Senedd in uproar as First Minister asked to describe what a woman is

Jebus. The state of the Tory party at the moment in the UK. Bought and paid for. From Kemi through to Trumps fluffer in Wales, trump and musk work their hate through useful idiots.

It's not a culture war to be able to say what a woman is, especially on International WOMEN'S Day. This is crucial if women are to have equal rights and a right to single sex spaces. The Senedd has on many occasions (esp via Mark Drakeford) said out loud that 'Trans women are women, trans men are men and non binary identities are valid'. So clearly they DON'T know what a woman is. I applaud Darran Millar for his courage to face this head on. The Senedd has failed women and girls, simple as. It wants Wales to be the safest country for women and girls but can't even define what a woman is.

Someone in WG needs to be paying attention to this issue given the various employment tribunals that are currently going on regarding the right of NHS staff to single sex changing rooms and the upcoming Supreme Court judgement re For Women Scotland, plus the effect that the Cass Review should have on the details of the LGBTQ+ Action Plan the WG has currently. Are they really this complacent? Glad that someone is trying to get some answers out of them!

Why can’t the FM just answer the question? It’s an easy one! (Woman=Adult human female). They talk about keeping women and girls safe, and purport to know what is important to women in Wales, yet they are quick to ignore issues women’s groups raise and keep them out of consultation. Absolutely embarrassing they refuse to or struggle to define what a woman is.

Probably in a 100 years time people will read about all this debate about trans stuff and wonder why as the world was heading towards a major crisis likely a war and a climate crisis that anyone had time to talk about it at all. It is a new theology where the arguments are as pointless as how many angels can fit on the head of a pin.

If you can't define what a woman is, how will you recognise and protect women's rights? This is not a 'culture war'. The FM knows the answer - she's kowtowing to the Westminster party with this pathetic word play.

The most expensive seaside Punch and Judy Show in Christendom... Ask Rev Millar what he prays for...eternal segregation, And how old is the Planet ? Give over, people are watching...

If you have a penis your a man If you have a vagina your a woman. Problem solved.

This guy is way above his pay grade, he should be on Oxford Street with a sandwich board around his neck... It breaks one's heart, 3 million people look to this place for a good curator but it is a parish shambles of a council...they don't grow into the job, they reduce it to this...after getting on their knees before they break their fast...this is not the Secular building the Law says it should be...

I can’t stand Trump, Reform or the Tories but this is not a culture war point. The culture warriors are those who dogmatically refuse to listen to women on this and spout unscientific nonsense. *Labour and Plaid - for goodness sake’s WAKE UP and look at the polling!!* Look at what happened to the democrats in the states when they refused to engage with the obvious problems these policies cause. The latest polling shows British women are fine with trans identification but do NOT want to share eg changing rooms with males. (See Mumbles changing room story). Parents don’t want their kids told it’s possible to change sex, based on regressive and sexist stereotypes. (See Professor Winston explain it’s not possible to change sex). Most British people can see it’s totally unfair and exclusionary to women to have males in female sports. These are not radical positions. Gender non-conformity is completely normal and should not be medicalised. Trans people deserve to be completely safe but not at the expense of women’s single sex spaces. Welsh Labour needs to shift position to be more in line with the British public or pay the consequences for looking like lunatics. I’m saying all this because I do NOT want a heavy Tory /Reform presence in the Senedd in 2026.

This is the same Welsh Labour Party that tried to implement gender quotas in the Senedd. In other words gender doesn't matter where you go to use the toilet, but it matters if you want to stand for an election. Bizarre logic.

It's not a culture war issue it's a Woman's Right issue, and any political party who can't tell the difference between a man and a women (which is all of them but the Tories apparently) are not going to be able to address the major problems that this country face's.

What "female only body parts" do they have?

Come off it Llyn. Prize money is awarded for being a winner or a finalist in most sports. A woman winning her world 100 metres championship race merits the same prize as the man who wins his world 100 metres championship. What's wrong with that ? Or do you look down at the woman because she may be 0.9 - 1.0 second slower ? A man who can't hack it in male competition who proceeds to self identify as a "woman" just so he can improve his prospects of winning something deserves contempt and exclusion.

The comments here seem to miss the point. For the leader of the conservative party, which has done so little on women's rights over the years, to use international women's day as a way to attack the female first minister on a wedge issue for political gain is simply disgusting to me. This should be regardless of your opinion on gender.

