That said, I do have a particular interest in the content of a very limited number of people’s pants. My own, of course. My grandchildren’s, but only for hygienic reasons. And my husband’s.
Beyond that, any interest I might have in anyone else’s pants would not only be creepy, but arguably peeping.
Because that is what the Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill does.
First and foremost it discriminates against transgender, intersex and non-binary whānau and elevates the already heightened risk of violence and abuse against them. Any Bill which encourages violence should be immediately and unequivocally rejected.
Second, it is legally unworkable. It is unclear, confuses the existing law on the age of majority and will remove access to essential health services for young people who do not meet the Bill’s definition of ‘‘adult’’. The Bill meets every test for bad law.
Third, the Bill puts all women at risk of public challenge and humiliation and jeopardises the legal protections that are meant to keep women, all women whether trans, intersex and non-binary, safe.
The harm will manifest in the everyday risks it introduces for women, particularly in their interactions with men. It does this by effectively legislating for a visual test for womanhood.
Yes, legalised peeping. This is because of the reductive and subjective definition of woman in the Bill. It invites the public to scrutinise women’s bodies according to a stereotypical, racist and sexist view of what a woman should look like.
By defining a woman strictly as an ‘‘adult human biological female’’, the law effectively invites strangers to subjectively judge who qualifies based on appearance alone.
This means any woman who does not conform to a narrow, subjective physical ideal can be challenged and humiliated in public spaces.
This is not a hypothetical concern. Evidence from overseas shows that women who are tall or small, have broad shoulders or short hair have already been confronted and interrogated at bathroom doors.
Even cancer-surviving women who have had double mastectomies or who have lost their hair have been challenged for being men while getting changed at swimming pools. Women of colour have been challenged because they don’t fit a racist stereotype of what a woman looks like.
We know that some people, even organisations, are just prejudiced, homophobic, transphobic and racist and will openly embarrass themselves by declaring so. But that offensive behaviour can be held accountable where it transforms into unlawful actions.
The Bill will transform that kind of invasive and humiliating scrutiny from a prejudice into a state-sanctioned practice, putting every woman, including trans women, intersex and non-binary people, under suspicion for failing to be ‘‘woman enough’’ on sight.
By reducing women to their outward physical appearance, it makes them especially vulnerable to harassment by men who feel entitled to police their presence in women-only spaces. This increases the risk of confrontation and victimisation for all women and girls, however they define and identify themselves.
On top of that risk, the Bill’s fetishistic focus on a single aspect of a woman’s biology is a dangerous oversimplification that obscures the complex threats women face.
According to Violence Information New Zealand, of the 125 intimate partner deaths between 2009-18, 70% of those who died were women and 75% of the offenders were men. According to the 2022 survey Counting Ourselves, with 2631 respondents, 19% of trans and non-binary people had received threats of violence and 42% had been threatened with sexual violence.
Intimate partner abuse, sexual violence and violence against women are perpetrated predominantly by men. This Bill does nothing to address gendered violence, economic inequality, or reduced support services, which pose the most significant threats to women’s safety and wellbeing.
Women, trans women, intersex and non-binary people are at real, ongoing and serious risk.
This Bill is a harmful distraction. It erodes the legal certainty it purports to create, creates confusion and exclusion and emboldens violence.
This Bill leaves all women, no matter how we identify or define ourselves much less safe. Not only does the Bill fail to address the harm women, trans women and intersex and non-binary people face from men. It creates new avenues for it.
• Associate Prof Metiria Stanton Turei is a law lecturer at the University of Otago and a former Green Party co-leader.
