When Ketanji Brown Jackson, the latest Supreme Court Justice, was asked in her confirmation hearings to define a woman, she replied "I am not a Biologist". Of course this made the right wing of the country set their hair on fire. The answer was terse to a question that was way outside of the discussion. Another culture war question from a party that has devolved into discourse worthy of a social media comment section. But her answer does make sense. It is far harder to define what is a woman or man as the long known diversity of human sex, sexuality and gender becomes more mainstream. About 30 years ago I helped organize a conference on the Cultural Construction of Sexuality. This looked at the then changing view of homosexuality, bisexuality, polyamory and what we called the heterodoxy of our culture. It explored the wide variety of gender expressions, sexual attractions and the overall view of sexuality at the time. I am surprised that an entire generation has grown up since then and we still are having the same discussions.
This question was likely prompted by the recent win by a female transsexual college athlete. So how do you define a woman. Well by looking at her. No, you can see an expression of gender when you see someone, but you know nothing about a person's sex just by seeing them in public. Fully clothed. Virtually everyone has encountered someone where they assumed a sex and made a mistake. Now we are probably hardwired to tried to identify the person we are looking at as a potential mate and look for attractive features. But we know those can be faked and disguised. There is also the question of non-gender conforming people whose appearance could not fully define one way or another. This is not as uncommon as you think and hasn't been for a long time. So mere physical appearance isn't a good indicator.
Now, for some, it is whether a penis is present. You will hear this a lot. If someone has a penis they are male. In most cases that is true. But it would also make the opposite true, without a penis means female. Here is the problem. When a child is born sometimes their physical appearance is unclear, or worse undeveloped. In the Dominican Republic there are children known as Guevedoces , which effectively translates as "penis at twelve". These are boys born with what looks like a vulva and vagina. At puberty they develop a penis and tentacles descend. So now they are girls for their entire life, brought up as such and suddenly are not boys. There are also cases were an injury causes the removal of a penis does the make someone a woman. Those big eunuchs of the past would be woman by that definition.
So some say the ability to give birth makes one a woman. Well, there are many women incapable of giving birth, does that make them men? Senator Josh Hawley used this definition and was immediately stymied by the fact that post-menopause woman can't have children. Do they become something else?
So genetics is the answer right? XX is a woman, XY is a man. Well it isn't that simple. You see there are six fairly common genetic possibilities in the human genetic code for sex chromosomes. They are:
X – Roughly 1 in 2,000 to 1 in 5,000 people (Turner’s syndrome )
XX – Most common form of female
XXY – Roughly 1 in 500 to 1 in 1,000 people (Klinefelter's symdrome)
XY – Most common form of male
XYY – Roughly 1 out of 1,000 people
XXXY – Roughly 1 in 18,000 to 1 in 50,000 births
Each of these has their own different expression and in some cases, like Klinefelter's, a person may not know their genetic make up or that they have anything wrong in their genes and it is not uncommon. So genetics might not be the answer either without making some subjective discussion.
Couple this with the fact the gender and sex are not the same thing, that for about 100 years we have been able to perform sex reassignment surgery and in very recent times we are returning to a time when gender expressions were far more comfortably diverse, the question requires even more than a biologist.
Human sexuality, sex, gender and social interactions are all complicated. Saying it is simple doesn't make it so. Real fear of this diversity is more of a problem that if someone wants to redesign their body and outward appearance to match their mind.
It is difficult to make a lot of change quickly for many people. But the fact that members of the Senate are trying to use it as a cudgel to divide the country is disgusting. I would hope that as a culture we can embrace the diversity that exists in the human condition and not continue to force people to hide who they are. In the meantime, I am glad that Justice Jackson is confirmed on the court. Maybe next time we won't have to deal with this nonsense.
