Submission to the Social Services & Community Select Committee on Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill
Qtopia is an advocacy and social support service for the whole LGBTQIA+ community, based in Ōtautahi Christchurch and mostly working across Waitaha Canterbury, with some national work streams. Our vision is for LGBTQIA+ people of all ages to thrive in a society that supports, celebrates, and treasures them, and for Aotearoa to be a world leader in health and wellbeing outcomes for LGBTQIA+ communities. Qtopia provides direct support to LGBTQIA+ community members of all ages, operates a peer support service for transgender and non-binary people across Waitaha Canterbury, provides professional development for Aotearoa’s primary healthcare workforce around gender diversity and gender affirming care, and works alongside LGBTQIA+ community members to advocate for them in their workplaces, schools, and communities.
We note the Committee’s stated focus of oral hearings being to hear from those whose written submissions focus on the legal mechanics of the bill. We appreciate that the Committee has a tough job - being landed with such a poorly-thought out piece of legislation that intends to restrict the human rights of a vulnerable minority that has so many flow-on effects across the statute books is not an enviable position.
We can appreciate that this may have been intended to limit the negative impact on rainbow communities of a Select Committee process once again being used as a de facto referendum on our rights. However, this stated focus gives cause for concern and, in our view, biases oral hearings towards submitters who might aim to give the Committee remedies for the bill’s many legislative flaws and against submitters who, like ourselves, rightfully feel the bill needs no remedies, and should be dropped.
While the sponsoring Member and the leader of her party repeatedly claim this bill is not about transgender or non-binary people, we recommend the Committee take a serious look at their published (and still available) campaign materials around this issue. Doing so will make it clear that this is legislation being used as an act of lawfare against a vulnerable minority.
We request the opportunity to discuss these issues with the Committee at an oral hearing.
Qtopia opposes the Legislation (Definition of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill. This is legislation looking for a problem, and creating more in the process. Its objective is asserted rather than demonstrated. Regardless, its objective is not achieved. Its supporting Member’s claims about legal precedence are incorrect. It makes no attempt to follow good lawmaking process nor the LDAC guidelines, and makes no attempt to balance the human rights concerns present. It is inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act and even the Act it aims to amend, while also reducing the protection of women from sex-based discrimination.
Not only is the bill flawed, but its justification and driving ideology is flawed. The bill should not be amended or improved by the Select Committee. It should be emphatically rejected and progress no further.
Objective is asserted, not demonstrated - and not achieved regardless
The bill’s stated objectives - in plural, because its objectives vary depending on whether you’re speaking to the Minister of Foreign Affairs or the Leader of the New Zealand First Party - are asserted and never demonstrated. No evidence is offered, in fact, to show that the problem it claims to solve even exists.
The explanatory note asserts that the bill provides “clarity and consistency”, to “uphold legal certainty”, “protect sex-based rights”, and “ensure that language in law protects biological reality”. Taking these aims on face value for now, no party has provided evidence for their necessity: New Zealand’s current human rights regime includes robust protections for “sex-based rights” and no party has provided an instance of “sex-based rights” being under attack. No party has provided an instance of our current approach creating “legal uncertainty”, except - ironically - transgender communities and the Law Commission in their work around making protections from discrimination for transgender and intersex people more explicit. No party has provided evidence of our current approach being unclear or inconsistent.
In reality, the bill would reduce clarity and consistency and introduce significant confusion and contradictions across the statute book. One needs to look no further than the Act the bill seeks to amend: section 16 of the Legislation Act specifies “words denoting a gender refer to every other gender”. This internal inconsistency alone means the bill does not meet the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee Guidelines. A cursory look beyond the Legislation Act surfaces 130 Acts and close to 400 pieces of secondary legislation containing “man”, “woman”, “men”, “women”, “male”, or “female”.
The bill also conflicts with other, incredibly recent legislative frameworks, such as the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 2021 - a piece of legislation progressed by none other than the previous deputy leader of the sponsoring Member’s Party, and passed by every Member of this Committee in Parliament in 2021. Since its passing in 2021, transgender people in Aotearoa have been able to update birth records by a deed poll, simplifying the prior Family Court process. Since its passing, no issues - either of safety or clarity - have been raised as a result of this simplification.
