Summer reissue: In the second episode of Alice Snedden’s Bad News, Alice goes to an event at parliament to try to talk with a group of ‘gender critical’ feminists – but things don’t go quite as planned.

First published August 13, 2020.

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You’ve probably heard the term used in relation to high-profile people like JK Rowling, but what are Terfs, or Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists, really all about? Why are they so afraid of trans people? And do they deserve a place in feminism at all?

To learn more, Alice went to Wellington to meet with the world’s first transgender MP Georgina Beyer and transgender advocate Caitlin Spice to hear their experiences of living in a society built upon rigid gender roles. From there, Alice attends an event hosted at parliament by David Seymour on behalf of “gender critical” group Speak Up For Women, hoping to ask some questions of its most prominent and outspoken members. What happens instead involves a police report, a legal battle and not a hell of a lot of free speech.

Commissioned by RNZ and made possible by the RNZ/NZ On Air Innovation Fund.