk to others (prisons seem to be an exception). However 1 in 3 women in New Zealand report experiencing sexual assault at some point in their lives, and I think the push back against transwomen in women only spaces seems to be informed by trauma rather than facts or reality. But that’s what trauma does to people, it creates irrational fears in peoples mind’s and rewires their nervous systems. I empathise with both transwomen and cis women, who both want to feel safe in public toilets and changing rooms. I don’t have any answers here, I do think the pushback is much more nuanced than simply transphobia or discrimination from ‘TERFS’. I’ve observed that these issues have become very polarised and any voices expressing concern often get immediately get shut down or get written off as hateful or transphobic. While I acknowledge that religious and moralistic attitudes are fuelling homophobia and transphobia, my sense is that there is also a growing number of tolerant and accepting people in the ‘middle’ who feel uneasy for reasons which I have tried to explain above. In summary I think the biggest issue facing the Rainbow Community is public perception, mainstream acceptance and tolerance, which I think has come a long way, but in recent years appears to have gone backwards. I am committed to fostering compassionate and open discourse around Rainbow Community issues, where all voices are heard and respected.