Better than nothing - but not yet good law

Implications of the New Zealand First draft bill for lesbian rights and sex-based protections

As New Zealand women, we recognise that sex is a fundamental biological reality - one that underpins women’s safety, privacy, fairness in sport, and access to single-sex spaces. When the ordinary meaning of “woman” is blurred or redefined in law and policy, these hard-won protections are at risk. That is why the bill now before Parliament is significant. In April 2026, New Zealand First’s Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill was drawn from the members’ ballot. For women and girls whose rights and opportunities depend on sex-based distinctions, this debate goes to the heart of the issue.

For many women - and especially for lesbians - NZ First’s proposed amendment to the Legislation Act feels like a long-overdue step towards a return to reality. At last a major political party is willing to say that a woman is an adult human female. That should never have been controversial in the first place. Yet here we are.

The amendment would define “woman” as “an adult human biological female” and “man” as “an adult human biological male”, with those definitions applying across legislation unless a specific law says otherwise. For women who rely on clear boundaries in sport, in health care, in privacy, in association, that clarity matters. For lesbians, whose sexual orientation depends on the reality of sex, it matters even more.

So yes: this bill is better than nothing, but better than nothing is not the same as good law.

A welcome step - and a necessary one

The intention behind the amendment is quite straightforward: It aims to restore confidence that the law recognises biological sex and protects sex-based rights. That is an everyday, practical position, not an ideological one. Women’s refuges, sports teams, changing rooms, and lesbian groups all depend on the ability to distinguish between male and female. Without that distinction, the law cannot function.

Even critics of the bill acknowledge that the goal is sound. Suzanne Levy from Speak Up for Women has said the intention is “spot-on”, but that the legislation doesn’t quite hit the mark, because the key word in our anti-discrimination law is not woman or man, but sex.

That is a fair point, which leads us to a deeper one. Definitions are crucial. But what also matters is where these definitions sit in law, so the real test is not intention, but language. Legal language has to deliver the certainty we’re often promised in political speeches.

The proposed amendment begins with a phrase that deserves careful attention: “In any legislation, regardless of gender identity”. At first glance, this sounds reassuring. It suggests that sex stays the decisive factor. But it also introduces “gender identity” into core legislation as a named concept and a matter of course, which is not a minor issue.

Once a concept appears in law, it becomes something courts and agencies must consider. Even when the intention is to override it, naming it makes it real and gives it standing. Like a lie that is repeated time and again tends to start sounding like truth. That is the risk embedded in the bill.

The word “biological” also deserves a second look: The definition uses the phrase, “adult human biological female”. Most readers will see that as common sense, which, of course, in everyday speech, it is. However, the law relies on precision. The word “female” already means biological sex. Adding the word “biological” may sound reassuring, but it risks implying that sex is something that can be medically modified or legally reinterpreted. It can unintentionally suggest:

• there might be non-biological females

• different kinds of females

• degrees of femaleness

That is where ambiguity creeps in. In court, words are tested under pressure. And under pressure, even small uncertainties matter. If the goal is lasting protection for women and lesbians, the language must be as tight and clear as the reality it describes.

This tension becomes clearer when the bill interacts with New Zealand’s self-ID law. The 2021 Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act allows anyone to change the sex on their birth certificate with just a statutory declaration and no medical evidence. This creates a legal sex that can differ from a person’s actual sex. If the new definitions - “woman” as an adult human female and “man” as an adult human male - are added to the Legislation Act, they would normally apply across other laws. But the self-ID process would likely stay untouched. The result is a direct conflict: an altered birth certificate could still record someone as the opposite sex, weakening the bill’s protections in women’s refuges, changing rooms, prisons, and sport.

Biological sex tips the scales, but self-ID laws risk tipping them back.

This practical complication is not abstract and the debate is not theoretical. We can already see how these tensions play out in practice.

Administrative practice is not the law

This is not just a problem on paper - it is already happening in New Zealand.

The Human Rights Commission is treating “gender identity” as if it’s a protected ground in the Human Rights Act. It. Is. Not. The Act lists specific protected characteristics, and only Parliament can change them. Not guidance documents, not reinterpretations, and not internal policies. When public agencies treat their own guidelines as law, legal certainty collapses and public trust erodes. That is exactly why clear statutory definitions of “woman” and “man” matter. They stop unelected officials from rewriting women’s rights through the back door.

One recent and ongoing Australian case shows how quickly ordinary boundaries can become legal battles. In Tickle v Giggle for Girls, a women-only social media platform was sued after excluding a male user who identified as a woman. The court had to decide whether a female-only space could remain female-only. That is the reality for women and lesbians today: If the law is not clear about sex, you may be forced to justify your boundaries to a judge.

The LAVA case currently before the Human Rights Review Tribunal (HRRT) is a significant test for sex-based rights here in New Zealand. It was brought by Lesbian Action for Visibility Aotearoa after Wellington Pride excluded their stall on the grounds of their sex-realist views. The case asks whether lesbians can be barred from public events for believing that lesbians are same-sex attracted adult human females.

We took part in the first mediation ordered by the Human Rights Commission. The experience was sobering. What began as a disagreement over a stall quickly became a legal question about belief, association, and the meaning of sex.

