Auckland Women's Centre betrays children

Nonsense about NZ's new Relationships and Sexuality Education curriculum is laughably dangerous.

Laugh until you cry

The Auckland Women’s Centre’s (AWC) opposition to the new Relationships and Sexuality (RSE) curriculum would be laughable if it was not so damaging to children.

According to the AWC, the curriculum is “racist, transphobic, and homophobic” and will put everyone at higher risk of bullying, abuse and violence. No evidence is supplied to support these extremist claims.

• How can sexuality education be racist, when for millennia all humans have procreated in the same way, no matter their skin colour?

• What is homophobic about teaching that there are diverse sexual behaviours, as the new curriculum does?

There are a range of sexual activities in which consenting adults experience and express their sexuality. These activities include different forms of physical contact and interaction for sexual pleasure, reproduction, or both. (Draft curriculum Y7-8)

It is the AWC, along with other ‘trans allies’, who are guilty of holding deeply homophobic beliefs. Believing in ‘gender identity’ means believing that boys and girls only truly belong to their sex if they fit the ‘correct’ sexist stereotypes. That belief, along with re-naming ‘same-sex’ attraction as ‘same-gender’ attraction is homophobia in a nutshell.

• As for being “transphobic”, what the AWC means is that the curriculum has been purged of gender identity ideology.

Every adult with any sense will have celebrated the removal of this detrimental belief from RSE. Teaching gender ideology disrupts children’s foundational understanding of sex and robs normal pubertal development from some. Those who succumb to the belief that they can choose their sex join a pipeline that leads to a lifetime of unnatural hormone treatments, amputated body parts, and sterility.

That the AWC thinks it is standing on the moral high ground is disturbingly myopic. There is nothing moral in promoting an ideology that endorses irreversible interventions for children in the absence of a life-threatening condition and without a reliable diagnosis or even a predictable outcome.

Weaponising ignorance

The Centre falsely states that consent, respect, healthy relationships, and boundaries are not part of the new curriculum and asks its supporters to sign a petition to demand these topics be added to the content. Those who sign the petition are doing no more than showing their ignorance because if they bothered to read the draft curriculum they would see that:

Consent is to be taught every year from Year 1. “Saying no and asking for support can help keep people safe and well.” (Draft curriculum Y1-2)

Relationships of all types are discussed, including how to recognise those that are harmful. “Coercive situations often begin subtly and may not feel harmful at first, so recognising them can be difficult. Assertive communication uses clear language and confident cues. Applying it in real life can be emotionally and socially complex.” (Draft curriculum Y9-10)

Even pornography is to be better covered, an improvement from the previous curriculum that the AWC undeservedly lauds. “Pornography often presents distorted and unrealistic portrayals of sexual activity, consent, and relationships which can negatively influence attitudes, expectations, and behaviours and contribute to unsafe or disrespectful actions.”(Draft curriculum Y9-10)

Dereliction of duty

The new 2026 curriculum is not perfect, but it is hugely better than the ideological nonsense contained in the discarded 2020 version. Teaching children that there are more than two sexes and that it is easy and even joyful to change sex was not only a lie but a travesty of adult responsibility.

What happened to an educator’s duty to ground lessons in scientific fact?

Why were teachers heedless of the psychological harm being caused by affirming children in wishful thinking and body dissociation?

Why did schools take it upon themselves to deny reality, teach children to tell lies, and collude with them to keep secrets from their parents?

According to the AWC, all these dishonourable practices are righteous and ‘progressive’ best practice. Their thinking is so distorted it would almost be funny except that gender ideology is a catastrophe for the wellbeing of children.

Don’t take their word for it

Instead of trustingly signing the AWC petition, find out for yourself that the Centre is talking nonsense.

• Read the official RSE curriculum, which is part of the Health and Physical Education curriculum.

• Read RGE’s November assessment of the 2026 curriculum.

• Read Genspect’s new chapter in “The Gender Framework” on Gender in Education. Genspect says:

“If schools decide to present gender identity theory, it is crucial to explicitly frame it as a disputed and controversial theory rather than an established fact, ensuring that only age-appropriate material is included.”

Like believing the earth is flat

RGE’s feedback to the current consultation about RSE content will include the recommendation that gender identity concepts be examined at Y10 from a critical thinking perspective - NOT as fact.

We acknowledge that the topic is complex and poorly understood, even by adults, but we cannot afford to shy away from this subject because our children are being steeped in transgender beliefs in everyday life and deserve to be exposed to perspectives that are logical.

It is as if a whole section of society has suddenly decided the earth is flat, is teaching that falsehood as fact, and isolates and ridicules those who disagree in order to preserve the lie.

The only way to overcome such a mass delusion and curb the flat earth holdouts would be to face up to the challenge by teaching the truth.

Next week, RGE will publish its full submission to the consultation. Keep an eye out for it and remember to submit yourself in support of the new curriculum, for the sake of our children. Tips will be provided in the next substack.

Consultation is open until Friday 24 April on all the draft subject curriculums, including RSE as part of Health and PE. Major changes have been proposed and the final curriculum will be compulsory from 2027, so don’t miss this opportunity to provide your input.

Speak up to protect children from an ideology that

celebrates dogma instead of science,

fosters body dissociation instead of confidence,

and favours discontent instead of acceptance.

By Fern Hickson