Are You (Legally) A Woman?

NZ First leader Winston Peters introduced a Member’s Bill (a private bill submitted by an individual MP) into Parliament that looks to define ‘woman’ and ‘man’ within the Law and is in the name of MP Jenny Marcroft. This was published on NZ First’s website on April 22, 2025, and has received multiple avenues of criticism from the public as well as other parties in parliament, including their coalition party partner, the National Party. Peters stated to RNZ that this form of definition would keep the country from going down the “deluded left passage where all sorts of descriptions are given”.

The bill seeks to define a “woman” as “…an adult human biological female; and female means a human biological woman.” The bill also provides what the definition for a “man” would be “…an adult human biological male; and male means a human biological male”. Within the bill’s general policy statement, the purpose of this is “…to uphold legal certainty, protect the integrity of sex-based rights, and ensure that language in law reflects biological reality”. Due to the legislation being a Member’s Bill, the bill will need to be pulled from Parliament’s ballot in order to be debated on and have a vote held. This bill comes not long after the party has withdrawn their ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’, which NZ First said was focused on the safety of women and girls by fining people for using single-sex bathrooms not matching their assigned sex at birth. This bill received criticism from many calling it an attack on trans-women, and had no actual way of enforcement that didn’t invade the privacy of others.

National MP Chris Bishop said on Breakfast’s political panel that this bill was a “distraction” from other challenges such as the country’s debt, housing crisis, and infrastructure deficit. Bishop has not said whether he supports the bill himself until he considers it with his party.

Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins has said that NZ First is looking for populist causes, and Greens co-leader Chloe Swarbrick says the proposal was to distract people from the challenges of the cost-of-living crisis and climate change. Act Party, according to the New Zealand Herald, says it believes in “biological reality”.

Public scrutiny of the bill, such as the political opinion piece by Paul Thistoll on the Spinoff, has led to accusations of following in the footsteps of the UK Supreme Court ruling of defining “women” as biological women. Though NZ First continues to soldier on in their “war on woke”, it should be noted that it’s not common form to use circular definition when defining a term in legal drafting – see “…and male means a human biological male”.

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