New Zealand’s Prime Minister Chris Hipkins was put on the spot during a press conference Sunday when a journalist asked him how he and his government define the "woman," with Hipkins giving the astonishing response that he wasn’t expecting the question and so didn’t have a “pre-formulated” answer.
Hipkins’s first attempt to answer the question posed by journalist Sean Plunket was an embarrassing display of incoherent stuttering, during which he said the question had “come slightly out of left field” before saying something about sex, gender, and people being able to define themselves and their own genders.
Plunket pressed the issue, explaining that British Labour leader Keir Starmer had recently said 99.9% of women do not have penises.
“I know it’s a strange thing for him to say, but given recent events in New Zealand, I’d ask again how do you define what a woman is?” asked Plunket.
“I think as I’ve just indicated, I wasn’t expecting that question so it’s not something I’ve formulated, pre-formulated, an answer on,” was his extraordinary reply.
The recent events in New Zealand to which Plunket was referring are the shocking scenes of male violence and aggression that were on display when a crowd of trans activists protested at a Let Women Speak event put on by British women’s rights campaigner, Kellie-Jay Keen.
The event was scheduled to take place in a public park in Auckland on March 25, and Keen’s intention was to give ordinary women of New Zealand the chance to speak about the detrimental impact of gender identity ideology on their lives. But Auckland’s trans activist community had other ideas.
Keen was surrounded by a 2000-strong crowd of rainbow-clad activists, had tomato soup poured all over her, and said she feared for her life as her security were escorting her through the swirling mob. A 70-year-old woman was assaulted by a male trans activist who repeatedly punched her, fracturing her skull.
In light of these events, which drew international attention and outrage, it is perhaps surprising that Hipkins didn’t anticipate being questioned on this issue.
“New Zealand has gone from the first country in the world to give women the right to vote to now having a male Premier not being able to clearly define what a woman is. How did we get here?” tweeted political commentator Rukshan Fernando.
“In terms of gender identity, I think people define their gender identity for themselves,” continued Hipkins, before vaguely alluding to the process of gender self-identification in New Zealand.
