I have since been informed by a friendly reader that this is actually a private member's bill, not an official ACT one. But ACT, National and NZ First all supported it.
I am writing in relation to the Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment bill. I oppose this bill as written as it is incoherent and achieves none of the objectives it sets out in its own Explanatory note.
The Explanatory note for this legislation starts by saying it sets out to do two things. 1) provide a ‘clear and biologically grounded meaning of “woman” and “ man”
and
2) Establish definitions for “man”, “woman”, “male” and “female”
Let’s take these in turn
1) I am a Distinguished Professor in Biochemistry with 27 years of experience. I work in the field of evolution and development, and part of my work involves both teaching and research in the sex-determination field. I note this to explain that I am a professional biologist and so should be able to spot a “biologically grounded meaning” from several kilometres away. What is completely absent from this bill is any biologically grounded definition, discussion of biology, or any reflection of our current understanding of biology.
Modern biology, which has moved on somewhat in the past 100 years, shows us that there are enormous variations in the processes that lead to male and female in humans. These leave us with variation in outcomes, a set of normal distributions around “male” and “female”. These distributions have outliers, individuals, and considerable numbers of them, who don’t fit with the binary boxes of ‘male’ and ‘female’. This is just normal variation. If you were to write a ‘biologically grounded’ meaning of ‘male’ or ‘female’ it would be difficult, but not impossible. Your new definition, as with most things in biology, would be challenged by exceptions and outliers. In modern biology, we just have to cope with that. The simplistic, uninformed and ‘definitions’ based approach to biology went out the window many years ago (in fact, with Darwin in 1859). Biology is complex and messy.
Given the bill doesn’t address any of this, or any biology knowledge I can see, or any examples, I don’t see how this bill is ‘biologically grounded’. It doesn’t use biological knowledge, and its outcome, two genders “male” and “female”, is not consistent with known, published biology. The bill should be rejected on this basis, as it doesn’t achieve its objective as stated in the Explanatory note.
2) The second objective of this bill is to put forward a definition of “man”, “woman”, “male” and “female”. The bill is structured in the same way for both genders it wishes to define.
The first statement is:
(a) woman means an adult human biological female; and
So, of course, these leave us with a question: what is a female? Luckily, the bill answers it by stating…
(b) female means a human biological female.
So our definition of woman is an adult female, and our definition of female is ‘female’. Let’s put aside the issue that legislation might have to refer to female animals, and so this leaves us defining all females as human, and just state that no effective definition can be made if you use the word you are trying to define in that definition. There are definitions of female out there, and, to go back to point one, biologically grounded ones, but this isn’t it.
The circularity of the definition of each gender in the bill means that there are no effective definitions for “man”, “woman”, “male” and “female” contained within it.
So the bill sets out to do two things and fails at both of them. The bill should be rejected for these reasons alone. If there is a need to define genders in New Zealand legislation, then let’s do something that is less laughable and embarrassing. I would be puzzled at any thinking politician voting for this bill as written.
There is a larger point that I wish to make. As stated above, biology is complex, the outcomes of development are complex, and this bill leaves us pushing everyone to their nearest mean. This will discriminate against large amounts of the population who don’t fit their closest gender as “defined” in this bill. The bill should be rejected as it doesn’t achieve what it sets out to achieve, and, in my opinion, what it attempts to achieve is discriminatory.
Oh dear - this had me rolling around the living room with laughter and reaching for the whisky. Bravo Peter! Do you think I should gather all those papers on sex determination and drop them on Seymour's desk? No - I just couldn't carry all the evidence.
A few errors here. The Bill is proposed by NZ First, not Act. And I suggest you take a look at recent publications by Colin Wright. Sex is defined by gamete size, large (F) or small (M). There are no intermediate sizes, so sex is not a spectrum. Humans don’t have a monopoly on sex, which actually predates humankind. Sexual reproduction is also practised by other animals and some plants. If you want to breed dogs, you’ll need a male and a female. Thanks.
Yes- as noted, there are other definitions of male and female- the one you quote is at least biologically based. Of course, anyone who doesn't produce gametes is excluded, which makes it a poor definition for the legal sense of this bill.
I think we’d both agree that a woman who has had her ovaries removed is still a woman. Likewise a young girl is still female. Sex definition by gamete type doesn’t exclude such people, because it’s the potential for, or history of, such gamete production that counts. The young girl is never going to produce sperm. Nor is she going to produce a gamete of intermediate size, because that doesn’t exist.
I have since been informed by a friendly reader that this is actually a private member's bill, not an official ACT one. But ACT, National and NZ First all supported it.
Nice one, Peter. I'll be quoting this to my relatives at Christmas dinner.
