Graham Adams: University backs down in sex-gender debate

As Auckland University continues down the path of transforming itself into a seminary for Māori nationalists and others with “progressive left” views, it is perhaps inevitable that it would try to force fashionable views about sex onto academic staff members.

Unfortunately, it made a tactical error by trying to bully Elizabeth Rata, a professor in the Education Faculty. Anyone who followed the fallout from the Listener letter in mid-2021 signed by seven Auckland professors — including Rata — would have been aware that she is not easily intimidated.

Rata and six of her professorial colleagues argued in the letter that while “Indigenous knowledge [mātauranga Māori] may indeed help advance scientific knowledge in some ways… it is not science.” In the firestorm that ensued — including the Vice-Chancellor distancing herself from her eminent staff members — the professors stayed firm.

Rata has also been one of the very few academics to publicly criticise the Waipapa Taumata Rau course promoting a revisionist view of the Treaty of Waitangi at Auckland University, which was trialled in a pilot last year and is now compulsory for all first-year students. 

In October 2024, the university’s Equity Office — whose declared purpose is “achieving equity, diversity, and inclusion in employment and education” — decided to correct what it saw as a serious doctrinal error that Rata had relayed to students last September. Her online lecture for first-year students titled “Women and Education”, which covered historical topics such as the progress of women’s rights, concluded with three slides on modern debates about sex and gender. Rata stated that there are only two sexes. She told her students: “The curriculum refers to three sexes where biologists would say that’s not scientific, there are only two sexes.”

Apparently, one or more students complained anonymously. The Equity Office emailed the professor to say her lecture needed to be amended because: “It is a scientific fact that human biological sex is not binary. The biological sex of some people is neither female nor male.”

The office justified its demand for a correction by stating: “The university has a moral obligation to provide accurate information to the affected students, in line with our values of excellence and integrity.”

Rata stood her ground, replying that she would neither alter her slides nor send out a correction, as that would be inaccurate. She cited three principal reasons for her refusal to obey the EO’s order:

• First, the Equity Office was interfering with the fundamental nature of her employment as an academic — “work which requires me to exercise academic freedom in the selection of scholarly and accurate knowledge for the courses I teach”.
• Second, the office’s self-appointment as the university’s moral guardian of student intellectual welfare was wholly inappropriate. “It is my responsibility, one I take seriously, to ensure that students develop the ability to think critically about the complex ideas they encounter at university.”
• Third, the office had no authority to take a position on the knowledge taught by academics. 

Her trump card was a lengthy statement signed by eight eminent academics at the University of Auckland affirming there are only two sexes — male and female. Four of the signatories — Kendall Clements, Tony Hickey, Anthony Poole and Garth Cooper — are professors in the School of Biological Sciences.

The statement was also signed by Nicholas Matzke, Senior Lecturer, School of Biological Sciences; Russell Gray, Professor, School of Psychology; Peter Hunter, Distinguished Professor, Auckland Bioengineering Institute; and David Cumin, Senior Lecturer, School of Medicine.

Professor Hunter made it clear that, while he was “not an expert in this field, I’m signing this letter because I think it is very important in a research-led university that statements about scientific issues should be left to scientists with the appropriate expertise. Proposing a viewpoint on the basis of social acceptability is entirely counter both to our commitment to scholarship and to our government-mandated commitment to academic freedom.”

The academics pointed out, “Professor Rata’s comment that the ‘curriculum refers to three sexes’ was a reference to the NZ Ministry of Education’s 2019 Relationships and Sexuality Education Guidelines. In the glossary, these guidelines give this definition: ‘Sex: The biological sex characteristics of an individual (male, female, intersex).’”

They said this view is incorrect. “The division of humans and other mammals into two sexes, female and male, derives from the fact that each individual is created by the union of a sperm and an egg. On the basis of the type of germ cell (gamete) that reproducing individuals are able to produce, there are only two sex categories in mammals. (Intersex is not a third category with respect to the type of gamete individuals can produce.)

“Biological sex is defined by reference to gametes. There are only two types of gametes in humans and millions of other animals… Every sexually reproducing species produces two distinct types of gamete, which are either large (eggs in animals, ovules in plants) or small (sperm in animals, pollen in plants). There are no ‘speggs’ or ‘pollules’ (gametes of intermediate size)… All there is are two reproductive strategies based on two distinct categories of gametes that fuse to make offspring…

“Moreover, it is important to note that the fundamental definition of the biological sexes (based on gamete size) must be distinguished from any operational usage of the term, for example that based on chromosomes or genes, etc, because fundamental and operational definitions are not equivalent…

“Sex denialism has recently become rampant inside and outside the academy, with strained attempts to deny the sex binary... While these statements may be well intentioned, they are misguided attempts to co-opt biology to support particular societal and political positions regarding culturally constructed genders.

“Organismal biology does not care what positions humans take. While gender (in the modern academic usage of the term) is socially constructed — like money, claimed racial categories, numerous cultural conventions, etc — sexes have been produced by evolution. They pre-date not just modern social categories but the existence of mammals.”

To Professor Rata’s surprise, last week Cathy Stinear, the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Equity), “unreservedly” apologised to her for the Equity Office “providing advice that led to interference in your academic practices”. She promised that “any further complaints about scientific matters that come to the Equity Office will be referred to disciplinary experts”.

Rata says: “I’m very pleased with how the university dealt with my complaint and with the outcome so I’ve closed the complaint. 

“There are a number of implications [arising from the complaint]. The main one to my mind concerns the authority for knowledge. I maintain that the authority for knowledge is with the disciplinary experts. Indeed, the biologists’ statement was a perfect example of this, hence my gratitude to them for writing it. 

“I’ve mentioned before that I know such authority depends on the integrity of the discipline. This makes the provisionality of knowledge and its constant criticism of immense importance — the constant testing of accuracy and procedures to maintain a discipline’s integrity. But these are matters for the scientists not for the institution. I see the broad issue as that of scientists taking back authority from institutional administrators, and hope my complaint plays a role in this.” 

Furthermore, she said she was “extremely pleased” that Professor Stinear asked if the biologists’ statement could be shared with others because, Rata says, “it is such a valuable account of the binary-sex and gender-fluidity issue”.

Given that NZ First minister Casey Costello is currently catching flak for reminding Health New Zealand that, “Only women and people of the female sex can get pregnant and birth a child no matter how they identify,” the scientists’ analysis could hardly be more timely.

Not to mention the fact that the UK Supreme Court has ruled that: “The concept of sex is binary — a person is either a woman or a man.”

Graham Adams is an Auckland-based freelance editor, journalist and columnist.