My Submission to the Definitions of Woman and Man Bill

I submitted the following opposing the Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill in New Zealand. The submission draws on findings from the Counting Ourselves (2022) community report, the largest survey of trans and non-binary health and wellbeing ever conducted in Aotearoa New Zealand, which I lead as Principal Investigator.

My goal was not to enter into a debate about whether trans people exist. Their existence is a matter of observable social reality, reflected in their presence across cultures and throughout history. Instead, I sought to provide the committee with evidence that exists regarding the likely effects of the proposed legislation for a population that already experiences substantial discrimination, exclusion, barriers to healthcare, and housing insecurity.

I also see this bill as part of a broader international pattern that I have described elsewhere as trans eliminationism: a continuum of responses that work to remove trans people from social, legal, or physical existence through policies that restrict recognition, participation, or access to public life. These measures are justified not through any evidence of harm, but rather through political rhetoric that constructs trans people as an artificial threat and undermine their moral standing and credibility.

This bill is best understood as a form of definitional eliminationism: an attempt to remove trans people from legal recognition by redefining the categories of woman and man in ways that deny the legitimacy of trans people.

Readers interested in that broader framework can read my recent article here.

You can make a submission on the bill here until midnight on 2 July 2026.

I oppose the Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill.

I am the Principal Investigator of Counting Ourselves, the largest surveys of trans and people ever conducted in Aotearoa New Zealand. The 2018 survey included 1,178 participants and the 2022 survey included 2,631 participants. Participants were aged 14 to 86 years and lived in every region in the country. The survey examined health, wellbeing, discrimination, housing, education, employment, healthcare access, identity documents, violence, and participation in community life.

My submission focuses on what the available evidence suggests about the likely impacts of this bill.

The bill is not supported by evidence of a significant public policy problem.

The stated purpose of the bill is to provide legal certainty by defining "woman" and "man" according to biological sex. The explanatory note argues that such definitions are needed to protect sex-based rights and spaces. However, no evidence is presented demonstrating that existing law has created widespread problems in New Zealand or that legal recognition of trans people has undermined women's safety, participation, or rights.

Good legislation should be evidence-based. Before Parliament restricts the legal recognition of a minority population, it should establish that a genuine problem exists and that the proposed solution is likely to address it. The bill does neither.

International scholarship has documented recurring patterns in which minority groups become the focus of legislative attention without evidence of harm. One is dehumanisation: when a group is portrayed as irrational, defective, or less deserving of dignity, the moral threshold for restricting their rights is lowered, and their testimony and lived experience become easier to dismiss. Another is the artificial construction of a threat, in which a minority group is framed as a danger to children, public safety, or social order. Together, the dehumanisation and threat construction allow measures that would otherwise be recognised as discriminatory to be presented instead as necessary protection and create the urgency needed for public mobilisation.

This pattern is emerging at a time in which several decades of expanding legal recognition of gender and sexuality diversity have unsettled longstanding social arrangements regarding gender, sexuality, and individual people's authority over their own bodies. Trans people have become a focal point for anxieties about these changing norms. In this context, legislation like this Bill is better understood as part of a wider effort to reassert fixed, binary categories against the expanding recognition of gender diversity and self-determination, rather than as a response to evidence of identified harms.

We have well-documented evidence of harms experienced by trans and non-binary people in areas that are likely to become worse if the bill is passed.

Counting Ourselves found that trans people already experience substantial discrimination, exclusion, and violence. Forty-four percent of participants had experienced discrimination in the 12 months prior to the survey, more than double the general population rate, and 74% had experienced discrimination at some point in their lives, up from 66% in 2018. Participants were more than five times as likely as the general population to report discrimination when seeking medical care, and nearly four times as likely to report discrimination in public spaces.