This bill would create significant uncertainty in its interaction with the BDMRR Act. We echo the submission of Adhikaar Aotearoa when they say:
What legal significance does an amended birth certificate have if a person’s legal status is ultimately determined by an undefined concept of biology rather than the information recorded on that certificate? The Bill provides no answer. Instead, it creates tension and undermines people’s ability to rely on legislation that confirms a fundamental civil and political right: the right to recognition before the law.
The bill defines “man” and “woman” in relation to “biological male” and “biological female”. The bill does not (and New Zealand legislation should not, regardless) define “sex” or “biological sex” itself. Its premise is that there is a universal, singular, and stable definition of sex that neatly captures everyone into two distinct, binary categories with no regard to biological reality. The well-established biological and scientific reality is that sex is not binary. No definition of “biological sex” exists that would include every woman the sponsoring Member wishes to include while excluding every woman she wishes to exclude.
The Law Commission itself noted that “sex” and “gender” are frequently used to achieve different functions across New Zealand (and international) legislation.
Replacing the current well-considered approach of interpreting legislation with consideration to its text, purpose, and context with single universal definitions will not introduce clarity or consistency. It will lead to confusion, extensive and expensive judicial processes, and worse outcomes for all. Simply put, it is bad lawmaking.
UK Supreme Court & For Women Scotland
In her speech at first reading, the sponsoring Member claimed that there was “legal precedent” for the bill in the UK, referencing a UK Supreme Court ruling in a specific context, interpreting a specific piece of legislation. The sponsoring Member incorrectly claimed that this judgement declared “woman” to refer to “biological sex” in all contexts.
The judgement in For Women Scotland was a narrow one - the judgement itself reads at paragraph 2:
It is not the role of the court to adjudicate on the arguments in the public domain on the meaning of gender or sex, nor is it to define the meaning of the word “woman” other than when it is used in the provisions of the EA 2010. It has a more limited role which does not involve making policy.
In contrast, this bill attempts to place retrospective definitions of “man” and “woman” across Aotearoa’s statute book. It is not an act of statutory interpretation, and is a policy exercise - one with broad-reaching implications across the statute book.
The sponsoring Member’s assertion is incorrect. This judgement does not give legal precedent or authority to the bill, and should not be used as such.
Human rights, justification, and balancing
The sponsoring Member has positioned this bill as an act of balancing competing rights, asserting that it is necessary for Parliament to “balance the rights of women”. As with the previously stated objectives, this is asserted and never demonstrated. The bill assumes that women’s rights are in conflict with the bare minimum right for trans people to live and be recognised as who they are - a right that has been in practice for many decades in Aotearoa without issue.
Regardless, in a good lawmaking process, an asserted conflict of rights would require a careful analysis of the rights and interests involved. It would consider whether the objective of a piece of legislation is real rather than a piece of political fiction, first and foremost, before considering whether it is important enough to justify limiting rights. It would then consider whether the proposed measure is rationally connected to that objective. It would consider whether the proposed impairment of rights is no more than reasonably necessary to achieve that objective, and whether, holistically, the benefit of the measure outweighs the harm caused by the limitation of rights.
There is no evidence that this process has been followed or that these aspects have been considered. Indeed, the bill and its supporting Member do not even attempt to engage in human rights balancing. It fails to demonstrate an actual conflict of rights, rather than a perceived one. It certainly does not consider whether the impairment of the rights of trans people is reasonably necessary - instead, it hopes to abuse the Select Committee process to legislate it into existence regardless. Considering how broad-ranging and impactful the proposed bill is, it does not even identify a specific problem it aims to solve.
The Committee has available to them a genuine example of human rights balancing in this specific context in the Law Commission’s report Ia Tangata, where many sensitive exceptions in the Human Rights Act were considered with the rights of various parties genuinely considered and balanced before making recommendations. The report was provided to the Minister of Justice in August 2025, who declined to action its recommendations, citing time constraints in the Government’s legislative agenda. That this bill has been passed to the Select Committee nearly a year later, in the lead-up to the election, shows that it is not an act of good-faith lawmaking. It is one political party using the legislative process - not just as a campaign tool, but as a weapon at the expense of a vulnerable community.
