ABOUT
SUFW
MISSION & HISTORY.
Our Mission is to advocate for the sex based rights of women and girls.
Speak Up for Women is a women’s rights group with a primary focus of bringing attention to the eroding of women’s and girls' rights and language.
Sex has mattered since the beginning of time and it still matters.
Speak Up for Women, formed in 2018 is a diverse group of ordinary women who initially came together to campaign against the sex self-ID amendment being pushed through as part of the BDMRR Bill.
We found each other on social media, at political party events, through our work, and through friends.
We began with a shared concern about the impact of gender identity politics (including sex self-ID) on the rights of women and girls. We quickly realised that there was no one advocating for women across the board.
Previously dedicated women's groups now focus heavily on gender identity and what is left is a void of services and advocates for women.
We are dismayed by the way in which women’s voices, both here and overseas, have been silenced by slurs, smears and targeted harassment campaigns.
Where there is a conflict between claims we believe it is critical that there is a need for respectful open discussion outside of social media.
The legislation we formed to fight was passed in 2021, and our hard work resulted in the inclusion of section 79(2) in the BDMRR Act 2021. This article allows for the existence of women only services and sex segregated spaces on the bases of biological sex, not gender identity.
Our original leadership team stepped to the side in July 2022 and a new team of like-minded women are taking the reins.
Our Vision is for women and girls to maintain sex-based services, spaces and opportunities in New Zealand.
Our primary focus is that "Sex Matters". It mattered to the thousands of people who wrote submissions on the BDMRR and it matters to us. We intend to keep the government in check with regards to the impacts of the BDMRR legislation and are already looking at the process that DIA are using to form the regulations of the Bill.
We will be focussing on the legislation in practise, how section 79(2) is relevant and how it can be applied in real world situations.
We want to work with women providing advice and support to ensure that services and spaces that are allowed to discriminate on the basis of sex are aware of their rights. Too many women and too many services are being bullied into accepting males on the erroneous basis that it is illegal to discriminate.
We are associated with groups who are fighting for sex based rights in sports and other groups who are fighting against gender ideology being taught as fact in schools.
Our PRINCIPLES are core to our advocacy work.
There are lots of times when sex doesn't matter, we encourage freedom of gender expression and want our children to grow up without narrow definitions of what it means to be a woman or a man. But sometimes sex really does matter and this is where we are focussed.
Our group includes teachers, academics, health professionals, care workers, activists, lawyers, retirees, students, mums, aunties, sisters and daughters.
We are run entirely by volunteers and receive no public funds or funds from external organisations. We are not affiliated to any political party or religious organisation.
We would love to hear from anyone interested in supporting what we do.
PRINCIPLES.
SUFW is a diverse group of women but we have a core set of principles that we follow.
These principles form the basis of how we represent our causes and who we partner with.
We believe that sex matters - and when we speak, we speak for women.
These are our principles:
. Women are adult human females; girls are human female children.
. Women and girls have the right to live free of violence, including sexual, physical and emotional.
. Women and girls have the right to organise and gather in safe, sex-segregated spaces.
. Women and girls have the right to reproductive sovereignty.
. Women and girls have the right to live free from commercial sexual exploitation.
. Women and girls have the right to economic independence, pay equity, and living wages.
. Lesbians are exclusively same-sex attracted females and have the right to assert their same-sex attraction without facing harassment.
. ‘Sex’ refers to the biological characteristics that distinguish males from females. Sex is immutable. ‘Gender’ refers to the stereotyped roles, behaviours and attributes that society at a given time considers appropriate for males and females.