The Rainbow community is disproportionately affected by housing insecurity, poverty, and mental health issues. Whilst these issues are to the detriment of the whole of our society, we know this hurts the Rainbow community more than anyone else in Aotearoa.
Delivering real systemic solutions for these problems is the core focus of The Opportunities Party, and the purpose for our existence as an organisation.
We are also aware that there are a range of issues that affect Rainbow folk that don’t directly affect everyone else. These cannot be ignored by any society which claims to value human rights, and the dignity of all citizens.
Specific positions
Everyone gets to participate fully in society
- Legislation and practice must not discriminate on the basis of how consenting adults choose to conduct their relationships and form their families.
- There is no therapy that can change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity, nor should anyone be forced to try to do this. We would support legislation that effectively bans conversion therapy practices.
- All kids should be able to see themselves and their families in education. This is vital both for helping Rainbow kids to enjoy education and for growing a society that is safe and inclusive for everyone.
- Universal design is a valuable tool in enabling participation in society. For example, bathrooms that are designed to safely accommodate people of any gender and with different abilities and physical characteristics are great for everyone.
- Donating blood is an act of great generosity and should be open to those who can safely do so, including the gay community.
And everyone can express our gender identities without being confined to stereotypes
- Gender is about identity, which can and should be self-defined. Sex is a biological term, albeit a more complicated concept than many people appreciate.
- Many aspects of life are unnecessarily gendered. This hurts people of all genders. We are shoehorned into two distinct categories which don’t always reflect reality. This limits gender roles and really harms people who don’t conform to the binary categories.
- Government doesn’t have a role in all these areas, but where possible we should encourage policies and practices that don’t force people into two discrete boxes.
- Transgender, non-binary and intersex people have as much right to participate in sport as anyone. We think it’s going to take some work to figure out how to reconcile the binary categories of sports with the non-binary nature of gender. This is probably a great issue to work through with Citizens’ Assemblies involving people with lived experience and a range of expertise.
- Transgender, non-binary and intersex people should have easy access to gender-affirming identity documents.