The bill would weaken human rights protections for all women
Ironically, despite the sponsoring Member’s stated objective for her bill, it would in fact weaken the rights of women to be free from sexism.
The Human Rights Act guarantees protection from discrimination based on sex across a large number of contexts. The Human Rights Act also recognises that discrimination is in the eye of the beholder - that is, when we are being discriminated against, it is due to the perception or assumptions of the person doing the discriminating rather than the material aspects of the person being discriminated against. As the Law Commission stated in Ia Tangata:
When people experience sex discrimination, it is often because of perceptions about their sex characteristics. An example is a woman missing out on a job because she is perceived as being less physically able than a man (due to secondary sex characteristics such as height and muscle mass).
Critically, in these contexts, the details of a woman’s body is not what is giving rise to discrimination - being perceived as a woman is. If the underlying policy rationale behind this bill is upheld, and Parliament intends “sex” in the Human Rights Act to be interpreted in line with this bill, significant confusion and risk is introduced around current understandings of sex discrimination.
For example, one form of sex discrimination might be a school requiring girls to study home economics while boys study wood and metalworking. This form of discrimination does not arise because of chromosomes, gametes, hormonal profiles, or reproductive anatomy. Under the premise of this bill, would it be considered as sex discrimination?
That the question is raised puts the bill’s explanatory note to bed - rather than protect sex-based rights, it puts them further at risk.
Inconsistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990
We agree with the Attorney-General’s report as it relates to age discrimination, and consider that the bill is inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act as a result. This is perhaps the most glaring example of how little thought has been put into this proposed legislation - its interaction with the Age of Majority Act 1970 would legally define “man” and “woman” as exclusively those aged 20 or over. This restriction is unintentional, unconsidered, and would have the effect of making it illegal for those aged under 20 to access essential reproductive healthcare.
The Attorney-General asserted an insufficient basis to find that the bill gives rise to sex discrimination due to its lack of clarity and - bizarrely - a “limited” number of affected statutes. One affected statute giving rise to sex discrimination is an issue. There is no amount of unjustified discrimination that is acceptable.
In our view, that the bill introduces sufficient lack of clarity that the Attorney-General was unable to determine whether it would give rise to discrimination is sufficient. It introduces significant uncertainty for those seeking legal action on discrimination and may result in legal challenges to discriminatory behaviour being much more difficult to establish - not just for transgender people, but for all women affected by sex discrimination.
We support the other arguments raised by Adhikaar Aotearoa on the matter of the Bill of Rights Act in their submission on this bill.
Inconsistency with international law & conventions
The Law Commission has rightly recognised a growing body of international authority that recognises the rights of transgender people to be free from discrimination. New Zealand is party to these agreements. Introducing legislation that breaches those obligations is inconsistent with the LDAC guidelines.
For example, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights prohibits discrimination on a range of grounds including “other status”. The UN Human Rights Committee has previously found that the Covenant protects transgender people from discrimination, and affords transgender people the right to privacy in relation to their gender. There is no way to enact this legislation in practice that would not present significant limitations on the right to privacy for everyone, not just transgender people.
Impacts on trans communities
Given the array of legal issues and human rights violations that this bill would introduce, we have serious concerns about the disproportionate impact this will have on the hauora and wellbeing of our already marginalised rainbow communities, particularly for transgender, gender non-conforming, and intersex people.
For over 18 years, Qtopia has been supporting these communities. During 2025, our peer support service provided 420 support sessions for trans and gender non-conforming people across Waitaha Canterbury. Our clients frequently disclose that they feel unsafe and targeted based on their gender identity. This is in line with findings from Counting Ourselves 2022 - almost half of participants had experienced discrimination in the last 12 months, which is more than double the rate of the general population of New Zealand. There has been an upward trend in these reports following the influence of anti-trans rhetoric imported from the US and UK. This has been even further exacerbated by the introduction of this bill.
