Nasdaq Requirements Erase Women, Requires Companies to Hire Director Who ‘Self-Identifies as Female’

Nasdaq has moved to erase the reality of biological women in its quest to increase diversity in its thousands of listed companies, requiring them to include a director who only “self-identifies as female.”

In a Monday press release, Nasdaq announced that it had “filed a proposal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to adopt new listing rules related to board diversity and disclosure.”

The rules would require the companies to “publicly disclose consistent, transparent diversity statistics regarding their board of directors” and require the Nasdaq-listed companies to have “at least two diverse directors” or provide an explanation as to why they do not. Criteria for a “diverse” director includes hiring an individual “who self-identifies as either an underrepresented minority or LGBTQ” and another who “self-identifies as female.” There is no mention of hiring a biological female, meaning the role could, hypothetically, go to a transgender woman — a biological male who merely identifies as a woman — and still meet the diversity requirement:

“Foreign companies and smaller reporting companies would have additional flexibility in satisfying this requirement with two female directors,” the release added:

The goal of the proposal is to provide stakeholders with a better understanding of the company’s current board composition and enhance investor confidence that all listed companies are considering diversity in the context of selecting directors, either by including at least two diverse directors on their boards or by explaining their rationale for not meeting that objective. As part of rationale for the new requirements, Nasdaq’s proposal presents an analysis of over two dozen studies that found an association between diverse boards and better financial performance and corporate governance.

The release went further, defining an “underrepresented minority” as ” an individual who self-identifies as “Black or African American, Hispanic or Latinx, Asian, Native American or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander or Two or More Races or Ethnicities.”

Adena Friedman, President and CEO of Nasdaq, said the goal remains to “provide a transparent framework for Nasdaq-listed companies to present their board composition and diversity philosophy effectively to all stakeholders; we believe this listing rule is one step in a broader journey to achieve inclusive representation across corporate America.”

“Nasdaq’s diversity proposal marks a transformative moment in a larger movement toward greater representation of women and people of color in the boardroom and beyond,” Nasdaq director Alfred Zollar stated.

The seeming erasure of women follows similar moves made by other entities in recent months. Merriam-Webster Dictionary, for example, has expanded its definition of female to include “having a gender identity that is opposite of male,” effectively erasing the reality of biological females.

As Breitbart News reported:

The dictionary appeared to add to its primary definition of female, which is defined as, “of, relating to, or being the sex that typically has the capacity to bear young or produce eggs.”