Stand Up for Trans Kids

Organised by Queer Endurance in Defiance (QED), the event responds directly to the New Zealand Government’s planned ban on puberty blockers (GnRH analogues) for transgender young people. Over the course of nearly an hour, speakers, poets, organisers and trans youth themselves speak out about bodily autonomy, mental health, gender-affirming healthcare and the deadly consequences of state-sanctioned transphobia.

MC Indigo Shaw and organiser Will Hansen welcome the crowd on a sunny Sunday and quickly ground the gathering as both protest and community space. They outline safety information, point out first aid and water, and invite especially trans youth to take the open mic. From the outset, the chant “When trans rights are under attack, stand up, fight back” sets the rhythm for the afternoon, as Te Aro Park becomes a focal point for resistance to the puberty blockers ban and wider attacks on trans rights in Aotearoa.

Will Hansen introduces the rally as a response to a government determined to restrict trans healthcare. This theme is taken up by speaker after speaker, many of them young trans people who have tried to access puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy (HRT), or who have already been through the process and know how life-saving it can be. They emphasise that puberty blockers are safe, reversible medication which give trans rangatahi time to breathe, think and decide what’s right for them, instead of being forced through a puberty that feels unbearable.

Several speakers highlight the mental health crisis already facing tamariki and rangatahi in Aotearoa, citing UNICEF data that places this country last in youth mental wellbeing among OECD nations. They link the ban on puberty blockers to increased suicide risk for trans young people, stressing that the policy is not about safety but about politics, control and transphobia. Trans teens describe suffocating dysphoria, years on waiting lists, strict psychological assessments, and being pushed into DIY HRT because formal systems have failed them. Others talk about forging parents’ signatures out of desperation, or waiting so long that the worst effects of an unwanted puberty have already taken hold.

A strong thread through the event is bodily autonomy. Speakers compare the ban on puberty blockers for trans youth with the continued availability of the same medication for cis children with precocious puberty, exposing the policy as targeted discrimination. Some point to how easily cis people can access other hormonal medications such as contraceptive implants, while trans people face years of gatekeeping. One speaker sums it up bluntly: it was never about protecting kids, it was always about controlling them.

Intergenerational perspectives deepen the protest’s message. An older non-binary speaker connects today’s fight over puberty blockers to earlier battles over the contraceptive pill in the 1960s and 1970s, showing how conservative Christian politics have long tried to restrict people’s control over their own bodies. They argue that the same unscientific scare tactics once used against the pill are now being recycled against trans healthcare, and that history shows these arguments do not stand up to evidence.

International voices remind the crowd that this is part of a global wave of anti-trans legislation. Speakers who have fled the UK and the US for safety describe returning culture wars, discredited reports such as the Cass Review being imported into New Zealand debates, and escalating violence overseas—including acid attacks and street assaults. A number of asylum seekers and migrants explain how they hoped Aotearoa would be safer, and how betrayed they feel seeing similar policies emerge here.

Poetry and art are woven throughout the rally. One speaker reads two poems about transition, euphoria and rage at systems that quietly sacrifice marginalised people. Others read work written for Transgender Day of Remembrance, reframing religious imagery through a trans lens and challenging churches and governments alike to confront the real consequences of their rhetoric. Another speaker talks about rage-painting swords and protest signs, channelling anger into creative resistance. The rally also includes the protest song “Boring transphobes”, directly calling out trans-exclusionary rhetoric and those aligned with far-right movements.

There is a consistent call for solidarity and collective organising. Speakers urge health workers and unions to refuse to implement harmful guidelines, pointing out that nurses and other healthcare workers are already striking for a functioning health system. They frame workers’ power and union solidarity as crucial tools for defending gender-affirming healthcare. Others connect the puberty blockers ban to wider government attacks on Māori, beneficiaries, workers and children, insisting that there can be no trans liberation without ending colonialism, neoliberalism and breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Māori voices foreground the Crown’s responsibilities under Te Tiriti and warn that more Māori blood will be on the government’s hands if it continues to undermine the safety and mana of takatāpui and trans rangatahi. Speakers stress that under Te Tiriti the government has an obligation to care for all its people, and that this ban is yet another betrayal.

In closing, Will Hansen returns to the microphone to thank the crowd—not as a courtesy, but as recognition that everyone present is part of a growing movement that refuses to be silenced. They link the puberty blockers ban to broader systems of inequality and call on attendees to stay organised.

This summary is created using Generative AI. Although it is based on the recording's transcription, it may contain errors or omissions. Click here to learn more about how this summary was created.

Indigo Shaw Will Hansen

2020s, christopher luxon, david seymour, gender affirming healthcare, gender dysphoria, health care, hormone blockers, hormone replacement therapy (hrt), hormone treatment, indigo shaw, kay jones, poetry, puberty, puberty blockers, singing, te aro park, teenage, tiriti o waitangi / treaty of waitangi, trans, trans man, transgender, ultraviolet club (wellington high school), will hansen, winston peters, youth

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