The Church of England has said gender identity politics mean it can no longer define the word "woman" clearly.
Despite being the only major religion whose supreme governor — Queen Elizabeth II — is a woman, the British state's established church said there were "complexities" around the question posed to last weekend's meeting of the General Synod, the church's senior council.
"What is the Church of England’s definition of a woman?" asked Adam Kendry, a lay member from the Armed Forces.
"There is no official definition, which reflects the fact that until fairly recently definitions of this kind were thought to be self-evident, as reflected in the marriage liturgy," replied the Right Reverend Robert Innes, the church's Bishop in Europe, adding that the church "has begun to explore the complexities associated with gender identity".
But Reverend Angela Berners-Wilson, who was ordained as the the first Anglican woman vicar in 1994, told The Telegraph: "I’m not totally happy with it."
"I mean, I do think certain things like 'men can’t have babies', just to say the complete obvious thing," Berners-Wilson said. "But I think we need to be very sensitive and maybe we need to re-examine our boundaries", she cautioned.
'Gender critical' campaigner Maya Forstater, who was sacked from her research job at the Centre for Global Development for tweeting that a woman is an adult human female and that a man cannot become a woman, pointed out that the answer to the C of E's conundrum was in the Bible.
"When the Government redefined women through the Gender Recognition Act, the Church of England could have stuck with its long-established understanding, which makes sense whether your starting point is biology or the Bible," Forstater said.
"It is shocking that they so readily gave up the definition of man or woman for the state to amend, as if this fundamental truth did not matter," she added.
On Sunday, Conservative Party leadership contender Penny Mordaunt tweeted an unequivocal definition of 'woman' in a bid to play down accusations that she is too 'woke' on gender issues. The MP had previously drawn criticism from Forstater after telling parliament that "trans men are men and trans women are women".
"I am biologically a woman. If I have a hysterectomy or mastectomy, I am still a woman. And I am legally a woman," Mordaunt posted. "Some people born male and who have been through the gender recognition process are also legally female. That DOES NOT mean they are biological women, like me."