Jump onto the New Zealand Police’s Instagram page and scroll to February 2024. The official account announces that Police were “proud to march in the Auckland Rainbow Pride Parade” and to “show our support for the rainbow community.” Uniformed officers, one holding the Progress Pride flag emblazoned with a Police logo, pose with two young girls wearing Progress Pride t-shirts.
What’s the big deal, you might be wondering? The short answer is that the Police are supposed to be impartial, but a new court decision from the UK demonstrates that participating in Pride marches, or any other protest, rally or campaign, might undermine this duty.
Lindsey Smith brought the UK case. She’s a self-described gender critical lesbian who sued Northumbria Police after they took part in a Pride parade, with the Chief Constable at their head, carrying Pride flags and in uniform. A nearby Police stall and vehicle also displayed the Progress Pride flag—the original rainbow flag plus a wedge with the pink, white and blue transgender colours—and the transgender Pride flag.
This indicated Police support for a worldview directly contrary to her own beliefs, said Smith, raising concerns that Police wouldn’t use their powers fairly or impartially if they were called in to any clash between supporters and opponents of what the court called “gender ideology”.
This ideology includes the belief that gender identity is different to biological sex and is what makes someone a man or a woman. It conflicts with gender critical views, which hold that sex is “real, binary and immutable” and that biological sex is what makes someone a man or a woman.
The court said that by marching in the parade and expressing support in other ways, Northumbria Police had created an impression that they were “taking sides” and had failed in their legal duty to be impartial.
New Zealand Police need to consider this carefully. Here, as in the UK, impartiality is a core principle of policing because it’s crucial for public trust and social cohesion. As our Police say themselves, trust is earned by treating everyone fairly, which means everyone gets “impartial and just treatment ... without preference or discrimination.” This isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s a legal duty imposed by the Policing Act and reinforced by the oath that new officers swear, to serve “without favour or affection”.
Whether marching in parades, fitting out patrol cars in Pride colours, wearing Police t-shirts with the colours of the transgender flag, or displaying the Progress Pride flag on police stations, our Police are also creating the impression that they are taking sides on a subject that is rather obviously a subject of passionate and legitimate debate. Police should reconsider the message they’re sending by associating themselves with these potent symbols.
Of course, this may be done with the best of intentions. Police might want to explicitly back gender ideology, or they might also just want to signal their support for diversity in general or for the rainbow community in particular. But, as the UK court said, “It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that views with which one agrees are or must be uncontroversial.”
At this point, readers might be thinking of the Police response to the Let Women speak event in 2023. An event meant to platform women’s voices and to share gender critical perspectives was shut down by protestors supporting gender ideology. According to the Independent Police Conduct Authority, those protestors subjected the audience “to threatening and intimidatory behaviour” and to assault in some cases. The IPCA also said that the Police response was “inadequate”, failed to deploy additional officers who were available, and adopted a “relatively passive response [which] showed an apparent lack of concern for public safety.”
The IPCA didn’t suggest the Police weren’t impartial. However, Police must not only be fair, they must be seen to be fair, and when the Police have previously aligned themselves with gender ideology, their failures are open to an unfortunate interpretation.
As clashes continue over rainbow crossings and drag queens reading to children in public libraries, it is crucial that the Police who show up to keep the peace are trusted not to take sides.
In the end, it doesn’t matter what your views are on gender issues. We can all recognise the value of a rule that says the Police won’t take sides on controversial or political subjects, especially where they might be called on to keep the peace. After all, we wouldn’t expect uniformed officers to march for or against Israel or Palestine, to participate in rallies about abortion, to campaign for a political party, or to protest outside Parliament. (Joining in the Manu World Champs is OK though.)
We give Police significant and intrusive powers because we trust they’ll use them fairly, that they won’t treat any of us as outsiders, and we back that up with a legal duty to be impartial.
Breaching that duty and losing that trust would have far-reaching consequences.
This article was first published by LawNews on 25 September 2025.
Image credit: NZ Police
