The federal New Democratic Party has decided that its next leadership contest will come with a new set of conditions. To even qualify, candidates must raise $100,000 and gather 500 signatures. That is standard fare for a party leadership race. But here is where the rules take a sharp turn. At least half of those signatures cannot come from what the party calls “cis men.”

For clarity, a cis man is a person who was assigned male at birth and identifies as a man, meaning his gender identity matches his biological sex. The term is used to differentiate from transgender individuals, whose gender identity does not align with the sex assigned at birth. In other words, these rules target ordinary men and restrict how many of them can support a candidate.

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