The Ia Tangata report is a calm, evidence-based answer to a raging culture war. Now parliament must turn it into law, argues Paul Thistoll.
In the middle of a raging culture war, the Law Commission has done something utterly remarkable: it has delivered a calm, principled and evidence-based blueprint for human rights reform. The commission’s review of the protections of the Human Rights Act 1993 “for people who are transgender, people who are non-binary and people with innate variations of sex characteristics” was begun in 2023 at the request of then justice minister Kiritapu Allan. The final report, released last week and named Ia Tangata – “each and every person” – recommends that the Human Rights Act 1993 be amended to explicitly protect people from discrimination based on their “gender identity or its equivalents in the cultures of the person” or “having an innate variation of sex characteristics.”
In short, the final report is asking our politicians to make the implicit explicit.
Right now, protections for transgender, non-binary and intersex people are assumed to exist under the umbrella of “sex” in section 21 of the Human Rights Act. Government lawyers act consistently as if they do. The Human Rights Commission accepts complaints on this basis. But no New Zealand court has ever actually confirmed it. This leaves people dangling – uncertain of their rights – while schools, bosses and landlords are left unsure of their obligations.
It shouldn’t take a specialist lawyer and a court case to know if you’re protected from being fired or refused housing. The Law Commission’s central finding is that the law as it stands is inaccessible and unclear, and that this is simply not good enough.
The commission is careful to state that its report isn’t about settling every societal debate over medical care, prisons or sports. It is pointedly clear on this. Its report, it says, does not suggest an answer to issues like when young people should have access to puberty blockers, when transgender women should be housed in women’s prisons, or the appropriate content of relationships and sexuality education in schools.
Its job is not to resolve those policy questions, but to establish that they must be resolved in a way that is consistent with anti-discrimination norms. That is how rights-based law works. It doesn’t dictate every outcome. It sets the boundaries of fairness that our democratic choices must respect.
For a trans woman refused entry to a space where she belongs, or a non-binary teen being harassed at school, the law’s protection shouldn’t be a lottery. And for employers and service providers, ambiguity is a tax. The report details how this uncertainty plays out across 19 different exceptions in the Act that currently allow for sex-based distinctions.
Can a gym owner legally exclude a trans woman from a female-only sauna? Can a single-sex school refuse to enrol a trans boy? Right now, the answer is a lawyerly shrug. This forces organisations to either risk a human rights complaint or create their own policies in a vacuum, hoping they’ve guessed right. This legal fog fuels conflict, drives up costs, and leaves everyone guessing until a tribunal draws a line in the sand.
As the commission bluntly puts it, people should not have to rely on policy statements from Crown Law or the Human Rights commission to understand their basic rights. Rights belong in legislation, not in legal footnotes.
Law does more than regulate; it signals who belongs. For communities that have endured generations of stigma and violence, seeing your existence affirmed in black-letter law is not merely symbolic, it is restorative. The commission acknowledges this powerful expressive function of the law. This isn’t just about feelings; it’s a response to a documented history of harm. The commission’s case for reform is built on six core rationales, including the simple fact that these communities have faced long histories of violence, stigmatisation, marginalisation and discrimination, and that denying them opportunities to flourish is profoundly harmful to human dignity. It’s a message that transgender, non-binary, and intersex people are not afterthoughts, but full members of our society whose dignity is protected.
So, what happens now?
The Law Commission’s reports carry immense weight. Courts cite them. Policymakers use them. But only parliament can turn this blueprint into law. The government has 120 days to respond to the commission if it doesn’t accept the report’s recommendations.
The political path for accepting it is already paved. A member’s bill, originally introduced by former Green MP Elizabeth Kerekere and now sponsored by Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, seeks to do exactly what the commission recommends. Parliament could simply pick up this bill, align it with the commission’s detailed advice, and pass it. This wouldn’t be radical. It would simply bring New Zealand into line with every state and territory in Australia, every province in Canada, and the European Union, all of which have explicit statutory protections for gender identity.
Passing the bill will not be the end of the journey. The commission has meticulously mapped out how explicit protections would ripple across the Act. Its analysis covers the specific implications for employment, education, accommodation, the provision of goods and services, and even competitive sports. Parliament will need to work through those adjustments carefully, ensuring the law remains coherent and balanced. That is the work of legislative drafting, committee scrutiny, and public debate. But the first step is political will. Without it, the report risks sitting on a shelf, another carefully reasoned document gathering dust.
This is one of those rare moments where the path forward is unusually clear. The commission has done the hard intellectual labour. The community has made its voice heard. The only thing missing is political courage.
The choice for this parliament is stark. History won’t remember the procedural wrangling. It will remember whether our laws chose to affirm the dignity of every person, or left some to fend for themselves in the grey areas.
