In the aftermath of Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s visit to New Zealand, Prime Minister Hipkins was embarrassed at his regular post-Cabinet press conference when he struggled to articulate a coherent answer to the question: ‘What is a woman?’ The spectacle of the Prime Minister left speechless by such a simple question, which he described at the time as ‘coming from left field’, became a viral phenomenon on social media and made news in the overseas press.

An article by Stuff’s Thomas Manch noted that it signalled that a ‘fraught culture wars issue’ had reached New Zealand’s shores from the United Kingdom.

In truth, the...