New Zealand First is celebrating the opportunity to ask MPs “What is a Woman?”. What would its proposed law change achieve?
A New Zealand First MP’s bill aims to clearly define men and women according to their biological sex – but legal experts say its potential impact is being overstated.
Wut?
New Zealand needs a bill to define what women and men are? Don’t we already know? By “we” I mean people, people in general, people over the age of 2.
The proposed law change would define woman as “adult human biological female” and man as “adult human biological male” in the Legislation Act – meaning all laws and regulations which contained these words would be seen through the lens of the new definition.
Um. The new definition? It’s new? Really? What is the old definition? How long has it been the definition? What’s the source of the old definition – the one that’s not human biological female?
Stuff sought an interview with the bill’s sponsor, Jenny Marcroft, but was told she was “unavailable for comment”.
Supporters of her bill said it was focused on the safety of women in schools, changing rooms, sports and prisons.
Lawyers who had reviewed the draft legislation said it was questionable whether it would achieve those goals.
Barrister Graeme Edgeler said that if the bill passed in its current form, it would have little practical effect.
“Laws you might expect to be affected, for example rules around sex discrimination under the Human Rights Act, just don’t use any of the words the bill actually proposes to define. Nor, for the last 20 years or so, do criminal laws around rape.”
Erm – what? Criminal laws around rape don’t define women as human biological females? What do they define them as then?
Edgeler noted that the Human Rights Act already permitted sex-segregated facilities and sex-differentiated sports in New Zealand. “But none of these rules have anything do with the definition of man or woman or male or female.”
Well then what do these rules mean by sex-segregated facilities and sex-differentiated sports?
In a legal analysis published last year, public and human rights lawyer Matt McKillop asked whether the bill was a “solution looking for a problem”.
He considered whether concerns about trans women having access to women’s refuges, bathrooms, prisons and sports teams required law changes which clarified language around sex and gender.
“I conclude not,” he wrote in Law News. “New Zealand law already permits services or facilities for women in most of these circumstances based on biological sex. The bill would therefore not affect the legal position in those commonly cited circumstances where women might have reasonable concerns about safety and privacy.”
What? The law recognizes biological sex therefore we should shut up about biological sex? That makes no sense.
My head hurts.
H/t Rob
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