A lesbian New Zealand Navy captain has been mocked as a “diversity hire” online after crashing her $100 million vessel into a reef in Samoa.
UK-born homosexual Yvonne Gray was at the helm of support ship the HMNZS Manawanui when it ran aground on Saturday night and sank – New Zealand’s first naval loss since World War 2 – but was immediately praised by an admiral and the female Defence Minister for “saving lives” by ordering an evacuation.
Captain Gray was also lauded in a June 2023 New Zealand Department of Defence press release celebrating her and three other female commanders, in which one gushed about a culture change in the navy due to a “focus on diversity, equity and respect for personnel”.
But some New Zealanders asked why Captain Gray, who moved to New Zealand with her “wife” in 2012, was given command of a ship ahead of local candidates, and YouTuber I, Malcontent slammed the incident and the New Zealand Defence Force’s diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) policies in a scathing video.
“Captain Yvonne Gray has become the poster child of the New Zealand Navy to show how ‘inclusive’ they are,” I Malcontent said in his video.
“The Navy boasts about the number of females they’ve been recruiting and placing into senior roles, and Yvonne, being a lesbian, gives them another ‘box’ to tick off.
“Being female and lesbian seems good enough reason to me to give her the keys to a $100 million ship.”
The YouTuber catalogued years of positive media coverage given to Captain Gray, and noted that another of the female captains praised alongside Ms Gray, Fiona Jameson, had crashed her own ship in May this year.
“Here’s a photo of them together celebrating International Women’s Day, the Boat Crashers Club,” he said.
“No need to test for any competency, let’s celebrate that the navy is now 27.4% female. Look at all those medals on their chests, I wonder what battles they fought for all those accolades or if these were just participation trophies.”
He also highlighted the blanket media coverage of the praise for Captain Gray in managing to get her 75 crew off the ship without the loss of life, and mocked the Defence Minister for calling the evacuation a “triumph”.
“Imagine putting a bunch of people in danger, then when everyone luckily survives the danger, and your nation is $100 million poorer, you get applauded as the hero in the situation,” he said.
I, Malcontent then examined the NZDF’s “LGBTTIQ+ Inclusion Plan” which he called “truly shocking”.
“[it] manipulates all staff, and particularly their senior staff into submission,” he said.
“One example being that anyone who expresses ‘homophobia’ or ‘transphobia’ should be disciplined, and managers are encouraged to show support by wearing rainbow lanyards.
“Now what do you think happens if a manager says that the lanyards are a bit silly or doesn’t want to wear one? That’s right, they get classed as a ‘homophobe’ and will be disciplined.”
But I, Malcontent was not the only critic of Captain Gray’s, with social media filling up with comments linking the sinking with the navy’s DEI policies.
“Between 2012 and 2022 – the Royal New Zealand Navy could not produce one New Zealand-born officer to command a Royal New Zealand Navy ship,” said a Kiwi social media user, while political commentator Aussie Cossack simply said: “Diversity hire detected”.
“Perhaps if the NZ Navy and its midget lesbian DEI hire Yvonne Gray (She/Her) had been less motivated by DEI/gay politics than by a desire to avoid driving $150M naval vessels into reefs, the NZ Navy would still have its specialist dive and hydrographic vessel HMNZS Manawanui,” said an X user.