Well said Darren Miller. A woman is an adult female.

I’m going to answer in good faith in the hope someone sensible in Labour and Plaid takes this onboard, wakes up and stops with the ‘culture war’ straw man. You are looking at this purely from the perspective of the trans-identified male and ignoring why women want female-only spaces. Please look at this from the perspective of the majority of women, as per polling. I personally know a trans-identified male who is extremely lovely and I know is not a danger to women in any way. I’m going to call this person ‘he’ for clarity, not cruelty. Women who do not know him would perceive him as male and can’t know he is a good person who is genuinely gender dysphoric and also gentle. Across society the majority of women have been sexually harassed and a large number have been sexually assaulted, raped or otherwise traumatised by males. Fear and apprehension of males is *rational behaviour* in women. It is not bigotry. Older women have not been radicalised by conspiracy theories on Twitter - we are speaking from our own ‘lived experience’ and statistics. This is not the fault of the lovely trans-identified male I know, but it does mean he will potentially cause fear and discomfort among women who want to eg get undressed in a female changing room. He 100% deserves to be safe and treated with respect and I entirely accept that he needs somewhere away from standard male changing spaces because a minority of men are so savage and weak in their character that they will attack gender non-conforming males. (Male on male violence also needs tackling as well as violence against women.) Whether or not a trans ID male has had gender reassignment surgery is irrelevant to the impact they will have on the women around them. I realise some trans ID males ‘pass’ - but not as many as think they do, and ultimately we ask all men who identify as women to respect the majority of women’s feelings about this. Some women are comfortable with trans-ID males in single sex spaces but they have zero right to consent on behalf of other women. The other argument is that ‘there’s only a tiny number of trans women, why do you care’ but this ignores the impact that one trans ID male can have on a large number of women. One male using a female club changing room affects all the women who want to use that club. We also cannot distinguish between the lovely, gentle trans ID male and a male predator abusing self ID. There is nothing ‘kind’ or ‘inclusive’ about acting against women’s interests in this way after millennia of ongoing oppression. As for sport, I did not say women are ‘not as good’ and you reveal how you only see things from a male perspective with this comment (you aren’t alone). Men and women’s bodies are different. It would obviously be ridiculous for women to claim men are inherently physically inferior just because they are incapable of the spectacular feat of growing and nurturing babies. We have different biology that cannot be compared. Any male in a female sport category is excluding women. For example, Emily Bridges was about to push out a female cyclist from the Welsh Commonwealth team, before British Cycling stepped in. The Welsh media coverage of that issue (don’t think Nation Cymru was around then) was entirely from the male perspective with no thought for the exclusionary and potentially devastating impact on female athletes, who were expected to quietly step aside in the face of their exclusion. That’s not including the message it sends to all young female athletes. But rather than acknowledge how sexist and oppressive all this is, the First Minister and leader of Plaid would rather pretend only far-right ‘culture warriors’ care about this. I repeat - I am not a Tory and I’m horrified by Trump and Reform. Leftwing parties need to get back to reality and gets their heads out of the sand.

It's a perfectly simple and straightforward question and I do not see how it is misogynistic to ask it. I am sure Megan Lloyd George would have known how to answer it without making a fool of herself, but then she lived before before the time when "progressives" had to believe six impossible things before breakfast.

Where did all the comments disappear to - they're there in the archived copy of this article?

The FM needs to have an eye on Scotland where failure to answer this question and dimissing women’s rights as a culture war has already cost two FMs their jobs and could yet topple a third. She needs to read the room. I’m no fan of Miller but he is by no means ‘on his own’ in wanting an answer to this question. Hopefully, the cases outstanding and to come, and the forthcoming judgement from the Supreme Court (which is considering this very question, right now), will put an end to this ‘culture war’ blather.

Weird, he's never done a thing for actual women's rights, and like the rest of his party, he's quite 50's minded when it comes to women. It's almost as if he's carefully picked a certain day to say very specific things....

If Eluned Morgan thinks that this isn't a topic that causes concern for the citizens of Cymru, she's very wrong. Not in touch with her electorate. Ask Nicola, Humza and all the women that have won court cases on this issue

Because letting trans people exist is massively hurting the economy. Or something. Once again the "Welsh" Conservatives have no ideas about how to improve living standards in Wales.