Many participants reported avoiding public spaces because they anticipated mistreatment. Forty-three percent often or always avoided public bathrooms because they feared problems arising from being trans or non-binary, up from 33% in 2018. A further 43% had been told or asked if they were using the wrong bathroom. Nineteen percent had experienced verbal harassment while using public bathrooms, 15% had been stopped from entering a bathroom, and 3% had been physically attacked.

Public discussion surrounding this bill frequently focuses on bathrooms and other gender-segregated spaces. The available evidence suggests that trans people are among those most vulnerable within these environments.

Defining legal categories in a way that excludes trans people may increase scrutiny, exclusion, and confrontation in these settings. International debates around similar legislation have often been accompanied by increased policing of who is perceived to belong in women's and men's spaces. Such scrutiny may also affect cisgender women and men whose appearance does not conform to gender stereotypes.

No legal category for non-binary or intersex New Zealanders

In Counting Ourselves, 56% of participants identified as non-binary — the single largest group surveyed, larger than trans men and trans women combined. A binary statutory definition of "woman" and "man" provides no category for this group, nor for intersex New Zealanders whose sex characteristics do not align with either definition.

The bill may undermine access to identity documents

A significant proportion of Counting Ourselves participants reported that their official documents did not accurately reflect their gender. Prior to the 2021 self-identification reform, 86% of participants had the incorrect gender recorded on their New Zealand birth certificate, and 74% on their passport. Forty percent said the binary options available to them simply did not reflect their gender, and 32% cited fear of harm or discrimination as a reason for not updating their gender marker.

Identity documents play an important role in accessing employment, housing, banking, education, travel, and healthcare.

Although the bill does not directly amend identity document legislation, it could create uncertainty regarding the status and purpose of gender markers on official documents. This would move New Zealand away from policies intended to ensure government records accurately reflect people's lived reality.

The bill may increase barriers to healthcare

The survey found substantial unmet need for gender-affirming healthcare. Across different forms of care, large numbers of participants reported wanting services that they had been unable to access. Many participants also reported avoiding healthcare because they feared discrimination or mistreatment: 21% had avoided seeing a doctor or nurse practitioner in the last 12 months for this reason.

By legally defining trans people out of recognised gender categories, the bill may contribute to stigma and make engagement with healthcare services more difficult.

The bill may increase housing insecurity and exclusion from support services

Counting Ourselves found elevated rates of homelessness and housing instability among trans people. Nineteen percent of participants had experienced homelessness, including 31% of Māori participants. Fourteen percent had ever needed emergency housing, including a refuge or shelter; of those, 21% did not attempt to access it for fear of mistreatment as a trans person, and 8% who did try were denied access specifically because they were trans.

Emergency housing providers, refuges, correctional facilities, and other services often rely on legal or administrative definitions of sex and gender when determining placement and eligibility. Because the purpose of this bill is to introduce and reinforce sex-based definitions throughout New Zealand legislation, it has the potential to affect how these services interpret eligibility, placement, and access for trans people.

The bill may reduce participation in sport and recreation

Sport is commonly framed by anti-trans movements as a setting where cisgender women require protection through binary sex categories. The available evidence, however, does not point to trans people as the source of harm. Instead, evidence shows that trans people are already experiencing substantial exclusion from sport and recreation because of concerns about how they will be treated.

Counting Ourselves found that of those who played or were interested in competitive sport, 41% had avoided competitive sport because of concerns about how they would be treated as a trans person. Forty-five percent had avoided gender-segregated exercise or recreational sport for the same reason, and 43% had specific concerns about accessing a bathroom or changing room. Legislation that further entrenches binary sex-segregation in this area is likely to compound this existing exclusion.

Conclusion

The areas commonly invoked in support of the bill — including bathrooms, sport, identity documents, and access to services — are areas in which trans people already experience substantial disadvantage. The available evidence therefore suggests the bill is likely to increase exclusion and barriers to participation rather than address a demonstrated public policy problem.

I therefore urge Parliament to reject the Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill.

Thank you for considering this submission.