Until recently I was a member of the mainstream media in New Zealand. A proud member.

I have loved being part of the mainstream because I love being part of the conversation on issues that concern the bulk of New Zealanders. I know that I am not apart from the great unwashed. I am as ordinary, unremarkable, and mainstream as anyone in the country. If I have any skill as a journalist, it is knowing what concerns the average Jo/Joe.

And yet for the past three years, I have struggled to get stories published – not polemic, but evidence-based stories – on an issue I know concerns many of these people and that is the impact of gender ideology on women and young people.

After the visit of Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull this weekend and the debacle that ensued, I realise that the New Zealand mainstream media no longer exists. There is nothing mainstream about it.

Apart from one writer who wrote in favour of free speech, the media here universally panned Keen, repeating the slurs of her critics and the contents of a rubbish Wiki entry, which call her a an anti-trans, white supremacist, Nazi simply because of the presence of some LARPing louts doing a Sieg Heil salute at an Australian gathering of women. Their gatecrashing action was dismissed by both the Australian Jewish Association and New Zealand Jewish Council as nothing to do with Keen and publicly denounced by Keen herself. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the writers and commentators in the media were male.

So RIP New Zealand mainstream media. They have joined the ranks of the political and public service urban elite pushing a state-sponsored religion – gender ideology. Gender ideology is an unverifiable belief system. There is no such thing as gender. In my view it is a construct and has no business being taken seriously, least of all by the media, politicians, academia, and the public service (as is currently the case). Not to mention with the groups who should be protecting women, such as the National Council of Women, the Midwives Council, and Girl Guides. I know from speaking to friends in many of these groups, certainly those in the public service, that they are too scared to speak out against this ideology, fearing for their jobs.

This is how we get to the situation where nearly every politician asked about Keen before the visit distanced themselves from her views as if she was advocating the forced sterilisation of children (which, oddly, is a view you can find among those who support the medicalisation of young people in the name of transgender ideology).

New Zealand police, presumably desperate to keep their reputation as diverse and inclusive, adopted a hands-off approach while a small group of women were mobbed by a much larger angry crowd. It pains me to say it but the police have clearly been politicised by this government.

I was at the now infamous event and after the hopped-up protesters, seeing no police presence, pushed past the barricades and swarmed through the small group present, I rang 111 for the first time in my life. I was assured by the unconcerned police responder that they were present and monitoring the situation.

I could not see a single officer from where I was standing. Had there been a significant police presence between Let Women Speak attendees and the protesters, the mobbing would never have occurred. Seeing no opposition they took their chance, bearing with them placards that said things like, Suck My D**k and Get Off Our Land C**ts. This, despite the fact that Keen was co-hosted in New Zealand by Mana Wāhine Kōrero – Māori women who object to gender ideology, especially the notion that this ideology was historically embraced by their culture.

Reporting on this debacle, one in the media had the gall to report the event as a ‘soundscape of resistance thick with joy’ while Green MP Chloe Swarbrick said on Twitter that thousands of New Zealanders knew what they experienced yesterday and ‘overwhelmingly that was love and affirmation’.

Women at the event were scared. An older woman was punched in the face by an activist while a pregnant marshal feared for her safety and unborn child as the protesters surrounded the rotunda where she was stationed. She had to be helped out of the melee by a male photographer.

When I got home, I emailed police-media, plying them with questions about the lack of police at the event and got a response that was so generic and inaccurate I was tempted to ask if they have ChatGPT doing their communications…

It’s not just gender ideology that is not examined fairly in the media, there are other issues New Zealanders know are being suppressed, such as differing viewpoints and information on the curriculum refresh, the teaching of science in schools and universities, co-governance, Three Waters and anything to do with Māori politics. The fear is that such stories will fuel racism just as an examination of gender ideology and trans activism is believed to fuel transphobia. Perversely, the suppression of debate on issues like this is dividing the nation like never before.

The only outlet in New Zealand that has allowed women like myself to have a voice about this issue has been The Platform hosted by veteran journalist Sean Plunket. The Platform is a new digital online media site tackling issues mainstream media choose not to touch. At the moment this site is the only outlet allowing silenced New Zealanders a forum for their thoughts and concerns. The impure horrible great unwashed the mainstream media appear to despise.

What happened on Saturday was avoidable. It was fomented by politicians and mainstream media. They could not have done more to fan the flames of opposition and fear of a small British woman wanting to provide a space where she and other women could talk about what is happening to women and girls. Then the inevitable was allowed to unfold by hands-off police.

Before she arrived here, Keen said New Zealand was ‘insane’. Sadly, this proved to be prophetic.