The BFD | Don’t Let Women Be Erased

What is a Woman?

The current nominee for the Supreme Court of the United States says she is “not a biologist” and as such cannot define what a woman is. I am here to help. My alma mater, Otago University, despite having a medical school, could probably use my help as well, considering a recent award they conferred for “sportswoman of the year”. Ideological claptrap.

A woman is an “adult human female”.

If that were not the case, then I could not be a feminist. See how that works?

Some context: a couple of weeks ago I was interviewed by Leighton Smith on ZB Talkback, and he asked me about “cytogenetics”. I briefly explained and made the comment that despite having seen thousands of chromosomes down a microscope I have never seen a “gender”.

Genders are “social constructs”, and regretfully sometimes the constructs of a single person’s mind: “Gender Dysphoria”.

Gender dysphoria is a term that describes a sense of unease that a person may have because of a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity.¹
https://www.nhs.uk/search/results?q=Gender%20dysphoria&page=0

Note: it is not transphobic to identify the basis for why trans people seek to change gender; it is simply an acknowledgement of it.

One possible outcome of this psychological condition is a transition from one gender to another with the help of medications and cosmetic surgery.

Note: A transition from one sex to another is NOT POSSIBLE – female will always be female, and male will always be male. That is one reason why sex is a useful identifier on a passport, rather than gender: it is IMMUTABLE.

For some people such a reality is unpalatable, but it is true – you cannot change SEX.

And “sex is not the same as gender”.

The idea of gender was promoted by John William Money in 1954. John William Money (b. 8 July 1921 – d. 7 July 2006) was a New Zealand psychologist, sexologist and an author known for his research into sexual identity and biology of gender and his (controversial) conduct towards vulnerable patients, including endorsing conversion therapy aimed at young children. He was one of the first researchers to publish theories on the influence of societal constructs of gender on individual formation of gender identity. Money introduced the terms gender identity, gender role and sexual orientation and popularised the term paraphilia.²

I do not want to encourage an acceptance of Mr Money’s behaviour, as even now the prosecution of related occurrences are being played out in the courts. For more information consult recent British court case history, e.g. Bell vs. Tavistock (2020).³

Yet, and as a side-bar, recent government (Labour) “Conversion Therapy” legislation is heading us down exactly the same harmful road. Is ideology more important than our children’s welfare?

The second player in this fiasco is Judith Butler.⁴ Each year Philosophy and Literature, an “academic journal”, runs a bad-writing contest to celebrate the most stylistically lamentable passages found in “scholarly books and articles”. The only condition is that entries be non-ironic (nowadays how they parse that is beyond me). And the winner in 1998 was Judith Butler.⁵

I once took it upon myself to re-write the 94-word long paragraph for which she received the award… and the result is, “Show me the money” – kudos to “Jerry Maguire” …⁶

Her convoluted ruminations concerning social constructs, performative behaviours and gender roles completely confuse anyone, maybe herself, as it seems to me she doesn’t understand evolutionary biology and has significantly contributed to the conflation of “sex” with “gender”. Despite all this, she is a foundational reference of a lot of ‘gender and critical theory’ erudition so she, along with Money’s legacies, persist.

To lance some of these boils, let us clarify the matter.

That people commonly mistake “sex” for “gender” is self-evident, e.g. people do not have “sex reveal parties” (call the police); instead people have “gender reveal parties”. Ironic, as one can only tell the “sex” of a baby before its birth and not the “gender”. As well, an unborn baby does not even have a conception of either “sex” or “gender”. Parents can only tell the sex of a baby, and that from what is observable, i.e. by genetic sampling (as with the chromosomes pictured below) or from the ultrasound where they look for morphological evidence, e.g. a penis.

The observations are “sexual results”, i.e. male, female or intersex (a genetic abnormality that only occurs in a tiny minority and is dissimilar to “trans-gender”).

Below is an organised view of what a cytogeneticist can see in a microscope, based on the genetic sample of a baby (or adult). This is sexual reality and is FIXED from conception till death:

This genetic result is nothing like the 71 genders recognised by Facebook, the majority of which are behavioural, have nothing to do with chromosomes (e.g. “Neutrois” and others) and are in fact often contradictory to genetic evidence (e.g. bigender):

Facebook Genders

Asexual	Androgynous	Non-binary
Female to male trans man	Bigender	Other
Female to male transgender man	Cis	Pangender
Female to male transsexual man	Cis Female	Trans
F2M	Cis Male	Trans Female
Gender neutral	Cis Man	Trans Male
Hermaphrodite	Cis Woman	Trans Man
Intersex man	Cisgender	Trans Person
Intersex person	Cisgender Female	Trans*Female
Intersex woman	Cisgender Male	Trans*Male
Male to female trans woman	Cisgender Man	Trans*Man
Male to female transgender woman	Cisgender Woman	Trans*Person
Male to female transsexual woman	Female to Male	Trans*Woman
Man	FTM	Transexual
M2F	Gender Fluid	Transexual Female
Polygender	Gender Nonconforming	Transexual Male
T* man	Gender Questioning	Transexual Man
T* woman	Gender Variant	Transexual Person
Two* person	Genderqueer	Transexual Woman
Two-spirit person	Intersex	Transgender Female
Woman	Male to Female	Transgender Person
Agender	MTF	Transmasculine
Androgyne	Neither	Two-spirit
Androgynes	Neutrois

There is no way you can make ‘two Xs’, or an ‘X and a Y’ into 71 different genders.

Even before you are born male (XY) or female (XX), people are developing differently and will subsequently develop differently in both physiological and psychological terms.

No apologies to the Olympic Committee and many sporting “bodies” – pun intended – “male-bodied vs. female-bodied”. As a feminist, I must defend women’s sport. Shame – many of you have failed in the fundamental role of being stewards and promoters of women’s sports!

To further illustrate the point, other genetic, sexually related effects manifest irrespective of chosen gender, from colour blindness to prostate cancer and including death from Covid (proportionally more males than females).⁷

So what is the big problem?

The problem is that ideology is trumping reality – even for a potential Supreme Court Justice! WOKE is worming its way into judicial systems and establishing ‘unrealities’.

To quote Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

“We know they are lying; they know they are lying; they know we know they are lying; we know they know we know they are lying; but they are still lying.”

This sort of lying diminishes us all as individuals and diminishes us as a society – which is the intent of those that promote and support such lies.

The concept of being a “woman” is being erased in favour of ideology. Otago University would do well to consider this – Sapere Aude – “dare to be wise”.

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Don’t Let Women Be Erased

What is a Woman?

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Dr Michael John Schmidt