We’re privileged to work alongside colleagues based in the UK who have witnessed firsthand the campaign to limit the rights of transgender people, and are now witnessing the impact of updated human rights guidance that takes the judgement in For Women Scotland, explicitly noted as a case of narrow statutory interpretation, and extrapolates that judgement across society. Our communities have followed proponents of this bill and others like it in international jurisdictions as they have described their goal as “an end to the trans child”. We have heard transgender young people and their whānau in the UK describe the grief at seeing their lives shrink in the face of a campaign that aims to force trans people out of public life. A recent peer-reviewed article in the International Journal of Public Health discusses this campaign and others like it, naming it as “trans eliminationism”. In our experience, this phrase is not an exaggeration.
We are concerned that this bill makes the lives of transgender, gender non-conforming, and intersex people into a political football. The public debate of a person’s identity is demoralising and harmful. This is particularly true for young people, and our peer support workers have heard from many rangatahi who have little hope for the future given the current political climate. Trans, gender non-conforming, and intersex people just want to live their lives. Their existence is not a threat to cis women or anyone else. This legislative over-reach will not protect women, instead, it will only fuel hateful anti-trans discourse and contribute to further discrimination against this vulnerable community.
This bill will further increase the barriers that trans and gender non-conforming people already face when trying to access amenities that most people would take for granted. The 2022 Counting Ourselves survey showed that trans and gender non-conforming people were almost four times more likely than the general population to report being subjected to discrimination in public. 43% reported that they faced questioning when simply trying to use the bathroom, with 19% reporting being verbally harassed. This kind of harassment leads to isolation and poor mental health outcomes as people avoid being in public for extended periods of time due to the fear of not being able to safely access a bathroom.
We understand that a justification of this bill is to make cis women feel safer in public bathrooms - trans people also feel unsafe using public bathrooms! However, this bill will not be a solution for this. It would likely increase discrimination; both for trans people, as well as cis women who may face questions from people emboldened by this bill if they don’t fit the feminine stereotype well enough.
It seems that the intention of introducing this bill is to create division between two historically marginalised groups: women and gender non-conforming people. This distracts from the real issues each group is facing including attacks from the current coalition government such as axing the fair-pay agreements and cutting funding to family-violence prevention initiatives. These two groups do not need to be divided (in fact, there are many people who belong to both groups), instead we should work together to build a community where we are all respected and included, and the mana of all people is upheld.
Conclusion & recommendations
The legislative and policy flaws at the heart of this bill are unresolveable. It is not possible for the Select Committee to suggest amendments to the bill that would resolve the lack of a demonstrated objective, the nature of “biological” sex, the unjustified limitation on the human rights of transgender, non-binary, and intersex people, or the inconsistency with the Bill of Rights Act and New Zealand’s international human rights obligations.
Suggesting such amendments or remedies would have one simple effect: making a piece of legislation intended to unjustly restrict the human rights of a vulnerable minority more palatable for Members of the House to support with no regard to its fundamental flaws. Tinkering to make such a weapon simpler - to ensure its harmful effects are limited purely to the vulnerable community it has in its scope - would be unjust.
In contrast, enacting the recommendations of the Law Commission’s Ia Tangata would achieve some of the objectives this bill claims to meet. It would provide clarity and consistency, particularly to transgender people who rely on a 20-year old Crown Law opinion for our right to be free from discrimination. It has already considered many of the sensitive contexts often referenced by proponents of this bill, and made sensible recommendations.
As such, Qtopia recommends that the Committee:
Not recommend any amendments to the Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill;
Recommend that the Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill not proceed;
Recommend that the Government urgently revisit and enact the recommendations of the Law Commission in its report Ia Tangata: Protections in the Human Rights Act 1993 for people who are transgender, people who are non-binary and people with innate variations of sex characteristics
Note in its report that the current legislative framework is functioning as intended with no need for amendment beyond the explicit inclusion of gender identity and innate variations of sex characteristics in the Human Rights Act as recommended by the Law Commission
