New Zealand

New Zealand, also known as Aotearoa, has made strides in protecting and promoting the human rights of LGBTIQ persons. In 2013, it became the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to legalize same-sex marriage. Transgender people have been able to change their legal gender markers based on self-determination since 2023. Nonbinary persons can use “X” as their gender marker on identification documents, while the registered sex on birth certificates can be updated to “non-binary” or “indeterminate.” 

Discrimination based on sex and sexual orientation was banned under the Human Rights Act in 1993. This law does not explicitly cover gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics, though the government has interpreted “sex” in this law as inclusive of trans people. In 2025, Te Aka Matua o te Ture | Law Commission, an independent legal reform body, issued advisory recommendations on adding new prohibited grounds for discrimination, including gender identity and innate variations of sex characteristics. In February 2026, the government announced that it would not act on the recommendation to add gender identity and sex characteristics to the Human Rights Act, stating that “progressing the Commission’s recommendations is not a priority at this time,” without further explanation.

The Sentencing Act of 2022 imposes additional penalties for crimes committed based on bias against a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity. Practices seeking to change a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression are penalized under the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Act 2022. However, this law adopts a carceral approach and does not address root causes. 

Other protection gaps remain. Nonconsensual medical interventions on intersex children are legal, and in November 2025, the Ministry of Health implemented new regulations that restrict access to puberty blockers for gender dysphoria for new child and adolescent patients. In April 2025, the New Zealand First party, a small far-right party that forms part of the governing coalition, introduced a member’s bill, the “Definitions of Woman and Man” bill that would legally define a “woman” as “an adult human biological female” and a “man” as “an adult human biological male,” with its sponsor claiming the bill sought to fight “woke ideology.” The bill, which negated the existence of intersex, nonbinary, and trans people, did not progress and was withdrawn in November.

Surveys have suggested that New Zealanders are generally supportive of LGBTIQ people’s rights and that LGBTIQ visibility is higher than in other countries. In 2023, the official census collected data on gender, sexual identity, and variations of sex characteristics for the first time, showing that one in 20 adults identified as LGBTIQ. Takatāpui is a Te reo Māori word used as an umbrella term to describe people of diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions. Other Māori identities for sexual and gender minorities include whakawahine, irawhiti, tāhine (or ira tāhūrua-kore), irahuri, irakē, tangata ira wahine, and tangata ira tāne.

Despite New Zealand’s advances, LGBTIQ individuals continue to be victimized by crimes, including physical and sexual assault, at higher rates than cisgender heterosexual people. People of queer experience are also at higher risk of suicidal ideation and depression.