Thanks for this. Will you be making a submission on the bill? https://www3.parliament.nz/en/pb/sc/committees-press-releases/have-your-say-on-the-legislation-definitions-of-woman-and-man-amendment-bill/
Yep. Seems like a good idea.
and here it is...
To whom it may concern,
I am writing in relation to the Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment bill. I oppose this bill as written as it is incoherent and achieves none of the objectives it sets out in its own Explanatory note.
The Explanatory note for this legislation starts by saying it sets out to do two things. 1) provide a ‘clear and biologically grounded meaning of “woman” and “ man”
and
2) Establish definitions for “man”, “woman”, “male” and “female”
Let’s take these in turn
1) I am a Distinguished Professor in Biochemistry with 27 years of experience. I work in the field of evolution and development, and part of my work involves both teaching and research in the sex-determination field. I note this to explain that I am a professional biologist and so should be able to spot a “biologically grounded meaning” from several kilometres away. What is completely absent from this bill is any biologically grounded definition, discussion of biology, or any reflection of our current understanding of biology.
Modern biology, which has moved on somewhat in the past 100 years, shows us that there are enormous variations in the processes that lead to male and female in humans. These leave us with variation in outcomes, a set of normal distributions around “male” and “female”. These distributions have outliers, individuals, and considerable numbers of them, who don’t fit with the binary boxes of ‘male’ and ‘female’. This is just normal variation. If you were to write a ‘biologically grounded’ meaning of ‘male’ or ‘female’ it would be difficult, but not impossible. Your new definition, as with most things in biology, would be challenged by exceptions and outliers. In modern biology, we just have to cope with that. The simplistic, uninformed and ‘definitions’ based approach to biology went out the window many years ago (in fact, with Darwin in 1859). Biology is complex and messy.
Given the bill doesn’t address any of this, or any biology knowledge I can see, or any examples, I don’t see how this bill is ‘biologically grounded’. It doesn’t use biological knowledge, and its outcome, two genders “male” and “female”, is not consistent with known, published biology. The bill should be rejected on this basis, as it doesn’t achieve its objective as stated in the Explanatory note.
2) The second objective of this bill is to put forward a definition of “man”, “woman”, “male” and “female”. The bill is structured in the same way for both genders it wishes to define.
The first statement is:
(a) woman means an adult human biological female; and
So, of course, these leave us with a question: what is a female? Luckily, the bill answers it by stating…
(b) female means a human biological female.
So our definition of woman is an adult female, and our definition of female is ‘female’. Let’s put aside the issue that legislation might have to refer to female animals, and so this leaves us defining all females as human, and just state that no effective definition can be made if you use the word you are trying to define in that definition. There are definitions of female out there, and, to go back to point one, biologically grounded ones, but this isn’t it.
The circularity of the definition of each gender in the bill means that there are no effective definitions for “man”, “woman”, “male” and “female” contained within it.
So the bill sets out to do two things and fails at both of them. The bill should be rejected for these reasons alone. If there is a need to define genders in New Zealand legislation, then let’s do something that is less laughable and embarrassing. I would be puzzled at any thinking politician voting for this bill as written.
There is a larger point that I wish to make. As stated above, biology is complex, the outcomes of development are complex, and this bill leaves us pushing everyone to their nearest mean. This will discriminate against large amounts of the population who don’t fit their closest gender as “defined” in this bill. The bill should be rejected as it doesn’t achieve what it sets out to achieve, and, in my opinion, what it attempts to achieve is discriminatory.
Oh dear - this had me rolling around the living room with laughter and reaching for the whisky. Bravo Peter! Do you think I should gather all those papers on sex determination and drop them on Seymour's desk? No - I just couldn't carry all the evidence.
You’d need a small truck!
Well that proves Seymour is following the Trump rule book for tearing apart societies.
If laws use categories for men and women, then it makes sense they should try to define those categories.
Yep- but this bill doesn't achieve that
A few errors here. The Bill is proposed by NZ First, not Act. And I suggest you take a look at recent publications by Colin Wright. Sex is defined by gamete size, large (F) or small (M). There are no intermediate sizes, so sex is not a spectrum. Humans don’t have a monopoly on sex, which actually predates humankind. Sexual reproduction is also practised by other animals and some plants. If you want to breed dogs, you’ll need a male and a female. Thanks.
Yes- as noted, there are other definitions of male and female- the one you quote is at least biologically based. Of course, anyone who doesn't produce gametes is excluded, which makes it a poor definition for the legal sense of this bill.
And yes- sorry, the proposer is a NZ first MP.
I think we’d both agree that a woman who has had her ovaries removed is still a woman. Likewise a young girl is still female. Sex definition by gamete type doesn’t exclude such people, because it’s the potential for, or history of, such gamete production that counts. The young girl is never going to produce sperm. Nor is she going to produce a gamete of intermediate size, because that doesn’t exist.