The LAVA case also highlights a broader question facing lesbians in New Zealand. LAVA asserts the right to women-only and lesbian-only spaces grounded in same-sex attraction, but at the same time it has stated that LAVA should be included in the Wellington Pride’s decision-making processes.

In contrast, we categorically reject the legal fiction of “transgender” - the idea that a person can be the opposite sex. Once a male is acknowledged as any kind of woman in law, it becomes logically almost impossible and legally far more difficult to exclude him from female-only spaces such as toilets, changing rooms, prisons, sports, or lesbian gatherings. Safeguarding women, children, and single-sex spaces requires an uncompromising commitment to biological reality rather than attempting to negotiate boundaries from within captured institutions.

The same legal uncertainty has reached other lesbian organisations.

In Australia, the Lesbian Action Group (LAG) became involved in a legal dispute over whether it could lawfully hold public events exclusively for lesbians. The issue was not ideology. It was whether sex-based boundaries could be defended under discrimination law. The case has been closely followed by women across the English-speaking world. For readers who want to understand how the dispute unfolded, Australian commentator Janet Inglis has produced a detailed timeline that explains the legal steps and the court’s recent decision in plain language. Her work is a useful resource for anyone trying to make sense of a complicated case. It deserves to be widely read.

Courts are now being asked to resolve the underlying question more directly. In the UK, the case of For Women Scotland Ltd v Scottish Ministers confirmed that equality law only works coherently when sex is understood in its ordinary biological sense. That ruling did not settle the debate, but it clarified the stakes: Words in law are not symbolic. They have real-life impact and determine outcomes for real people.

Not everyone agrees on how to fix this problem.

Different voices, shared concerns

Within the women’s movement in New Zealand, there is no single view of the NZ First amendment bill. Some advocates welcome it wholeheartedly while others believe it targets the wrong problem.

One of those voices is writer and advocate Penny Marie, whose work has helped many people to understand how gender ideology entered legislation and policy. In her recent article, she argues that defining “woman” in the Legislation Act does not address the deeper issue - the interpretation of the word sex in the Human Rights Act. That perspective deserves attention and amplification. Women who speak plainly about law and policy often face intense pressure to stay quiet. Promoting their work, even when we disagree, strengthens the conversation and keeps the focus on substance rather than slogans.

And on that point, there is broad agreement: The goal is clarity, and the disagreement is about how to get there.

The bill depends on National and ACT votes at first reading and beyond. With activist pressure mounting and the Human Rights Commission often resistant to clear biological definitions, even modest progress faces significant hurdles. This political reality makes it all the more important that any legislation passed is as strong and unambiguous as possible from the start.

Why lesbians should care about legal language

For lesbians, this is not an abstract debate about policy or terminology. It’s about being able to live as lesbians without having to explain or defend what that means.

Lesbianism is a sexual orientation defined by sex. A lesbian is a female homosexual - a woman attracted to other women. That’s it. Lesbians have fought very hard to be recognised and protected in law, and until very recently, that definition has not been controversial. But once the law becomes uncertain about what a woman is, the meaning of lesbianism starts to shift as well. Boundaries that we once took for granted start to look negotiable. Spaces that we once understood to be female-only start to require justification. Normal decisions - who can join a group, who can use a changing room, who can compete in a sport - become matters of debate, policy, interpretation, and sometimes even litigation.

That is why language in law matters so much: Because words determine how rules are applied in the real world. When definitions are clear, institutions can act. When definitions are blurred, responsibility shifts onto women and lesbians to defend decisions that used to be a matter of course. The burden moves from the law to the individual. This is unfair, unjust, and costly. We are already seeing this shift. Lesbian groups are being asked to justify same-sex boundaries. Women’s organisations are being challenged for maintaining or insisting on keeping female-only spaces. Disputes that once could have been resolved easily now escalate into formal complaints, mediation, or court proceedings. None of this happens because women suddenly became hostile. It happens because the legal language surrounding sex became uncertain - and because institutions and media have largely resisted any return to biological reality.

And, of course, because there is a whole industry and a staggering amount of money behind the idea that men can be women, but that’s a separate article.

For lawmakers, the lesson is straightforward. If the goal is to restore confidence in sex-based rights, the starting point must be clear, disciplined wording. Good law would explicitly define sex in the Human Rights Act itself, reject any override by gender identity, strengthen single-sex exceptions, and safeguard same-sex attraction without ambiguity. That means defining sex explicitly where it matters, avoiding language that introduces unnecessary ambiguity, and testing proposed definitions against real-world situations rather than political expectations. Laws must be written with the assumption that they will be challenged, because they will be.

The current bill is a step in the right direction. It acknowledges biological reality and signals that Parliament is prepared to address a problem many women have been raising for years. Considering the almost total media silence, that alone is progress. But progress should not stop at the first draft. Good law is not measured by applause but by how well it holds up when tested.

Women - especially lesbian women - have every right to insist on that standard. Our ability to organise, to associate, and to maintain same-sex boundaries depends on language that is clear enough to apply without hesitation and strong enough to withstand scrutiny. If the law is to protect women’s spaces, girls’ opportunities, and lesbian communities, it must speak with precision from the outset.

Lawmakers now have an opportunity to get this right. The goal is clear: Restore confidence in sex-based rights. The task is also clear: Use language that leaves no room for doubt. The law must leave no grey areas in the definition of sex. We will support legislation that protects our boundaries - but we will also expect it to be written with precision.